June has become my favorite month. It used to be October, but really, how can you beat June in the garden and on the prairie? Especially after an extra-long, extra-cold winter, to have fresh greens, asparagus, and radishes to eat and, well, not just ANY flowers come up first.
Lupine. They are at once delicate and sturdy. Even their leaves are impressive and flower-shaped. Their stems are hardy and graceful. Their petals are fresh and velvety. And purple.
I don’t know about you, but I expect yellow flowers– purple and red are always so impressive in nature. Be it berries or leaves or flowers, purple draws you in. In a large prairie like ours, you see it in your peripheral vision and say to yourself: “What is going on over there?”
This past week, two monarch butterflies have been fluttering and getting busy, hopefully laying eggs on the underside of the milkweed plants that are growing up everywhere.
Before you even get to the prairie, right there next to the septic field, right on the LAWN, is this clump of daisies. I’m very tempted to take out my shovel and move them into my garden.
And once you head down the path to see the lupine, you get an eye full of some other impressive flowers coming into their own. I mean, seriously, how can you not gasp when you are confronted by wild white indigo. Looking like a cousin of lupine (both are members of the pea family), we’ve only had these bee favorites the past few years– but they are spreading. They are more stem and leaf than flower, with wild waving arms: “look at me! look at me!” The yellow Alexanders that spot the prairie are hardly noticeable in the midst of these guys.
Wildflowers and natives don’t last long as cut flowers. They’re meant to be seen in place. But I just had to bring some inside. If even just for a few days.
And meanwhile, once you’ve appreciated what the nurseries call “the stunners,” you can soak in the possibilities. In a mature prairie, the native grasses grow in clumps, with spaces between. And it’s clear to see black-eyed-Susans (rudbeckia) and bee balm (bergamot) and even prairie clover on the way. And white sage is starting to form up into its gray hair streak through the green.
Teeming with life. When I walked out to take a photo of the indigo, a little green caterpillar ended up on my neck! Can caterpillars fly? Maybe only in June.
What a lovely, serene place. Another little corner of heaven.
It’s still an adventure seeing what will bloom next in our garden since it was here before us. Some things have produced glorious blooms, some haven’t done much of anything. Most are exotic. But I do miss daisies, my all time favorite. There don’t seem to be any here.