The Verbena Arena

| Flower Roberts

This is my first year with Verbena bonariensis.  It was a gift.

I love it for its tight purple clusters of blooms and its airy loose stems.

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Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly ‘ Papilio polyxenes asterius’

I did not know that it was a butterfly favorite.

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Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly ‘Papilio troilus’

On any warm day, I can count on a show at the verbena arena.

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I cut the stems back when they went to seed, thinking the show was over.

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Painted Lady butterfly ‘Cynthia cardui ‘

I was mistaken. They have grown back and re-bloomed.

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I will be cutting them back each June to encourage a second show in August.

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Who knew?  Probably you.  Flower is always the last to know everything.

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Buckeye butterfly ‘ Precis coenia’

Slow Flow

Following Caterpillars

| Flower Roberts

This is so much easier than chasing butterflies.

My three Saddlebacks, Acharia stimulea, have stayed on the coffee tree for weeks now.

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They are slowly getting bigger as they nibble leaves away from end to stem.

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I caught a photo of one just as it molted.

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One paused on top of a bean for hours.

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I have been stung several times trying to find them. I pester pests.

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They have a face on their backside to trick predators.

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I will miss them when they pupate.

It’s been one of my daily tasks to check on them.

Beautiful but toxic.

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Not everything cute should be petted.

Flower

 

Named for Neck Color

| Flower Roberts

I hope this is not an insult to the caterpillars. (“You talkin’ to me woman?”)

They are named for their yellow necks, Yellow-necked caterpillars(Datana ministra)

They appear every year on the same little oak.

I notice because the leaves disappear due to skeletonization. Which is a fancy way of saying everything is eaten but the veins.

I purposely disturb them just to watch them twitch.  They go into defense posture.

The adult moth is called the Yellow-necked Caterpillar Moth.  Ho Hum!

It looks like a rolled brown leaf with a scalloped end.  I have never seen one in person.

The poor moth can’t live down its baby nickname.  Kind of like “Stinky” or “Tootie.”

Flower

Named After its Food

| Flower Roberts

How would you like to be named after your favorite food?

Ms. Chocolate Eclair? Mr. Potato Chip? Mrs. Pimento Cheese?

Well someone named these bugs after their food, Large Milkweed Bug.

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Its Latin name is not much better, Oncopeltus fasciatus. That sounds like a disease!

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I found these on my Butterfly weed which is in the Milkweed family.

Here is an adult on a seed pod.

These nymphs do not have wings yet.

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They are the same color as the Asclepias blooms.

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Is this camouflage? I doubt it.

You are what you eat. These are toxic due to the milk weed seeds that they ingest.

They don’t need to hide.

Flower (Ms. Mongolian Beef)

 

The Painted Lady and the Garlic

| Flower Roberts

I appreciate my gap-filling plants that keep the butterflies around all summer.

One of the butterfly favorites is garlic chives, Alium tuberosa.

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These lovely white bloom clusters are full of fliers in August.

I can count on getting photographs of something on them any time of day.

This morning I had the good fortune of finding a Painted Lady.

These have four eyespots with a cobweb pattern on the underside of their hindwings.

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The garlic chive plants keep them busy until the sedums bloom.

This plant is so hardy that a clump has survived out of the ground for over a year.

I cut the blooms as they mature because it will seed itself everywhere.

It is deer resistant and beautiful. The butterflies are an added bonus.

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Flower

The Squash Support System

| Flower Roberts

Nature knows everything. We need to pay attention.

Plants plan ahead.

Let’s look at this vine.

It came up from some seeds of ornamental gourds that I threw out.

At each leaf joint is a bud cluster, which blooms one at a time, and a long three-pronged tendril.

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Why such a big tendril for such a small bloom?

Because that little bloom will turn into a heavy squash/gourd.

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That fruit will need to be supported if the vine is climbing.

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The plant plans ahead by having a built in support system with each bloom. (Like a baby with a college fund.)

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We will never know more than nature.

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Pay attention people!

Flower

A Darner Darning

| Flower Roberts

I learned something new today all by myself without books or the internet.

I was trying to get a photo of a giant dragon fly.

My daddy calls these “Snake Doctors” which makes no sense to me.

I thought I understood why they had the other name “Darner.”

I thought it was because they were big and straight like darning needles.

I was trying to get a photo of this dragon fly zooming by.

I put my camera on the action setting. I took dozens of blurred photos.

Then I paused to watch it fly back and forth, back and forth, over and over.

There was a pattern to its flight.

An epiphany occurred in the Flower’s brain.

It was not named for the shape of the needle.

It was named for the act of going back and forth like darning a hole in fabric.

Now that I knew this, I waited for it to fly back by.

Here is a  flyby photo of a darner darning.

I love my little life!

Flow

 

 

 

My One Passion

| Flower Roberts

In years past, I had three Passions.  A wild one, a red one and a hybrid.

I killed the red one. I backed over the wild one. The hybrid is the only type left.

Luckily,  I have several plants of this Passiflora ‘Blue Crown’ hybrid.

I finally got brave enough to put one plant in the ground along a fence near the Asparagus.

Here is its first ever bloom.

If this plant does not survive our winters, I have two more in large pots.

It is a vigorous vine that climbs the deck poles

and then is trained to grow on a trellis upstairs.

All are happily blooming in this August heat.

It is such a marvelous bloom.

Flower

Spiders Writing

| Flower Roberts

I have to move carefully around my tall flowers.

That is where the writing spiders build their webs.

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I do not wish to disturb their writing and eating. (Fern has caught quite a feast.)

I have three this month; one on the Lucifer(Lucy), another on the Gladiolias (Gladys)and a third on the ferns(Fern).

They are big and beautiful.

I enjoy checking on my female Arigope aurantia friends every day.

It’s interesting to watch them wrap their food for safe-keeping.

I am keeping an eye out for egg sacs.

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Lucy has made hers.

Flow