Garden of the Seasons: More Cheers for June

The month of June, and this will not come as news to anyone, is a good time to be outdoors. We present first off here for your inspection, the juvenile member of the North American Robin. The bird-finder website suggests this identification. I naively assumed that robins had red breasts, or orangish ones, or else they didn't. But it appears they may also have "speckled" breasts in adolescence. If that's the case, I'm hoping this adolescent bird grows up soon, because I regularly encounter him on the ground, even on paved ground such as the patio, apparently looking for a menu or waiting for the serving-person to show up. And he's not in a hurry to get away.

            In the next photo, we see the lower branches of the fruit-bearing mulberry tree, that provides evident reason for this bird's continuing presence. Others too, of course. Including a male cardinal yesterday. The best reason for having a tree that drops these messy berries all month is the level of chirping and calling that sometimes persists for whole sunny hours or longer on beautiful afternoons this month.

            Lots going on in the plant world as well this month, of course. The plant called the purple Penstemon, which I planted in one place years ago, has divided itself in half and now shows up in two places. I saw a bunch of these living large in full sun in a friend's front yard. That's what they like. This spot in our garden is definitely part-shade.

            Coral bells (at left). Too much sun when I took this photo to see the purplish stripes in the plant's dark green leaves. This light also washes out the color in the plant's delicate flowers.

            A mid-sized Bell Flower, species name "Campanula," sends up a few blossoms in our part-sun, part-shade back garden.

            The daisies or asters in the next photo down, I'm not sure what they are, send up tall slender stems. When all the blossoms open at once in late June, it makes the show we see here. It may be Fleabane, an American wildflower. 

            Another anonymous contributor is pictured at the bottom of the post. A hardy groundcover, it creeps close to the earth and puts up yellow flowers for a couple weeks in June.

            Lady's Mantle, below the putative Fleabane, appears perfectly content with its ration of sunshine, offering plenty of pale yellow flowers in the months of May and June. Unlike most summer perennials, it spreads horizontally rather than shoots up vertically.

            Goat's Beard, pictured brightly against the dramatic shade of the background, grows below a shade tree. After the neighbor cut down his tree, it grew even better.

           Lamium, or "spotted dead nettle," is one of this year's top recovery projects. That is, I weeded everything else out its plot, and the obliging plant spread its two-toned leaves and held up its pink flowers. (The software apparently ate this photo; I'll include it in the next post.)

            Lots more June bloomers in the next post, which better come soon because I'm running out of June.