Summer is Here!

I say this even though the high temperature yesterday was only in the mid sixties.  But it is supposed to get warmer soon.....

Here are some shots of what's going on in the yard right now.  My neighbor and I have both been allowing milkweed plants to grow all over, and she found about 10 monarch caterpillars on some of her plants.  So we each took some in and kept them fed on fresh leaves until they formed their chrysalises.  About 10 days later for each a beautiful monarch butterfly emerged.  They were set free in the yards and we see them all over now.






Watching for more caterpillars, but haven't found any yet.  They say that 90% of those sheltered in this way survive, vs. 90% being eaten if left outside.  We're doing our part.

We were gone for 6 days in late June and that meant we came home to massive overgrowth of shrubs, weeds, etc. that needed tending.  But things are looking much better now.


 
The monarda plants are beautiful now, and the coneflowers and daisies are spectacular.  We spent the last week and a half spreading 8 cubic yards of mulch and are very tired of that.




 

 This year I've been trying to convert places with invasive, difficult to manage plants like wild geraniums into easier to maintain plants like hostas, heucheras and astilbes.  It's getting harder to keep up with all this.