I love how quickly the light changes at the garden. These photos that I took under the shade structure were taken just over an hour apart.

Yesterday we participated in a solstice gathering with KU. There were about 50 people who braved the heat to come out and walk through the garden.

I am known for *not* taking photos of people. Bugs and flowers are my jam. Luckily, someone from KU did take a few crowd shots that I’ll expect in an email within the next week.

June has been an incredibly busy month, starting with our native plant sale on June 4th. I’ve been taking photos and working at the garden, but finding the time to sit down to write has been difficult for me.

Getting the iPhone 13 Pro to take a closeup photo is excruciating. I tried dozens of times and only got this blurry result of eggs on the back of a ground nut leaf. After this disappointing attempt, I dusted off my SLR and will be bringing it to the garden to practice once more.

I take photos of the entry garden less consistently than I do my “framed” photo under the shade structure. This garden is looking spectacular this year thanks to the hard work by a few dedicated folks. Culling and moving plants early in the season really has paid off.

Of the “purple” echinaceas, pallida seems to be the only one that doesn’t radically mutate at the garden.

We aren’t sure if this is a mutant or another species. The backstory is: for almost a decade, almost every single purpurea we have planted has not come back true the next year. We always pull the mutated plants. I think we have one that survived last year to this. It does make me wonder what is happening!

Early June is a spectacular time to visit the garden and look for visual treasures. We are now, toward the end of the month, just starting to see more monarchs.

The photos above were all from June 7th, with the iPhone.

June 11th was our public workday. It was wonderful to have about nine folks, many of them not regular volunteers for us, come out and make great headway on weeding.

Our “special project” was an attempt at bindweed control. (I can hear you chuckling, dear reader.) Gary and Larry took on this Herculean task with aplomb. For them I am grateful!

We are still not nearly done with this year’s attempt at discouraging bindweed. Gary continues to cut it back every few weeks, which is one technique that might help discourage it. But it’s been a years-long issue and addressed multiple times.

Secretly, we are Big Sky Country, too.

Hackberry emperors have been out in force, enjoying the fruits of the mulberry tree back behind the shed.

I’ll close this post with the lovely sight of so many folks in attendance on June 11. An herbal studies class also showed up and walked the garden, doubling our numbers! We tried to put them to work. They weren’t having it.

Take care and thanks for reading.