We’ve been whirling around in our gardens for the past several weeks in a scramble to get everything planted, weeded, mulched, staked, and fertilized.

May was madness, with its sultry temperatures and astonishing glut of peonies and ranunculus that came just as thousands of plants needed to be tucked into the ground.  But now that we’re on this side of it, all those late nights of planting and harvesting have an undeserved rosy hue.  Funny that you forget how it was so hard to walk upright and instead remember the first night the fireflies showed up or the way the garden smells in spring… all rich earth and fresh cut grass and the softest scent of spring flowers.  Gardening is its own reward.

We added two new sets of beds this year with the hopes of combining our three flower gardens into one.  It sounded good in theory: less mowing, more growing.  Blame it on January brain.  We have since promised ourselves No New Beds next year, for reasons I’ll leave you to imagine. These beds are planted with rudbeckia, Chinese asters, amaranth, cosmos, and sunflowers.

This area was also converted from grass into one long bed this spring.  We filled it with eucalyptus and rosemary, with space for a tepee of scarlet runner beans right there in front.  As we get more settled into our garden we are trying to think about ways to add height and interest to it.  It is important to us that it be a pretty place, too.

English roses and June are a classic pairing, just like peanut butter and jelly.  I wish you could smell this urn of roses.

We’ve had thrip trouble this year, and are hoping a certain garlic spray we’re using will discourage them and the Japanese beetles when they appear.  Warm days and cool nights also produced a fungus on the roses, so we treated them with a Neem oil concoction.  And just to be certain we are doing what we can to prevent those infuriating Japanese beetles we scattered milky spore around all the roses and raspberries.  Last year the beetles ate an entire bloom cycle of roses and I still haven’t forgiven them for it.  Roses are work, no doubt about it, but treat them well and they reward you handsomely.

The first year of gardening we realized we had to name the different sections of our garden because neither one of us does very well with things like “the South end of the North Peony Bed”.  We have to pause to translate into our own language – “Oh, you mean the bed closest to the raspberries?” –  and who has time for that?  Our very first garden was 12 small plots, neatly divided up by cardboard rows.  Being preacher’s kids, we called it The Twelve Tribes (of Israel) and it stuck.  This section is The North Twelve Tribes, an addition to the Twelve Tribes that now houses this years zinnia, orach, and celosia crops.

Did you ever wonder what that small, grayish building is in the background of many of our garden photos?  No, it’s not our potting shed, sadly.  We call it the Bee House because it is filled with hives of honey bees.  Dad plants crops especially for the bees to make honey.  This particular field of white flowers bordering our garden is buckwheat.  We like it.  It keeps the bees out of our hair. Literally.

Sweet Peas.  End of speech.

Baby blue scabiosa.  These guys survived the winter, but many of their friends did not.  It was just that cold.  We filled up the empty spots in the scabiosa bed with white and deep burgundy varieties.

A little rosemary baby.

Of course, the garden is far from perfect, as evidenced by a few hairy corners and jobs that keep getting postponed because we run out of daylight.  But that’s the beauty of June gardening, I suppose. It’s a chance to finally tend what you’ve planted, to stake, weed, water, and fertilize, and watch the miracle of growing things all over again.

JUNE.  Need we say anything more?

Thanks for taking the garden tour!  Until next time…

LaRonda