Exciting events in my butterfly garden...

For those of you that know me, you probably already know that I LOVE gardening and am easily excited about happenings in the Butterfly Garden that Troy and I created last spring (March 2008). I'm thrilled with the progress that has occurred over the past year, so I thought I would post a few pictures of it's humble beginnings:

This is the very beginning - digging out the grass, tilling the soil, and in general just laying the groundwork for a successful garden. It looks pretty good considering that we didn't know what we were doing. :)

Teeny, tiny plants (they're more affordable that way!). Most of these are still there, and man is it amazing to think of what can happen in a year. That little green spot in the back left corner of the garden is now 3 feet tall! Of course I think it did that in about 3 months - 'Black Knight' Buddelia (Butterfly Bush) can put on some serious size in no time!

Here's a close-up of the teeny plants.

Okay - enough of the old stuff - on to the new!!

This is what my garden looks like today. It's totally filling out and starting to look like a real garden! I've even started to get butterfly visitors already this year! My garden typically looks best during the summer, but I think it's putting on a good show this spring also. I'm mourning my passion vine, since it's April and it hasn't started coming back up yet, I don't think it's going to come back so I'll have to purchase a new one. It's the only host plant I had caterpillars on last year, so I definitely want to make sure I always have one.

This pic shows how large my butterfly bush has become, and also shows how much growth I've gotten on my honeysuckle this year. The honeysuckle didn't really do much last year, but it's making up for it! I've got some lovely blooms on my 'Butterfly Blue' Scabiosa (the cloud of lavender-colored blossoms in the front left of the picture, just behind the curly parsley) and my 'May Night' Salvia (Dark purple spikes) is blooming like crazy also. That one's a favorite with the local honey bees. :) The red blossoms on my Coral Bells (Heuchera) are doing great as well!

This is just a close up of the 'Butterfly Blue' Scabiosa and 'May Night' Salvia. Both are fantastic for continuous blooms from spring to fall.

I've got a lot more going on in my garden, so stay tuned - I've got some great pictures of my columbines, my peony and the beginnings of some blooms on my Red Hot Poker that will be coming soon to a post near you!