Yard Work – June 2025

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This time of year, all the grasses are growing well. I have reduced the amount of yard with grass…but mowing is still the most time consuming form of yard work for me over the whole season.

My goal is to cut back on the area I mow and skew the ‘yard work’ toward establishing my native plant gardens. My shade garden is close to being the way I want it. Recently I’ve cut down pokeweed and pulled poison hemlock that was growing in the area near the young pawpaw trees. I took a picture of the compost pile the day after I added the debris from that effort. The stems of the pokeweed are still identifiable by color. The more delicate curls of vegetation are the poison hemlock.

In the new native plant garden in the front yard, I am digging out dandelions that are growing through the mulch….keeping the area clear for the native plants to spread and fill the space.

The area under the shortleaf pine was crowded with pokeweed up to the lower branches. I cut quite a few down and will let them rot where they fell!

On the plus side, I discovered some blackberries growing under the pokeweed!

The hackberry that was growing in the yew hedge was cut back – I don’t want a tree growing there. I couldn’t get to the root so it will likely return.

My goal in June is to do as much as I can to get the yard in great shape so there won’t be much aside from mowing in the hotter part of the summer.

Our Missouri Yard – May 2026

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May was full of new growth in our yard.

In the front yard…the Kousa Dogwood bloomed…and began to fade. The Missouri Evening Primrose near the mailbox began to bloom. In the new native plant garden, the new plants (like the Ratttlesnake Master and Elderberry) began to thrive; there was a robin’s egg in the mulch under the maple there. The Virginia creeper was lush and green filling the spaces in the flower bed near the house and climbing over everything. There were some asters that came up in one bed on their own in spaces near some daylilies. In the side yard a clump of lambs ear and poke weed were in the same place as last year – not specifically planted but seemed to thrive in that spot.

The shade garden at the side of the house includes young pawpaws (one purchased from Ozark Soul last year, 2 from seeds of a pawpaw from the Roston Native Butterfly House, and 3 from seedling I bought from MDC). The American Spikenard presides over an expanse of violets (I’ve been harvesting the violet leaves to eat as leafy greens). The allium bulbs I planted the first fall we lived in the house bloomed in April and are forming seeds now. The hostas (not native) sometimes provide a contrast with nearby violets. The Eastern White Pine that makes the lower part of the shade garden may produce cones this year – if it does it will be the first time.

In the back yard….The Witch Hazel will probably grow rapidly this year; it did have a few blooms last winter but has no seed pods. The hollies are blooming (delighting bees). The garden where a pine once stood has lambs ear…some elderberries…and an oak seedling (squirrel planted); it will be interesting to see how it develops. The columbines along the fence have a few blooms but are fading….and the irises are done for the year. Some of dandelions seem huge and I wonder if they are a variety grown for greens; I will start to harvest them! The Fragrant Sumac that was the first native plant that I purchased is taking over a space near the patio; I need to keep the Japanese honey suckle away from it….otherwise let it do its thing!

May growth points to 2026 being a great year for my developing yard!

Backyard Greens

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My backyard greens are ready to eat! I won’t be buying arugula or spinach again until the late fall. Since I don’t put any chemicals on my yard – they are safe to harvest/eat just before I need them.

Right now, the dandelions are full of blooms and I pick mostly flowers – although there are a few leaves too. I generally use them in stir fry since cooking reduces the bitterness of the leaves. The flowers are tasty cooked or fresh!

I use violet leaves like arugula. The flowers are edible – but only available in the spring. They are easy to harvest and seem to replenish themselves quickly. The violet patch has gotten bigger each year we have lived in our house – once I stopped mowing the area where they were spilling out of the flowerbed. They will be the ‘carpet’ under the American Spikenard and the small Red Buckeye and pawpaw and spicebush.

The dandelions are not native…but they are attractive to pollinators and their roots are deep – they hold the soil. So – I am OK with them in my yard. The violets are native and I am encouraging them to grow as far out into the yard as they want. They have taken over about a third of the yard area on the east side of the house; there they get morning sun but once the neighbor’s River Birch gets its leaves the area get less sun even in the morning; the violets thrive in that environment!

I am enjoying the green bounty of my backyard!

George Washington Carver National Monument

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Last week my husband and I made our first visit to George Washington Carver National Monument. It is south of Carthage, MO and a bit over an hour from our house near Springfield….a good choice for a day trip.

It was a sunny and cool spring day. I took a few pictures of plants in my yard while I was waiting for my husband to be ready to go. The dandelions are blooming and there was one seed puff already! My Missouri Evening Primrose is coming up from last year’s roots and the maple is already forming seeds.

On the way, I noticed that the redbuds along I-44 were beginning to bloom. The flowers were probably not fully open, but there was enough color to identify the trees as we drove. The redbuds at our house were not quite so far along.

I enjoyed the walk through the woods at the monument. There were some wildflowers – and clumps of daffodils (not wild, obviously) in the woods.  A few insects were out as well so the flowers will be pollinated!

There is a statue of a young George Carver in an area of stream/forest. He was born to a slave family on the farm…almost died when he was young (illness and kidnapping)…managed to survive and was able to become educated…he became head of the Tuskegee Agriculture Department in 1896; he taught there until his death in 1943. He is buried at Tuskegee University.

The woods were greening with the wildflowers, but the trees were mostly dormant. Some of them were probably ashes and would not be leafing out again. It is a common occurrence in Missouri right now; the emerald ash borer that killed the ashes in Maryland before we moved to Missouri is now killing the ash trees in Missouri. There is water in many places along the Carver Trail (loop) – Williams Pond/Branch and Carver Branch.

There were lots of birds, but I only managed to photograph a Dark-eyed Junco. We heard several woodpeckers.

We were at the monument on a Saturday, and I was pleased that there were other people that were there – many with children. The place is closer to Joplin so I assume the ‘regulars’ are mostly from Carthage or Joplin. It is a good place to visit in the spring….and maybe even better in the fall. In the summer, it would be very humid.

We opted to drive to Carthage for lunch at Iggy’s Diner. I am trying to find places other than fast food that my husband likes…and the diner seemed to be a hit with him. The quality of food is better than a fast food chain!

Springfield Botanical Gardens (1) – March 2026

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The Springfield Botanical Gardens are full of new beginnings in March. I took a walk around them on a sunny day – using by bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) on a monopod. The monopod worked great as a hiking pole, so my back didn’t hurt; I did have to clean mud off the tip though!

The daffodils and other bulbs are the biggest splashes of color. They are in clumps of mulched beds…sometimes with a rock to provide a backdrop (texture and color that is always there no matter the season). My favorites were the large pink hyacinths. They don’t grow as well now as I remember them from years ago evidently since there were some that looked scraggly; there weren’t enough to make give the garden their smell either.

There were other flowers of the season in the grassy areas – small but worth noticing…and dandelions are blooming as well. I have declared a truce with dandelions – won’t cultivate them but I won’t poison them or dig them out either; I might even eat some leaves of the ones that grow in my yard where I know they haven’t been sprayed with anything.

The Lenten roses/hellebores were blooming. They are always some the first blooms of the year.

There weren’t many insects active….but I did see a cabbage white butterfly!

Stay tuned for the trees I noticed while I was walking around the gardens in tomorrow’s post.

Tall Dandelions

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I decided when we moved to Missouri a few years ago to give up on the battle with dandelions along with the overall goal to make my yard contain less turf.

I’m not sure what has made for the overall explosion of dandelions in the yard this year. Maybe it is the moles that arrived and made tunnels under much of the backyard last summer or the leaves that were left on the yard all winter. Both probably acted to improve the soil with aeration and turning over of nutrients. The backyard was not mowed until there were 7 consecutive days with the minimum temperature of 50 degrees…which meant that the grass got very thick and a little high by the last days of April when it was mowed. It would have been an excellent yard for an Easter egg hunt!

Not only are there more dandelions this year…..they seem to be extra tall. Mowing doesn’t always cut the seed stalks either! They pop back up after the lawn mower has been put away.

I looked more closely at some of the ones I cut manually and discovered that they are hollow like a straw! They evidently bend very easily….evading the lawn mower blades!

I looked more closely at some of the ones I cut manually and discovered that they are hollow like a straw! They evidently bend very easily….evading the lawn mower blades!