A Few Annuals and One Summer of Growth

Perennial gardens take patience, and for those lacking in it, a few annuals can fill in the gaps the first year. I chose some lantanas and a purple coneflower already in bloom at a local garden center. The butterflies who stopped by appreciated those additions as well. This photo was taken right before the average first frost to document the growth in one season.

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Down Goes The Cardboard

20 Bags of Mulch on the Ground

While my hope is that native violets will fill in as a living groundcover, mulch is needed in the meantime. I've labeled every single plant so that I will know what should appear where and to better inform my future weeding activities after a long winter.

And So It Begins...

Exhibit A: "The Ailing Flower Bed" -- consisting of a deep slope, a shallow soil bed, gravel from the driveway, garlic mustard, and some invasive shrubs. As a co-leader for a Girl Scout troop, I was thrilled when my troop voted to plant habitat gardens for monarch butterflies and native bumblebees. I even tried talking them out of their plans, making sure they really didn't want to do one of their other ideas instead. I didn't want my unexpressed enthusiasm for the project to somehow have subliminally influenced their decision. So when they finalized their idea and selected their garden plans, I set out only to make sure the plants in the pre-planned monarch and pollinator gardens they chose were really ideal native plant choices for monarchs and native pollinators. As I did some fact-checking, something clicked, and I just had to put together a butterfly garden of my own. I researched the common butterflies of Wisconsin, along with their native ...

My Native Wisconsin Butterfly Garden

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