What the garden looks like in June

For several years now, the garden was pretty much left to it’s own devices; astonishingly, it looks more lush and lovelier than ever.

Last year, other things took priority, and there’s only so much time in the day. Building a house takes a lot of energy, leaving little behind for the task of maintaining a garden.

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Fortunately, now that the bones of it are in place, even if it’s left for a bit it still looks wonderful.

I tell myself that the few weeds that aren’t choked out by the lush growth of other plants are butterfly attractants.

The first view coming in the driveway is quite depressing.

Instead of what you would see formerly, now you meet the ratty old trailer that was dragged out of the way to free up the building site, and parked across the driveway is the bright orange bus that was our home while building.

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The trailer was dragged to the driveway, where it still sits today, squashing the plants in the rock garden.

And they were looking so nice. I hope they recover once the horrible trailer is dismantled.

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Small areas of the garden actually look quite marvelous, like the little well garden planted with the Almey crabapple tree.

Unfortunately, it’s stuck between piles of junk and building debris, so you have to squint to shut those parts out.

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The beautiful clematis strewn gazebo in the Circle of Thyme Chapel of St. Francis of Assissi fell under the weight of many years of snow; rebuilding it will be another project, but using some rather stronger poles this time around.

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Who knew that Clematis would be so thick that it would hold the snow enough to collapse the gazebo?

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Glory Be is in her glory now, with a perky hairdo of Sedum in full bloom.

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The tiny house, even though it’s far from finished, a bit of brightening up with some camouflage painted pots and a panty hose wreath.

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Birds are always welcome in my garden, wherever they decide to build a nest.

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Work on the Carsen Andrew Memorial Garden is still going on when there is some energy.

Building a stone wall to frame the salad garden and raking out all the gravel to level the area is done, but there’s still a ways to go with the rill.

People say, what’s that?

A rill is a decorative water feature that actually is functional, and will get rid of unwanted rainwater from the eaves.

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Anything that can hold a planter or two is used for displaying – here, a hypertufa sag pot is placed on three Siberian elm logs.

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The camouflage planters are always available for a hit of color and vibrant accents.

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These happy Sempervivum have been in this hypertufa strata planter for three years now.

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Hardy perennials are protected by the lush growth of many ground covers
The garden and is lush and thick with new growth, and many flowers poke their heads up above the groundcovering Vinca minor ‘Ralph Schugert’ and Sedum kamscatichum, among other xeric plants.

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The pond is just started to come into it’s own with the water lilies opening their leaves.

So that’s what’s happening in my garden in June, that most wonderful of months. If I can stay ahead of the weeds, and keep the mosquitoes at bay, this is my favorite time of the year.