Time for sowing lavender bee balm

About this time in August, several years ago we took the photo below at the entrance to Wild River State Park. The lavender blooms are, we believe, wild bergamot [bee balm], a native wildflower that should be right at home in our little patch near the Eastern edge of the Anoka Sand Plain. It's attractive to pollinators so, with luck, the seed balls, a present from the Better Half, we placed this morning will germinate and add some late Summer color to the fields behind the house. (If you're wondering, we have no idea what created the streak of yellow flowers in the picture.)

We'll place additional seed balls after we've semi-leveled the pocket gopher mounds that have popped up during the past several weeks. Since the package the balls came in notes that it takes two years (or more?) for the plants to bloom, we'll have to try {Yoda: Do or do not! There is no try.} to take better care of ourselves if we hope to see the results of our labors.

Monarda at entrance to Wild River State Park

Photo by J. Harrington

We're discovering that figuring out what should get planted where, and how, is more of a challenge than extracting invasive plants such as buckthorn or noxious plants like sandburs. None of the wild flowers we've planted previously on the sand slope behind the house has lasted, bluestem grasses  excepted. (Feral oregano, that's taking over the yard, comes close to qualifying as an invasive species.) Perhaps we'll have better results with Monarda. It was happily growing near an old barn on a farm in nearby Amador one of the last times we visited.

Monarda growing near old barn in Amador

Photo by J. Harrington

I Don't Know What Will Kill Us First: The Race War or What We've Done to the Earth

Fatimah Asghar

so I count my hopes: the bumblebees
are making a comeback, one snug tight
in a purple flower I passed to get to you;

your favorite color is purple but Prince’s
was orange & we both find this hard to believe;
today the park is green, we take grass for granted

the leaves chuckle around us; behind
your head a butterfly rests on a tree; it’s been
there our whole conversation; by my old apartment

was a butterfly sanctuary where I would read
& two little girls would sit next to me; you caught
a butterfly once but didn’t know what to feed it

so you trapped it in a jar & gave it to a girl
you liked. I asked if it died. you say you like
to think it lived a long life. yes, it lived a long life.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.