There was a lot going on in yards in June. I enjoyed documenting my own yard and that of my daughter’s too.

The native plants in my yard are doing quite well: fragrant sumac (the first one I planted),

American spikenard (one that is a few years old and another than I planted this year),

Missouri evening primrose with its big yellow flowers,

Common Primrose that is becoming well established in my wildflower garden, and

Mushrooms keep coming up in the area where a tree was cut down several years before we bought the house.

My daughter and son-in-law planted some native plants in an area near their driveway and the street recently; they are thriving along with the yucca that has been there for a long time.

There are non-natives: daylilies in both yards,

Asian hydrangeas in her yard (that she generously cut for a bouquet now in my office window),

A very large Southern Magnolia in my daughter’s house,

Lambs ear – that bumblebees like when it is blooming at my house,

Roses and hostas at both houses!

I have arugula flowers since I didn’t start eating the leaves soon enough. Oh well – they attact some small pollinators. There are zinnia flowers nearby too.

We are both challenged with grass growing where we don’t want it…and some invasives like Asian bush and vine honeysuckles. I have a lot of tree seedlings to control too – particularly hackberry, mulberry, redbud, oak, and maple.

My daughter’s house was built in the 1950s and has some very large mature trees. Even the plants that are not of that vintage, are robust. By the fall – the summer growth has often become overwhelming, so I offer to help with the grand cleanup before winter. On the day we chose – it was cloudy…warm rather than hot. The yard had been mowed the previous day so we could focus on other everything else rather than leaves. It was a good day for the project.

I noticed the holly berries on her two trees had almost all turned orange (or their way to red); those trees didn’t need any maintenance!

There was pokeweed in several places that needed to be pulled (she is still battling it…no truce or peace yet in her yard!). It was growing in the woodpile, between bricks of the patio….and other places too.

The path to the side of the house overhung by a mature redbud shading the hostas and ferns on both side of the flagstones yielded several armloads of sticks to supplement the wood pile. Hopefully they will have a cookout using their firepit (and burn a lot of the pile) when they have their annual pumpkin carving event.

There was a mimosa that had come up in one corner of the fenced area. We didn’t have a saw, so we cut the top out with big pruners and girded the trunk further down. I’ll brink my saw next time we work.

It didn’t take us long to fill a dumpster with vines and weeds (including pokeweed) that we pulled.

What I thought was a cherry tree turned out to be a crabapple (when I cut open one of the fruits). I learn something new in her yard every time I work there!

The other plant I hadn’t recognized before was (I think) a silverbell. I’ll look next spring for its flowers. It’s a small tree growing under her big oak.

Other beauties in the flower beds that I couldn’t resist: cedar, wood hydrangea, Asian hydrangea, lichen, shelf fungus, southern magnolia seed pods (another huge tree).