My dear friend Ruth is hosting The Loveliness of Summer Gardens today, and though I fear my thumb is still a bit on the brown side, as usual, I wanted to add my two cents. :)
In these late summer days, backyard gardens - meadows and roadsides too - are simply bursting with color and life. But my favorite "flowers" will always be the bright little feathered ones. :) The garden beds, shade plants and other ornamentals I leave in my husband's capable hands; for me it's all about the fauna, rather than the flora. I've come to realize and accept that the type of gardening that interests me the most is the kind that is commonly referred to as "wildlife gardening."
It's not perfect roses and umblemished tomatoes I seek (though they would be lovely, to be sure) but instead, songbirds and small mammals like chipmunks and red squirrels, as well as the humble toad, the brilliant butterfly, the lowly worm and the busy bee. Even the garden snake is fine by me. The more we see, the more hospitable I know our garden is to all of God's creatures ...
- songbirds harvesting seed from sunflowers
- chipmunks filling their cheeks ahead of autumn's advance
- crickets chirping the temperature on hot muggy nights
- bats swooping through the yard at dusk
- an owl screeching off in the woods
- fluttering moths and industrious orb weavers by the night light
- bumblebees lazily criss-crossing the lawn
- monarchs passing through on their way down south
- dragonflies hunting mosquitos
Our garden may not be filled with the rarest of blooms, but it will always be busy with life ...
For example:
Yesterday afternoon we observed the long-awaited return of our tiny red-breasted nuthatch. Oh, how we've missed him!
I've waited all summer for this particular shot! Here is one of our beautiful goldfinches, wearing his brightest coat of the year, enjoying a tasty sunflower snack.
Isn't he handsome? The boys and I sat in the window for a good ten minutes watching this finch eat his fill ...
Another thing I love at this time of year is the late summer sky. Below you see a storm is approaching ...
Which, of course, meant it was time to light the storm candle, another late summer tradition in our home:
At the base of our favorite birdfeeding tree (virtually the hub of our backyard garden) we found this strange looking thing:
Do you know what it is? Or what it was? (This is its exoskeleton.) On hot hazy days you can hear its call off in the distance ...
On misty mornings our front lawn is dotted - no, encased - by dewey webs. I looked up this particular kind of web in the Handbook of Nature Study, and I believe they are made by "grass spiders." (Perhaps so called because that is where they live?)
If this type of natural, wildlife gardening interests you too, please let me recommend THE most wonderful book on the subject ~ A Blessing of Toads by Sharon Lovejoy. It is worth its weight in gold for information and inspiration. I'll bet you are familiar with some of her other books - Sunflower Houses, Hollyhock Days and Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots (each one a treasure trove of nature projects for families). A Blessing of Toads is a collection of essays, a "gardener's guide to living with nature." I am currently on my third read-through!!
Stop by Ruth's later today for the Loveliness of Summer Gardens, and please tell us ~ what is living in your garden these late August days?
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