Archives for posts with tag: garden
There were some of these beauties flying about, but I didn’t get my camera out until they left. Unusually more monarch butterflies this summer than the last three years. I saw them all over the place, which is great. This the first time though, that as caterpillars, they were in my garden feasting on the milkweed. I counted at least twelve of them.
They are in their pupae stage now, which I have not been able to spot, but I hope they come around again as third generation ones. The picture below was taken in the summer of 2012.
The image below was taken in the summer of 2013 of the bumble bee partaking in the hydrangea bush, their favorite this time of year.
It was only after I situated the aqua garden just so with irises, water lilies and stones that a frog came by. Introducing Maurice, 
the star of the garden this summer. He is a bronze frog, green face and bronze body. He’s very contemplative, doesn’t move for hours and even though it’s getting colder at night he is still there, sitting in his little pool.
There was a mini Maurice as well, in the smaller pond,
who disappeared a few weeks ago after being visited by big Maurice. Hmmmm…..
The Pickerel Frog who has a nice flashy coat
is in front of the house. She seems to love this blue pot filled with water and Elephant Ears. It’s situated right under the porch light where moths gather. I’m guessing this frog is a “she” because smaller versions of herself were nearby for a while, until they ventured off to who knows where.
Stayed tuned for Part 2, In a small corner of the world, there is a garden, Summer 2016.
That’s right, more frogs, flowers and bees.
This Spring, I let the garden go to weeds, sorry, I mean pioneer plants and planted a few new flowers here and there. As usual, the milkweed brought lots of bumble bees, honey bees and butterflies. Stay tuned for ‘In a small corner of the world, there is a garden, Summer 2016.’
In this spring and summer garden there were more frogs than in the past and more bumble bees than I’d seen in ten years. However, there were hardly any honey bees (just a few when the milkweed bloomed) and so far, one monarch butterfly. They usually come around at the end of summer.
Placing pots flush with the ground, filled with water helped bring more frogs and leaving a foot of long grass around the borders where clover could grow met some of their needs as well as the bumble bees. They also seemed to enjoy the addition of water lettuce in their pools. This time around I added more plants to the front, North side of the house, as well as a small water garden in a tall blue pot, where tiny frogs came to hide. There in the shade, the Coleus took off along with the Creeping Jenny.
One of the new flowers in this mix was the Mexican Red Torch, lighting up the place with it’s truly vibrant petals. The stems and leaves are so velvety soft. An intriguing plant it is, as it is slow to bloom, growing lots of large leaves. It is still creating more buds and continues to bloom.
As far as the vegetables that were grown, the most successful was the Swiss Chard, onions and the strange looking carrots (such intense flavor). Unfortunately, the tomatoes took for ever to get going, the potatoes looked like food for the Lilliputs and the eggplants were devoured by pests. The corn grew small as well, but, it has yet to be picked, since it’s popping corn.
All in all, it was an amazing summer; warm, hot, cool in all the right places and not too rainy. Taking great advantage of it by being outside as much as I could, made for some nice shots.
channeling the abstract 