**Solving the June 5, 2025 Strands Puzzle: A "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" Challenge**

If you're diving into the Strands puzzle for Thursday, June 5, 2025, you're in for a treat with a theme that brings back childhood memories. Today’s puzzle is inspired by the nursery rhyme "Mary, Mary, quite contrary," and in this article, we’ll guide you through the clues and reveal the solution.

For those unfamiliar with Strands, it's a unique blend of a crossword and a word search, available on the New York Times website and in their Games app. Each puzzle centers around a theme, and your task is to find hidden words within a grid of letters. The key word or "spangram" spans the entire grid and unlocks the full solution.

The spangram for today’s puzzle is GARDEN, which fits perfectly with the theme of cultivating flowers and vegetables—a nod to the setting of the rhyme. Finding the spangram is crucial as it simplifies the puzzle by highlighting this key element in yellow on the board.

The theme words for the June 5 puzzle draw directly from the nursery rhyme. Here they are:
- CONTRARY
- SILVER
- BELLS
- COCKLESHELLS
- PRETTY
- MAIDS

To break it down:
- CONTRARY appears right across the top.
- GARDEN, our spangram, is found below CONTRARY.
- SILVER is nestled between CONTRARY and GARDEN.
- BELLS and COCKLESHELLS, words directly from the rhyme, are appropriately placed below.
- MAIDS is found beneath the right half of GARDEN, completing the set of theme words.

Solving Strands involves carefully navigating the game board and linking the letters without reusing any. If you find yourself stuck, you can submit other valid words for hints. Each hint will highlight letters in blue, revealing parts of the theme words. There's no limit to guesses and no timer, so you can take your time unraveling the puzzle.

Today’s Strands puzzle is a delightful trip down memory lane, reminding us of the whimsical nursery rhymes of our childhood. Happy puzzling!