Yesterday evening we had an extraordinary viewing of a sharp shin hawk, sitting right on our backyard bench apparently interested in the numerous sparrows we have been fattening up at our seed feeder this summer.  The sparrows stayed in their tree and were relatively quiet, but the hawk would turn his head around 180 degrees listening for them.  He was completely unfazed by us, and Fred got some wonderful pictures.  It was a juvenile, with a striped breast and yellow eyes.  He finally flew up into the tree where the sparrows were. 

Last year Fred built us 2 wooden boxes for the alley behind our house.  We had some mums and columbines come back this year, and I added some milkweed plants and sunflowers.  I had not realized I was buying really mammoth sunflowers.  I am in the pictures to show scale, not photogenicity, and I realize the trash bins are possibly even less photogenic, but they are part of the story, I guess.  I can’t wait to see how large the sunflower blossoms will be; more photos will follow.

Me by Sunflower

Me in bamboo

Bonnie’s Patio Pots

This picture somehow got lost from my previous post.  Some of the pots (the big ones in back row) are my house plants that I have had for years and bring out every summer.  They always get new growth then. The 2nd from left in back row is almost 30 years old. The flowers in front include a begonia, some daisies, a geranium, and something I can’t remember.

These are the new plants we are putting in at the front of the house. The cherry tree we already had, but it is loaded with cherries this year for the first time, apparently because of our squirrels’ having a very bad year last year and being quite diminished this year – they usually take all the cherries in the first couple of days.

It took both Robin and our computer technician to help me get this up here. We’ll see how I do.

Potted plants for front yard

Cherry tree in front yard

Cherry Tree2

I am finally on the blog, and here are some pictures of my recent gardening.

Native Garden Between Houses

Shade garden in far yard, with fireplug

Hops Vine

Front Yard by Curb

Bamboo by back fence to hide monster house nextdoor

Trumpet vine on back fence

Milkweed, bee balm and joe pye