Mom left early Sunday morning, so as she hit the road, I hit the gardens. It was time to start cleaning out some of the leaves.

This is right under the maple, so it’s where the leaves are the thickest.

It didn’t take very long. And as you can see, I don’t remove every last leaft – just enough to let the plants breath. It’s mostly hosta and heucheras under here, but I do also have some native plants.

Including Jack-in-the-Pulpit. You may remember that Mom brought me some from her garden a couple years ago. And I’m happy to say it’s thriving here and there are several plants now.

Sadly, it doesn’t look like my trilliums have come through. When we were driving to the quilt show on Saturday, the woodlands on route were blanketed with trilliums, so I should be seeing them now. But there’s nothing. I’m debating on getting more to try again – the Norway Maple may just make it too dry for them (plus the soil is fairly sandy here)

My native geranium, however, is thriving. I have two clumps of it (one on either side of the fence) and I think I may add some more.

The one outside the fence gets more sun and it has just started to bloom. In a few days, both clumps will be covered in those pretty pink flowers. I think I need to get a couple more clumps.

I had some woodland poppy that bloomed at this time too (beautiful yellow flowers) but last year Dave accidentally weed whacked them . I didn’t think they’d recover, but when I was out there taking pictures of the geraniums, I noticed this…

It’s going to take a bit for it to bloom, but at least it’s stil alive.

My black Cohosh is doing nicely.

There are also two clumps of this – and the one that gets more sun is much further along, but the other will catch up eventually. It gets spikes of tiny white flowers that look like they were made for fairies.

I’m not seeing any sign of my ostrich ferns, and like the trilliums, I think it’s too dry for them under the tree.

But one native that is thriving, I didn’t plant at all…

Wild violets! I used to pull these up from the beds (but I’ve always left them in the lawn). But I’ve since learned that they are vital to Fritillary butterflies.

Most of these are in the catio – but I think I’m going to dig some up and move them to the woodland garden.

And these, of course, aren’t the only natives – there’s sneezeweed, wild bergamot, cardinal flower, blue lobelia, false sunflower, smooth aster and coneflowers. And… I may have a whole order of natives coming in the next couple of weeks… We can look forward to Maypop, New Jersey Tea, Heart Leaves Aster, Spotted Beebalm, and Michigan lily!

I will never have a completely native garden, but I’m thrilled to include them wherever I can!