The real color starting to pop!! Yellow, yellow, yellow everywhere. The yellow “brick” road paving the way west.

Some of our first color of the season came up the first week of June!!
By June 17th the yellow Coreopsis began to come into bloom. Along with the Gaillardia.
Some strong color to finish off the month of June!
We’re starting to prep for new wildflowers in the spring of 2020, and I thought I’d give a rundown of the dates and steps we’ve been taking.
March:
We had a warmer than average March and were able to get out, enjoy the weather, and mow down the existing growth of the wildflowers we left standing over the winter. We also started a few of our annuals indoors for the front flower beds, mainly some purple zinnias. We really enjoyed them last year, and decided to add them to the front flowers to complement the purple coneflowers. Here’s what they looked like in August 2019.
April brought some colder temperatures again, which slowed down our outdoor activities. By early May, we were nearly back on track for normal weather. After a late season snowstorm in early May, the weather finally broke around May 15. While it was cold, we took the time to separate our seeds that we had collected last fall. We’ll be posting videos with details of that later, but here’s a look at how they were stored in the garage through the winter to dry. I like to store them in paper bags to keep them from molding.
Here’s a look at the yard and wildflowers in early April, just after mowing the stalks in. Very minimal growth starting, except in the dog spots!
Finally, on May 19 I got around to spraying some new areas of the meadow with Roundup to kill the grass. I get the generic 41% concentrated glyphosate at Tractor Supply for ~$10/quart, then dilute into the hand sprayer. It covers plenty of area for 1 year for my size meadow. I’ve found that I like to kill off the existing grass and wait about 2 weeks before planting the new seeds. I should be able to get some new areas started in early June. Stay tuned!
Most of our focus has been on the wildflowers and summertime life, but I just had to snap a picture today of the beautiful winter beauty. We really do love Michigan in all seasons, and winter is no exception.
It’s nice to enjoy this white canvas as we plan to add even more color to it in the spring.
Some people say that the best camera is the one you have with you, which is why most of the pictures on this site come from a cell phone camera. It’s decent, but every once in a while you want to grab a real camera and capture the beauty, so enjoy these pictures taken with my 10 year old Nikon D3100. I still love this camera!
August continued with color. This particular orange cosmos, my five year old daughter was thankful for during our yoga session together.
A sunflower attracts many pollinators. This particular sunflower was from one of our seed packets we started in our basement in March 2019.
As September rolls in, the height of the sunflowers reminded us that summer is coming to an end and the kids are going back to school. Soaking up the warm colors as the sunflowers dance in the breeze of the meadow.
We are still greeted with a splash of color throughout the month. Knowing all too well the white snow is right around the corner.
The sea of yellow is starting to disappear. They held on since June.
From a distance the color is gone. The flowers are preparing for the end of season. As we prepare for the next.
As the seasons begin to change, frost comes again. Now we appreciate the fall colors knowing the bright colors of summer will return after months of gathering seeds and preparing our indoor space once again where we come together to cheer on spring.
At last, the flowers have their winter blanket covering them as yet another season comes to visit. In just a few weeks time from the first frost to the first snow fall. We look forward to what this winter has to offer – sledding, family gatherings, and getting ready for a new year, a new decade, and new growth of wildflowers!
June 1, 2019 First real color of the season! Last year’s areas and this season’s prepped areas.
Growth of the new seeds.
Our first Lupine from the seed packets we started back in March
A Monarch Butterfly enjoying nature’s candy. Our first friendly visitor to the wildflowers.
The next day, we find a ton of Monarch Butterfly Caterpillars devouring the natural Milkweed throughout the meadow.
Yellow flowers start to fill the meadow.
July brought a lot of color
February 2019 brings us snow and excitement for indoor seedling sprouting.
Here we have from our local home store are annual flower seeds. We prepare to plant these for indoor sprouting to get them growing as soon as possible to be able to then transfer them outdoors. Most of the seeds we plant indoors are meant for our front flower beds and for pots. The majority of the wildflower seeds we plant from seed directly outside, although we have transplanted a few that were started early indoors.
It’s just so exciting to think about flowers in the dead of winter, when the outside temps are in the single digits (or negative). When the seed packets start showing up in the store, we always look to see if there’s a few new varieties we want to try out.
As the snow finally cleared, it was time to start planning for this season’s flowers. First, we mowed down the remaining stalks that we left standing. We leave them standing in the fall for 2 main reasons: Seeds/cover for wild animals, and to easily see where the existing flowers are as we expand the plantings.
At the beginning of May, grass is already starting to grow. You can see the areas of existing wildflowers from 2018 in the green squares, and the areas of grass that were sprayed with Roundup / glyphosate to make room for new flowers in 2019. We planted seeds on May 19 this year for the expansion of the wildflowers.