If you're trying to attract honeybees to your garden, get a birdbath. That's right, a birdbath. Throughout the day, honeybees and wasps, line up shoulder to

One of the new compact Cleome...

upon by a wasp. Either as food or for its parasitic larvae.

I tackled my gravel garden this weekend. This was once a sloped grassy path that became muddy after every rain and was a nuisance to mow. So I widened all the surrounding beds and laid landscaping fabric down, topped with

	Two of the best Butterfly bushes to try. Black Night on the right and White Profusion next to it.

gravel and fieldstone stepping stones. I found that heavy rain will wash gravel down hill, but lay flagstone on top, and it stays in place. Thyme, sedum, creeping phlox, dianthus, and low growing veronica has wound its way through the gravel and I have to occasionally cut it back. I left a path in the center fairly open, but I cut pockets in the fabric, mixed some gritty soil, and filled them with hens and chicks, taller sedum, allium, fescue grass, and geraniums. Many have reseeded along with corydalis, campanula, and columbine. The path was becoming a little too crowded, so several grasses came out as well as sheets of sedum and lamium. The stone is as important as the plants in a garden like this, so the plants have to be kept in check.

Its a good time to prune back fescue  so they don't reseed. Shear the flower heads off armeria and dianthus to encourage further blooming. If echinacea is toppling over, cut off some of the heavier flower heads.

Crocosmia Lucifer. One of the best reds for a summer garden. Just starting to flower. Come and get some!