tidied up

grass edges around a few more beds today, and borders of the lawn where my husband mowed yesterday. I was trimming stuff and pulling (what I think is) japanese stiltgrass from around the milkweeds- still no monarch caterpillars though I did glance looking for them- and saw the hummingbird! It was inspecting my young hybrid japanese maple tree (wonder what attracted it to that) and then zoomed over to feed on a few blooms of gladiolas. Must be feeding on the black and blue salvia, too. I'm hoping the cardinal climbers will bloom soon and then I can see it on my deck. 

I do believe my echinacea patch looks healthier than ever this year.

I'd hope it's from measures I took the year before last, to cut back on disease- cutting out all stems that had white stickiness fuzz from mealy bugs, and when the plants died back, cleaning out as much of the dropped blackened leaf litter as I could- assuming it harbored aphid eggs. This year there seems to be far less diseased leaves. (I had the same sense about my borage patch in the front yard, but it could just be that I'm so glad to be out doing stuff in the yard again, everything looks better than ever, ha). 

I've seen what looks like a single pea vine among the echinacea in years past, this time I found it flowering- looks like a sweet pea but no scent.

The funny seed stalks of my arum are standing around.

I did see a swallowtail butterfly up close among the coneflowers, and stood a while just to watch it. Still pleased with my patch of lysimachia purpurea groundcover

- although it remains much less impressive through the camera eye.

Also happy with the sweet woodruff, even though I still remember how my youngest thought it was a weed! (The one that's really a weed is the creeping jenny- I regret putting that in now. I must start pulling it out).

The boneset plant is doing just fine here in the back corner- where nothing else had really thrived yet. It's near my camellia- here's a picture of that- which also looks better this year than ever.

I'm telling you, my vision is colored overly positive since recovery has allowed me to get outside and get my hands pleasantly dirty again! Only an hour or two a day so far, that's enough to tire me out still, but I'm happy with it.