Are you ready for summer, dear friends of The Green Farmacy Garden?
You can feel it in the air this week – summer’s just around the corner!

Pictured above, a little wildlife rainbow waves to celebrate and support our diverse community this Pride Month:

Friend of the Garden Terri Berkheimer spotted these two shy songbirds, along with 25 other species cataloged on eBird in an early May visit. Maryland is within the breeding range of the Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea, top left), but the Cape May Warbler (Setophaga tigrina, top right) only passed through briefly, heading north from the Caribbean region where it spends the winter to its breeding range in Canada and some of the northernmost eastern United States. Your next chance to spot one in Maryland will be in the fall (possibly as early as August) when they migrate back south for the winter.

The hue of this iridescent Six-Spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela sexguttata, bottom) is on the blue side of their color range – they’re often fully green, and usually flit away far too fast for me to photograph them; I was grateful to this one for hanging out near me on the porch railing for so long!

We’re aiming to share more medicinal plants that do well in our area. Beginning on Children’s Day, we’ll have some young medicinal plant (and Thai Basil) seedlings available for purchase, including the Yarrow (Achillea millefolium, left) and Self-Heal (Prunella vulgaris, right) pictured above. Both Yarrow and Self-Heal are edible in small quantities and have been traditionally used to ameliorate various health conditions in cultures around the world (Wikipedia and pfaf.org have well-cited starting points).

The first batch of woody plants in our new air pruning beds are enthusiastically establishing their root systems. Later this season, we’ll be able to share hybrid Chestnuts (Castanea sp., foreground below) and select PawPaw (Asimina triloba) seedlings to new homes!

Some of May’s loveliest blooms included those pictured below, clockwise from bottom left: Rose Balsam (Impatiens balsamina), Valerian (Valeriana officinalis), Woodland Pinkroot (Spigelia marilandica), and Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella damascena).

Forecasts are showing sufficient chance of rain for this coming weekend that we want everyone to note that the Rain Date for our Children’s Day Extravaganza is Sunday, June 29. Please be aware that even if it doesn’t rain Sunday, sufficient precipitation before the event date can make our intended parking area unsuitable. We will update the Eventbrite listing and email all attendees by Saturday night if we have to postpone due to wet or muddy conditions. As always, our Public Events page offers more upcoming events at the GFG, and you can explore CEI’s core Programs and full event calendar on the website.

We look forward to sharing the Garden with you! -Veri for The Green Farmacy Garden team

All images by Annie-Sophie Simard except Terri Berkheimer’s birds and Tiger Beetle by Veri Tas.