My parents’ neighbor, Doris, gave me this plant many years ago.
I found fruits on it for the first time today.
The flower’s name is Turk’s Cap for obvious reasons.
It is also called Sleepy Hibiscus because the blooms never open.
It’s scientific name is Malaviscus arboreus.
The fruits look like little apples, manzanillas.
The fruit breaks up into pieces that look like tiny apple slices.
The Humming birds love the flowers.
FLOWER
There is a whole world on one weed in my garden.
I did not kill this weed because of a hybrid I fell in love with in Tuscany.
So when I saw it growing on the bank, I staked it up to compare it with the hybrid.
What a wonderful weed it has been.
This wild Passion vine/Maypop/Passiflora incarnata has been a whole laboratory.
There are ants on the pods and stems.
The best part is all the caterpillars of various sizes.
Tiny, shiny, spiky, orange and black caterpillars of Fritillary butterflies.
I check on this plant every day and find something new.
An added bonus is a beautiful, blue morning glory that grew up into the Passion vine.
My daddy’s favorite color of blue, bluebird blue.
I have been blessed by this weed. I am so thankful I did not kill it.
Where would all those lovely caterpillars be? Nowhere, that’s where.
Follow the weed.
I find many lovely wild plants along my driveway.
This one is especially interesting in the fall.
During most of the year it is a nondescript, wiry, open shrub.
Its only distinctive feature while not in bloom is that its stems look like green wire.
It turns into a marvel in the September when its seed pods ripen.
They burst open to expose the orange-red seeds inside.
It is also called American strawberry bush, but do not eat the seeds they are poisonous.
Its scientific name is Euonymus americanus.
Wonderful weed!
Butterflies do not just hatch from the egg with wings.
They must first go through a larval stage called caterpillar.
Then they have to bind themselves up for a while to go through metamorphosis.
While they are wrapped up(pupating) in the chrysalis (not pictured),
all their cells rearrange into a butterfly or moth. Then they have their wings.
Now everybody loves butterflies and colorful moths.
What if we went around killing all the weird and spiky worms in our yards?
Then there would be no lovely fliers later, because everyone killed them as babies.
If you don’t ” love some larvae”, leave them alone.
They are waiting for their wings.
FLOWER
While the rest of my garden is shutting down and drying up in North Carolina,
the sedums are just starting to put on a show.
These flowers are the star attraction for bees, bugs and butterflies now.
I have quite a collection of these not-so-thirsty plants
due to my past profession as a garden artist.
Sedums thrive in “stone trough” planters made of hypertufa.
This is a mixture of Portland cement, vermiculite, sand and peat moss.
My sedums survived this dry summer much better than my “water-loving” plants.
Now that the temperature is finally dipping down a bit,
the sedums are putting out their lovely heads of tiny flowers.
Many types have pink blooms, but some have yellow
or even white.
September is the month for sedums in the south.
FLOWER
Mama Nature is quietly teaching me another lesson.
I have been chasing butterflies, you see.
Not all of them are beautiful and perfect.
Many have tattered wings.
They still fly like the rest.
They have survived some damage.
Maybe a lizard’s bite, or a spider web’s tether or a hungry bird’s claws or beak.
Maybe they were battered by a storm.
They have lost pieces of themselves that will never grow back,
but they are still flying.
fLOWer
If you are not crazy yet, try chasing butterflies.
I am not talking about the sweet Swallowtails.
They soar purposefully in the direction of their destination
then land on a flower and spend hours eating and ignoring everything else.
I am also not referring to the beautiful Buckeyes
who flit like twirly leaves before landing on a sedum to spend the day.
Nor the American Lady which stays put, but seldom opens her wings for a peek at their upper-side colors.
Not the tiny little Gray Hairstreak either, with its tail appendages that move like antennae.
Not even the Cloudless Sulfur that zig zags around and then lands on green things so you can’t find it.
The “pic-tease” of the butterfly world is the Monarch.
It has played my like a paparazzi this week.
On Sunday I quietly stalked it for sometime, then shamelessly ran down the drive after it.
When I finally came to my senses and returned to the house to fold laundry,
it coasted across in front of my bedroom window and looked in.
On Monday I took a photo break to give the neighbor’s dog a bone.
I looked out the front door as I closed it to see the Monarch glide across the porch.
Who’s zoomin’ who?
This game went on for days until finally, it settled itself for a few precious minutes on some garlic blooms.
It stayed just long enough for me to snap a few, not-so-great photos.
I am glad the Monarch is savvy. I fear for its future.
It’s a long way to the forests of central Mexico and much of its forest has been logged or blown down by storms.
I love all butterflies, but the tricky little Monarch has a special place in my paparazzi heart.
FLOWER
I was out in my yard with my camera, as usual.
Something shiny caught my eye on the leaf of a Flying Saucer.
A speck of gold, dazzlingly brilliant on this drab day.
A 14 carat gold nugget perched on a leaf, just waiting to be plucked off and pocketed by little, old me.
I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I snapped a photo.
As I reached for it, it scampered around to the underside of the leaf.
The nugget had antennae and legs! A tiny, shiny alien on my flying saucer.
My gold was running away. It was alive!
A Golden Tortoise beetle/ Charidotella sexpunctata.
It climbed onto my arm. “Come to mama.” I cooed.
It spread it’s golden wings and flew away.
Fame and fortune are fleeting fantasies.
I’d better just stick to my flowers.
Follow the flying fortune!
I do not need to check the fig tree to see when the figs are ripe.
The crow lets everybody know.
He sits on an oak branch high above the fig tree, bobbing up and down,
as he loudly caws all to the feast.
I do not mind sharing. He takes the high figs and I take the low figs.
There are other fig lovers.
Giant hornets.
They do mind sharing.
Follow the Figs… Carefully.
floweralley 