The Happy Cottage

Small Garden Journal

This blog began in Jan. 2017 on a cold bright winter day in our 1945 cottage home in Durham, NC. Photos of the Spring 2016 garden inspired me. Winter is after all, the perfect time for gardeners to daydream of Spring. Monthly posts highlight what's happening in our Zone 7 Piedmont garden which includes small wildlife and occasional updates of what's happening inside the cottage. In 2015 we renovated the house next door and are enjoying starting garden beds there as well.

Visit the Butterfly Compendium to see a catalog of pollinators in the garden and host plant information. View this and other favorites in the Featured Posts section of the blog (to the right of the most recent post).

Gardening/lifestyle ethos at The Happy Cottage: support Mother Earth and yourself by being as natural as possible. Avoid the use of synthetic chemicals and weed instead of spray. Include host and nectar plants for pollinators. Favorite garden medium: organic mushroom compost. It's the soil that mushrooms were grown in. Full disclosure: We do use biological mosquito dunks.

My gardening style has evolved over twenty years to include scent, food for pollinators, butterflies, birds and shelter for small creatures. A multi-dimensional garden will bring you years of enjoyment!

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Beautiful Summer Solstice 2019

The day is beautifully bright and windy. More thunderstorms are coming tomorrow. This will be a quick post, but I wanted to send Solstice greetings. By the way, check out yesterday's Variegated Fritillary post. Salmon Queen Zinnia The mighty Willow Oaks. They were planted in many front yards 70 or 80 years ago. Tiger swallow tail feeding on the wild bergamot. He's hanging on for dear life. The wind is bouncing the butterflies around today. I was fortunate to get this s

Birth of a Variegated Fritillary Butterfly

Here's a short catalog of the Variegated Fritillary coming to life starting with the caterpillar on the Passion vine. This photo is really from last Fall, but I didn't take a picture of our "current" caterpillar this Spring. One day our caterpillar was gone. You hope that he/she left to form a chrysalis instead of having an unfortunate demise. This June we saw our first chrysalis. The photo above was taken June 9th. On June 16th, we saw a small butterfly on the step below t

Early June- Small Life in the Garden

Our abnormally dry weather conditions have abated! This has been a season of weather extremes. El Nino kept us unusually wet and then abruptly the rains stopped combined with near record high temperatures for late May. June 11th was idyllic here in Durham. A "cold" front brought dry cool air and beautiful sunshine. As we approach midsummer blossoms and small creatures are gracing the garden. Gardens in and of themselves are beautiful, but attracting wildlife and pollina

Late August (actually May)

May started beautifully, but ended up feeling like August with near record breaking temperatures and almost no rain. I have hope for June as we had rain and normal temperatures on May 31st. These photos range from May 5th thru May 12th. Confederate Jasmine. This fragrant evergreen vine likes shade. I was introduced to this vine by my neighbor, Cheryl, when my nose led me to it. Our vine faces North and is growing on the backside of our house. It even grows in deep shade.