Dirty fingernails

and a big smile on my face. 😎 We’ve had several nice days which allowed me to work in my own gardens as well as on two MG projects.

The MGs installed a native plant butterfly garden which was registered as a Monarch Waystation, and I planted the entry containers at the mounted horse patrol barn. Whew, MG projects caught up for a few days.

I’m putting a link here in case you are interested in native plants. It was an involved process to find the right plants and then a source. (Scroll to the bottom of the page for the list.)  We ended up establishing a relationship with a brand new nursery and purchasing from them – Bagley Pond Perennials, Warner, NH. Gardening is one thing. Gardening with only native plants is an entirely different challenge.

In my own gardens, I have the tomatoes, lettuce, asparagus, and schwartzbeeren seeds, a Volga German crop, all planted. The blueberries, raspberries and blackberries have been trimmed.

The hummingbird feeder has been attracting some customers which makes me happy. No photos though because they are fast little folks, and I’d have to sit and wait with a telephoto lens which is not something I do well.

I use perennials in some of my bird baths and this year I tried succulents.  They seem to be really popular at the local greenhouses, and I thought I’d try something different.

I haven’t had good luck overwintering succulents in the past. I guess they don’t like being buried under feet of snow for six months. This fall when I take them out, I’m going to try a more sheltered spot for them to spend the winter and see if I have more success.

How do I keep them from drowning in a birdbath when it rains? The pot they are in is sitting on an upside down terra cotta saucer which allows them to sit above the majority of the water.

The lilacs, iris, and bleeding hearts are blooming, but I’ve lost plants like Nepeta, catmint, Knockout roses, and butterfly bushes that have been like ‘iron man’ plants for years. I was reading an interesting blog post from a local landscaper who said we had an early freeze, not much snow cover so the plants kept going through the freeze/thaw process,  excessive deer damage, and a wet spring. As a result, a lot of plants and shrubs were frozen, eaten, or rotted. Who can say ‘hello greenhouse, and here is my credit card.’

Bleeding hearts, lilacs, iris, and Korean lilacs.

A new piece of garden art was added – a rotary hoe wheel. We had picked it up a couple of years ago and kept meaning to ask a friend to weld it, but never got it to him.

Last week, I scrounged in a wood pile at a recycling center to find a stump for another project and ran across a second stump which worked perfectly as a base for the wheel.

I like garden art. Do you?

We have a lot of rain forecasted this week. Thinking positively, the gardens will all get watered, and I’ll  work on inside projects.

Hope you’re having some good weather where you are and enjoying the very last few days of May. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that we’re moving into June this week. Happy gardening. 🌺