The native garden is blooming! After about six weeks of tending by a cadre of volunteers, the garden at Chautauqua bursts into June. Earlier this week the golden banner was striking:

Today the blue mist penstemon was out in force:

As well as the lupine:

I said the volunteers have been tending these plants. Actually, we did very little—deadheading the plants in April, then some weeding of invasive nonnatives like dandelions. But for ease of care, native flowers can’t be beat. The garden will be lush throughout June as long as showers keep coming.

The wild rose bush is nearly as tall as me, its pink-shaded blossoms just beginning to open:

Earliest-blooming flowers are entering their final stages. Pasqueflower and prairie smoke both sprout a crop of fuzzy tendrils—what my friend Carolyn likes to call Phyllis Diller hair. Here’s pasqueflower before and after:

And prairie smoke with its new do:

After checking up on the garden, I tested my sore ankle—almost three weeks since the sprain—on the Mesa trail, just in time to enjoy a fringe of blue beyond the Flatirons:

Up close, the prairie is bursting with wildflowers. Today the lavender one-sided penstemon reigns:

Twenty minutes on the trail—woo-hoo! The ankle is nearly healed.