Today marks World Environment Day and I can’t agree more with this year’s slogan Only One Earth.
This past year I studied and photographed milkweed through each season, then planted some in my garden—for when monarchs are caterpillars, it’s their main food source. And like bees, monarchs are important pollinators.
My garden is filled with bee and butterfly-friendly plants as well as assorted shallow water sources for the honeybees to rehydrate from and gather water to haul back to the hive.
This year we participated in No Mow May. We let the dandelions run amok and didn’t cut the lawn until June—dandelions provide critical early season nutrients for the pollinators.
We play chess at a tiny table in the center of the garden surrounded by a variety of bees and butterflies, hard at work.
There is only one earth and I’ll continue to capture it frame by frame until it’s gone.
it's (almost always) about the water... 
It sounds like a wonderful garden and a lovely place to play chess.Good for you and good for the birds, bees and butterflies.
This is a magnificent post! Aside from enjoying the image you painted of chess in the garden (there I was thinking it was always played indoors), I am thrilled to see actual milkweed. Those wily monarchs hang onto some of the milkweed properties which make them wholly unpalatable to predators, and their bold markings warn the predator that they are distasteful prey too.
You have my vote ….beautiful caring gardening is sooo important…keep it up lmcC