Garden Wander After the Heatwave

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.

Garden Wander

I have a rare quiet day today to enjoy the garden and catch up on some chores. The sun is bright, but not hot, and it feels so good to be outside. The gardens are almost in full bloom, and I'm starting to harvest herbs for locally grown Half Wild products. Look for some new salves and toners coming later in the summer, and for now, enjoy this wander through the garden.

The bearded irises are luminous in the afternoon sunshine today.

The flush of roses has begun! Rosa rugosa blooms all season, until the first frost, but for a few weeks in June, the volume of blooms is much greater. Each day, I handpick rose chafer pests from the plants, then harvest the rose petals, and finally prune off yesterday’s spent blossoms to encourage more blooms. These rose petals are the star of Half Wild Rosewater Toner, leaving skin soft and silky.

Pineapple weed volunteers in the most difficult of places — the driveway! This local relative of chamomile smells delicious and always makes me smile when I step out of my car.

The yarrow is getting ready to bloom. Soon, I will be harvesting for Green Wonder Salve and Herbal Bug Spray.

The comfrey is gorgeous and in full bloom — feeding pollinators and my soul. I will soon be harvesting the first stalks for Green Wonder Salve and other new salves making their debut this year.

The valerian is reaching for the sun today. Tall and stately, these plants pop up all over the garden — even right out of the lawn! A strong medicine, in more ways than one.

This Siberian iris has a visitor.

Some of the Siberian irises have been popping up white with yellow highlights. The surprises never cease when Mother Nature is at the wheel.

A patch of daisies volunteering in the lawn. Who has the heart to mow these days?

White bedstraw in full bloom and carpeting some of the nearby fields.

The peonies are blooming! The peonies are blooming!

And one more peony on its way.

Iris Garden Wander

The irises are almost in full bloom, and we have lots of them!

purple and white bearded iris

yellow bearded iris

First bloom on the comfrey, with first harvest coming on Monday. Comfrey is a wonderful, healing herb for your skin and features in Half Wild Green Wonder Salve - perfect for working hands and troubled skin.

This volunteer pink columbine comes up each spring out of the middle of a rock wall, between the horseradish and the comfrey, and well shaded by an ancient hawthorn tree. Herbs always find a way.

The chives are blooming! I used to harvest the blossoms for chive blossom vinegar, but now I leave them for the bees.

The grapes are blooming! I rarely catch a glimpse of them this time of year, among the explosion of greenery that signals a North Country June.

We have lots and lots of Siberian irises. I wish they bloomed all year!

The lupines are just starting to bloom.

Here’s one of the few lupine spikes that have bloomed already.

Thanks for wandering with me!