Last fall, I tore out the bushes that were in front of my house. These bushes had been there since well before I bought the house. I took care of them every year, trimmed them up, made sure they looked good. But after a while, I just decided that the house needed something different there. I didn't know what, I just knew it had to be something different. 

This spring, once our Minnesota snow melted, I tried to figure out what my plans were going to be for this new blank canvas in my front yard. After a few weeks of debating with me, myself, and I, I went and purchased about 35,000 wildflower seeds and planted them throughout the space that used to have the bushes. I then sat back and let nature take its course with the area. Sure, I watered it. But I just let it be outside of that. As things started growing in that space, I literally had no idea if any of them were flowers, or if they were just weeds. 

It took a very very long time for me to find the answer to that question. It was Labor Day weekend, and I finally had my very first wildflower! Labor Day weekend! Man, letting nature take its course sure made me wait a long time to see some flowers in that little garden of mine. Now that we are past mid-September, there are still about a dozen or so flower buds waiting to open up. But over-all, there are around 50-60 flowers in the garden. Most of them are in a part of the garden that takes up one-third of space in it. So, plenty of the garden didn't get anything. Now, my dopey roommate hired someone to till the dirt in my wildflower garden in July. I came home and found about 20% of the dirt tilled and all the vegetation pulled. So, who knows how many flowers I could have had, but next year I will absolutely have to plant some more.

Anyway, back to the pretty flowers. Last weekend I took my camera out to the flowers to get some photos of these wildflowers. I am now ready to share those photos with you. One of the main reasons I went with wildflowers is I obviously want to photograph them. I also made sure to buy flowers that specifically attract butterflies and hummingbirds, as I would obviously like to photograph those as well.

I was making my way through this wildflower garden of mine, taking photos of the flowers that caught my eye the most. And as I was finishing that up, a beautiful painted lady butterfly came and spent some time on one of the flowers. I loved it! Of course, I got some photos of it. So when you see the flowers, they will not just be flowers, but grasshoppers and butterflies too!

As I am writing this blog, I had another new visitor to my wildflower garden. I hummingbird came and paid a visit! I have my barking dog to thank for me seeing it. My dog was barking at my living room window, so I went over to her to see what had caught her attention and to quiet her down a bit. As I stood next to her for a while, this beautiful little hummingbird flew up to one of my flowers. It ended up visiting about four or five of the flowers and was so incredible to see! I did not get a photo of it, but now that I know they have found my flowers, I'll be better prepared to get some photos of them.

To see all of my wildflowers photos, take a look at my gallery here.

I hope you enjoy the photos, and please feel free to share!