I wasn't going to miss another Three for Thursday hosted by Cindy over at My Corner of Katy. Right now I have three pink natives blooming in my garden. I might be stretching a point to all this bee balm pink, but it is not brilliant scarlet so I am including it. Bee balm, Monarda, is native to North America as are the other two pinks in my garden. Bee balm is in my herb garden in front…
Over at Garden Rant Mary Gray's guest rant bewailed the state of many school grounds, all concrete and lawn. I am very familiar with the school grounds that she describes, but I feel fortunate that the children in our small town have a very different school experience. The Heath Elementary School, which opened in 1996, was built in a pasture surrounded by woodland. When the school bus pulls off the dirt road onto the driveway it passes a…
This blog is named for the common weed, dandelion or Taraxacum officinale. In the spring my lawn is covered with dandelions. I have learned not to use the lawn clippings from that season as mulch because I put dandelions in my perennial beds. Sometimes I don't even put those clippings with lots of dandelions gone to see in the compost. I am not sure my compost pile gets hot enough to kill those seeds. Now my lawn is…
Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota) appears on our roadsides and in the fields beginning in mid-July. I always think of it as a high summer plant. I never liked it much as a child, probably because I often saw it, or noticed it, when it was going by and curling into a cup-like shape that has given rise to another of its names, bird's nest flower. Like many flowers it does have several names. Others are bishop's lace…
Just when I was preparing a handout for my Heath Fair talk on Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants, I learned about a new group blog www.beautifulwildlifegarden.com that is being written by some of my favorite bloggers, many of whom I got to meet in Buffalo. Beautiful Wildlife Gardens will give you lots of information about the natural world around us - in different parts of the country. Informative and engaging. Which is what you might expect from a…
Ryan left for home with his father last night - but not before a final flurry of activity. He helped me move the chicks out of the brooding box and into a larger space. The henhouse has two sections, one for the laying hens, and the equally large 'entry' which we arrange so the chicks only have 2/3 of the space. It is so dark in the this area, with the brooding box still in place, that I…