Front Boulevard Photos

I really didn't want to mow anymore grass than I had to. Besides, grass is really an invasive weed anyway. You water it and water it and it doesn't really give you anything back, does it? So, it's really time to start getting rid of the grass and putting in a perennial garden with Minnesota native plants and pollinator plants. Mother Earth gives so much to us (like um, air to breath, water to drink, etc...), so it's time to give back to Mother Earth. 

This side is mostly irises, daylillies, and bee balm. It's what I planted last fall with what I had. The irises were really pretty this past year - some were purple, others were yellow, I really had no idea what they were since they came from my mom's house. 

This is the other side. This is more of the pollinator garden side. I've got bee balm, butterfly weed, a few hostas, wild geranium, and more daylillies. Half I planted this spring from splitting plants and moving what didn't work last year. The other half came from local plant nurseries. 

This is wild geranium (I think). There's already TONS of small bees all around this thing - but they're too small to see in a photograph like this.

Here's one of the beds with more pollinator plants. We don't have a great area for a true veggie garden so I have to stick my veggies into my flower beds, which is fine except that it's really good for the rabbits and not for us. I can't do anything about that until next year AFTER the huge Norway Pine comes down on the side of the house. THEN I'll do a raised bed with all veggies and put up rabbit fencing so I don't have to deal with that problem again. 

I bought a new variety of bee balm - I LOVE my hot pink bee balm but the bees like a variety of plants so I decided to get the light purple for a variety of colors and pollens for the bees. 

My shasta daisies are doing great - they're twice as big as last year and I've already split some and moved them. Next year I'll have to pull a few more so they don't take over. They're so tall though, I need to swap a plant to the front so it's not hidden by the daisies or in the shade of the daisies. I'll have to wait until everything is done blooming to do that.

SO... WELCOME TO THE GARDEN.

Happy summer! I can't wait until more flowers are blooming!