Pretty flowers

Today is just pretty flowers. Sometimes that is enough 🙂

Our black-eyed susans are having a great year. They are pretty hardy so doesn't take much but for some reason this year they are thriving.

We are focused on planting as many of our beds as practical with perennials. Some black-eyed susans are perennials (or short-lived biennials) others are self-seeding annuals. In practice, they reliably come back year after year.

Black-eyed susans have several different varieties including one that is native to Vermont. Its a common wildflower but many of the wildflowers are varieties that have been introduced. The native variety is somewhat rare.

I'm watering my young fruit trees today but that is boring so I took some flower photos to share.

These are my favorite variety. We purchased a couple of pots of these at a garden supply shop a few years ago. Some of our black-eyed susans were already growing here when we bought the house. Others I have transplanted from fields, ditches and a neighbors beds. We also save seeds and spread them occasionally.

These are spreading like crazy. We call this our dollar garden because we found a display of plants at a local hardware store at the end of the season that they were clearing out for $1 each. We bought them out of all the perennials 😆 This time of year its mostly black-eyed susans but there are also daisies, coneflowers, bee balm, and phlox plus probably a few other flowers I'm forgetting.