WATERFALL Garden Tour + June Prune for Lilacs!

Plants to consider growing in and around the water feature

June 14, 2025

In partnership with

Happy Father’s Day Weekend to you and yours,

it has been a rainy week here in the twin cities ☔️ which is always good news for the garden. It is also seasonably cool outside, which means any garden monarchs (and those we’re raising outdoors) are growing at the speed of molasses 🐢

The rain is finally taking a day off so I can take this opportunity to give you another weekend garden update. 🎥 🌻

But first, an update on this week’s garden visitors….

Garden Wildlife Report

With all the rain, it has been a slow week for butterfly sightings but there’s a consistent stream of birds flying through, including robins, blue jays, cardinals, mourning doves, and woodpeckers.

My favorite is our resident hummingbird who regularly sits perched atop a dead branch on the arbor roses looking down on the garden. He’s still very skittish compared to our past hummers, but he seems to be warming up, if only a little.

In all this wetness, our leopard frog is moving around the yard. I thought he left, but I saw him hopping back home into the water feature that you’ll see further down this newsletter…

Garden Plant Report

Now that our lilacs are finished blooming for the season, we’ve cut them back hard before they set buds for next season’s flowers.

BEFORE

AFTER

Of course, don’t cut them back until all flowers have faded, but after that, cut them to your will to promote plant health and more blooms for next season. For more info on pruning, check out this new post:

Now that lilacs are finished and set for next season, let’s preview the plants surrounding them that will take over pollinator support for the rest of the season…

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🎥 Garden Tour: Water Feature Raised Bed 

This week’s garden tour features the central raised bed in our back yard and is home to our resident leopard frog. Of course, most of these plants aren’t peaking at this point, but I’ll be sure to post updates on individual plants throughout the season.

Check out what we’re growing in and around the water feature and see if any of these options might be right for your garden:

 

Garden Resources

Below are a few of the standout plants from our ‘water feature’ raised bed garden to consider now, or for future gardens:

Asclepias exaltata (poke milkweed) ⬅️ (host plant for monarch caterpillars)

Symphyotrichum novae-angliae (New England Aster) ⬅️ (native nectar source for monarchs, other butterflies, and bees)

Veronicastrum virginicum (Culver’s root) ⬅️ (nectar plants for a wide variety of bees)


🦋 Spread the GOOD BUZZ 🐝

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Coming Up Next?

The Garden Tour Continues….our second of 3 gardens right off the deck, including our first blooming milkweed(s) of the season.

My goal is to post more photos/video of our garden, to illustrate what’s possible for yours…🌿🌺🤔

Have a butterful weekend,

Tony G