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Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Another Autumn

The Monarch butterflies seem to be flocking in preparation for migration. Bushes full of butterflies that can hardly be distinguished from the orange flowers...

see how many butterflies you can spot on the below photo. These pictures are all clickable...

I count 5 orange butterflies... among the orange flowers.




The bushes are large enough that shooting the entire bush results in not being able to even pick out the butterflies...

Gotta love bushes that grow and bloom despite the drought, that you don't have to do anything to protect from the local deer herds...



The lantana also attract the night flyers.





The agalinis are in full bloom.

Agalinis purpurea are pretty, and are host plant to the buckeye butterfly, which makes them an asset to the meadow.

Their short-comings are that they are annuals and strictly Autumn bloomers, and need disturbed soil to come up each year.





Here's an interesting flower, 'Summer's farewell' (Dalea pinnata)

This cool plant has ferny leaves closely resembling moss verbena, which was what I thought I had when the babies initially showed up...

Later, when the plants grew upright, rather than prostrate as expected, I could see that it was something else. These little button flowers are interesting...

The plants appear to be biennial, which coupled with their short bloom time rather negates their value in the flower border.

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Sunday, August 14, 2011

Caught some afternoon "popcorn" showers

A bit of rain encourages everything.
While the vegetables are long gone, any perennials that surived the drought have bloomed.


dwarfed echinaceaThese echinacea are a coupla years old, the constant drought has resulted in some incredible dwarfing... of the ones that didn't die...




tiger swallowtail butterfly nectaring on clasping heliotrope



The clasping heliotrope are incredibly drought proof, and the tigerswallowtail butterfly is happy to feed on this native delight.




treefrog on milkweed plant

Tree-frog onna milkweed Asclepias syriaca... They aren't going to eat the monarchs, are they?



monarch butterfly
Speaking of which...
The monarchs are back!!
Monarchs take their time getting to middle GA. I saw some monarch caterpillars in the Spring, and was surprised by the unusual earliness of the sighting, I don't know what happened to those out of time babies... these guys are right on schedule.


black tiger swallowtail mating rituals

Always fun watching butterfly mating rituals...


black swallowtail mating rituals







persimmon fruit




There were no persimmons last year, I'm seeing some fruit this year!

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Sunday, May 22, 2011

Rain maker wanted

A woman in New York State complains about getting 14 inches of rain in a single week...
The Mississippi river valley is under-water, No food crops are being planted there...

Good thing we're in a drought, right? We can get out in the garden and make up for the coming food shortage...




I dunno... This is what my garlic looks like...

I can plant seeds, but they don't come up...





The desert stuff seems happy enough... as evidenced by the yucca...





the native delphinium that I posted about in Early Emergence, is in bloom.







I took pity on the blackeyed susans last week and gave them a little water...

I wish the tomatoes would do as well with as little...





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Sunday, May 8, 2011

still dry (reprise)


Black-eyed susans... Is why you should plant native plants... these guys are wilted, but bravely... determinedly... ploughing forward, and putting onna brave front.


It seems like nuthin but a cactus garden...

The datura have begun blooming...


n the yalluh daylilies...




And the milkweed.... Will have butterfly weed blooms in a few days as well... not sure where the monarch cats are... was watchin gulf frits lay eggs on maypops the other day, haven't seen their caterpillars yet either... jus a matter uv time...

Jackyl recorded a good summer song about the Georgia heat.... When will it rain?

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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Still dry


Last of the peony poppies...

And the goldfinches are enjoying the seed I've thoughtfully provided for their pleasure...

After they finish the poppies, they'll move on to the sunflowers... speaking of which...



First bloom! (Helianthus debilis)




Cactus bloom...





stiff verbena (Verbena rigida)

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Sunday, May 1, 2011

one quarter inch of rain

My heart goes out to everybody that lost everything due to the weather thursday morning. It hurts to be deprived of everything....



But this blog post is about how dry it is in the sandhill garden....


How much difference does a quarter inch of rain make?


Well, as it turns out, it helps quite a bit...




common milkweed Asclepias syriaca
The one on the right is before the rain, on the left is after...

I still need a rain-dancer...

The viper's bugloss that I posted about in february is blooming.




This Oak-leaf hydranga is blooming... It's managed to live for a year out here, in spite of last summer being dry enough to lose seedling butterfly weed...



Amarylis bloom...

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Thursday, April 21, 2011

today's perennial blooms


Rehmannia elata ... Chinese foxgloves

These pretty woodland flowers have underground stolons, and with most plants, that would be a huge warning sign to avoid... Chinese foxglove doesn't overwhelm the garden though... Seeming instead to move around, always looking for a different venue, and dieing out in the location where it was so pretty last year. I'm not sure what this roamer is searching for, but it's certainly pretty, and doesn't require any special attention... except to be allowed to move around a bit.



The first of the louisiana iris... They do very poorly in the dry sand hill garden. Louisiana iris are normally a wetland plant, growing naturally in the Louisiana swamplands... But it grows very well in any good garden soil... and... I have managed to keep it alive in the dry sand without extra water!



The mckana's giant columbine... Aquelegia caerula
I grow an assortment of columbines, they do fine in the dry sand, and in any semi shaded garden... I've found that they didn't like being in a wetland garden, but pretty much anywhere else, they make a carefree plant for a few years... fortunately, they make up for their short life-spans by coming up easily from seed.




And finally, another wild flower native to the sand hills... Hoary puccoon, Lithospermum canescens ... This guy has a short bloom time, but it certainly adds pizazz to the meadow...

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