They are all over the place this year. I thought they were some kinda moth, but... wait! I have a new insect ID app. I’ll find out in a min. Hold on. Wanna know how this butterfly makes a living?
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/bfly/silver-spotted_skipper.htm Hummingbirds delight when their beak and tongue are in this flower. The intense red color of “lobelia cardinalis” beckons them from afar with this native wetlandy plant. The long time favorite arrives every summer with its intense flower spikes covered in blossoms for you and hummingbirds both. Improved summer flowering phlox has resistance to powdery mildew. So far, I agree that it does. Gentian flowers beginning to unfurl. As they slowly open, there is a hint at what’s about to happen: Gentian is a very uncommon perennial that I rarely see available to us. These plants are the best I’ve ever had. It’s a rock gardeny kind of perennial. It’s raspberry season, and this year everyone has a tremendously huge crop. Two mouthfuls, and... Our 100% organic chemical-free lawn, not even a year old yet, is doing great. After eight months of gathering energy, the clover is just now flowering. Happy happy happy clover. Next year, we will be selling our own home collected honey with our own hives. Titillating hollyhock flower provides you with something to stare at any sweltering summer day. Good cut flower for the kitchen table. I am very interested in watching insects do their thing. I have a general idea of what they’re doing, but the speed at which they do it, and the way they go about it is unmatched by humans. Gathering pollen is a small part of their lives. The rest of their time is spent in an invisible parallel universe to ours. Building homes, raising young, killing other insects, being killed by birds and other insects. We know nothing about the food chain and how it’s all interconnected. Just watch this bumblebee vibrate it’s way around this flower. Observing mother nature’s creatures is addicting. Once you start, there’s no turning back. Last year I watched a bumblebee vibrating it’s way up and into a foxglove blossom. When I saw that, I realized that the bee was made specifically just for that flower, and the flower was specifically designed just for the bumblebee. I’ve been hooked ever since, wondering stuff that there’s usually no answer to. It’s almost a curse. It consumes time, as well as space on your phone when you snap pic after pic. In the summer when it’s hot, we meet at six am to work and leave at three when it’s unbearably hot. I get up at 4:30am, make the coffee, read the news, get dressed, let the cat in, and skedaddle off to toil. It’s not fun. I do have to admit, though, that once I’m dressed and moving about and my eyes are working again, I can see. I mean REALLY SEE why people live in the south in winter, and return in the spring. Connecticut is BEAUTIFUL. I find it most beautiful at strange times of the day and night. When it’s hot as hell, I find only misery in being outdoors. When I got to work, this view met me around 5:45am. Birds singing like Pavarotti. Heavy fog burning off minute by minute. Silhouettes of big Norway spruce trees lined up and spaced out in an orderly fashion. I headed out back to start working and couldn’t help taking this picture. So damn beautiful! A scraggly weed caught my eye. I looked more carefully at it and realized that I had driven past it hundreds of times without introducing myself. I remembered that I had just uploaded a plant ID app on my phone, and used it for the very first time this morning. Look closely, and you will see why I took the time to bother. I saw a certain beauty in this little weed. The opening blossoms were lilacky-lavender, opening to white with a yellow center. Petals of a miniature “she loves me, she loves me not” fashion. Now, THIS is what I’ve been preaching about for years! THIS is why leaving a little extra time in life for observation of surroundings is good for you. This little weed made me happy, and soon I would know it’s name. Glossy leafed aster is a plant that is native to the east coast, lives in wetlands, grows from two to seven feet. Some of you must be thinking that I need a straight jacket, yet I can assure you that I don’t need one (just like the narrator in Poe’s “Telltale Heart”). Since I know most cultivated horticultural plants by sight, common and scientific names, appreciating non-cultivated plants is entirely natural, and I see beauty and value in stuff most other people see right through. I bring this up for some of you who hike, walk, bike... keep your eyes open, and get insect/bird song/plant ID apps on your phones. What you find might bring more meaning to your life. That’s what happened to me this morning. Now, I want to bring these plants home and plant them somewhere when I install my wildflower area (replacing a section of lawn). Glossy leafed aster, glad I met you! My toil proceeded into the daylight hours and the insects awoke. Asclepias Incarnata (yet again worming it’s fragrant beautiful flowers onto my blog) providing breakfast for this wasp of some kind. Ever since I started seeing value in insects, I’ll see one like this and wonder who it is. I don’t have an insect ID app yet, but when I do, I’ll be able to know the name of critters like this one. Most people see a stinging “bug.” I see a complex, sophisticated organism who eats something, and in turn gets eaten by something else. It visits the nursery for breakfast then goes away to raise its young. If mankind wished to create an organism like this one, we couldn’t. It’s part of the web of life, as we are. Link to article: http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/wasps/scoliid_wasps.htm In the whole scheme of things, who cares what that insect is? Well, I guess I do. I just find myself wondering more and more about my surroundings lately, and I find my outdoor life more interesting when I’m more knowledgeable about stuff. Maybe you will too. Ok, I went to work this am and took a few more pics: This waspy insect on our Veronica caught my eye. I put it through the app and this is what it is!
There is/was no obvious hole through the bark, so this insect’s pathogens would never know that he/she/they are inside. The leaves of some unknown plant had been chewed into pieces about 1.5 cm by 1.5cm, and were swirled together like a cigar- leaf pieces intertwined to protect whatever is inside. Don’t worry!!! I put the wood Back together and placed it carefully in a safe spot so it can pupate and go on to finish it’s life cycle. When I find out what it is, I’ll place the name and info back up here. Couple-a-days hopefully. This experience is just one more reason to look at Mother Nature much more carefully. More respect is deserved for her intellect, creativity, ingenuity, and splendor. Post script with potential answer to this insect’s identity- it might be a “leaf cutter bee.” The mother drills a hole in wood, lines the hole with leaves, nectar and pollen (enough for all nutritional needs of the one or more offspring inside). I’m still searching for more info. Link to interesting website about these interesting insects that I never knew existed until yesterday: http://connect.natureserve.org/sites/default/files/publications/files/web_-_leafcutter_bee_report_brochure.pdf I also found a butterfly larvae on a wild dill plant yesterday. I have seen it before- I know it’s not a monarch, but not quite sure which butterfly it is. Whatever it is, I LOVE THIS CREATURE (I found out what it is). This is a wonderful black swallowtail butterfly larvae. It’s a creature of mother nature’s making, a product of millions of years of evolution. A creature to understand, appreciate, and love.
Asclepias tuberosa hosts hundreds of different species of insects and birds during the year. Who cares? More and more people do! Pollinator pathway folks are encouraging homeowners to carve out a plot on their property so our pollinating friends can survive an increasingly hostile and unforgiving environment caused by mankind’s degradation of the environments. Because of all of us humans, 75% of all American insects have gone extinct since 1970, and 33% of birds. What are we gonna do about it??? Plant pollinator flowers, and do not use any chemicals on your property. It matters. There’s no time left to dilly-dally, it’s a race against the clock to save hundreds if not thousands of species that took Mother Nature thousands of not millions of years to evolve, and humans fifty years to eradicate. Asclepias tuberosa lays out the welcome mat for everyone. Stunning echinacea glows on July 4th in the mid-day sun. Native liatris flower spikes delight both humans and insects. The seeds from this plant drop to the ground and populate your gardens the next year and every year afterwards until eternity. Deer proof. Heliopsis, with its summer colors exemplifies heat, sunshine, and vacations. It’s a roadside wonder, noticeable from afar. Native daisies are home to mini-bees. It must be alotta work getting a meal out of such small flowers. An obvious summer favorite of humans and insects both. Yet another mini-bee doing its job for the hive by collecting pollen and nectar. Everyone loves black eyed Susans. It’s one day old, this garden by the highway. Give it a year and it’ll look good. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Rudbeckia “Indian summer” has 4” wide flowers that chug along with insane happiness all the way until late September/early October. Seeds fall then you have ‘em next year. And the year after. And the year after... The beautiful rose behind is always gorgeous all the time. These signs are painted by the President of the class of 2020 at Trumbull High School. Talented young lady! We have the most obscenely full and beautiful butterfly bushes on the market in many colors. Come see! Ps- TODAY WE SAW THE FIRST MONARCH BUTTERFLY returnee from Mexico. WELCOME BACK!!! Crape myrtle, a summer flowering southern plant with northern cousins hardy up here. Lush foliage and cool bark. Deer proof, and available in many flower colors. Crocosmia Lucifer about to flower. What an interesting flower bud shape. One wonders why Mother Nature designs flowers this way, yet another mystery we will never know the answer to. Joe pye weed, a monarch butterfly favorite and native wetlandy plant. Deer proof with handsome foliage. This variant has maroon foliage, and the original Plant is all green. Flowers attract EVERYONE in the insect world. Reaching for a ripe raspberry my keen eyes saw a preying mantis egg sack still unhatched attached to the stem. I relocated the stem to the nursery perennial section. Since I do not spray any chemical any more (except roundup daily), these insects can control infestations for me. Unfortunately, preying mantis eat EVERYTHING, good and bad, including hummingbirds. That’s Mother Nature for you. (Ok, so they spelled “customer” wrong. You get the point) This is the smallest native yarrow I have ever seen. It looks like babies breath, but it’s very hardy. Asclepias incarnata ‘Cinderella.’ Swamp milkweed. Now, folks, THIS is the plant you need to get if you want to see all forms of the monarch butterfly go from one stage of life to another. This plant beckons monarchs from the heavens and the butterfly answers the call by feeding on the flowers and laying it’s eggs on the foliage. I won’t say any more. Stunning bee balm. Where can you get flower colors like this? Hollyhocks with double petals, double colors on a stunning 6’ tall plant! I was pissed off enough when I saw this to get out and snap a picture. This is a milkweed dying from being sprayed with a weed killer by some person who knew how to spray roundup but not smart enough to know that what he was spraying supports the life cycle of monarch butterflies. Seeing this sickened me at first then angered me. This streamside of “weeds” went on for a hundred feet or so and was pretty much all life-giving milkweed. Our perennial section doubled in size this year- come visit!
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