free fertilizer find

Spring is slowing creeping into the northland. This weekend I started the garden spring cleaning. The perennial plants have been covered over the winter with leaf mulch, marsh hay, and covered with pine branches. I started the cleanup by removing the mulch to see what has survived the winter.

Surveying the yard I found a lot of rabbit droppings. This is great free fertilizer. The droppings have the highest nitrogen of available barnyard manures and don't smell.

The Coral Bells, Sedum, Bee Balm, and Monkeyflower, survived the winter and are already green. For a gardener this is the hope of spring. I still have a lot of work left to do to get the garden and yard ready.

Marsh hay and mulch

Rabbit droppings

Sedum

Yard material for the compost pile

Coral Bells

Motherwort, is considered a weed but it's a useful herb. It is green in early spring.

Bee Balm / Monarda

Black-eyed Susan / Rudbeckia hirta

Monkeyflower