What a difference a year makes! The top photo is from last year, right after the pond was installed. The bottom is from this month, a year after it was put in. It also helps that we are not in a drought this year.

Susan, I and all the local critters thank you for sending us sunflower seeds last winter! Unfortunately, I didn't get the camera out until the squirrels and raccoons knocked down and ate the Russian mammoth ones...

White woodland asters (Aster divaricatus) are one of the few things in the garden blooming in late August.

What were three scrawny plants by the pond in the spring have become a big patch of great blue lobelias (Lobelia siphilitica). Bees are continually crawling in and out of the flowers. I hope it makes good honey!