The deck is really looking extra colorful lately, since the zinnias, german chamomile, calendula, and lantanas are in bloom.
It’s almost July, which doesn’t seem possible. I started this blog in January, when the gardens were sleepy and cold. Things couldn’t look, or feel, more different outside right now. The summer heat and humidity continues, and the garden is full of life. The yard is a blaze of color, with bees and other insects working hard. The bees seem to take a break in the midday heat, but in the mornings and evenings, they are pollinating away, bouncing around from flower to flower. I’ve spent some time this past week just sitting in the grass watching them. It’s fascinating and peaceful observing them “at the office.”
The bees are really enjoying the echinacea this summer.
We had a few days with nice, cool weather earlier last week. The husband helped me dig out the rest of the sod for our final project of the season: the new pollinator bed in the front yard. Once the lawn was out, I planted up all the flowers and grasses that I’d been growing on the back porch and mulched the space up. I am pretty pleased with the final results. There’s little bluestem, prairie dropseed, prairie blazing star, prairie smoke, nepeta, two types of thyme, candytuft, and some daisies. The space will have color and interest all year long, and provide shelter and food for the local pollinators. Most of the plants I put in are native to our area, and everything in there is a perennial, so the bed will continue to grow and thrive without much of any work from me.
I plan to add a little rock border, and then the new bed will be all set. Sayonara, sod!
In the back yard, all of our crops are filling in nicely. The lettuce is about finished for the season (it just gets too hot here in the summertime, and it bolts), but the other veggies seem to be enjoying summertime. Our peppers, tomatoes, carrots, beans, pumpkins, leeks, potatoes, parsnips, and garlic seem to be growing well. Actually, I was able to harvest a few garlic scapes this weekend, which I am really excited to eat. All of the herbs are looking nice, too. I’ve been harvesting parsley, chives, oregano, mint, and basil every week, and each are still growing strong.
Found this little lady cruising around in the kitchen, so I escorted her outside.
Out in the wildlife pond, the cheap little solar fountain I’d bought decided to stop working. I replaced it with a bubbler under the water, and so far, I’m liking that even better. It really moves the water around, and hopefully the sound will attract more birds to the space. There’s lots of spiders around now, probably enjoying the bugs that pop by for a drink. I saw some really pretty green orchard spiders, hanging under their webs. Spiders kind of give me the heebie jeebies, but I respect their work ethic, and, as someone who also likes to weave, I am pretty enamored with their gorgeous webs.
The new little bubbler, gurgling about under the sticks and stumps.
I’ve been keeping an eye out each day for some of my favorite butterflies, the black swallowtails. I’d seen a few flying around, but hadn’t found any eggs yet. This morning, while watering the veggies, I happened to spot a tiny little black swallowtail caterpillar! I quickly escorted it into our mesh butterfly house on the deck, with some dill to eat. The butterfly house lives outside, and the caterpillars I move into it are protected from predators. They grow up fairly quickly, especially in warm weather. I’ll track this ones progress as it grows up and then forms a chrysalis before transforming into a butterfly. The whole process usually only takes a few weeks, and is definitely the highlight of my summer.
This black swallowtail caterpillar will grow into a much larger caterpillar, with green and yellow stripes, before forming its chrysalis.
It’s ironic- the garden looks great and so much is in bloom right now, but there’s very little work to be done, for me, at least. The plants and flowers have grown to keep weeds out (mostly), and I don’t have any more planting to do at the moment (though I’m sure I’ll come up with something). It’s warm and sunny, but I can relax. And, actually, that’s kind of the point. I do really enjoy the planting and the work- I’m a process person. However, being able to slow down for a bit to watch the flowers grow, and all the birds, insects and critters that I share the yard with, is a real treat. Hopefully you are able to take some time out this week to sit back as well. Happy gardening!
The swamp milkweed is in bloom: my absolute favorite smelling flower. It’s light and sweet and an absolute pollinator magnet.
We’ve officially made it to summertime here in the Northern Hemisphere. While I love and adore all of the flowers this time of year, and watching the bees and other pollinators buzzing around the yard, summer is not my most favorite season. The heat and humidity make me cranky, and the planting is about wrapped up for the season, so my excuses to buy more flowers are harder to come by.
Luckily, I managed to squeak in a pit stop by the garden center last week to grab a few stray goodies for the new hellstrip bed out in the front yard, and for a corner out back that needed a little something. I grabbed a hollyhock for some height, and a few more verbena, anise hyssop, nepeta, and thyme for the pollinators to enjoy. The bees found the hyssop and thyme before the plants even made it into the ground, so I would say my selections were a success!
Some of my recent acquisitions: nepeta, growflow lemonade thyme, verbena, and anise hyssop
Out front, digging continues on the new hellstrip bed. I think the project is going to be a little smaller than I’d originally intended, at least, for now. A combination of rain showers, hot days, and arthritis joined forces to keep me from getting out there to dig things out last month like I’d planned. The husband helped me rip out most of the sod last week, and tomorrow, once the heat breaks, we plan to finish the bed. I have lots of plants waiting to go in: the little bluestem, prairie dropseed, prairie blazing star, and some thyme that I grew from seed, as well as the aforementioned plants I nabbed last week, and some creeping thyme and prairie smoke that I picked up awhile ago. Those poor plants need to get into the ground already!
The rest of the garden seems to be thriving. We’ve had a lot more in bloom since my last post. The hostas opened up, the borage and milkweed are all blooming (and smelling heavenly, I might add), the nasturtiums, bee balm, anise hyssop, verbena, and echinacea (coneflowers) are all blooming like wild, and the lanceleaf coreopsis, tickseed, cranesbill, marigolds, blanketflowers, and creek sedge continue to flower away. That’s not nearly everything in bloom at the moment, but it’s a nice highlight of what’s going on today.
I harvested our shallots last week! They are inside now, drying, but I’m dreaming of enjoying them in some beef burgundy. Mmm…
The bachelors button flowers that I grew from seed look to be about ready to start flowering this week, as do the zinnias. It’s amazing how much they’ve taken off in the past week or so. I feel like they all put on about a foot of growth. Out in the raised beds, the bush beans and climbing beans are all Hulking Out. The climbers have runners taking over their trellis. I would say we may see some beans growing here before too long. The tomatoes are still recovering from the over-watering they received the other week when it stormed, but most of the plants have fruit growing already. And, our pepper plants are stuffed full of flowers and peppers already. I’m so excited to see what they taste like- I’ve never grown Sweet Italian Peppers before.
Baby peppers!
Since I can’t seem to help myself, I started some hopi sunflower and loofah seeds the other week. The loofah seed hulls are notoriously tough, so I soaked them for about a week and clipped the outsides of the seeds with nail trimmers. Once they started to sprout, I planted them in a pot on the deck. They seem extremely happy in the heat and sunshine, and are growing quickly. I’ll have to get a support in the pot for them here to make sure they have something to climb, and to eventually, hold up the loofahs that will grow. I am probably more excited than any one person ought to be to ditch the plastic mesh poufs I use in the shower for some homegrown loofah sponges.
Everything else on the deck has been flowering and growing away happily. I’ve been harvesting basil weekly, and am enjoying the weird (for Ohio) plants that I started this year, the pineapple, ginger, banana tree, and lemon tree that I nabbed last season. The deck crops are also thriving, and we’ll be harvesting potatoes here in a month (ish). The sugar pie pumpkin seeds I planted took off immediately, and I’m slowly winding the vines up the railing along the deck. We had planned to do some work on the deck this summer, but with wood prices being so high (when you can find the materials at all), I think that project will be one to deal with next year. So, the pumpkins, madder root, and pokeberries can hide the wonky deck railing for another season. If you can’t fix it, hide it. That’s the expression, right?
Butterfly weed, coreopsis, swamp milkweed, verbena, cranesbill, and hostas
Before I sign off for the week, I wanted to put a PSA out there for everyone with bird feeders and bird baths. An illness has hit our local bird populations in Ohio, and, I’d assume, surrounding states. It’s seriously harming the birds, damaging their eyesight and ability to fly. The US Geological Survey reports that blue jays, starlings, robins, and grackles seem to be the most impacted, but the disease may be harming other birds, as well. Scientists aren’t yet sure what this disease is, but we’re all being advised to take down our bird feeders to keep the disease from spreading. Additionally, make sure to clean our your bird baths with a solution of 10% bleach to 9 parts water, while wearing gloves. If you happen to see any sick birds, contact your nearest wildlife rehab center. In Central Ohio, that would be the Ohio Wildlife Center at 614-793-9453. Hopefully we can all help keep this awful disease from spreading and it goes away soon.
Have a nice week! I give you permission to sit back and enjoy these first few days of summer, instead of crawling around your beds, weeding. Happy gardening!
So, I realize that there’s about a five degree temperature range that I consider acceptable for summer weather, but really. Things have gone a bit out of control around these parts. Upper 80s with humidity levels the local meteorologists refer to as “soupy”??? To top that off, it’s been a week of mostly rain showers. May was dryer than average, but Mother Nature seems to be trying to make up for it now. The tomatoes are yellowing from all the excess showers, and while the tropical annuals on the deck seem overjoyed, I’d rather have a nice tomato harvest later this summer, thank you very much.
The echinacea (coneflowers) are just starting to bloom. Loving spying on them in the morning sunshine!
In between storms, I’ve spotted a few new visitors to the yard. We had a pair of mallard ducks scoping things out one morning. The must have a nest nearby, because I hear them squawking at passers-by most days. There was also an adorable little black cat, rolling around in the catmint and batting at the floating fountain in the wildlife pond.
The dragonflies and damselflies have also been out and about, enjoying the flowers and smaller bugs. They seem determined to avoid the pond, (at least, when I’m out trying to find them swimming), but I see them all over the plants each day. I’m surely tempting fate, but I’ve yet to get a single mosquito bite yet this year, and I’m crediting this their presence.
Papa Mallard, taking flight to get away from the weird lady in her pjs taking pictures
Plant-wise, things are kicking into high gear for summer time. The cone flowers, marigolds, blanket flowers, cranesbill, nepeta, heuchera, penstemon, lavender, speedwell, salvia, buttercups, lamb’s ear, and day lilies are all blooming wildly, and the hostas, zinnias, and milkweed should be ready to flower here in the next few days. Normally at this time of year, I’ve had a bit of a slump, flower-wise. The spring flowers are all spent, and the summer plants aren’t yet in bloom. But this year, I think with our hot weather and some more planting, there’s a lot in bloom for all the pollinators and spectators (me and that black cat) to enjoy.
Edible-plant-wise, things are trucking along well. I planted the last of the beans, which have sprouted and are growing huge leaves. The lettuces are about finished for the season, but the herbs are really bushing out. I harvested a bunch of basil and chives to dry this week. The nasturtiums have tripled in size… which reminds me, I need to add a support structure to that pot for them… and the peppers are flowering and growing as well. We should start to see some baby peppers here soon! The pumpkin seeds I planted the other week are taking over their container. I thinned them out again, so the ones that are left will have plenty of room to grow. I also thinned our carrots, fennel, and leeks.
The asiatic lilies are always pretty striking in bloom!
So, for the most part, things are looking well out in the yard. But, that hasn’t always the case. I’m sure we’ve all had some gardening blunders, it’s how one learns, after all. I thought I would share a few of these… mishaps… the scenes that I don’t post on Instagram, and the stories I tend to keep to myself when trying to appear wise in the ways of the garden.
Most of my mistakes in the garden can be boiled down to a lack of impatience, not doing my research ahead of time, and/or trying to fight nature. In the majority of these situations, a simple trip to Google could have saved me a lot of headache. Knowing when to plant what, where things like to live, and how to water them seems pretty basic, after all, it’s advice I often share here. But, I haven’t always heeded these plant edicts. Some things, we just need to learn by doing.
The damselflies have been zooming all over the garden this week
I’ll start with a few situations where not doing my research ahead of time came around to bite me. A few years ago, I was assembling a little pot on the deck. I wanted to add something to the pot that would spill over the edge, and found just the thing, an annual (I thought), called Creeping Jenny. After the season had ended, I dumped the pot of annuals onto one of the empty raised beds, where I figured things would break down over the winter. The Creeping Jenny survived. If anything, the winter weather only seemed to make it stronger. I decided (why, oh why, Past Sara?!?!) to plant up That Which Cannot Be Killed as a ground cover in a few spots in the yard. Turns out, Creeping Jenny is a perennial in our area, and a beast of a perennial, at that. The groundcover spreads like wild, and is, to the best of my ability, impossible to kill. I rip out bunches of the stuff every time I weed the yard, but this stuff lives to take over. It’s even managed to hop the stone border wall, and is now growing in the grass in a few places.
Another time I wish I’d done some simple research ahead of time was last year, when I planted my first garlic. It was late September, and garlic bulbs were all over the garden center. I grabbed a few, excited at the prospect of my first harvest this spring. Last year, we had a particularly hot end to summer and start to fall. Temps stayed scorching hot, but in went my garlic. A few garden friends I’d spoken to mentioned that they hadn’t planted theirs, but I didn’t think the jumpstart would hurt anything. Apparently, it did. None of my garlic, which was still looking perky over the start of winter, made it to springtime.
The bees have been all over the penstemon lately, zooming up into the flowers to collect pollen.
My next garden blunder can be attributed to my lack of patience, especially when it comes to waiting for the last frost date to pass before planting. A few years ago, I was assembling another planter for the deck, and I fell in love with a group of dahlias. It was still April, a few weeks from our last frost date, but the day was warm, so I went ahead and planted up the flowers. Within a week, we had a frost, and the dahlias were… displeased. They didn’t die off completely, but they looked quite sickly all season and I didn’t get to enjoy many flowers. Just waiting a few weeks would have made all the difference. Plants that don’t enjoy the cold will not enjoy the cold even if you’re impatient and stubbornly plant them out too early!
I didn’t quite learn from that mistake and planted out my tomatoes and peppers a bit too early last year. Last Frost Dates are a guide aimed to help gardeners, not something set in place to invoke my oppositional defiance, but I was so sure that things would be ok last year, so in went the veggies. No surprise, we had not just a frost, but a deep freeze, for a few days. I spent hours outside, covering up annuals and veggies with blankets and cursing myself for not just waiting.
There’s so much in bloom! We have coral bells, geraniums, blanketflowers, salvia, penstemon, cilantro, lavender, marigolds, cranesbill, speedwell, ohio spiderwort, and calendula flowering.
The last of my gardening mishaps (that I’m owning up to, anyway!) all have to do with some foolhardy attempts at fighting nature. Traditionally for humans, when we try to best nature, things don’t go terribly well. She’s going to do her own thing, and plans go much more smoothly when we learn to accept that. My first major run in with this philosophy took place about three years ago. I was planting tomatoes for the first time, and I wanted them to live in a particular location in the garden: a corner spot, with full sunshine. These crops love sun, so I figured that I had this one in the bag. I went to dig the holes for my plants, and I can still imagine the smile I must had had on my face, imagining the late-summer BLT’s.
As my shovel made impact with the ground, it was stopped, rather bluntly, by what felt like concrete. I had the husband come out for the hole-digging assist, not realizing that that corner of the yard was made up of straight clay soil. I don’t know if you’ve experienced gardening with clay, but it’s not ideal. Clay basically turns into an impenetrable fortress when it’s dry, which for our climate, is most of the summer. It’s tough, and many plants don’t enjoy living in it. I knew this, but I stubbornly forged ahead. I was so heavily relying on my knowledge that tomatoes liked sunshine, that I decided to ignore their watering needs, and the fact that their roots would not enjoy the clay at all. True to form, the tomatoes were extremely unhappy. They didn’t grow well, and I had no tomato harvest that year. I’ve since learned my lesson and am now using raised beds, where I can amend the soil content.
The best-dressed bug in the garden is definitely the candy-striped leaf hopper.
Another time I tried fighting nature, to no avail, involved the same spot in that garden. A few years ago, we lost our beloved cat, Miss Pickles. I wanted to plant a tree in her memory, and so I picked out a little dogwood. I managed to get it into that corner spot, in the awful clay. I knew dogwoods only liked some sun, but that spot really is in full sunlight most of the day. In went the tree, anyway. It seemed like a nice location, visually, for a tree, so I figured things would work themselves out. (I know, I’m rolling my eyes at Past Me, too). The tree stayed there for about two years, before I finally had mercy and moved the thing into a shadier location, with loamier soil. It lives by the compost bin and finally flowers every spring. It’s grown a lot, and is so much happier in its new space. I’ve since added a slew of native prairie plants to that sunny corner which the tomatoes and the dogwood hated, since they grow just fine in clay soil.
We all make mistakes when planting, and sometimes, plans go awry. But, hopefully, like me, you’ve learned what works and doesn’t in your garden, and why. (Even if it took a few rounds of discovery). With just a bit of research and planning ahead of time, you’ll save yourself time, money, and effort. And isn’t it worth it, for a happy garden? Hope you have a great week!
A recent garden acquisition: coral honeysuckle, a native climber and hummingbird magnet
We’re still a few weeks out from the official start to summer, but it feels like it’s already here. It’s been in the upper 80s most of the week, and humid. My annual Complaining That It’s Too Hot Outside portion of the year is definitely in full stride. In my defense, what is the point of weather that belongs in the Tropics without the benefit of that ocean view?
It’s been storming on and off, and the plants were treated to almost an inch of rain in the past few days, much to their delight. I haven’t had to water, so I am also pleased. Behind our house, in the woods, the Brood X cicadas are singing away, a sound that we usually don’t hear until August. Apparently, this group spent the past 17 years underground, only to pop up now. They only live for a few weeks after they emerge, but they make the most of their time, partying away looking for a mate, before they bite the dust. I found it interesting to learn that they don’t actually eat anything once above ground. The birds sure are enjoying their company, though. Cicadas are, apparently, fine dining, in addition to being very loud company.
Hey there, pretty lady.
Back in our yard, the crops are all coming along well. The pumpkin seeds I planted the other week are beefing up quickly. I’ve thinned them out twice already, but I may pull up a few more of the seedlings to make sure the remaining sprouts have plenty of room to grow in their little spot on the deck. The pepper plants and beans are enjoying the heat and bushing out. Our tomatoes are also doing well. I’m planning to give everything some fertilizer this week, just to make sure we end up with as many great veggies as possible.
The bay laurel, peppers, sugar pie pumpkins, tomatoes, and potatoes are all enjoying the summer weather.
Over the weekend, on Saturday, I learned that it was National Prairie Day. As a kid, I remember many trips out to the park, where we’d walk through the trails in the prairies. I always preferred the woods. The tall grasses didn’t offer any shade, and I just didn’t notice the same magic that always seems to be lurking deep within the trees.
As time has passed, however, I’ve really grown to appreciate all that prairies have to offer. Much of the Midwest, where I’ve lived all my life, used to be covered in prairie. These areas were vital to the ecosystem, supporting thousands of species. Now, nearly 99% of those prairies have been destroyed, due to farming and other development. Many of the native plants and the wildlife that require them to survive have been lost, and we know those species that are still here, like the monarch butterflies, are struggling.
Some of our prairie plants: little bluestem, aster, butterfly weed, prairie blazing star, goldenrod, big bluestem, joe pye weed, and swamp milkweed.
The plants that once lived in these prairies are pretty fascinating, and adding them back into your own garden can go a long way towards helping provide spaces for wildlife. Many of these perennial plants are extremely hardy. You won’t have to replace them every few years after a hard winter. They thrive in the summer heat, and the bitter winter cold. Their roots grow extremely deep, unlike the grass in our lawns, and many of the other plants and bushes we add to our gardens. These deep roots help make the plants very drought tolerant. Even a few months after planting, I’ve never had to water my natives, like the milkweed, goldenrod, or aster.
Many of these prairie natives provide absolutely stunning color and shape to a garden, and they are rarely attacked by harmful insects. In fact, since planting more natives in our yard, I’ve noticed a severe decline in pests on our other plants. I don’t use any pesticides in the garden, and I absolutely attribute any success I’ve had growing veggies to their native plant neighbors. The natives draw in beneficial insects, which lure in more predators like dragonflies and birds that eat up the aphids and japanese beetles that used to devour my tomatoes and rose bushes. Planting native plants helps fit the, often missing, piece back into the ecosystem.
The summer storms always bring in really pretty sunsets!
For the past few years, I’ve been adding more and more native plants to our garden, with excellent results. Many of the prairie plants I have won’t bloom until later in the summer, but they are definitely bulking up now. I can’t wait to see this years joe pye weed and prairie blazingstar in bloom! We also grow a few native species of milkweed plants, and they are getting ready to start flowering here soon. While the monarch butterflies won’t arrive until the end of summer, the bees will absolutely be hopping all over the milkweek flowers. They smell absolutely amazing.
If you’re looking for something new for your yard, or even if you’re just interested in learning more, there’s lots of great resources out there. I highly recommend starting with the Native Plants Finder website or The Audubon Society‘s native plant database. Both sites allow you to type in your zip code, and you’ll find a wealth of information about what to plant.
Hope you have a great week in the garden!
The golds of summer are in bloom! Our daisies, day lilies, tickseed, stonecrop, and buttercups are flowering.
Flower Collage: petunias, flag iris, penstemon, tickseed, elderberries, clematis, blanketflowers, peony, maidenhair fern, silvermound, brunerra, and daisies
Somehow, it’s already June. It really feels like this year is flying by us. Things are settling down in the garden, work wise. Most of my planting and projects have been wrapped up, and now it’s time to just sit back and watch things grow. I still have some sod to rip up in the front yard, but as the days warm up, my motivation is definitely waning. When I can lounge on the deck eating our fresh strawberries, it’s hard to think about doing much else.
Omnomnom
We had a nice, long Memorial Weekend. Our friends came to visit and some “seedy” exchanges took place. The husband split some perennials for our friends to take back to their garden, and I unloaded a few of the prairie blazing star and little blue stem seedlings that I’d grown. We also exchanged a few seeds. I recently nabbed some loofah plant seeds to share, and my friend gave me a few marrowfat bush bean seeds to try out. They are an heirloom variety that became popular in the mid 1800s for their bacon-like flavor. I’m in!
Now that more plants are blooming and summer is basically upon us (aside from this past Saturday, where it stayed in the 40s and 50s all day), we’re seeing more interesting visitors to the yard. I spotted a hummingbird on some of the nepeta plants last week, and the pond seems to be drawing in some dragonflies. A common whitetail dragonfly was zooming around the yard while I was watering the tomatoes a few days ago, hopefully on the prowl for mosquitoes.
Flag Iris in bloom
Speaking of the pond, I nabbed a new little solar-powered fountain just to make sure the water had a little movement. Hopefully, the sound of running water lures even more birds and critters in, and helps keep the water from becoming a mosquito-making factory. The plants around the water are all doing well so far, and over the weekend, our flag irises started to bloom. They are a gorgeous, deep purple, and really pop against all the green foliage of the other plants in the space.
That’s about all I have for this week. I’ve really been enjoying the late spring flower show in the garden. Our peonies are still blooming and as everything fills around the yard, I’ve had to weed less and less. Looking forward to seeing what blooms next! Happy gardening!
I sometimes think our favorite pastime in Ohio is complaining about the weather. As a lifelong resident of this state, I’m well trained in the art of turning any conversation into a rant about the temperature. Today’s post will be no exception. As readers of this blog know, I grew a bumper crop of peppers and tomatoes from seed this year. They’ve been cruising along inside, under grow lights, and once the last chance of frost hit for the season, I started hardening the plants off outdoors. I had hoped to plant everything out in the garden last week, but the temps were in the 40s and 50s, which is much chillier than tomatoes enjoy for a high. And, it’s been raining buckets.
Our nepeta, clematis, columbines, allium, hellebores, and azaleas are all enjoying springtime.
This weekend, as I gazed morosely out the bay window in the kitchen, the storms continued. Yesterday alone, we had a few inches of rain. The ground is a muddy mess, with flooding and puddles all over the city. The calendar claims that we’re moving into the second week of May, but with temps 20 degrees below normal, it really doesn’t feel like it. Crabby gardener (me) is crabby.
I’m hoping to get everything planted later this week. The skies are supposed to clear, and it will be a little warmer out in a few days. I’m ready for everything to be in the ground already, and out onto the deck. Our kitchen has gone Full Jungle and while “grow lights hanging from your kitchen chandelier” is certainly a look, I’m not totally sure it’s one that will catch on with interior decorators any time soon.
Anyway. Three paragraphs is probably long enough of a weather rant today. I haven’t cussed out any meteorologists, but I hope I’ve managed to hang on to my Midwesterner cred anyway. So. Moving on.
I was weeding the asparagus bed and found this guy growing… I dug it up and was surprised to see that it’s a walnut sapling! The squirrels must have planted it. I repotted it so it can keep growing on the deck.
Last week, I acquired quite a few new plants for the garden. I ordered some native plants from Prairie Nursery the other month, and they arrived a few days ago. I was pretty impressed with the packaging- all of the plants were healthy and happy, and nothing was smashed to bits by the delivery company. I’ve been working on pulling up some more grass around the new wildlife pond, and so I was able to plant the new maidenhair ferns, canada anemones, jack in the pulpits, creek sedge, northern sea oats, and wild geraniums there. All of the plants will love living around the wet and shady new water feature. I also nabbed some more blue false indigo, prairie smoke, bergamot, and obedient plants for the sunnier areas around the yard. Each of these are host plants for some really neat pollinators and bugs. I’m excited for everything to fill in and since they are all native perennials, I won’t have to do much with them (including watering) after they get established.
Saturday, our local park held a plant sale. There are few things more irresistible to me than plants (hence the blog), so I took my newly-vaccinated self to fill up a tray with some great natives, veggies, and herbs. I brought home some woodland phlox, nasturtiums, creeping thyme, shallots, garlic, and chives. I also grabbed some oregano, since the seedlings I was growing were a little fried after I accidentally left them in the cold frame on one of the 85 degree days we had last month. Oops.
I grew all of this years basil crop from seed, and it’s ready for another harvest!
I really, really love growing herbs, despite my lack of success with this years oregano seedlings. Quite a few herbs are perennials in our area, so I have them scattered about in the gardens and get to enjoy them every year. The others, I tend to grow in pots to keep them from taking over the garden (some herbs are more aggressive than geese and will absolutely charge everything around them with a swift voracity). I like having herbs in pots so they are close to the kitchen for easier collection purposes when I’m cooking. And, I can bring them inside if it gets too cold. Pots also make it easier to control the soil and drainage for your herbs, which comes in very handy with things like rosemary, that do not like to get very wet.
I thought I’d give an overview on some of the herbs that I grow, with a few tips I’ve picked up over the years. When it doubt with most herbs, grow them in the sun, make sure they won’t ever be standing in water, and containers are great to keep them from taking over a space. Here’s some of the finer points:
Herb
Growing Tips
Harvest
Notes
Basil
Basil grows well in pots or in the ground. It loves full sun, well draining soil, and won’t be able to handle a frost.
You can harvest basil leaves often, by just plucking off leaves. Once it really heats up, basil will start to flower. Remove the flowers to keep leaves tasting fresh.
Basil grows really well next to tomato plants. It’s an easy herb to grow, and it’s hard to beat pasta with fresh basil leaves on top!
Bay Laurel
Bay Laurel is one I’d recommend growing in a pot in climates where it gets cold in the winter. It won’t be able to live through a freeze. It likes to live in something that drains well, in the full sun. We bring our bay inside in the winter and it lives in a sunny windowsill.
Harvest bay leaves when they are a few inches long.
Fresh bay leaves are amazing in sauces and stews.
Bergamot
Bergamot would grow fine in a pot, or in the garden. It likes full sun, and will get bushy, growing about 2′ wide, with beautiful, starburst flowers.
I would not recommend harvesting bergamot. Some parts of the plant are poisonous if ingested.
Bergamot is an awesome perennial in our area, Zone 6a. It grows really pretty flowers and is a pollinator magnet!
Borage
Borage can be grown in a pot, or in the ground. It’s not a fan of winter. Grow borage in a sunny, well-draining spot.
Borage flowers can be used in tea, or as a garnish in things like salads. Both the flowers and leaves can be eaten.
Borage is a great herb for attracting pollinators! The small, star-shaped blue flowers are really pretty and taste better if eaten fresh and not dried.
Chives
I recommend growing chives in a container, because they tend to spread all over the place. They are a nice perennial, grow quickly and easily. Chives enjoy the sun, but can handle a spot with some shade.
Harvest chives multiple times throughout the year, just wait until a month after you’ve planted them. Cut chives back to about an inch above the ground when harvesting.
Chives will flower, luring in pollinators. They taste great in lots of dishes, both fresh, and dried.
Chamomile
Chamomile grows well in pots or in the ground. It likes the sunshine, but can tolerate a little bit of shade.
Once the chamomile flowers are starting to go past their prime, pop them off, dry them, and then enjoy in tea, or a relaxing bath.
Chamomile is a great bee magnet, and the pretty flowers, which look like tiny daisies, are great for dyeing up fiber and fabrics.
Cilantro
Cilantro likes cooler weather, and is great for springtime and fall in our climate. Grow it in pots or in the ground. In my experience, it likes a shadier location, with morning sunshine.
Pluck off the leaves and stems to harvest cilantro, and the plant will keep growing. Once it warms up, the plant will bolt, sending up flowers. These will turn to seed, coriander, which you can harvest once they start to dry out on the plant.
Not everyone enjoys cilantro (for some, it tastes a lot like soap), but if you like it, cilantro is a tasty garnish. If you harvest the coriander seeds, they may be ground up and used in lots of dishes like curry. Yum.
Dill
Dill is a perennial in our area. It grows well in pots, or in the ground, though it likes to spread. Plant dill in the sunshine.
Harvest dill leaves before the plant flowers.
Dill is great fresh, or dried, and the husband swears by it in his scrambled eggs. Dill is also a host plant for swallowtail butterflies. The caterpillars will eat some of the leaves, but since this herb grows so quickly, it’s easy to share with them!
Fennel
Fennel is a sun-loving herb, that’s easy to grow. I like it in pots, but am trying some in the raised beds this year, too.
Harvest fennel leaves for use in things like salads, and after the plant flowers, the seeds can be harvested and dried.
I bake with fennel in my breads a lot, and it’s also a must have in many of my italian dishes. Fennel is another host plant for swallowtails. They show up in our area on the plants in late spring, and we love watching the caterpillars grow into new butterflies!
Lavender
Lavender is a little more particular, as herbs on this list go. It’s a perennial in our area, but needs a sunny spot with soil that drains very well. It will not be happy in location that floods or in clay that holds lots of water. I grow ours in the garden, but it would love life in a pot, too.
Harvest the sprigs of flowers by trimming them back to the woody stems. Enjoy lavender in a bath, pop the sprigs in a drawer to keep clothes smelling fresh, or just enjoy their fragrance in a nice bouquet on the table.
Lavender is another great plant to attract lots of pollinators- the bees absolutely adore this one! It’s very low maintenance. Lavender requires little water, and you don’t cut the plant back to the ground at any point- just trim off spent flower sprigs after they’ve bloomed. It can be split and moved every few years to keep the plant full and happy.
Mint
Mint is that plant your mother warned you about- it will absolutely take over a garden (possibly, an entire state). Grow it in pots for the best chance at containing this beast. Mint likes full sun, and is a perennial that doesn’t care if winter exists.
Harvest mint leaves all summer long. They are great in tea and adult beverages, make a nice addition to a bath, and can also be nice treat in a fruit salad.
Mint will flower, and attract lots of happy pollinators. We grow a few varieties, but my favorite is an heirloom, that started life in Emily Dickinson’s garden. A friend gave me a cutting the other year, and it took off right away. I fangirl every time I see it.
Oregano
Oregano is another herb that loves the sun. It comes in tons or varieties and grows well in pots or in the ground, just make sure it doesn’t get overwatered.
Pluck off leaves as they grow, and when the plant flowers, try to pull off the flowers to keep the leaves tasting nice. (Like basil, the leaves will turn a little bitter if the plant has flowers).
Oregano flowers are a favorite of pollinators, and the leaves are tasty in lots of dishes. We tend to dry ours, which does dull the flavor just a bit, but it’s also yummy fresh.
Parsley
Parsley practically grows itself. It’s hardy, and will take some cold temps. It likes the sun, but will also tolerate a bit of shade. It’s fine in containers or in the ground.
Harvest leaves about a month after planting. Parsley will just keep growing.
Parsley is another host plant for swallowtail butterflies. We share our harvest of it each year with the caterpillars. It comes in loads of varieties. Parsley is great fresh or dried.
Rosemary
Rosemary behaves a lot like lavender, except it’s not a perennial in our area. It hates the cold. Plant it in a sunny spot, and it will be happiest in soil with some rock in it to make sure it drains very well. This plant likes things dry.
To harvest your rosemary, trim the top few inches off. I like cooking with the whole sprigs for the flavor in stews and on grilled treats.
Rosemary dries well, but is really the best fresh. I keep our plant on a sunny windowsill in the cold months, and move it outside in the summer so we can enjoy it year round.
Thyme
Thyme is pretty versatile. It grows as a perennial in our area. It loves the sun and will grow well anywhere, though it will tend to spread out in the ground.
Harvest thyme by plucking off a few inches of leaves.
Thyme is a great ground cover, as well as a awesome ingredient in cooking. The bees love its tiny flowers, and I’ve been using it more and more in place of grass in our yard. You can walk all over it without killing the plant (just watch out for bumble bees!).
I feel like that ending up being a lot longer than I’d intended, but hopefully it’s helpful information. Herbs are so versatile. Many of them are very beneficial for our local insect populations, and there really is nothing like cooking with fresh herbs. Most require little watering or maintenance, and since they grow so well in containers, they are great plants when you don’t have a whole lot of space available. They grow just fine indoors, which is great during the winter blahs, and they don’t seem to attract as many of the pests that destroy plants, like some veggies and flowers do.
Some of our lavender: the lighter leaves are last years growth, and the limier green are new this spring. We’ll see flowers by the summer time.
Hopefully the week dries out soon (dang it- I’m onto the weather again!) and I can get some more planting done. I’d like to get the rest of these cold frame herbs in the ground, along with the aforementioned kitchen plant crew. Wherever you are, I hope your May is going well, and that your gardens are behaving.
We’ve made it to my favorite month in the gardening calendar. I love May. Everything is green, many of my favorite flowers begin blooming, and I can finally go hog wild, executing the gardening plans. Our last frost date isn’t technically until May 9th, but according to the weather report, we should be in the clear now. (I’m probably jinxing things… last year, we had an uber late frost, and my entire state was outside, panic-covering veggies and annuals with sheets to protect things from the cold).
A few of our trees: eastern redbud, red maple, and flowering dogwood
I started hardening off everything that’s been living indoors last week. We’ve made it up to four hours now, over four days. I knew I’d planted a boatload of seeds, but I really do have a lot going on. I moved the grow lights down to the kitchen so I could haul all the plants inside and outside easier. (The seedlings were living on the second floor, and it took exactly one day with 11,000,000 trips up and down the stairs for me to decide that was so not continuing for the full seven days).
The Italian Sweet Peppers are flowering already!
The tomatoes and peppers have started to flower, which is kind of blowing my mind. I’m really excited to get these plants into the ground. I also have rosemary, basil, and parsley hardening off, as well as our lemon tree, a (newly arrived) dwarf banana tree, some madder, the ginger and pineapple plants that I started over the winter, some geraniums, and an amaryllis bulb.
The deck is starting to fill up with pots as well. The potatoes I planted have sprouted, and I just potted up the canna and cala lily bulbs that we grew last year. (They were living in the garage over winter, dormant and just waiting for warm days again). I have two pots of dahlias growing this year, well, they are just tubers now, but hopefully, they will sprout soon. And, there’s cilantro, two pots of lettuces, sorrel, fennel, a bay laurel, strawberries, tulips, aloe, mint, and some swamp milkweed. How’s that for variety? The cold frame is basically permanently opened up now so the seedlings don’t overheat and burn, and it’s housing the dropseed, little bluestem, prairie blazing star, zinnias, marigolds, milkweed, bachelor button flowers, borage, thyme, more parsley, oregano, passion flowers, and german chamomile. Things should be large enough to plant out soon here.
The calla lilies are growing again and ready for planting. I promise, the flowers look better than the rhizomes here would suggest.
Last fall, after the sunflowers had finished their display, I harvested a few of the seeds to plant this year. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, with nice results. I have Mammoth Sunflowers, and some Autumn Beauty, and I planted both varieties out in the beds this weekend. They both grow quite tall, so I plant them along the fence. I love when they bloom in late summer- they are so cheery, and the bees really enjoy them.
Out in the garden, things are beginning to really fill in. While not even close to it’s full volume, I’m very pleased with our first shade bed. It’s packed full of hostas, ferns, heucheras, great white trilliums, dutchman’s breeches, sedum, creek sedge, hardy geraniums, a rhododendron, hellebores, crocuses, brunerra, speedwell, and along the front edge, by the birdfeeders, are dozens of little sunflower seedlings sprouting up. The birds shake the seeds out of the feeders, and I just let the sunflowers grow, thinning them out a little for healthier plants. It’s not the ideal placement for tall plants- right at the front of a bed- but the flowers the birds grew last year were so pretty. I’m really a sucker for sunflowers, wherever they may grow.
The shade garden is popping back up and filling in quickly this spring.
I set up a little pot again this year in that flower bed, filled with some rocks and water for the birds and bugs to enjoy. It was a hit last year, basically a little bird bath, so I thought I’d give it a go again. The dragonflies really seem to enjoy the water features, too, and with the way they devour mosquitoes (an adult dragonfly can eat hundreds of those bloodsuckers per day), I am about anything that lures them into our garden.
Some of the sunflower seeds from last falls harvest
This week, we’re expecting quite a bit of rain, but hopefully, once that clears out, I can start in on the next big gardening project: pulling out the sod in the front yard between the sidewalk and the street (the hellstrip). Quite a few of the plants for that project are still growing in the cold frame now, and the other half are things I plan to split from perennials we have around the yard already. Pulling up grass is a pain, literally, but it’s the necessary first step. Any time I can get rid of more grass in our yard is a good time in my book. Once the grass is out, I can plant the new bed, get it mulched, and the next pollinator garden will be in business.
Hope the week is warm and sunny where you are, and that you can spend some time relaxing around all the new spring life outdoors. Happy gardening!
Our Giant Allium is blooming. I love these wild little balls of flowers, and I saw quite a few bees enjoying them over the weekend, too.
Usually, at this point in the year, I can be found traipsing around the backyard, looking for signs of spring. (As of February 15, springtime is 33 days away!) However, this year, we’ve spent the month of February buried under snow.
I grew up in northwest Ohio, and as a kid, I remember winters being very snowy affairs. Snow days were a given. Level three snow emergencies (where everyone is to keep off the roads) took place annually. The neighborhood pond was turned into a skating rink, and sledding hills were so well-used that they’d turn into sheets of ice. (You basically needed crampons to ascend the hills at Fort Meigs by mid-winter). My brothers and I built large forts into the giant snow piles made from shoveling the driveway, complete with multiple rooms and stockpiles of snowballs.
There’s a veggie bed under here someplace
Eventually, I grew up (well, aged, at least), and moved south. I only made it two and a half hours south, to central Ohio, but the weather here is surprisingly different from my first home. It gets warmer way earlier in the year, and we definitely don’t have as much snowfall. It’s not weird to call home and hear from my parents that they are having a cold, rainy day in the 40s when it’s sunny and in the 70s here. It took some getting used to, and made my garden-loving heart happy, to have even a few more weeks of a growing season.
This year, though, the weather needs to, as my grandma says, “get with the program.” We’ve had snow on the ground every day so far this month, and there’s been quite a few stretches with daily snowfall. I go out to fill the bird feeders, and step down into snowdrifts that I didn’t expect to be quite so deep. Snow fill the tops of my boots, cascading down my socks onto undeserving ankles. It’s rather cold. I am made crabby.
Today, more snow is falling. By tomorrow morning when this latest storm wraps up, we’re expecting another 8″ or so of snow.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be hiding upstairs with my lemon tree, listening to ocean sounds on YouTube and looking at pictures from Hawaii.
So, we made it through January. It felt like the entire month was cloudy and gray, but I’m sure that’s just my winter ennui. I actually spent most of January babying my indoor plants, and acquiring more for the collection: a pineapple, some ginger, tulip and daffodil bulbs, a burgundy rubber plant, a calathea, and finally two different “living stone” plants, lithops and titanopsis calcarea. (It’s possible I may really like plants).
In a few weeks time, I’ll begin the indoor seed planting. I still need to dig through the garage to make sure all of my supplies are in place. I’m also hoping to work on building a potting bench this month to better organize everything, and to give me a nicer space to work in so I’m not dragging bags of dirt into the kitchen every time I want to repot something (a feat I have yet to accomplish without spilling at least 1/3 of the bag onto the floor- sorry, husband).
Really, though, I am most looking forward to the springtime, when the outdoor plants and trees wake up and start growing again.
I really miss my springtime garden.
And, of course, when things start to heat up again, the pollinators return. Some of my favorites that visit our garden are monarch butterflies, which usually make their first appearance in mid-summer.
A few years ago, I had our garden certified as a Monarch Waystation, which means that our yard provides the habitat necessary for monarchs to make it through their lifecycles to continue their migration habits. Once the butterflies show up, I start checking our milkweed plants for eggs, and I collect those and move them to an outdoor enclosure to watch the eggs hatch, and the caterpillars grow, form a chrysalis, and them emerge as butterflies. They are released into the garden to grow more butterflies. The final generation in our area will begin the trek south in the fall, as they migrate to Mexico for the winter.
We all know that monarch populations are on the decline, severely. While populations shift in size each year, there were over 1.2 million monarchs around two decades ago, as compared to 29,000 in 2017. Climate change caused temperature fluctuations and droughts play a big role in this, as do pesticides, and the dwindling number of milkweed plants.
Milkweed is the host plant to monarchs, which means the species requires it for survival. Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed, and once the caterpillars emerge, they eat the leaves and bulk up before making a chrysalis and then morphing into butterflies.
There are a lot of things I can’t fix in the world, and I certainly can’t save monarch butterflies all on my own, but I can help. And, I’d like to share some things that you can do as well.
Monarch caterpillar
Monarchs do not need a ton of space to thrive, just the right setting. As I mentioned above, they need milkweed plants, which like to live in lots of sunlight. Milkweed is native throughout the US, and finding a variety that is native to your area is key to attracting butterflies. Milkweed plants are perennials, and once you get them growing, you really don’t have to do much of anything to them. They are fairly easy to grow from seed, and many local garden centers now supply the plants. You can also find them online. The flowers smell amazing when they are blooming, and they attract loads of pollinators. I’ve had success growing milkweed both in the ground, and in pots.
Swamp Milkweed
Astoundingly, to me, monarchs seem to operate in a Field of Dreams/”If You Build It, They Will Come” situation. I grew two swamp milkweed plants our second summer here, and the monarchs found them, and laid eggs. I don’t know how they manage to hone in on one plant in a sea of suburbia, but they show up every year on our plants now.
The next biggest thing I would recommend, is to stop using pesticides on your lawn and plants. I get it. The lush, green lawn is considered a bragging right in my family. But many of the weeds we spray (dandelions, henbit, clover) are really important food sources for the pollinators in our yards. Frankly, when you kill the plants bugs need to eat, you kill the bugs… and then the birds, who have no more bugs to eat… and then the larger mammals, who have no more birds to eat. Finally, many of our own crops and flowers need to be pollinated to produce veggies and fruit. That doesn’t happen without bugs. While one yard isn’t going to make or break the entire food chain, you will be making a huge difference to your local wildlife if you can find alternate methods to spraying chemicals all over your lawn and plants.
Monarch on New England Aster
Next, you’ll need to provide some flowers with nectar for the adult butterflies to eat. Where I live, monarchs are usually around from mid-summer to the fall. So, I have plenty of flowers around that bloom during that time, like aster, goldenrod, joe pye weed, blazing star, indian blanket, anise hyssop, coneflowers, cosmos, and bee balm.
Many varieties of these plants are native to my area, so they also help feed the local bees, moths, and other pollinators. Bonus.
Finally, having a little water source available will help your butterflies and other pollinators. Bugs need water just like we do. I fill the base of a small tray with some sand and rocks, and then water- just a half inch deep or so. The monarchs can have a drink and be on their merry way and the water evaporates quickly, so it doesn’t become a mosquito haven.
It may be snowing out right now, but hopefully, wherever you live, this helps you start thinking of some of the things you can do to start helping attract butterflies and other pollinators to your area in warmer months. Happy gardening!
It’s been snowing off and on here in Central Ohio for days. The snow isn’t sticking to the ground, but everything feels cold and damp, and we’ve all forgotten what the sun actually looks like. It’s definitely a good day to be indoors.
I spent some time on the floor today, covered in gardening books, colored pens, and my trusty notepad, looking ahead to springtime. In addition to the usual garden clean up I have in mind (like splitting up the lamb’s ear plants before they take over the entire yard), I want to tackle a few new landscaping projects.
January Flurries
I have three larger projects in mind for the spring: building two more raised beds for vegetables, turning one of the side yards into a wildflower bed, and fixing up the hellstrip out front by the road.
Project One: Raised Beds Right now in the back yard, we have two raised beds for vegetables, in addition to a merry band of pots scattered around the deck, where I keep the herbs for easy access. The beds are (maybe?) three feet across, and six feet long. We have a crop of asparagus living in one, so there isn’t much room in that bed for anything else, and the other bed was built last year out of some leftover plywood I found in the garage.
Our first two vegetable beds
The beds live a little bit away from one another, but both spend the summer in full sun. I’d like to build two more this year (and by “I’d like to build,” I mean, “I’d like my husband to build”) so I’ll have more space for the massive number of seeds I plan to grow. My family makes salsa each year, and I simply cannot keep losing the battle for who grows the best tomatoes.
So, this is the first thing I’d like to tackle. It will be a cheap project, and shouldn’t take much more than a few hours to complete.
Project Two: Wildflower Bed After the raised beds, I plan to combine my hatred for mowing the lawn with my desire to help out the local pollinator population by turning the barren wasteland on the side of our house into a wildflower bed. The space is aesthetically abhorrent right now, and I’ve decided this is the year I’m finally going to do something about it.
Clearly, we can do better than this.
In March, I plan to place some cardboard down over the grass to kill it. Then, I’ll turn the soil, maybe add some dirt to level things off a bit, and finally, in will go the wildflower seeds mix that I picked up this fall from the Ohio Prairie Nursery (I cannot recommend OPN enough for Midwest gardeners looking for native seeds and plants). I’ll edge the bed with some stone, add water, and wait for my mini prairie to start growing. Many native plant seeds here in Ohio require a cold period before they will wake up and start growing at all, so I hope to get the seed down well before our last frost date (which is usually in mid-May).
Project Three: Hellstrip Bed I recently heard it described that the hellstrip (the patch of grass found between the sidewalk and the street in many a US yard) is called what it is because “no one knows what the hell to do with it.”Sometimes people will plant trees here, but other than that and the occasional mailbox, the area seems to just be patchy grass with not a lot going on, either for the local wildlife, or for anyone else.
We have two of these spaces, on either side of our driveway. I’ve been thinking about the best way to utilize the area for awhile now. This is the plan I’ve come up with (though it may change a few hundred times between now and April):
My design skills are unrivaled throughout the lands
On the one side of the driveway, for now, I’ll keep things simple. I want to put in a sugar maple tree. It’s native to Ohio, not too messy (since it will be right next to the street), and absolutely gorgeous in the fall, with fiery orange and red leaves.
The other side of the driveway will be a pollinator bed. The area gets lots of sun, and the soil there is pretty dry, so I chose plants that I knew would thrive in those conditions. I wanted plenty of native plants and flowers to make sure the wildlife in my area would be able to utilize them. I also wanted a pretty simple color scheme: greens and purples, with plants in bloom from early spring, through the end of fall. Finally, I wanted all of the plants to be perennials (which come back every year in the springtime), that require little to no maintenance. Here’s the list, with a bit of detail about each plant:
Meadowsage: Meadowsage is a great, deer-resistant butterfly magnet, with spikes of purple flowers that bloom from early summer to late fall.
Lamb’s Ear: My parents gave me some lamb’s ear from their garden a few years ago. It grows like mad, with silvery-green leaves and pretty purple flowers each summer. The bees love it, and I plan to move some from the backyard to the front to save on plant costs.
Prairie Blazing Star: Prairie Blazing Star is one of my favorite native flowers. The bees and butterflies are all over it when it flowers, in late summer, and the purple stalks of flowers bloom through the fall. This is a great flower to plant if you have clay soil.
Little Bluestem: Gardens just look good with grasses, and this Ohio native is high on my list of loves. It thrives in dry conditions, with silvery blue shoots of grass that get up to about 3 feet high. In fall, the grass turns a deep red.
Walker’s Low Nepeta: Though not an Ohio native, I can’t imagine having a garden without nepeta. It’s just the perfect plant. Nepeta (catmint) is super easy to grow. It’s hardy, loves the sun, and is resistant to most diseases and deer. The plant is covered in small purple blooms all summer and fall, and is a favorite for the bees in our yard. It smells amazing, looks whimsical, and has been known to attract the neighborhood cats (last summer, I accidentally summoned the local feline gang- they would take turns rolling around on the nepeta before staggering off, high as little kitty kites).
Irises: I am not sure what breed of irises that I have, but I plan to split some from the backyard to move out front. My irises came from my parents, who originally acquired theirs from my grandma’s family farm in Northeast Iowa. Each spring, they bloom with absolutely stunning pale purple flowers. It makes me think of my grandma every time I see them, and the shape of the flowers and silvery green-blue leaves adds some height and will match up with the bluestem perfectly.
Prairie Dropseed: Prairie Drop Seed is a compact little native Ohio grass. It doesn’t get very tall, and the grass blades are fine. Dropseed looks a bit feathery, like hair, with a bright green color that fade to gold in the fall. I thought it would be a nice texture against all the flowers.
Creeping Thyme: There are oodles of types of thyme around, but for a good ground cover in a sunny, warm spot, I love creeping thyme. It spreads nicely, attracts bees with its minty smell, and has really pretty purple-pink flowers in the summertime.
Black swallowtail on some prairie blazing star
While this is not my favorite time of year, I do like being able to take a step back, and plan for what’s to come. Researching new plants, and thinking up ideas for the springtime feels hopeful to me, like planting seeds. It’s a good reminder that soon, the sun will be out again, and I’ll be back in the garden, digging around and watching things grow. Happy gardening!
