Friday, May 10, 2019

A garden for the birds and bees



A work in progress.

We have this unused area of space right outside the dining room windows.  When we moved here there was a massive, ancient rose bush planted there but it was killed by a hard winter.  So there's a patch of dirt there where we stuck a bird feeder which got filled occasionally.

This year is the first time that I've kept the feeders full all of the time.  And we've have so many birds come to it that we can't believe it.


Here are some google pictures of the birds that we as seeing every day now: gold finches, Baltimore orioles, rose breasted grosbeaks and indigo buntings.  Lord knows I'm not feeding anything special, it's just the wild bird mix from TSC but we're getting so many birds.  I've never seen an indigo bunting up close like this before.  He's here every day and  spends most of his day parked on one of the feeders.  I've named him Bernie.

I got the idea to turn this patch of ground into a bird/pollinator garden with a bird bath and plants that would attract and feed the visitors. 

So here is the space we started with.  


That bright blue dot on the side of the right feeder is Bernie.

Here's a rough sketch of what I'm going for:


I dug a bunch of different daylillies from my parent's house along with a peony bush. For the bees and butterflies I'm planting yarrow, hyssop, cone flowers, bee balm and borage.  For caterpillars; milkweed (for monarchs) and parsley (Swallowtail butterflies).  Canna and salvia for the hummingbirds.   In the gaps between perennials I've put wildflower seeds and buckwheat.


The youngest supervises.


Here is some of it laid out.  The perennials are all planted, parsley is growing under lights.  We're still waiting on some seeds to come in the mail and I need to find some milkweed to transplant.


We're all very excited about it.

Any suggestions for plants that bees and butterflies love?

1 comment:

  1. Just thought I'd say that I love your blog. A little ray of sunshine. Take care, Specks.

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