Sarah H Apricot

A close up of a monarch butterfly on a meadow blazing star flower spike that is just starting to bloom.

It's monarchs-on-the-meadow-blazing-stars season already?

A sauntering soul surveying the subdivision

A mini-house-shaped cove attached to our house, just under the eaves, for purposes of attracting Robins, is seen here with an empty Robin's nest barely visible beneath a dense snarl of hay, which is overflowing all over the place, sticking out well beyond the perimeter of the provided shelter. These guys have an extremely maximalist sense of interior design.

After a Robin family moved in and out of our provided lodgings this year, and before we got around to cleaning out the empty Robin's nest for our next guest, a wren moved in and began renovating. Yeah total hobo vibes.

The soft purple blooms of Blue Hill Salvia take up a large part of the foreground with the cool blue blooms of Amsonia Blue Ice and the ghostly pink blooms of Monarda Bradburiana taking up the right two thirds of the background. The left side of the foreground is taken up by green tufts emerging from the ground. They fill in all of the space between the main characters and the flagstone patio that is visible in the upper left corner of the photo. Angelina and Antennaria and other sedums fill in the gaps between the flagstones.

And one more that didn't fit within the photo limit. Blue Hill Salvia with Amsonia Blue Ice and Monarda Bradburiana, all blooming together. (That's "Miss Manners" Obedient Plant taking over the large area to the left. This is so far ok with me.)

Amsonia blue ice is in bloom along with catmint and Monarda Bradburiana. Veronica is also in bloom off in the distance. Filling in between the blooms are the fresh spring greeneries from agastache, Stachys summer crush, yarrow, Siberian iris, Artemisia silver lining, and the dark green and red emerging leaves of a Korean maple sneaking in from the right of the photo.

Monarda Bradburiana is in bloom along with catmint and a touch of Amsonia blue ice. Veronica is also in bloom off in the distance. Filling in between the blooms are the fresh spring greeneries from Stachys summer crush, yarrow, Artemisia silver brocade, and a touch of Artemisia silver mound. Allium summer beauty's dark green pre-bloom foliage provides a nice spikey contrast to it all in the foreground. The catmint blooms are intermingling with the allium foliage, creating a really nice contrast.

The pre-bloom stalks of a clump of yarrow take center stage with sprays of light purple catmint blooms in the foreground and to the left of the photo. Amsonia blue ice is in bloom along the middle of the background. Behind that is greenery from agastache blue fortune and Artemisia silver lining. Greenery from Stachys summer crush, another agastache, and a touch of Artemisia silver mound fill in the rest.

Ghostly pink Monarda Bradburiana blooms dominate this photo with Artemisia Silver Lining in the center foreground, blooming Amsonia Blue Ice in the left foreground, Artemisia Garden Ghost to the right, and very fresh spring greens from Agastache Blue Fortune coming up behind the Monarda. In the far background are more Amsonia blooms, some dark pink spikes from a pink Caradonna Salvia, some dark foliage from Huskers Red Penstemon, which has just started to display its own ghostly pink blooms, and other general greenery. There is not much room left between all of this plant activity to see the mulch between the plants.

I am so far really happy with the Roy Diblik and Piet Oudolf inspired garden I planted last year. I've been doing small edits, but this has largely been effort free this season so far. #bloomscrolling #plantcombinations

Bright pink, heart-shaped dicentra flowers dangle from arching stems above fresh, spring-green foliage.

It's bleeding heart o'clock. My dad planted one of these by his front door while he was successfully recovering from major heart surgery, so now I have one by my front door to memorialize him. #bloomscrolling

Me too. I really want to know why he's on this list!

That book also taught me that being contrarian wrt femininity in general, as a young cis woman, wasn't punk, edgy, or feminist but was actually an epitome of patriarchal banality and repression. I became more accepting of all gender expressions, cis and non-cis alike, in both myself and others.

Reading Julia Serano's Whipping Girl in 2008 or so opened my eyes to the experience of being trans, gave me a lot of language around it, educated me that gender, gender expression, sex, and sexual orientation are natural, independent aspects that mix & match in limitless ways in each individual.

So: Once Greek philosopher, not necessarily always Greek philosopher.

Marceline is a shiny white calico cat and Thursday Next is a big fluffy white British shorthair cat with grey-tipped fur in a tabby pattern. They are pictured here on the couch, both ensconced in an aqua-and-white fleece blanket. Marceline is slightly behind Thursday and elevated one cat-height above her. They are otherwise symmetrically situated with their heads in the opposite, outer parts of the frame. They both look content and as if nothing terribly remarkable is happening, which is the most remarkable part. Their flanks are definitely hugging. Do they know? I think they do!

An improbable cat stack.

Marceline has managed to ensconce herself in extreme proximity to Thursday Next. This is a miracle of a full year of couples counseling. These two were once sworn enemies. (There was blood.)

As MPR once said, it's like a rubber ball bouncing down a set of stairs.

It has come to my attention that not enough people are following @jacobsimonsays.bsky.social 's daily wins. Even in this current environment of uncountable things going wrong, some things are also going right. He's on my don't-dare-miss list here. He posts these in video format on other platforms.

I'm hoping the sedges will survive long enough for me to move them in Spring to a very dry place that would love to have them.

Pooled water reflects the sky between one baby Sweet Birch tree, one adolescent Yellow Birch, and one adolescent River Birch tree. All three young trees are still wrapped and protected from winter and winter rabbits. There's a patch of snow in the foreground and two fences forming a corner in the background.

A closer look at the water pooled right up to the base of the River Birch tree. You can see brown tufts of Carex pensylvanica unhappily also wading in this shallower area of the overall pool of water.

My plan to regrade the yard so that water will naturally pool near the birch trees we planted is working out swimmingly so far. This is just from snow melt. However I'm regretting planting Carex pensylvanica along the bottom of the regrade. I think they're probably drowning. #plantcommunities

And yes I'll have to actively keep that yarrow in check these first years at least. Luckily it's very amenable to being cut back and divided at will. 3/x

A pollinated pale coneflower rocket sits in the foreground with an Artemisia Silver Mound muffler engulfing the lower parts of its basal foliage. To the left you see Pink Grapefruit yarrow in bloom but on its way to going to seed. Along the back are sprays of white flowers from Calamintha Nepeta ssp Nepeta (these will turn blue before going to seed later) and a little pop of purple Summer Beauty Allium flowers. The Artemisia Silver Mound foliage forms a river from the foreground through the Calamintha in the back.

A nearby angle on the same section of the garden. This is what happens when you consider a pale coneflower as existing on another plane and don't reserve a lot of space for it on the ground floor. It's sharing the sun just fine with its cuddly Artemisia friend. 2/x

#plantcommunities #bloomscrolling

The bright glowing purple spherical flowers and deep green foliage of Allium Summer Beauty (or possibly Allium Millennium) and some visiting bee friends take up the foreground. Sprays of tiny white flowers from Calamintha Nepeta ssp Nepeta line the sidewalk as a backdrop. The fluffy silver-green foliage of Artemisia Silver Mound buttresses the scene from the left. A few seed heads and some spikey foliage from a couple of Echinacea Pallida plants pop up from between the Artemisia and Calamintha. Some mulch can be seen between the Alliums and the other plants. I expect that to get fully filled in and covered over this year, mostly by the Artemisia.

Really looking forward to seeing what this plant community does this year. It's heavily inspired by Roy Diblik's designs.

#plantcommunities #bloomscrolling

WIRED seems to be covering DOGE like other publications haven't been, so I've subscribed to them (it's a pretty inexpensive subscription as these things go).

2025 Trans Girl Scouts To Order Cookies From! This year, consider ordering your Girl Scout cookies from a trans girl scout to make their day!

@erininthemorning.com is hosting this list of trans girl scouts' cookie order forms. If you scroll to the bottom, there are still some who haven't yet met their goals.

Thanks for the starter pack 💝

The lower portion of a massive blue spruce tree forms the backdrop for a variety of plantings. A Kousa Dogwood tree in flower takes up the middle layer of this sidewalk-facing front-yard display, along with what is probably a rose bush, flowering in pink, and a pink-purple rhododendron bush. Two sculpted bush conifers support the scene from the bottom, and finally a few lavender bushes and unspecified other greenery fills in from the bottom. Two houses peek through from behind the display, and one driveway cuts through the scene between the two sculpted bush conifers. If the dogwood tree were not in flower, you might mistake it to be just part of the blue spruce tree if you didn't look closely, it's so well cuddled by its neighbor.

Whenever I read that a tree is an understory tree or a "woodland edge" tree, I picture this #cornuskousa ensconced in its massive blue spruce tree neighbor.

Spotted on a walk in a residential neighborhood of Seattle some years ago.

#bloomscrolling #plantcommunities

Black Gum tree with tiny park bench just outside of its considerable reach, for scale. The tree's arms-out-wide branching tendency is very visible in contrast to its yellowing leaves and the surrounding autumn daylight.

Look at this amazing tree. It lives at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. It's a Nissa Sylvatica aka Black Tupelo or Black Gum or Sour Gum or Pepperidge. That branching habit, though.

White daisies dominate a very small garden bed, whose crowded blooms spill over into the sidewalk in the foreground and a couple of steps on the left, which lead to a weathered fence, which forms a backdrop for the whole scene. Purple bellflowers, pink foxgloves, and what I'd guess are orange poppies (not in full bloom) all emerge from the daisies to create a striking scene.

A whack of invasives never looked so good.

Spotted in Seattle, where those creeping Campanulas are not yet listed as noxious.

#plantcommunities #bloomscrolling

Sedum spathulifolium 'Cape Blanco' with its ghost white centers edged with red, orange, light orange, green, and yellow leaves.

I also really miss our Seattle winter gardens. Our "hellscape" gardens were at their actual best in winter there (some sedums and other succulents turn lovely colors when they're distressed).

Omgsh yes I'm dying to see what the Roy-Diblik-inspired garden I planted last year does this year. I get so much more reading (audiobooking) done in the growing season too. Gardening is such an expression of hope for the future.

The deep yellow flowers of Black Eyed Susan (more specifically Rudbeckia Hirta) commingle with the purple and white flowers of the Rocky Mountain Columbine over a backdrop of green foliage and yellow emerging Rudbeckia buds.

#rudbeckiahirta and #rockymountaincolumbine don't always bloom together, but when they do...

#plantcommunities #bloomscrolling

There's so much planning I still want to get done before Spring, so I'm still pretty content here in Winter for now. ❄️ When living on the West Coast, I really missed Winter hibernation times, so now I treasure them.

@ariellaelm.bsky.social posts 3 Wins and Dems Doing the Work threads daily. She's also available on Substack. Despair is tempting but ultimately extremely counterproductive. She is helping us to keep hope alive and stay in the fight. I recommend putting her on your priority reading lists.

Thanks for doing your part to make celebrating our civil servants cool again.