My garden has exploded in flowers. I sowed sunflower seeds for the first time in several years, and I feel joy every time I look out the window to see their lemony yellow petals and their happy faces turning toward the sun. As the sunflowers bloom, so do all of the coneflowers — black eyed Susans, echinacea, white coneflowers, and all the other colors we have in the garden.
I’ve been trying all week to get photos, but every time I’ve gone out, the sun was too harsh and all my photographs were too contrasty and glarey. I got one photo of the sunflowers and a blue sky, but most of the other photos weren’t great. Yesterday I took advantage of overcast skies to try to get some shots that show off the colors and profusion of blooms. July is hot, but the flowers are pretty.
Lemon queen sunflowersRudbeckia with calamint, white coneflowers, allium, and Russian sageMagenta coneflowersBack gardenFirst orange cosmo from seeds I sowed a while back. I’ve been waiting ages for them to finally bloom.White coneflowersGoldenrod beginning to bloomLemon petalsRudbeckiaCommon milkweedSunflowers and prairie flowersHydrangea and prairie flowersFrom the prairie gardenEchinaceaLemon queens and blue sky
We have all the windows open, and the world outside is cool and wet. We’ll get a lot of rain tonight. I’m glad — it’ll water in my mums. I’m wearing a flannel shirt, jeans, and socks, and I considered pulling on my slippers. We’re not quite to slipper season yet, though. We’ve got freshly stacked firewood for when that day comes, and judging by the current weather and the flowers in bloom in the garden, that day may be soon.
I took my camera for a walk around the flower beds this morning before the rain began. We are in full on caterpillar season. I need to cut back some of the dead stuff but I don’t have the energy for that right now. So let’s just pretend it’s not there.
Goldenrod and mumsLantana and goldenrodMonarch caterpillar on nepetaAutumn joy sedumSwallowtail caterpillar on ruePink cleomeFront bedsZinnias taking overMonarch caterpillars out back, grasses and mums out front
I stepped onto the back porch with my coffee this morning to enjoy the cool air. The past two days, the sun blazed hot, and the muted gray morning was a welcome reprieve from the heat.
As it usually does, looking out over the garden led to walking down the stairs to be in the garden. We’re in the time of year now where everything green is bursting forth. Early summer flowers are starting to bloom, bunnies nibble on tender shoots, ornamental grasses are coming in, slender and graceful, and even though it’s not even June yet, I saw my first caterpillar of the season this morning. Things are starting to get good in the garden.
Hello bunny!Blue fescue grass in bloomFirst caterpillar of the season: swallowtail caterpillar on rueBlue fescue in bloomMilkweed 1 returningMilkweed 2 returningMilkweed 3 returningI’ve been waiting for the swamp milkweeds to re-emerge; only 3 of 5 came backScabiosa flowerJethro Tull coreopsis flowerYarrow and salvias in bloom
I’m waiting for the sun to rise. Outside, the sky is a deep dusky blue. Soon it will brighten to pink, and I’ll be able to see my new little bird bath in the rose bed, and the fresh mulch I spread yesterday out front.
My gardening vacation is underway. I had 15 yards of mulch delivered Friday. I couldn’t start shoveling right away, though — I needed to weed, plant whatever new stuff I could get my hands on this early in the season, and fertilize. Then I could start mulching.
Saturday, as soon as I dropped our daughter at swim practice, I sped away to the nursery to see what perennials they had in stock. I blew my budget, of course. The bowl of my beautiful big birdbath cracked and then fell away in our recent winter storm. Watching birds splash in water is one of my favorite past times, so I had to replace the big bath, it was not optional. And then there’s the new little bird bath, which was too cute for me to pass up. And also, new plants. The nursery often runs out of some of the harder-to-find plants I want if I put them off too long, so of course I had to buy all the stuff on my list right now if they had them in stock. Plus a few others that weren’t on my list. And it turns out the size of the garden now requires two bags of fertilizer, not just one.
I tell myself it’s okay that the garden is more expensive now. The diversity of plants is better than just a giant lawn, right? I’m creating habitat! Birds, bees, butterflies, bunnies – all are welcome here. It’s like contributing to a nature conservancy, except right here in my yard.
The town pickup for fall yard waste is a week from Monday, and I’ve got a lot of clipping to do. I spent all day Sunday cutting back the brown Shasta daisy stems, yellowing lemon balm, broken Tithonia that fell over in recent rain, and about half of the blackened echinacea stems. I couldn’t bear to cut the echinacea all back — just this morning, goldfinches swayed on their crispy cones — so I left some at the back of the bed. But they’re really terribly ugly, and we only have so much room for composting; I had to cut some of them for the town to take away. My yard waste from today lines about 20 feet of our curb. Unless I get a chipper, I don’t have space to compost all the vegetation from the annuals and perennials in my garden.
I dug up a bunch of stuff I decided I don’t like anymore, like the wormwood that gets shaggy by the end of summer and that’s just not that interesting to me, and the lambs ears that grew so aggressively, they killed off some of my favorite plants. I dug out some lemon balm, too, to thin it. And I pulled out the tomatoes and their supports.
Mostly it just felt good to be out in the garden again. It hasn’t required much of me this summer, which is good, because I was off paddling and doing other fun things, and I didn’t have much to give. I enjoyed being among my plants again. Roses scented the air while I weeded their bed, and when I sheared the lavender and the lemon balm, the mint and the rosemary, I got to smell all their herby fragrances. Butterflies still float and flutter. At any given time, there would be three or four monarchs on the Zinnias and Tithonia. We still have one more chrysalis (that I know of) that we’re waiting for to release its butterfly.
After I cleaned up a bit, I took my camera out for some October garden shots.
Tickseed and purple salviaMumsDogwood berriesOak leaves trying to figure out what color to beMum and rosemaryLollipop vervain and RudbeckiaTithonia (Mexican torch sunflower) gone wild
The butterflies haven’t arrived in droves yet, but I’m hopeful that by the end of July they’ll be here. I walk the garden every day to turn leaves over and look for caterpillars. So far I’ve found none. I may have spotted a couple of swallowtail eggs on the rue; I’ll keep a close eye on that.
Meanwhile, the garden is in full bloom. Most of the flowers I planted serve as nectar sources for butterflies and bees; hummingbirds drink from them, too. The caterpillar host plants aren’t as pretty, so I haven’t photographed them, but I have five different kinds of milkweed for the monarchs, lots of dill, rue, and parsley for the eastern swallowtails, and a spicebush for the spicebush swallowtail. I hope they’ll all visit this summer.
Echinacea foreground, lollipop vervain background. Butterflies love the nectar of both; goldfinches sway on the echinacea.
Coreopsis foreground, yarrow and germander background
Rudbeckia (brown-eyed Susan)
Echinacea, liatris (blazing star;gayfeather), and passionflower in the background
Gaillardia (blanket flower) foreground, white veronica and yellow yarrow background
New Sombrero Adobe cone flower. These are intensely orange. I love them.
Passionflower
Shasta daisies
Common milkweed. The flowers smell like almond, and this is a host plant for the monarch caterpillar.
Butterfly Mind 