Mid June Ramblings…

No, that’s not a shot of my yard in the fall, that’s from right now today.  It’s painfully dry and so the poplars are doing what they always do, they are dropping their leaves early.  Now usually early is August, I can’t ever remember seeing them coming down in June.
There are a lot of things that are ‘off’ this year.  For example my beautiful swap milkweeds, the pink and white failed to grow this year.  They started out well, but then something odd happened, the tops turned brown and wilted.  At first I thought it was because of too much rain as the bed that they were planted in was very wet this year for a long time.  Oddly though even the milkweeds in other places where it is drier did the same thing.  I saw no signs of fungus or insects.  I guess it’s back to seed starting for me.  That’s over 9 plants that will need to be replaced, so sad.  My butterfly weed, the standard milkweed and the tropical that I buy each year are all doing well though, so all is not lost for the butterflies!  The next off thing are the deer, usually their browsing and dinning doesn’t start till late summer to mid fall, this year however they are awful and are eating everything that I don’t put that stinky repellant on.

Here they’ve eaten not only my hosta (lower right front) but my heuchera plumb pudding (middle) and even the common violets (far left) to nothing but stems.

This was a surprise, the large old fashioned white hydrangea that has never so much as been nibbled was chowed up over night. 
I’ve since sprayed everything that was left and have been rewarded with blooms on some of my hosta and this beauty!

I ‘think’ it’s the American Revolution, that and several others were planted in an area that was continually being devoured so I moved it to the front of the bed in the center of my driveway.  I’ve been working in this bed trying to pull out some of the violets and make room for more plants that can thrive in the dry sort of sunny spot.
Remember my pollinator project? Well take a look at it this year! 
Boy has it ever filled in, I’ve got volunteers of sunflowers, cosmos, agastache and even bee balm!

I’ve got most of the milkweed growing in the back now, I’d be happy if it filled in more and just stayed in the back, but the bees and butterflies sure do love it. The fringed loosestrife (not the purple invasive stuff) that I transplanted from around back were my beehive is now, has gotten to about 4’ and is covered with beautiful yellow flowers.   I don’t know if I’ll be able to leave it where it is, I wasn’t expecting it to get this tall, it might need to go to the back with the milkweed.  I’m happy though, lots of pollinators, lots of blooms all the time.
Happy Summer!