PM, that is excellent information on the berm. Thank you for the time you took to write that! I’m sorry it took me a while to respond. You are so thoughtful to take the time you do to write such helpful details. I thought it might be a dead tree trunk, but now I understand better how it created such good soil. I NEVER turn our compost. Maybe a berm is a better method for me. It sounds like oxygen can get in there easier, especially with the branches. Isn’t it funny that we get excited about piling up trash greenery, grass clippings, and pesky branches?!

As for the rabbits, I’m glad you found so many beautiful things to photograph, and I’m glad rabbits are only one or two feet tall! Your roses and everything else look great. And congratulations on your monarch caterpillars! You inspired me to interplant dill in the garden, but only one seedling survived the slugs, and just today I saw TWO swallowtail caterpillars on it! I hope there’s enough of those skinny little leaves for it to eat!

I have NO tomotatoes in pots this year. Silly me. Yours look wonderful!

PM, only 20 pots in the ghetto? Frankly, I’m disappointed. Tradition requires we have so many we can barely count them. Next year I expect you to do more uncontrolled impusle purchasing of plants and seeds and rectify this horrible situation! If you need advice on how to achieve that, DM me immediately. ;-)

You will not see jewelweed anywhere except maybe Prairie Moon Seeds. It has a 150% germination rate, so it is considered a weed. I learned after three years that I needed to do serious editing of them in spring and summer. it is an annual, which is good. I heard a podcast that described how they all germinated at the exact same time (which is true) to choke out and cover other noxious weed seedlings. In that sense, they are helpful. Because they are annuals, they are very easy to pull up . Therefore, I continue to let them seed in the garden, knowing that each year I’ll pull out a few hundred seedlings in the mulched walkway and beds (which is easy peasy becaues they literally germinate like a carpet and you can pull ten with one pull) so i have plenty for the hummingbirds, who love them. There are usually hummingbirds buzzing in that area! They are considered a friendly weed.

PM, I still don’t have roses. When I do get one, I’ve saved one of your extremely helpful previous posts so I’ll know which to pick. I’ll get to it oneday…

A few years ago my daughter asked me to put some yellow in the garden. I realized I basically had only pinks, purples, and white with a little bit of yellow. So, cardinal flower here I come. And Rudbeckias. This combo adds some good life to the garden. I REALLY love the shocking red of the cardinal flower.

This white azalea blooms a litte in late summer and a little in spring, which means it never really impresses. It’s only virtue is that it is at least ”just there” every year.

My September Beauty summersweet is just starting to bloom.

River Oats are starting their bloom. I love these draping seed heads, which will very soon display toothed edges.

I don’t see it every year, but with our moist conditions we did have Indian Ghost Pipe again this year. It is near the end of it’s ”bloom” or ”sprout.”

And, lastly, we don’t have a Critters post any more, so I’ll put it here. For the first time in memory a humpback whale made his/her way up the side of the peninsula and spent a few hours filling his belly, right in front of our house. It was SO AWESOME! Notice how close he is to shore, but our river is deep and about 50’ right there. He/she was likely a juvenile as it seemed on the small side.