Monarchs, Finally

They usually get here in August...
People have been talking about a poor showing this year due to the drought, and I guess that's right.
I've put out their faves though....

Monarch butterfly leaving surprises on butterfly weed (asclepias tuberosa)

Monarch cats munching tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica)

The blooms on the tropical milkweeds are pretty, but I'd rather have the cats...

Agalinas purpurea blooms

Buckeye butterfly leaving eggs

Kewt little baby buckeye cat

Buckeye butterfly

I spotted a chrysalis on a pear tree.... This is from the gulf fritillary.

Long-tailed skipper babies on desmodium.

Desmodium blooms... Yall might recognize this plant from it's seeds, the ones that stick to your jeans and socks... This plant is better known as tick-trefoil, and the seeds as 'beggar-lice'. I could actually see a case for "dead-heading" this particular plant... Although.... the seeds are supposed to be valuable wildlife food.

Blooms on cranberry hibiscus. First year growing this plant, I'm thrilled to finally see blooms forming. I still need to find some "strawberry chenopodium".

Seeds from the sandhill ironweed that I posted August 28.

Painted lady butterfly on lespedeeza

Gourd patch. I pulled up that massive patch of vines yesterday, I'll be tossing out some turnip and rutabaga seeds directly.

Bee visits white verbesina

Bees on yellow verbesina. Yall might recognize these verbesinas as tall ditch-weeds, I pulled up a coupla stems last year from a couple of patches that were being mowed. They transplanted without difficulty.

Monarda punctata

Yellow brugmansia

Hair-streak butterflies visit flowering chives

The moonflower vines have begun to bloom.

Cloudless Sulfur

I'm seeing a lot of yellow butterflies!

Cloudless Sulfur butterfly (Phoebis sennae) visiting partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata) and coffee weed (Senna obtusifolia) to lay her eggs.

I counted a dozen caterpillars on this single coffee weed!

Some of the caterpillars.

Late Summer Wildflowers

A coupla unexpected reblooms...

White campion (Silene alba) blooms in the Spring, at the End of April, the first of May.
Seeing rebloom is nice.

I've found white campion on a weed site... I wouldn't call this flower a weed.
The only way that I've been able to propagate this jewel is by digging it, and cutting pieces off... like heuchera.
Pretty scary stuff.

The cross vine blooms about a month later than the bladder campion, generally at the end of May, the first of June.

I haven't had the big flush of bloom on the cross-vine out here in the sand that everyone gets in town, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Here's the tree that everyone loves to hate... This volunteer (is there any other kind?) mimosa is in serious danger of removal, but Ima enjoy the blooms while they're here.

Partridge pea. What can anyone say about a plant with large flowers, that doesn't require a lick of effort? Except... Where can I get some of those...

You'd think that something this cool would be included in those wild-flower mixes!

Bumble bee pays a visit.

The leaves fold up a night like a sensitive plant.
The Partridge pea is supposed to be a butterfly host plant also... I did see one caterpillar, but the battery died on the camera before I could get the shot...

I don't often see those babies after they crawl off and make chrysalises... this usually happens before I can get back out with a recharged camera.

The blue curls (Trichostema dichotomum) are blooming right on time.

Blue curl plant just before it blooms

This was originally purchased as a "golden showers tree"... I'm having a bit of difficulty tracking down which senna / cassia shrub this one is.

In the clay (in Macon), this shrub drops lots of seed, and there's babies everywhere... Here in the sand, I'm not seeing any babies.

Got some oranges (Poncirus trifoliata), I haven't actually sampled these, I've just taken everybody's word for it that they're too bitter to eat...

They're pretty, though... You're supposed to be able to make orange-ade with them, and why couldn't you use them when grilling?
Hmmm.

Sand-hill ironweed (Vernonia-angustifolia). This native sand-hill perennial is eluding my efforts to propagate, and I really like this beauty.

The typical ironweeds won't grow out here, I've brought them out several times, and they die almost as soon as I set them out.

Seed-heads

The butterflies continue to be very photogenic, I'm not sure how I got so many flower pictures without butterflies in them...

The lantana bushes are always covered in flowers and butterflies...

This unimproved yellow/pink high-bush lantana does produce some seeds, and I occasionally saw seedlings in the clay garden, but out here in the sand... never.

Some late season caterpillars

Caterpillars are an integral part of any butterfly garden, but ortho has the world conned into thinking that all caterpillars are bad.

There are some bad caterpillars, like the squash vine borer (SVB). Get an infestation of these, and either perform surgery on the injured plants, or wave good-bye to the crop.

Very bad news indeed! The SVB lives inside of the vine and/or fruit, and kills the plant.

The long-tailed skipper is less problematic, this caterpillar eats a leaf or two, and becomes a beautiful butterfly. I suppose there's always the option of removing the little caterpillars to one of their usual host plants like the spurred butterfly pea pictured below.

The long-tailed skipper butterfly

Caterpillars on the coffee weed. No worries, I grow coffee weed (Senna obtusifolia)for the sulfur yellow butterflies...



The coffee weed is an attractive, interesting plant, the leaves fold at night like a sensitive plant.

Buckeye caterpillar on agalinas purpurea.

Creepy looking caterpillars feasting on the pokeweed.

I'm not having any luck tracking down an id on these pokeweed caterpillars, after several pages of google results, I'm ready to ask for help in identification... Does nebody know what they are?

Pokeweed berries.

Gulf fritillary caterpillar

Gulf fritillary butterfly

As usual, I have too many pictures to post, I'll have to save the purdy wildflower pictures for my next post...