Start of June

Added some new perennials to fill in gaps in the landscaping. Also finished planting all the seeds and veggies for the garden.

Full plan includes all the usual things. We're trying broccoli again this year.

More full-shade native plants for under the linden

The shrubs are two varieties of St. John's Wort. Then two native types of plants.

Spring perennial clean up

It's that time of year when I cut down and remove all of the winter garden perennials that we left up for ecological purposes.
Grasses and canes removed from the west fence bed

 Canes removed from the bean bed

 Year 2 raspberry canes removed and trimmed.

 Island bed all ready for its pollinators!

 Buds on the redbud

 Painted lady butterfly on the squill

July roundup

Our lavender patch was lovely this year. Also, there's G looking all grown up.

G in our Annabelle hydrangeas. He's 4' 4", so they're pretty tall.

Honeybee on native milkweed

Our new native redbud

And our new native musclewood.

Sunflowers facing west in the afternoon.

Our black-eyed susans are starting to bloom. Native echinacea behind it in full throttle with the remains of salvia out front.

I just happened to snap this photo of a bumblebee just starting to take off. 

Here he is working on another coneflower

What's blooming week of June 5

Gorgeous

Memorial Weekend - Sunday and Monday

Sunday morning we were at it again bright and early. Went to our local garden store for veggies and perennials - in a downpour. It rained all morning. 

We went up to my folks house with the intention of planting their garden, but the rain meant that wasn't possible. We had planned to stay the night, so the next morning - out in the garden by 8am. There were still some pockets of standing water so it was a good thing I brought my wellies.

They're growing 11 tomato plants, 6 pepper, 6 squash, a variety of beans, radishes, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, broccoli, cucumber, and probably more that I'm forgetting.

Then we went home to cover and plant our own garden. We ended up scaling back a little bit this year and did mostly transplants. We have 4 tomato plants, 3 eggplant, 4 pepper, 2 jalapeno, 2 poblano, 1 zucchini, 1 yellow squash, 2 cukes, 2 beans, 2 peas, onions, dill. Then some oregano, basil and lettuce that I'm going to put in pots on our deck. I still have to plant seeds for carrots, radishes, sweet corn, and pumpkin.

The first rose of the season bloomed either late Sunday or early Monday. 

Finally, some new additions to our patio - umbrella and chairs - to compliment our existing set. I'm loving the combination of blue and red.

The new blue chairs also nicely match our bench.  

Memorial Weekend - Saturday

Lots accomplished today. First thing in the morning C and I went to a local nursery and purchased two new trees - a musclewood and a native redbud. When we got back, I pruned the viburnum by hand and am very happy with the results.

While H mowed the lawn, I weeded all the planting beds except the bean bed and the island bed. I also pruned the climbing rose in the fireplace bed. She looks a little stunted right now, so here are some of my unsung heros. I love my hostas and native columbine.

Close up of the columbine. So very pretty.

I discovered our coneflower in the west fence bed seeded itself in new locations. Very happy about this!.

The spirea have really finally filled in. Love the foliage color and I can't wait for it to bloom.

After weeding, I re-edged the entire fireplace bed. This makes my German soul very happy.

Close up of the red-twig dogwood.

In addition to mowing, H was in charge of rototilling the garden beds and the northwest bed (I need a better name) in preparation for our new trees. He also re-set the landscape edging out front so that it was level with the ground again.

Here's the garden beds all ready to be covered and planted.

And the two front beds ready for their new trees (with C riding his tricycle in the background).

After all this was done, we grilled some salmon and asparagus for dinner. The troops were hungry - no leftovers!

New perennials

Put in nearly $200 of new perennials today. All natives or hybrids.

Monarda and Coreopsis in the sunny part of the bean bed to provide some different color and bloom times. Then large pots of wild ginger under the linden to start to provide ground cover.

Then Tradescantia and Hyssop in the west fence bed.

Winter garden

Here in WI, our gardens tend to become things we dream about - remembering the year past and planning for the new year to come. When it is light for only 9 hours - all of which are spent at work - it makes enjoying a winter garden somewhat difficult.

But once in a while we are offered a chance to escape into the present. On a warmer day over the past weekend, I was able to get out into the garden.

Some leaves remain on the linden, along with seeds and berries for the birds.

I leave the plants in pace in the winter to provide food and shelter

Snow on Sedum

Frost glazes a bit of Russian Sage

Coneflower

Some bright color, courtesy of rose hips.

The importance of light

One of the things I learned early on when designing our yard is the importance of light when making plant and location choices. A shady area can be made brighter by the right plant - even without flowers. And lovely plants can look dull and scraggly if exposed to the wrong type and angle of light. Here's a few examples

This white phlox is pretty enough, but when hit by the afternoon sun it positively glows.

Feather reed grass seed heads in the sun create a more striking display than those I have in the shade

Already a bright yellow, black-eyed susans exposed to afternoon light look like they're on fire.

In shady areas I use evergreen plants in a bright yellow color to create the illusion of light and create a focal point in a planting bed.