Dan's Gardening and Birding Blog: Killdeer Sighting/Planting Perennial Flowers

Welcome back. thanks as always for reading my blog.

The wet summer pattern continues. In the last six weeks (since June 1st), we have received 12 inches of rain here in central New York State. It's hard to believe that I was watering the garden on a regular basis in May when I was first starting seeds and plants.

Finally, as promised, a couple of photos of Killdeer that I spotted on the lawn a few weeks ago. These are interesting birds, a member of the plover family. They are known for there signature run-stop, run-stop behavior as they try to stir up bugs to eat as they run. The day I took these photos there were 3 of them on the lawn. These birds nest on the ground.

Killdeer On The Run

Killdeer With It's Distinctive Markings

Last summer in my post on July 25, 2014 (https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7818050104445836783#editor/target=post;postID=5498612957775284819;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=35;src=link), I discussed how I transformed an area in our yard where once a tall blue spruce stood into a perennial bed. As promised, I will share photos of how the bed has progressed over the last year.

Over the winter, 3 or 4 of the perennials didn't survive, which sometimes happens especially during the first winter the plants have to endure the cold. Of course last winter was especially brutal, so I'm surprised that most of the flowers survived. Like vegetable gardening, maintaining a flower bed is also continuous work. But once established, they provide much enjoyment.

I recently also added a few more perennial flowers and a dwarf blue spruce tree. The finishing touch is adding mulch, as I used dark brown this. We switched to dark brown mulch in all the beds this year. We previously used the naturally color, but think the dark brown looks better.

Dwarf Alberta Spruce Will Become the Centerpiece

Phlox, Coneflowers, Coreopsis

Purple Salvia

Shifting to the front of our home, I recently removed a 25 plus year old holly bush that had died a couple of years ago over the winter. It showed some signs of life, so I gave it some time to see if it would grow back. However, the progress was extremely slow, so I decided to remove it.

This wasn't an easy core as I ended up using my old garden tractor to pull it out with a chain. After multiple tugs, along with some chopping of the roots, it finally gave in!