Despite the fact that our butterfly garden has been dedicated as such, the old grass is trying to reestablish its territory. So every morning I go out to pull grass. It’s amazingly hard to pull it out with its roots in this clay soil, so chances are I’ll be pulling grass for some time to come. On the plus side, I get to spent ample time admiring the wildlife that is frequenting the garden. This morning I enjoyed, among others, Monarch, Queen, Skipper, Sulphur, and Tiger Swallowtail butterflies. They’d fly over me, casting shadows the size of birds, and as I looked up I’d see a vision of color fluttering by.
This morning also brought a dragonfly and a small centipede, which crawled quite close to my flip-flop-exposed toes. I just studied it for awhile and went back to my gardening. After all, a centipede, while hazardous to humans, is quite the bug predator and is welcome in my garden. On the other hand, perhaps I should stop wearing flip flops!
Happily all my plants are doing well. The rains we had last week assured me that my front yard plants are finally getting established — they have really settled in and started growing. It’s fun to see all so many blooms on small plants. It’s like watching small kids learning to do grown-up things. Here’s a close-up of a milkweed bloom.
I should correct my statement to say that all of my plants that have survived the dogs are doing well. The thundering husky and his girlfriend do their best to trample the garden or eat young seedlings. Hopefully, if all goes well, one of these days the surviving plants will be large enough that the dogs will go around, instead of through, the garden. If only the dogs could pull up the grass for me — that would be okay.
my grass thanks you for this site