Bird, Bee & Butterfly Garden - A Work In Progress

                         Bird, Bee and Butterfly Garden

    Spring 2019 Update

This garden did well to survive the winter.

 

This is a project I've been wanting to do for years. Unfortunately, when one is renting, landlords don't allow a lot of gardening changes to their yards. And who wants to put that kind of money into a place where you'll be moving from in a year or so?  So after we bought this place I couldn't decide what to do with this space. Bird, bee and butterfly garden works perfectly here where it's mostly blocked from the wind on the sunny side of the house.

Before

      Each square on the graph paper represents an inch. Sorry, it doesn't show up as well as I had hoped.

Planning Left Side

Planning Right Side

     The Catmint did really well under the bird feeder pole. Next year I'm going to put one or two more plants there. The catmint and the bee balm, (tall ones in the back) were from a local nursery and not from seed. The bushy plant near the birdbath is salvia from a neighbors garden. The violas under the birdbath and the snapdragon, in front of the bee balm, were both planted from seed and transplanted.  I have a dickens of a time trying to get anything to grow from seed that is directly planted into the ground here.

Early in the Year

       Here you can see the sunflower that planted itself from birdseed and it is almost as big as the ones in the back which were planted much earlier.

Early in the Year

Here the dry creek bed is in progress.

Dry Creek Bed

Violas Under the Birdbath

The Lupine supposedly was a sunshiny plant, but it did not do well at all here. Maybe it's a variety that needs just partial sun and was mislabeled.

Violas with Lupine Just Barely Showing on the Right

      The yellow snapdragons lasted into December. Kinda unusual.

Snapdragons in Midsummer

      These Sweet Williams actually did much better after this picture. I didn't get a picture after the border was up. Watch for the update this next season.

Sweet Williams in Midsummer

Late Summer