American Lady

It's a spectacular year for cudweed / rabbit tobacco.... It's so prolific that I'm finding myself actually pulling it out of the vegetable beds! Normally I leave it be... gotta have host plants.... if you are gonna have butterflies....

When I spotted an American Painted Lady laying eggs... I went running for a camera... 

Naturally, the butterfly was long gone by the time I got back... so... I carried the camera around hoping for another chance....

And... when I found another lady... I took lots of photos...

 And... A Buckeye had to inspect the garden soil while I planted the glass gem corn....

 The penstemons are blooming.

  I posted at length about penstemon may 2013

Check the bug....

 Some final bloom on the wild amsonia.

Speaking of bumper crops.... The 7 minute itch is everywhere... and can't hand pull this stuff... 

Farkleberry  bloom. (vaccinium arboreum)

 Smallanthus Uvedalia AKA Bear's Foot Flower

 Tephrosia Virginiana AKA Goat's Rue 

I tried planting the seed of this beauty one year... miserable luck... First... there were a ton of weevils inside the pods... and when I actually found a few seeds... the voles got the babies.

Solution? Grow in pots... which sucks.

Verbena bonaris... I brought this in from a garden in town.

Tansy ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) 

Haven't seen the Cinnabar Moth yet... But... Ima keep my eyes peeled...
Don't let the smallanthus leaf fool you... Had to use it to get a clear picture of the bloom.

April Flowers

Native crossvine

Natural coral honeysuckle

Ok, Native plants aficionados... Can you explain the difference between a native, a locally native, and a natural?

Red buckeye; Also a native...

And since I'm not strictly about growing native plants.... here's an exotic azalea... 

Poppies are blooming... Here's a time lapse of the same patch... the patch starts out red... and eventually turns mostly purple...
As gorgeous as these are... I'm kicking myself for not having planted more... But... Pictures just don't do them justice, and I forget how much I like them when October planting time rolls around...

Bearded iris in foreground.... Louisiana iris in background....

Found my black rat snake coachwhip snake... tied up in bird netting ... cut it loose
Maybe y'all remember the king snake from 2013?
You'd think I'd quit trying to use bird netting in a nature garden... But... I was trying to protect my baby carrots... sure is hard on my valuable snakes, though...
I'm using window screens over the seedlings in pots... I'm going to have to start using the screen out in the beds...

It's definitely Spring

Bloodroot... I potted these babies last Spring, when I noticed that the voles were eating them in the garden...

Redbud tree in early bloom... one of the seedlings that I rescued from town....

chenopodium giganteum... gonna be ready to cook soon...

Zebra swallowtail.... came to help me spread horse poop.... I always get a kick out of that... spread manure, the butterflies show up....

 Ladybug on elderberry...

Cluster of aphids... the reason for the ladybugs on the shrub...

cutworm

 The eastern columbines are attracting butterflies...

 Tiger swallowtail

 Black swallowtail...

Kitty

Hmmm... Didn't think to get a pic of the toad that I dug up yesterday when I was spreading manure... :(

 How about some bird pics?

Robins

Woodpecker

And finally... How about this rainbow I captured one day as I left the library?

Brrr...

Ice on the goldfish pool...

Frost flowers... Verbesina above, dog fennel (Eupatorium capillifolium) below.

Frosty chickweed... it's so short that I can't hand-pull it... was watching a mockingbird feasting on it... and of course no camera... It flew away before I got back with it....

A blogging friend posted an article on backyard birds

So.... I eventually was able to get a few pictures this afternoon...

 Cardinal onna fence post

 Towhee in the chickweed

Some kinda wren, I reckon

Kinda difficult to get bird pics when you aren't shooting bird feeders...

While I was putting up barbed wire over the last coupla days, I was seeing truckloads of birds... everytime I walked past the garden... Of course.... no camera handy... really woulda needed to shoot action shots... can't get birds on the wing with single pics.... and they rarely pose on posts....

Here's a pic of the fence cutting through a nice thicket of blackberry bushes mixed up with wisteria... Guess which one I'd wish gone?

Hint... it's the invasive wisteria.... the blackberry actually has uses... While I rarely see berries... it's so dry... they wither up on the vine.... The briars make good habitat for the birds... They're also medicinal...

Here's a deer stand right on the property line... they're who the fence is for (poachers & thieves).

 I spoke to the sheriff's deputies... Hunting stand on the property line... nothing I can do...

 Seems like common sense they'd cut a path through the trees on the property that they're renting... put the stand out of eyesight.... at the very least...

Kitty eatin potato peels...

Frost flowers!

When people mention frost flowers, they usually mean verbesina virginica (pictured above).
This is as profound an ice bloom as I can remember... I theorize that the recent rain may have something to do with the amount of ice squeezed out of the plant this morning...

At my house the salvia coccinea Also produces frost blooms... Unfortunately... I can't say for sure whether it's also represented in this group of pics...