Wildlife Wednesday – Health4earth

Life in an Urban Garden

Spiderwort are blooming — Spider-wort are blooming

Everything is green and lush. Everyone loves their yard in June. Whether you have a grass turf yard or native plants, urban yards are beautiful. How can you create a vibrant living landscape with a more friendly tilt to pollinators?

I watch the monarch butterflies and the swallow tiger tail and hope they leaving eggs as

they flit around. The painted lady butterflies have deposited egg fuzz on the pearly everlasting making them look wilted and sick. In just a short time the caterpillars will emerge and the pearlys will be normal and healthy. Hopefully, the cycle will continue and new butterflies will live long enough to plant more eggs. Birds eat these butterflies.

The native Canada Anemone is blooming now!

The columbine and the wild geranium have almost completed their blooms, but the Canada Anemone and the spider-wort are magnificent!

We are digging our rain gardens deeper and wider. Then we plant blazing star, cardinal-flower, and turtle head to the bottom of these rain capturing gardens. The butterflies, bees and hummingbirds will love these new additions.

See the article below for ways you can create a vibrant living landscape with a more friendly tilt to pollinators: http://www.startribune.com/planting-with-pollinators-in-mind/306646301/

Superior Views, May into June

My hero plant is the dandelion, yes, dandelion! The dandelion attracts the monarchs, painted lady, red admiral, tiger swallow-tail and many other butterflies. I am trying to create habitat for the many butterflies that inhabit the north country. Swamp milkweed, pearly everlasting and pussy toes are my newest plants for butterfly habitat. The road where we walk,covered with dandelions, is where the painted lady, dusty wings, and sulfurs hang out, and I had monarch and tiger swallow-tail butterfly sightings this week!

Robins are raising babies just outside my door, and the forest is joyful with the sounds of the white-throated sparrow, chestnut sided warbler, red starts, robins, song sparrows, pewee, buzz of the parula and many warblers songs we are still trying to identify. Most days the air is cool, and the wind off the big lake regulates the temperatures and weather.

If you are interested in creating butterfly habitat in your yard here are some links : www,learnaboutnature.com http://www.thebutterflysite.com/minnesota-butterflies.shtml
http://www.thebutterflysite.com/create-butterfly-garden.shtml

Trout Lily bloom in May along Lake Superior

Happy Spring/Wildlife Wednesday

March 18, the seed heads still attract birds

Wildlife Wednesday, Happy Spring!

Spring in Minnesota is glorious! The snow piles have melted and icy snowy sidewalks are only a tiny bleep in memory. We have a yard with no turf grass and mostly native plants and grasses. The birds love to stop for plant seeds on their migration. I garden for the birds, bees, and butterflies. So far harbingers of spring have been juncos, robins, and the cardinals singing their morning spring song. The chickadees and the downy woodpecker sit in the lilac bush inches from my window. As you can see, it is time to cut off last year’s plants and grasses.