After the storm

While our Nova Scotian weather can be somewhat robust in nature, with cold winds, fogs and other challenges, we don't normally get too many thunderstorms in the run of a summer. We might average between six and twelve throughout the spring and summer months, although I've seen thunderstorms here in March and in November. Normally they're wonderful to watch, attractive weather tantrums that just cause us to pause and watch mother nature at her elemental best.

Not last night. Or more specifically, yesterday morning. I was reading an Ian Rankin book about 0130 (the pain in my legs often keeps me awake so I sleep til they give in) when I thought I heard thunder. I trotted downstairs and looked out the patio windows--and watched as the sky lit up time and again in a matter of thirty seconds.

Uh oh. Gonna be a bad one. I pulled the plugs on electronics, pulled on my crocks and a sweater, and ran to the barn. No rain was coming, but there was a lot of lightning, and I needed to bring in Leggo and Jenny. Well. I hadn't stopped to seek out the flashlight, and the horse was not coming...and there I stood at the gate, hollering my head off and hoping that the lightning would pause out over the Bay for a little while longer. Jenny sauntered up while Leggo was doing powerturns around her, whinnying and prancing and just being a nervous hairball, but I finally cajoled him into coming to me and got them into the barn.

And all hell broke loose.
I haven't figured out yet how to take photos of lightning storms. But I wouldn't have tried last night anyway. For the first time in three or four years, we were nervous during a thunderstorm. In fact, I have never been as nervous as I was last night about a storm--nor have I ever in my life seen such a storm. It was like a strobe light was flashing constantly--lightning so brilliant you could see the colours of the garden when the sky was lit up. At one point, the kitties and I all contemplated heading for the basement, but we decided to keep my longsuffering spouse company in the kitchen. Actually, Tigger slept through the entire performance, even when strikes very close by rattled the house with jet-engine roars of thunder.

Today everything was washed clean, and although the rain came down too hard and washed out some gravel roads and roadsides, things look fresh around the yard. There was one sad note, as my neighbour's old pony was found tonight dead in the pasture. Whether she had a heart attack or was struck by lightning or something else, we don't know--his donkey is fine--but this is why I bring our animals in when cumulonimbus clouds move up the Bay or the cats are too weird. Tonight it was humid and I brought the critters in early--which should guarantee a quiet night--and as I watched the sky and the placid waters of the upper Bay, I was reminded that we humans are pretty puny. No matter if we build mcmansions and drive gas-guzzling SUVs and otherwise try to make ourselves look important. We can't control the weather--other than to make it worse with global warming, that is.

Okay, that's enough pensiveness/ranting out of me. I promised more blooms (and other things) so let's get to the good stuff!

The heathers are just starting to bloom in my conifer-ericaceous bed; if you can't tell heaths from heathers, use this as a mnemonic. Heaths rhyme with Easter and bloom in the spring: Heathers wait for summer weather to do their bloomin' thing.


I am simply silly about the vibrant neon colours of annual ice plants(Mesembryanthemum). I plant them out in containers so they won't get overly soggy if we have a wet summer, and they reward with dozens of brilliant blooms.


I caught this caterpillar in the act of going into his pupate form; it was really fun to watch the chrysalis thrashing as the caterpillar made his transformation. I've found more chrysalids in different parts of the garden, which leads me to declare a moratorium on all deadheading, weeding, etc until the nursery has done its hatching.


I'm slow to get into alliums, other than having had 'Hair' and Nectaroscordum for some years. This is A. flavum, I think; the pot was full of tiny bulbs and shoots, and the yield was a cluster of yellow fireworks and one purple-pink one.


Perhaps the oddest coneflower in the garden is Rudbeckia 'Black Beauty'; not really black but definitely a striking beauty in its own way.


The elegant design of the blue scabiosa flower makes me intensely happy. The white one is lovely, but this one is even better.


Ditto the blue woodruff as opposed to the white. They are actually two different species; white sweet woodruff is Gallium odoratum, while the blue is Asperula orientalis. I love them both, but I hope the blue will selfseed this year.


Cherokee Sunset is a double rudbeckia, and as you can see it has striking autumn colours to its blooms. I THINK I grew this from seed last year, but I was still surprised to see it when it began flowering.


False Mallow, Prairie Mallow...sidalcea has been a tough performer for years, selfseeding a tiny bit but not excessively, and making the bees very, very happy.


I bought this two days ago at Blomidon Nurseries; it's the Mexican hat Ratibida 'Red Midget'. I've added it to the coneflower collection out front.


To my mind, bloom day includes terrific foliage; hence this porcelain vine, which has the same delicious colours to its foliage as does Nishiki willow. I hope it will flower and fruit this year, but maybe not til next.


Here is probably the strangest plant in my collection. It's buttonbush or silversand, Calocephalus, a plant from Tasmania. Dana at Glad Gardens grew some from seed last year, and I have this one; it's truly silver looking and prehistoric in appearance (although I think it's a member of Compositae). I have it planted with bronze hair sedge, Carex comans, in a terra cotta planter, and I"ll overwinter it in the house.


Finally, a teaser; this is Lavatera 'Silver Cup', and while I can grow this and Malva Zebrina and Hisbiscus trionum 'Flower of an Hour' for fun....there is a Mallow relative that stumps me regularly. You'll hear about that soon!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day--August

It's that time again already! It's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, as started by the clever and delightful Carol of May Dreams Garden.


It's Half Past August, a Quarter to Fall--and here's what's going on at our place!


This and the first image is a perennial potentilla, Arc en Ciel--I also have one called Fireball but the flowers are much smaller. These come in shades of red-orange with yellow in the mix too, and they catch a lot of attention even though they're in among the coneflower herd.


I'm just catching on to alliums, although I've been growing a couple of them faithfully for several years now. The bizarre "Hair" is a favourite because of its odd spiky tendrils, but I like the small yellow fireworks of this one too.



I don't know if the monarchs just haven't found the yellow asclepias yet, or if it's not really to their liking, but so far it's remained unscatched. I can't find the orange one, but it's possible I weeded it out, thinking it was something naughty!


Although the light wasn't quite right and I should have used my tripod--I couldn't resist including this photo of a hummingbird facing off with a wasp! It's very bizarre to see the wasp turn and face the hummers, and then CHASE them--but they all share eventually.


You didn't think I'd get through a post of flowers without at least one coneflower, did you? Of course not. Here's Sundown, also known as Evan Saul--I can finally tell them apart because SunSET has a unique lavender cast to its older flowers in cool climates, according to Tony Avent of Plant Delights Nursery.


And of course this is my favourite plant this year, the well-named Green Envy--which elicits just that response in most who see it.


Oh, this is a blissful plant! It's an orienpet lily, a cross between oriental and a trumpet, but I can't remember what it's name is. It's fragrant, it's elegant, it might be Caravan (I'll see if I can find my notes from last year).



I figure that Bloom Day ought to include some of the creatures that our garden relies on for pollination--and which they rely on for food. Here's one of our happy, fat, bumblebees. Okay, yes, I'm anthropomorphizing. It's my blog and if I want to assign moods to bees, I will. Nanner nanner nanner blttttt!


We have a lot of bee balm, mostly in strong colours like red (Jacob Cline) raspberry (Raspberry Wine) and this (Bluestocking). I didn't realize that's what this was until the Bluestocking I bought this year flowered--and looked exactly like this large clump of Monarda. So now there will be two clumps.


As part of my wine-and-chocolate garden, here is Days of Wine; our daylilies are still going strong here on the mountain, and the everbloomers will keep going until frost.


This afternoon I took a walk around the back field looking at wildflowers and other things that interest me, and paused by the pond to watch dragonflies. I didn't feel I had time to sit and wait for a dragonfly to land near me...then when I went back up to the house, here he is, hanging on the autumn clematis!

I have deadlines on the go here, so I will stop for now; but I'm going to do a part 2 to my Garden Blogger's Bloom Day post--and that will be some of the native/naturalized plants that grow around our place. Happy Bloom Day, all!

Ch ch ch ch changes....

This morning my longsuffering spouse announced that I should go down to the Bay and check out the hay in a field where his nephew was working. Blaine wanted to make sure the quality was good enough for horses, and it certainly was. Now, for those of you who are accustomed to haying in June or July, relax. Down in the Valley the horse hay has been done for weeks, and in fact second cuts are well underway for both hay and silage. But here on the mountain, where things are cooler and more moist, we always get our hay in August. It’s excellent quality and the happy horse and hapless donkey always enjoy it.

While I was waiting for Blaine to bring the first load up, I walked around the garden to see what was new and exciting. Another blast of wind last night had knocked over a wooden obelisk in the back garden, and I was going to pick it up, when I spotted something wonderful. A monarch caterpillar, hanging in the ‘J’ position. I got very excited , even though I realized that now the arbour is going to have to stay resting as it is for the next couple of weeks.

Monarchs (and other caterpillars) attach themselves to a twig, leaf or other object with a pad made of silk and then hang down, head first (like someone doing yoga.) Then they go into their fifth and final moult, which is the amazing one. As one website describes, when the caterpillar sheds its skin this time, it looks like a giant green water droplet, the chrysalis. It’s now beginning its pupation, the stage where it turns from a ponderously slow eating machine to a graceful, flying butterfly.


When I went out at suppertime to get ready to bring in the rest of the hay, our J-shaped caterpillar had done its magic, and was a glistening, glorious green sac. I sat on the ground transfixed by this, the first actual monarch chrysalis I’ve ever seen (except in photos and books and websites.) After the hay, I ran for my camera, and now that I knew what size to look for, I went looking carefully (from outside the border) around other plants for similar shapes.


And there were all kinds of them. Caterpillars hanging in the J-position, and a number of chrysalises (whatever the plural is) festooning a weigela shrub, daylily leaves, hosta leaves…sunlight gleaming through the translucent sacs—I could even see stripes inside a couple of them.


Now, I realize that monarch caterpillars pupate by the millions every year…but I’m no less awed by a marvelous feat of biological engineering.


And when I went back to check the big milkweed plant, I found a few eggs on the underside of some of the upper leaves...and the cycle continues.

Storms, computers, and other dramas

When I called my longsuffering spouse from Halifax yesterday, I told him I was having a Monday. “This is Thursday”, he pointed out.

Nope. It’s been Monday all week.

My MacBook Pro laptop has been having issues, and we thought it was fixed Wednesday…only to have me go flying back into Halifax again yesterday. I left the dear thing at the shop overnight, hoping that it would manifest its odd behaviours for the technician. But it’s been acting like the frog in the Bugs Bunny cartoon, the frog that sings and dances in front of one person—and when presented to an audience sits there and goes ‘Ribbit.’ That’s my laptop—misbehaving for me, and acting angelic for the technician. So I’m running three days behind in work, but figure it’ll get caught up over the next couple of days.

To add to the fun, we’ve been having a spot of weather. First, we had a joyously profound drownpour of rain on Wednesday evening, followed by wind all day yesterday. Quite a bit of wind. Not the wicked Suête wind of Cheticamp, which can hit nearly 100 miles an hour on a regular basis, but an impressive bit of wind in its own right. It did some pruning in the garden, and not necessarily the sort of pruning that is appreciated—knocking down some of the sunflower ‘trees’ (freerange selfseeded sunflowers that grow up tall and thick-stemmed and multi-flowered), throwing an obelisk bearing a blue-flowered Clematis integrifolia ‘Caerulea’ over onto some iris and darmera, rumpling all sorts of parts of the garden and just generally being a pain. Because I was preoccupied with computer dramas, I didn’t really view the yard until later today.

Between the computer headaches and the weather and some bad news about aging relatives, I suddenly was caught up in a case of the pre-autumn blues. The garden that looked so fresh and lush just a few days ago seemed ‘bewiltered’ and the coolness of the air following the storm has that inimitable whisper of autumn in it. Even though I know we have weeks to go before the equinox, the lessening of the light and the changing of shadows and sun patterns in the yard further casts me into the doldrums. And ironically, the no-see-ums are still vicious, way worse than mosquitos or blackflies ever thought of being up here, and when I went outside to take some photos I was actually driven back indoors by the tiny and voracious insects.

However…despite a need to deadhead, trim, tidy and weed, the garden also cast a balm of comfort over my soul. In part it came from rejoicing in the tiny details of the plants and their neighbours in our yard. Doing this requires me to really slow down and look—and see—not just glance, but really SEE the marvels of the garden.

Marvels like the fabulous patterns and colours in a Masterwort (Astrantia) flower…


Or the wealth of colours in a Venidium blossom’s centre…


The blind hunger of a monarch caterpillar chewing down a milkweed…


And the rainbow of light on a spiderweb.


Though some flowers are winding down their life and turning to pop art seedhead sculptures,


Other plants are embracing the summer by sending up bright new growth, like this Nishiki willow twig.


While the rich gold of pollen (here in a daylily’s heart) promises food for birds and insects, and indirectly (through honey production) for us humans.


Hope is rekindled in a garden, watching the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth. To heck with the deadlines, and all the things that haven’t gotten done the past few days. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I’m spending the day in the garden regrounding myself and restoring some sense of inner equilibrium. Whacking weeds or rejoicing in caterpillars will do that to a person.

If regrounding ourselves isn't a good reason to garden...I don't know what would be.

Glad gardens of hope

This afternoon on my way back from several other appointments, I stopped in at Murray Salsman’s home in Grafton, NS, behind Berwick. One of the things that makes me particularly happy is when people use their gardening skills to do something that will help others. Murray’s that kind of gardener. His property is home to Marg’s Glad Garden, a memorial garden he built for his late wife Margaret, but also which helps many people every year.

Margaret died of cancer in January of 2004 but she loved to garden, and she and Murray always worked together in their flowerbeds. Her favourite flower was the gladiolus, and Murray decided to plant about 3000 bulbs in her memory, the spring following her death. Then he got the idea to use the glad garden to raise money for the Cancer Care Patient Navigator program, which helps cancer patients and their families when they are dealing with financial difficulties around treatment, etc. And the funds raised go to help patients in Kings and Annapolis Counties—not to fund some research program or some heavily bloated fundraising bureaucracy somewhere else. Marg’s Glad Garden has helped many people since its beginning in the spring of 2004.

This year, Murray and a host of helpers planted around 10,000 glads in early May, and now the garden is open for people to come and visit. If they make a donation to the fund, which is a registered charity, Murray cuts them a bouquet of his gorgeous glads, which come in almost every colour conceivable. Already there has been a steady stream of visitors come to wander through the plantings, make donations, and receive their bouquet of flowers. Murray also has paintings and photographs of glads, taken or painted by Nova Scotian artist Sandy Moser, for sale, and naturally I bought the photo of the hummingbird inside a glad blossom to add to my wall of floral art!

Incidentally, I wrote about Murray and Marg’s Glad Garden last year for Reader’s Digest magazine, (it was in the October or November issue in Canada) and as with anything like this, I always hope that telling the story will spur someone, somewhere, to try something similar. I am a firm believer in helping local people, whether it be purchasing local plants or farm produce or donating to a local charity, so this to me is a good thing to do.

When I got home I went out to the memory garden to look at plants. Since another garden club is coming to visit tomorrow, I thought I should tidy up a bit. But I got as far as the back perennial bed, looked at the Rosy butterfly weed (Asclepias incarnata) and stopped in my tracks.


Remember the other day there were a few little monarch caterpillars having a snack?

Well…I counted about 5 dozen caterpillars in all in the three clumps of asclepias. Most of them are big already, (and the asclepias has taken quite a thumping, but that’s what it’s there for) and will probably be going to pupate in a matter of days. I’ll have to tippy toe around looking for a chrysalis, as I’ve never seen one in the garden.


One of the reasons I have grown to love butterflies so much is because of their remarkable life cycles, and how we can create metaphors for our own lives by watching and learning from them. I never got the weeding done…I spent an hour or more watching the caterpillars munching through the milkweed leaves, and taking photos…and then being visited by this adult female monarch.


She seemed completely oblivious to the caterpillars chewing their way around her—she just probed through the flowers and fluttered around.I think she was just dining on nectar, but maybe she was also getting ready to lay eggs. I haven’t seen a male here yet, but I’m sure it won’t be long now.

Earlier today my longsuffering spouse had asked worriedly about the tussock moth caterpillars, which we don’t care for because last year we had a population boom of them that stripped quite a few plants, and I actually broke out the Bacillis thurengiensis—until I spied monarch caterpillars, at which point all hostilities ceased. This year, I’ve seen maybe a handful of the pesty moth caterpillars, and I think the explosion of them last year—or the cold winter-- meant a bust this year for them. Even if there are a pile of them around, they’re going to get stomped, or snipped in half, or picked and thrown in soapy water, not sprayed, not even with soapy water…don’t want anything to disturb “my” brood of munching monarchs-to-be.

Somehow, after having been to Murray's and making a donation to the Memorial Fund, coming home to monarch butterflies and babies seemed really appropriate. Marg would approve too, I'm sure.

A couple of local Garden Jewels

It's time for a bit of a rant, this time about appreciating what we have close to home. I often grumble that I don't understand people, and that includes people in my own beloved province, many of whom think that fool in Ottawa and the other one in Halifax/Mabou are effective and good leaders. But without going off on a political tangent, let me focus my exasperation on those of us who fail to see the treasures that exist right under our noses.

Gasoline, as anyone can tell you, is well over 5 dollars a gallon in Nova Scotia now, thanks to that fiddlin’ fool and his merry band of clowns that supposedly run the province, and had the braindead idea to bring in regulation. Hello, more big tax grabs by the provincial and federal governments; hello, more bazillions for the hogs at Big Oil; goodbye, traveling too far afield for many people during summer vacations.

Well, okay, so let’s make our own fun closer to home. That’s not difficult to do. Someone said to me the other day, when we were discussing tourism in the province, that there aren’t enough free attractions for families or even couples who are traveling. I got to thinking about that, and decided that wasn’t correct. Take garden pleasures,, for example. There are several really fine places to visit, several of which do not charge admission, and that I highly recommend to anyone either visiting our area, or heck, even living here!

The first one is the jewel of Acadia University, Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens, part of the KC Irving Environmental Science Centre. This is surely one of the most unique and lovely botanical gardens around, and so many of the locals don’t even realize it’s there or what a treasure it is. More than six acres of unique plantings, and the whole place looks like it’s been there for many years, when in fact it’s been open less than five years to the public.

Now, if you’re looking for formalized carpet beddings of annuals, or exotic perennials, this isn’t the place to go. This is a garden celebrating the flora of Nova Scotia, and some of the unique ecosystems that flourish all around us. Do you know what sorts of plants live in a bog? In a calcareous woodland? There are nine distinct ecosystems set up at the Gardens, each with their distinct shrubs and perennial plants and trees.

Walk through the sand barrens and you’ll feel the heat shimmering from the ground, and see sweetfern, lowbush blueberry and and chokeberry growing; in the decidous woodland, linger under sugar maples and yellow birch while you look for bunchberries, ferns, wood sorrel and other delicate plants; in the freshwater marsh, you’ll see cattails, sedges, arrowhead, and a host of plants that will grow submerged or partially submerged. There are excellent interpretive displays and maps, specialized gardens such as a medicinal plant bed, walking trails and water features, a unique bed of native perennial flowering plants.


Besides all this, there’s a raft of activities taking place at the gardens yearround, from seminars to camps to workshops.

More people need to visit this jewel, and learn more about the world around us that we so often take for granted. It’s one of my favourite places in the county, if not in the province. Go visit for yourself; the gardens are open to the public from dusk to dawn; the conservatory part of the gardens is open from 8 am to 10 pm. AND there are free guided tours of the gardens throughout the summer months.

I don't get to the Historic Gardens in Annapolis Royal nearly as often as I would like. But for a nice review of what it's like this year, go visit I Wet My Plants, a blogger out of Ontario who was in our province just a couple of weeks ago. Kathy was also in Scotts Bay, and took photos of my neighbour's wonderful rock garden. (Much of our garden isn't visible from the road, thanks to some maples, spruces, and other shrubs and trees in the front part of the property, if you were wondering.) She visited several of our fine nurseries too, and found more treasures for her gardens back home, and we're glad she had a great visit to Nova Scotia.

Back in Wolfville, another favourite spot is part of a very popular and thriving Wolfville business, The Blomidon Inn The Inn is a lovingly restored sea captain’s house, turned into a highly rated Inn some years ago and operated by the Laceby family for approaching 20 years. Along with the 29 uniquely and distinctly decorated rooms, each named after a community or character of the Valley the Inn has a number of delightful features, including their restaurant, and the completely eclectic and unique House of Gifts, a perfect place to dispose of a little disposable income. It has a collection of carefully sourced gift items, from kitchenware to jewelry to cats of all sorts to a garden room of earthly delights, and is open from 1 May to December 23. (The Inn, however, is open yearround).

But one of the best parts about the Blomidon Inn is their gorgeous gardens, which features more than three acres of plantings in the recreation of a Victorian style of garden. The Lacebys invite and welcome people to come and visit their gardens, which feature three ponds, a rose square with a gazebo, a splendid horseshoe shaped perennial bed and terrific plantings in rock garden areas with five totally different types of rocks (all from within the province, however). Behind the Lacebys' home (up back of the Inn), there’s the vegetable garden and highbush blueberry patch that supplies much of the fresh produce and herbs that chef Shaun Laceby uses in his culinary creations.


Now there’s a great map of the gardens on the Inn’s website, so you can see for yourself all there is to enjoy. For us gardeners, it’s a wonderful place to go—it’s nice to just visit the gardens but I personally like to do the whole thing once in a while, treat myself to lunch at the Inn and then go visit Donna and the House of Gifts.

After all, everyone deserves a bit of pampering, especially those of us who grub in the dirt, right? And when there are terrific places to enjoy right in our own backyard, why go further afield?

Just my two cents on a serene sultry Sunday.

Visitors large and small

This was one of those really busy days but also one filled with delightful surprises. To start out the day, I went off to Medford to pick 16 pints of raspberries at the U-Pick, while Longsuffering Spouse worked on the painting of the house. It's going to look wonderful when he gets it done--which in this heat is taking longer than he had expected. To keep him encouraged, I made up 10 pints of raspberry freezer jam which is his favourite--next to peach and blackberry. Pity we don't have any raspberry wine--except for the Monarda of the same name at the top of this entry.

This afternoon we were visited by some 50 gardeners from Clementsvale and Annapolis Royal; people I met during talks I've given in the past number of months.

I've never had a garden club visit before, and I was a bit nervous but also glad to welcome them. It's always interesting to see what catches other people's eyes, isn't it. Several raved over this Chinese delphinium.
Others were ga-ga over the poppies, which are still flamboyantly doing their thing in a host of colours. More than one asked me which hydrangea this is, and I simply said, "one of the blue lacecaps--because I don't know." Blue Billows, Blue Bird, who knows without a tag or good notes? Since they'd just come from Canning Daylily Gardens, they weren't at all surprised to find me with a host of daylilies in all shades. But more than one person was intrigued by the chocolate foxglove, Digitalis parviflora, part of my chocolate and wine garden.


A number of folks exclaimed over the clematis, especially this one, which is about nine feet tall, and has a few flowers on it. One of the visitors told me she thinks it's Polish Spirit, because of its deep wine colour, and that rings a bell with me. Whatever it is, people were amazed. But I said it's not my doing; Thank the mushroom compost, the fog, the kelp meal, and straw mulching, not me!

After our guests left, I went out to harvest the tomato crop. Such as it is.

Okay now, stop laughing, all you tomato growing whizzes. In my defence, I picked them because I couldn't stand it any longer. And no, your eyes aren't deceiving you; we have a gold, a pink, and a not-quite red ripe one; Gold Nugget, Thai Pink Egg, and I believe the red one is Harmony. I could only take one photo...because to paraphrase the little cat, "I eated them!" I'll put the Seaboost to the plants now and get them moving on their cropping, encouraged by all the tomatophiles out there who grow such nice plants and fruits.

Someone asked me why I don't put out saucers of beer to trap slugs as they noticed a few holes in plants. Well, the truth is, a few holes in my hostas or depredations by rose sawworms or aphids on the honeysuckles don't bother me all that much. I hose down the honeysuckle a couple of times each season, but mostly just let nature--in the form of ladybird beetle larvae and other munching predators--do their thing. I HAVE been watching carefully for an outbreak of the white tussock moth caterpillars, but have seen only one--and if we do get a pile of them, the garden will just have to suck it up and handle it.

Because there are more important things to take care of than bad bugs. Like good bugs. Like bumblebees,

And spangled Fritillary butterflies, (click on this to enlarge it--and tell me he doesn't seem to be looking right at the camera! Just wait til my macro lens gets here, if you think that is fun!)
and most importantly of all...the visitors I found on the rosy milkweed, or swamp butterfly weed (Asclepias incarnata.)

Jubilation! They're here, and they're munching. The monarch caterpillars have hatched! If you'd been in my back yard, you would have seen me doing a little happy dance when I saw a dozen or more of these little darlings munching the rosy milkweed. Eat all you want, guys, there's lots. Eat hearty. Grow big and strong.
Isn't it nice that something so small can make a person so happy?

Garden Blogger's Muse Day: August 1

Here goes...my first attempt at playing in the Garden Blogger's Muse Day festivities. I'll enjoy reading other postings more, though.
August

Daylily days and frogsong nights
Heat and fog play
ring-around-the-garden
The best looking plants seem to be the weeds
As hungry insects gnaw on once-perfect leaves and flowers
And of course now come the visitors!
Little do they know that a garden writer’s garden
Is only perfect if her name is Martha.
Still, there's a little 'Green Envy' to enjoy...
Deadlines can give way to hammock swinging and sense-restoring
As we listen, look, smell, touch and taste the garden’s joys
A storm cloud trembles on the horizon, to remind us
We’re half past summer, quarter to autumn
No matter what the almanac says.