I'm certifiable...

It's official, we now have a certified wildlife habitat on our property. nwf.org This means that we are providing the four basic things required for wildlife to survive. Food, water, cover and a place to raise their young. It's something that we've been doing for years. Now I have signage that tells everyone.

Morning Glory

Morning Glory
Originally uploaded by pjslomer

I decided this year to plant morning glory seeds. They are starting to bloom now and i am really enjoying their color.

July

Today i spent a good deal of time pruning. Clipping off spent blossoms and reshaping plants. Some of my earliest lavender plants needed some shaping... especially the ones near the back patio.

I also finished the side long bed. This bed now has the six burning bushes along with oat grass in between each burning bush and a Serbian spruce anchoring the end.

I continue to pick Japanese beetles off of the plants. Today i noticed how many were on the weeping larch!

Lavenders and Daylilys

Lavenders and Daylilys
Originally uploaded by pjslomer

Rainfall and Second Bloom...

Yesterday we had 6/10th of an inch of rain. A gentle rain fell for hours during the night. it was such a relief to go to sleep by the sound of rain and wake up again to the same sound. We really needed it. The rain barrels are filled... and we got a new downspout diverter to replace the one from years ago.
My rose is on its second bloom cycle of the season. These ones look to be much healthier than the first cycle that got frozen.

Beetle Bag...

So on Saturday we decided to put out the beetle traps in gather the beetles off of the birch trees. It seems that our waiting until the beetles were on the birches worked out well. Two days later, the birch trees are less infested and on my evening beetle hunt rounds, i didn't capture nearly as many beetles as a day ago. So it seems that milky spores help reduce the beetles coming up from the soil... and once the beetles come from neighboring lands, the bag traps go up. It was astonishing today... two days after putting up the bait traps... one trap (the one with the newest scent disk) was full and then some. Joseph and I had to work together to close up the bag, since the beetles were about 2 inches from the top! Never had that happen before and it was sort of creepy... but effective.

Above is a photo of the pots on the patio! Below is a photo of the main garden and the paper bark maple tree with its crescent of grasses.

Janice Brown Daylily