The first half of June has been quite busy! We created a new garden and worked on some maintenance. We also put in an irrigation system as a way to be more efficient with the way we use water. Last year, while we installed a rain barrel, we used a lot of sprinklers and hoses to water both our lawn and garden. I found despite my efforts the lawn wasn’t very successful, and as I looked more into it, I realized how inefficient and costly (environmentally, financially) the traditional lawn is. Since then, I spent a lot of time learning about alternative lawns and the no-lawn movement in general – I will make a post about this another time.

One thing I started to pay more attention to this month is all of the beautiful wildflowers in Ontario. Living in the country gives me the opportunity to see a lot more relatively undisturbed nature. I went for a walk with my friend earlier this week in the forest and she introduced me to wildflowers that I didn’t even know existed! I was completely unaware that we have wild lilies and roses.

This year, while working on our pollinator garden, I have had a lot of opportunity to reflect upon native and invasive species. The more I learn, the more I am able to identify when going for walks. About ten years ago or so, when I was studying tea ceremony, my teacher encouraged me to make a journal of the different flowers blooming each season, so that I could become more aware of seasonality. I made a journal for myself where I could see the different flowers blooming, and I recall the experience making me more attune to what was happening in my environment. It’s interesting to revisit this task, and to become even more involved as now I have the opportunity to grow my own garden. While before I enjoyed looking at wildflowers on walks, I feel like now they have taken on a new depth for me, I look at them and think about how they benefit different birds and insects. I think about how (and if) it’s possible for me to incorporate them into my own garden.

I never really gave up my interest in birds, and throughout the years I have watched birds and listened to their calls. That being said, I don’t believe my passion for flowers and plants really came into it’s own until I started creating my own garden. There’s a small meadow beside my house that is full of wildflowers, I’m enjoying cutting some to put in my kitchen, and thinking about how I can potentially propagate or relocate some to my own garden.

Learning about pollinators (e.g., bees, birds, beetles, bats, etc.) has started to change my perspective on ‘weeds’ as well. I never really understood why something was considered a weed before, but now I’m beginning to create my own definition of it. For me, a weed is an invasive species that chokes out or damages the natural ecosystem. Or potentially a plant that is lovely one place but not in another. For example, I love queen anne’s lace, and think it’s a beautiful flower. However, my side garden is covered in queen anne’s lace, so I’m actively working to remove it so that I can plant more diverse plants. Alternatively, I found some beautiful swamp milkweed and daises in my garden. I didn’t put these there, nature did, but they will be incredibly beneficial to local wildlife.

I love gardening because it’s a hobby I can do for my entire life, and it’s something I can continuously learn from. Every year we make lots of mistakes, for instance, this year we dug holes for lilac trees too close together in an area with almost no sun. We also spread black mulch around our garden, which I learned can be potentially dangerous as the wood can come from suspicious sources like old pallets. That being said, we learned from our mistakes from previous years, and have been continuously building upon our garden. The amount of biodiversity we have this year – after only a year or living here – is incredible. We get different birds almost every day! I’m still working on becoming more aware of the different insects around our property.

Here are some of the plants that bloomed in our garden in the first half of June.

1. Ninebark
2. Peony
3. Peony
4. Lavender
5. Ninebark
6. Sweet William
7. Weigela
8. Blazing star(?)
9. Daisies

Until next time!