I love having beautiful wild flowering perennials (aka “weeds”) growing in my yard. I let them be for the bees and butterflies. They’re an important unplanned part of my planned pollinator garden and grounds. If you are a lazy gardener nothing could be more welcomed, because you don’t have to water or fuss with them. If you’re cutting back on expenses they are free. They also rarely disappoint the way some perennials can, like my Azalea and Forsythia that only bloomed on the bottom this spring due to temperature extremes the past few months. So with that abundance in mind, it’s been a blast buying and planting things to add to it all!

My half “empty” Azalea this spring.

The bees see the bright side and are enjoying the full half of the shrub that flowered.

I went to two different local farms and bought organic pollinator perennials, tomato plant seedlings and herbs for our kitchen garden on our deck.

I picked up four food grade five gallon buckets from a local big box store for the tomatoes.

The untreated wildflower seeds have sprouted and our late season, record-breaking freeze of 31 degrees two nights ago didn’t kill them, thankfully, with a little preparation and luck.

Native wild strawberries attract many butterflies, the common cinquefoil growing along the foundation of my house behind the garden is also native to New England, and we have violets galore in white and purple. They and the strawberries are great green ground cover.

This year instead of buying annuals we planted some of our own free wild violets in our vintage urn planters at our door.

Randall, being the love that he is.

I’ve got to go start dinner before Wayne gets home–homemade pizza, crust and all, his favorite!