June 2023 In the Garden: Nostalgia, Growth and Letting Plants Have Their Way

Ah, June in the garden. What a beautiful month.

Reminders About Life and Art and Recommitting to Noticing and Savoring Joy

Today on my blog, I planned to share about the Winding Roads Art Tour, but as I was driving home on Sunday evening I realized I hadn’t taken a single photo all weekend.

May 2023 in the Garden: Renewal and Rebirth at the Start of the Growing Season

I’ve been eating asparagus, rhubarb and young walking onions from the garden. I’m also harvesting chives and pinches of my basil seedlings.

7 Plants I'm Not Growing in My Garden This Year and 4 I'm On the Fence About

It’s hard for me to believe the days were sunny and warm and my flowers were blooming only a week ago.

gardenAnne ButeraApril 22, 2023gardening, plants I'm not growing in my garden, garden planning, winter garden planning, deciding what to grow, garden experiments, snow in April, April in the Garden, April in the Garden in Wisconsin, garden vlog, art vlog, art and garden vlog Comments

20 Garden Favorites: The Best Projects, Plants and Ideas from My 2022 Garden

When I’m planning my garden for the year I always like to consider my garden from the year before.

gardenAnne ButeraMarch 25, 2023gardening, garden planning, assessing the garden, garden favorites, best plants in my garden, my favorite plants in my garden, favorite garden projects, garden projects Comments

Focus on Gratitude in December: Thankful for Gardens and Nature

I stand at the window and look out at my garden. Birds come and go from the feeder.

October 2022 In the Garden and the End of the Growing Season

In October you never know what you’re going to get and the hooks by my back door reflect just how changeable it’s been this month.

gardenAnne ButeraOctober 15, 2022garden, October Garden, Autumn garden, autumn, gardening, dahlias, tomatoes, sungold tomatoes, late blooming flowers, end of the growing season, end of summer Comments

August 2022 in the Garden

In June when I wrote to my Joy Letter subscribers I said that June was my favorite month. Right now, though, I’m thinking August might be.

June 2022 in the Garden and an Invitation to My Readers

We’re more than half-way through June. The solstice is just a few days away. Summer is well and truly here.

garden, joyAnne ButeraJune 18, 2022garden, gardening, June garden, June garden tour, garden tour, garden tours, in the garden, violas, pansies and violas, sketching violas and pansies, colored pencil, garden experiments Comments

May 2022 in the Garden

Not much was happening in the garden in April, but now things are really starting to take off.

garden, joy, life, seasonsAnne ButeraMay 21, 2022garden, garden tour, garden tours, monthly garden tours, spring in the garden, spring, garden dog, gardening, gardening season, spring bulbs, May garden tour, May in the garden Comments

What's Going on in the Garden July 2021

The purple poppies have been stealing the show around here lately.

Painting Violas and Pansies: in My Studio with Spring Garden Inspiration

For me, springtime in the garden always means violas and pansies. They’re some of the first things to show up at garden centers and one of the first things to bloom in my garden.

Joyful Companions: Looking Back at 16 Years of Dogs in the Garden

My main intention with my blog is to encourage and inspire you. To discover beauty. To look for joy. To embrace your creativity.

garden, joy, lifeAnne ButeraApril 9, 2021dogs, dogs in the garden, rescue dogs, greyhounds, rescued greyhounds, retired racing greyhounds, Siberian Huskies, Pitbull mix, rescued pitbull mix, gardening, gardens, about me, in my garden, my gardens Comments

Winter Joy: How to Choose and Order Seeds for a Successful Garden

The wind shrieks a puff of snow off the roof and as I step outside the storm door shatters an icicle onto the stairs.

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Why I Don't Clean Up the Garden in the Autumn

Colorful leaves crunching underfoot. Pumpkins arranged on the front steps. Gently falling snow.

Why Committing to Self-Care Is Important (Especially Now)

September is here. How did that happen?

During this month we often get our first killing frost, turning my garden to blackened mush and ending its season of painting inspiration. Is it any wonder that I mourn the coming of the fall?

Late Summer Garden Update

Won’t you join me in the garden today?

As slowly as 2020 seems to be progressing, the summer is certainly speeding past. I can’t quite get my head around the fact that it’s already late August.

fabric, garden, joy, life, seasonsAnne ButeraAugust 21, 2020garden, garden assessment, late summer garden, butterflies in the garden, monarch butterflies, tiger swallowtail butterflies, red spotted purple butterfly, monarch butterfly on verbena, tiger swallowtail on zinnias, garden harvests, gardening, garden joy, gardening for wildlife, gardens, garlic, zucchini, summer squash, cube of butter summer squash, cube of butter yellow zucchini, eggplants, herbs, tulsi, holy basil, japanese beetles, japanese beetle damage, japanese beetle damage on roses, skeletonized leaves, plum tree, raised beds, cinder block raised beds, hog panel trellis, small gardens, urban gardening, container gardens, growing tomatoes in containers, Stellar tomato, Tasmanian Chocolate tomato, Roadster tomato, geranium kiss tomato, purple poppies, lauren's grape poppies, breadseed poppies, poppies, bachelor buttons, calendula, saving seeds, tomatoes, patio gardening, cosmos flowers, sunflowers, surprises in the garden, verbena bonariensis, Spoonflower Design Challenge, Wallpaper design, climbing vines wallpaper challenge, spoonflower climbing vines wallpaper challenge, botanical wallpaper design, botanical fabric design, surface pattern design, fabric design, Spoonflower, spoonflower wallpaper, Spoonflower contest, spoonflower fabric designer, spoonflower fabric, watercolor, watercolor paintings, botanical watercolor paintings, clematis paintings, clematis, clematis wallpaper Comments

Lessons in Slow Living

Last week I pulled out all my spinach plants. They’d bolted (begun to flower and go to seed) a few weeks earlier. I’d been harvesting leaves from the stretching stems nearly every day, but it had gotten to the point where the plants had toppled over and were no longer producing new leaves.

lifeAnne ButeraJuly 10, 2020slow living, slowing down, lessons from my garden, Ellie Beck, Mindful Thoughts for Makers, mindfulness, lessons from laundry, garden salad, gardening, growing food, garden harvests, watercolor paintings, Garden Harvest watercolor painting Comments

Paint. Garden. Repeat.

These are my favorite days, dividing my time between my studio and my garden.

I’ve been unplugging as much as possible. And it feels good to be so focused. I’ve fallen in love, again, with my art. There’s so much to paint! Some flowers come and go in the blink of an eye.

May in the Garden and the Studio

May is steadily marching by and spring is unfurling a little bit more each day. The nest of baby grackles in the bushes behind our fence has already been vacated. And yet I’m impatient with spring’s progression this year. Maybe every year. But this year, especially so. Mostly I just want nice weather. Sunshine and warm air so I can walk barefoot in the garden and plunge my hands into the soil.

garden, paintings, artAnne ButeraMay 22, 2020garden projects, gardening, spring, studio, art practice, art studio, art evolution, style evolution, artist style development, bee skep, diy bee skep Comments

notes from the studio

Shared the 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month.