After a long heatwave, the air is finally cool and dry. Many of the annual plants are looking worse for wear, but the perennial herbs and flowers are chugging right along!

Purple spiderworts have such rich, exciting color — too bad they are really invasive! Two garden beds were completely taken over by pink spiderwort after I left them alone for three years “because they’re so pretty.” Now, I treat spiderwort like a weed and rip them out. They still come back, and we can enjoy the blooms, but it helps to prevent them from taking over.

An oasis in the far garden. This bird bath cracked in the cold one winter, so it leaks. Instead of replacing it, I filled it with pea stone and native moss, so it holds some water for the bees.

The elderflowers were plentiful this year, and now they are going by. Looking forward to the medicinal berries in the late summer. I may net the bushes this year because the birds tend to eat them just before they are ripe enough for human consumption.

My beloved yarrow is such a ally for skin health, and it is in full bloom right now. Harvest is tomorrow! Yarrow is the star of both Green Wonder Salve and Half Wild Herbal Bug Spray.

One of the few flowers that I have yet to identify in the perennial garden. Any ideas?

This lovely lily surprises me every year with its multicolors.

The creeping thyme is blooming in the lawn. If I had my way, it would replace all the grass — grow, thyme, grow!! Thyme is a key ingredient in Half Wild Herbal Bug Spray.

The St. John’s wort is ready for harvest tomorrow morning, too. Although the lore says that the flowers are ready around the summer solstice, this far north they are a few weeks delayed. Look for St. John’s wort in new Half Wild products coming later this year: Apres Ski and Apres Sport salves.

The year’s first raspberry is almost ripe!

It’s a butternut year…if we can snag a few ripe ones before the squirrels squirrel them away for the winter.

The black caps are almost ripe!

The milkweeds are blooming, and the smell is heavenly, like an expensive perfume. A few years ago, I decided to encourage the milkweed to grow, and it has really taken off. We had quite a few monarch caterpillars last year.

The hydrangea experiment. The right side was left to regrow without being cut back this year. The left side was pruned back to the ground in early spring. So far, the blooms are smaller than previous years, but I think they might be more beautiful. There is not difference between the two sides except how early they bloom.

One lovely lily.

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