Gardens-In-The-Sand

bugs n stuff

black form tiger swallowtail

Buckeye caterpillar on Seymeria cassioides

I wasn't paying attention, and nasty milkweed bugs had a population explosion on the matelea

Dragon fly... my zika defense...

Wasp visits winged sumac flowers

Sand wasp visits monarda punctata

Sulphur yellow visits salvia

And who's this on the pokeweed?

Manducca visits 4 o'clock flowers in the dark...

gulf fritillary visits salvia

Anole on a watermelon

Always thrilled by the naturals... partridge pea

Centrosema

And whorled leaf milkweed

fruits of the season and other stuff

I'm not sure this is glass gem any more....

The deer berries (Vaccinium stamineum) are starting to ripen... good luck beating the birds to them, though... all the information online sez that they're only fit for the wildlife... but they're actually quite tasty... you have a window measured in minutes between ripeness and when the birds eat them.

Seashore mallow (Kosteletzkya virginica) first bloom of the summer.

Red spoted purple butterfly visits rudbeckia triloba.

I really like this combination of the white hibiscus and the snake cotton...

I'm getting watermelons from the new section of veggie garden...

Here's mixed group... rudbeckia and 2 hibiscus.

I finally got some ripe fruit from the dwarf paw paw tree... Ate the fruit and potted up the seed.

Sometimes I get lucky... Didn't bait the trap... just set it in the path. armadillo above, rabbit below.

Finally... a rose of sharon with blooms on bare branches... dry here... this tree dropped it's leaves back in June... blooming anyway... these things are tough.

garden critters in july

Spicebush swallowtail nectaring at cnidoscolus

Gulf fritillary starting a family...

The frit caterpillar...

silver spotted skipper also visiting cnidoscolus

Wheel barrow full of smilax tubers... one clump... now, if there were any decent recipes!

Fence post lizard

The dreaded squash vine borer moth

Very attractive bug for being so unloved...

The SVB grub...

Another pest...

Gopher tortoise in the new section of the garden... chomping horse turds!

Isn't this funny! I've been attracting butterflies with truckloads of horse poop ever since I got here... didn't know that the turtles also liked it...

Truckloads of poop... each pile represents an entire truckload... The idea is that after setting on top of the ground for a couple weeks, the sand softens up... makes digging out roots easier... Of course... as dry as it is... seems almost hopeless...