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Happy Pride everybody! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

For Caturday, Bridget doing her rainbow dance. Bridget recognizes all genders and wants to chase all of them. 🌈

#pride #pride month #happy pride 🌈 #cat #caturday #cats of tumblr #bridget #kitty #cat video

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Plant shadows. Just for fun.

#pennsylvania #plants #plant shadows

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Last call for the peonies. Fewer pots on the steps this year. This is pretty minimal for me and sometimes I regret it but I won’t when I have to water them in the heat of summer.

#pennsylvania #flowers #garden #peonies #container gardening #may #end of may #gardeners on tumblr

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A conversational post. Last year I had an injury and couldn’t keep up with the garden much to the delight of many species of plants, insects and birds. This year I’ve been doing some cleanup and as I cut away ferns and goldenrod and other plants that have taken advantage of neglect moths and other insects are sadly fluttering up out of their hiding places reminding me that all lawn and garden cleanup is habitat loss.

Sometimes cleanup has to be done for social reasons like neighbors (the area between my garden fence and the neighbors’ fence is full of ostrich ferns but among them are some nettles. Probably if I don’t cut them the neighbors will but if they don’t know what nettles are and grab them gloveless to cut them they’re in for a world of pain. Better I glove up and handle them myself.) My neighbors’ kids play in their lawn and sometimes balls or frisbees land between the fences so they prefer it not to be a jungle or nature preserve in there. Ticks are a real threat here and I don’t want kids to get them because of me.

I’ve also been wading through the mess/habitat eliminating vines. I’ve pulled a lot of bindweed and clematis paniculata down from the lilac. I have to do that all summer or they overwhelm it. Vines are like parasites, using other plants to give them a leg up and then shading those plants with their leaves. Virginia creeper has to be kept down to a dull roar too. Today I found that one of my most beloved native plants, the royal fern, Osmunda regalis, above, was plagued with bindweed. It has enough trouble surviving in this non-woodland environment without vines pulling its fronds down out of the sunlight. I removed each vine gently and am hoping for the best.

But every single thing like this disturbs things, robs living things of habitat, reduces the amount of food that wrens and other birds can find for their growing families, so I try to be thoughtful and try to leave some areas as undisturbed as I can without allowing plants that will do more harm than good to take over. The whole garden grows better if some of it is left wild for insects and other creatures to use.

tl;dr: All yard trimming and cleanup is habitat destruction but sometimes you have to do it. Just be thoughtful and leave room somewhere for nature to do its thing. (If calling it “leaving room for the fairies to live in” makes it more fun, do that. Because after all, who knows?)

#pennsylvania #garden #gardening #long post #gardening thoughts #osmunda regalis #habitat destruction #garden cleanup

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Front steps, the containers are filling in.

#pennsylvania #flowers #garden #gardeners on tumblr #container gardening #buddha amitabha #petunias #coleus #calibrachoa #tiarella

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The news from the woods: water is flowing, plants growing, birds singing. I saw deer too but they chose not to appear here.

#pennsylvania #landscape #woodland #geopsych video #may #last of may #late spring #bird song #wood thrush singing

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Hello from along the fence this morning!

#pennsylvania #landscape #sunrise #may #late spring

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A storm approaching from the south. The clouds have that dark grey blue look.

#pennsylvania #sky #clouds #storm approaching #may

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One more plant while I’m at it. The green dragon is not looking as robust as it has other years. There’s some leaf damage I haven’t seen before and the flower looks a little twisted but maybe it just hasn’t opened fully. It’s still one of the coolest native plants in the garden!

#pennsylvania #flowers #plant #native plants #plants #plantblr #green dragon #arisaema dracontium #may #late spring #garden #gardeners on tumblr

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I almost forgot, trusty old Heuchera ‘Stainless Steel’ is blooming now too. And hanging out in the background is yellow corydalis.

#pennsylvania #flowers #garden #gardeners on tumblr #heuchera #heichera stainless steel #yellow corydalis #may #late spring #plants #plantblr

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Blooming and almost blooming in the garden: peonies were glorious but are almost finished, geranium ‘Delft Blue’ just beginning to bloom, thalictrum, forgetting the species but it isn’t a native one, astrantia nearly ready to start, and baptisia in fabulous bloom next to the bronze fennel. Loving these friends who bloom while most of the garden is just green.

#pennsylvania #flowers #garden #gardeners on tumblr #plants #plantblr #may #late spring

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Sunrise this morning.

#pennsylvania #sunrise #may #late spring #sky #clouds

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Cartoon by Michael Leunig.

#cartoon #michael leunig #leunig #graph vs trellis #off topic

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More pictures from rural Pennsylvania in late May. You can see that strange line of fog on the ridge in some of these too. I guess the ridge felt like wearing a hat that day.

#pennsylvania #landscape #may #late spring #fog #green

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Fog was piled all along the top of the ridge the other morning like whipped cream.

#pennsylvania #landscape #may #fog #kittatinny ridge

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Aaaa! Brilliant art of Bridget! Thank you, @jovialfireninja ! 💖✨ I love this.

This was the strategy Bridget used this morning to keep me from going out for pictures. It didn’t work but it is a sound strategy!

#cat #art of bridget #bridget #cat art #adorable #i love this

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That old farm on the road to the lake. The strange light today changed how it looked.

#pennsylvania #landscape #farm #old farm #barn #may #road