Many of the native prairie plants will be starting to flower soon. Besides being drought tolerant, they attract birds and butterflies. To get a feel for the natural beauty and diversity of prairie flowers and grasses visit one of the local prairies in the Arboretum or Schumacher Prairie just east of Waunakee.

Mid-summer is an especially nice time to start a garden journal. Our to-do lists have shortened and everything is just so beautiful. It’s helpful to make notes of particular diseases or pests that may haunt your yard year after year.

Although June usually ushers in the gentler garden, the kaleidoscopic colors of May might linger with us a bit longer. The Extension agents in Madison reported that we are more than 100 Growing Degree Days below average. Lots of plants are behind, so try to be a little patient when evaluating viability.

Brightly colored butterflies are a welcome visitor to any garden. We value them for their usefulness as pollinators, as well as for their beauty. Attracting them involves planting shrubs and perennials that serve the needs of all life stages of the butterfly, providing places to lay eggs, food plants for the caterpillars and the adults, and spots to form chrysalides.

The beauty of any garden isn’t in the eye of the beholder. It’s in the eye of the garden’s creator. As I stroll through my neighborhood or drive from one place to another, I am often amazed by what constitutes a garden. And I don’t mean this in a manner that is judging good ideas from bad ones, but from the point of view that any place that a gardener has arranged began with a kernel of an idea and a desire to share it with passers-by.