Bear sightings all around us!

I've been getting reports of bear sightings within a few miles of us last week and last night, so now am wondering if some of the middle of the night barking sessions might be something more than a stray cat or coyote!

Last night's sighting revealed 4 strands of electric fencing surrounding a chicken coop and yard ripped out and bear scat full of corn left behind.

Thinking we need the Maremmas NOW!

Thinking maybe we need to cool it with the composting in the back yard for awhile.

November Hill pollinator gardens, 3

This morning I put everything out into a staging area.

The butterfly weed and pink swamp milkweed were all planted and mulched already, so this is what was left to plant. 

I spent most of the morning putting things on top of the garden beds, trying to look at height and spread and color and texture to see if I could get things nice. I'm sure I'll make some mistakes but I hope there are some happy errors too.

Once I finished that husband brought home a pallet of stepping stones and he moved them into place in the upper bed. I have a path going from the barnyard "stile" through the upper bed and around and out the side into the driveway by the barnyard gate. There's room to put a little bench under the cherry tree once it gets tall enough. 

This bed is so deep I wanted a way to walk into to it for working and to get to the fence in there as well.

I've planted 10 plants. 

Will get back to it tomorrow! I think it's going to be wonderful! 

November Hill pollinator gardens, 2, or, we went a little wild at the plant sale

I had a list taken from the North Carolina Botanical Garden's sales list and went for the members-only pre-sale. It was PACKED. There were 12 plants on my list and we got all but one, but of course we all three spied things we just had to have, so in the end we rolled two large garden carts to the check-out. It was sort of crazy and sort of exciting.

The first thing I went for was my new favorite plant: spotted horse mint, or monarda punctata.

It is so pretty and I haven't found it anywhere but on the listing for this annual sale. I located the sign and there were only two pots left! I grabbed them, found a staffer, and asked if there were more. They checked and said they were sorry but that was it.

I was sad but moved on to the gazillion other choices they had. Later, a few minutes before we finished perusing, I happened to walk by the table where the spotted horse-mint had been and there were, miraculously, three more! I snapped them up and added them to my cart. 

We came home with a Subaru and an Element full of plants. Guess what we'll be doing this weekend? 

November Hill pollinator gardens, 1

I think it's safe to start this now that I've actually got 6 new plants in the ground and a Subaru hatch full of more to go in tomorrow!

This is what I have so far, and I'm using common names because they are just easier to type in:

For spring bloom:

Wild blue indigo
Purple coneflower
Orange coneflower
Wild bergamot
Stoke's aster

For summer bloom:

Butterfly weed
Pink swamp milkweed
Great blue lobelia
Button bush
Thread-leaf blue star

For fall bloom:

October skies aster
Raydon's favorite aster
Boneset/Joe Pye weed
Old field sedge

And this is where they are going:

Most of them, anyway. The other side is about 3/4 done, just in time for my shopping trip to the North Carolina Botanical Gardens' members' sale tomorrow evening. My goal was to get 3-5 different plants for each of the three blooming seasons so I can keep some bees, butterflies, and other pollinators happy, and so I can enjoy not only a blooming garden but a busy one.

We're fortunate that one of our county extension agents, Debi Roos, is an expert in pollinator plants and between her presentation in bee school last winter, her pollinator workshop last weekend, and her demonstration garden locally, I have tons of information available to help me along the way.

Another wonderful thing about the above photo is that we expanded that upper tier all the way to the fence and barnyard gate, eliminating lawn and the need for mowing and weedeating in there. We've done the same with the other bed and it's going to be so much nicer to have fun things growing and blooming than the grass and fire ant mounds!

I can't wait until spring!

The donkeys are running, fall is in the air!