Category: summer

August 6: Butterflies in the garden

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Before we sailed yesterday, I spent several hours in the garden, sitting under the dogwood tree, reading butterfly books, and photographing all the butterflies that came to visit the zinnia patch six feet from my chair. There were moments when the zinnias hosted monarchs, swallowtails, painted ladies, skippers and a hummingbird all at the same time.

The day was dry, the sky cerulean, a breeze blew the butterflies and flower heads, and the temperature was a comfortable 77° F. The zinnias were most hopping at about 2pm.

View from under my dogwood tree
Bumbleebee
Silver-spotted skipper
Sulphur — clouded?
Monarch and swallowtail
Hummingbird
Flower box and blue sky
Painted lady
Painted Lady

I went out at the same time today. The sky is cloudier, it’s warmer, and I mowed the grass. The large butterflies are just not here today. I wonder why.

Catalog of butterflies from August 5 & 6:

  • Monarchs
  • Black swallowtail
  • Palamedes swallowtail
  • Grey hairstreak
  • Silver-spotted skipper
  • Clouded sulphur
  • Cabbage white
  • Painted lady

August 4: flower boxes are surviving

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By August, our flower boxes are usually brown and desicated. Somewhere along the way we had forgotten to water, and in summer sun and heat, it doesn’t take long without hydration for the plants in these tiny boxes to shrivel and die.

This year I lined the coconut liners with plastic and I water them every day. And, what do you know, it worked! I put these plants in the boxes on July 2, and here they are a month later, still alive. It’s amazing what the basic necessities of life will do.

Front bed and flower boxes
Flowers on the stairs
Marigolds, sweet potato vine, and marjoram (or oregano?)

In other news, the rue cuttings I started on May 19, and put in the ground sometime in early July (maybe the same day I planted the flower boxes), have new growth! Only one of the cuttings actually had baby roots when I transplanted them into the earth, but now two of the cuttings have survived, put energy into their roots, and are finally starting to make new leaves as well.

I also planted a phlox — Phlox paniculata ‘Younique Old Pink’ — after the kids and my husband came home from a hike a few weeks ago and my son said, “Mom! Do you have any phlox in the garden? We saw some on our hike and it was _covered_ in butterflies.”

Of course I had to have some.

I’ve been on a hunt ever since. It was in every nursery in the spring, but late July and August are not really gardening season, so none of my regular suppliers had any. I found some at Lowe’s today and grabbed one. I planted it next to my chair, under our bedroom window. It is quite fragrant, and I can’t wait until we can open the windows again and smell it from inside.

Phlox flowers after planting and watering
Younique Old Pink Phlox
New rue growth
New phlox in the ground

Everything is in bloom, and I love it. I spent much of my day off today in the garden, watching butterflies and enjoying the summer abundance. I need to get out my real camera to capture some of this beauty so I can keep it for winter.

Zinnias
Monarch on milkweed
Joe Pye weed and front bed (and sailboat)

Weeded and mowed. And first monarch caterpillar!

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I cut back the bee balm this week. It’s stems sprawled, leafless and leggy, and a mildew rusted the few withered leaves that were left. A fresh crop greens the ground where the desiccated bee balm swayed before, and fresh stems leaf towards the sky. 

Cutting that back inspired me to demolish the catnip as well. It had bushed into a chest high tangle of brown stems and withered leaves at its base and almost to its tips, leggy and past its prime. Birds and bees still loved it for its flowers and seed heads, which caused significant internal conflict about cutting it back. We’ve got a ton of other flowers and seeds and branches for perching, so I whacked it.

 After two weeks out of the garden, and after a drenching rain, I needed to trim and neaten. Weeds trashed the garden. It looked like an abandoned parking lot. The grass was shin high and gone to seed as well. The yard was not tidy like I like it.

All week I watched the forecast, hoping for a pleasant Saturday to garden. All week, the forecast called for rain. I slept in, and when I awoke, the sun shone on sparkling wet grass. 

I spent the morning tearing out weeds, snipping dead flower stems, chopping aphid-infested seed pods off of milkweed. And in doing so, found our first monarch caterpillar of the season:

Everything is blooming, and the hummingbirds don’t mind that I cut back the bee balm. One just thrummed in front of me, zipping over to the firecracker plant. It’s drinking there now. I’ll finish up the mowing and go sit in my chair to enjoy the flowers without the distraction of weeds and tall grass.

First monarch, July 13

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I was sitting by the window yesterday, drinking my afternoon coffee and working, when I saw a non-yellow, non-white flutter of wings down by the milkweed in the garden. We’ve had scores of white and pale yellow butterflies so far this year, but any others have been rare.

I kept watching until I saw it again, then there it was: the first monarch of the seasons. I’m in the garden now, drinking my morning smoothie, and then I’m going to inspect the undersides of milkweed leaves for monarch eggs. Maybe we’ll have caterpillars soon. 🐛 

July 9: caterpillar, goldenrod, and new chair

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Our son asked yesterday, “Are there any caterpillars in the garden yet?”

 

swallowtail caterpillar on rue july
Swallowtail caterpillar on rue

I’m only aware of one (other than a small crop of swallowtail caterpillars earlier in the spring on the rue), and I remember they were quite late last year as well. I want to keep better records this year of when I do things in the garden, and when caterpillars appear.

We were supposed to camp this weekend, but our car broke down and we stayed home instead. I’m relieved, honestly, because it’s been weeks since I’ve been home on a weekend and had a chance to enjoy the garden. I’ve spent the past couple of days cleaning things up and moving stuff around out there:

Butterfly/caterpillar/bird watch

  • One swallowtail caterpillar on rue.
  • No caterpillars (or aphids) on milkweed yet.
  • No monarch sightings.
  • Saw a swallowtail butterfly on the milkweed yesterday.
  • Saw a hummingbird drinking from the bee balm, despite the ragged state of the plants and flowers.
  • Saw a bird splash briefly in the bird bath in the evening.

Gardening update

  • My husband moved one of the adirondak chairs he made under the dogwood, and it’s amazing! I moved some phlox around to make room for the foot stool, and I brought the table over as well. I also moved some of the purple salvia from under the echinacea to over by my new perch.
  • Moved three goldenrods from under the tree out back to 1/ a sunnier spot in the back bed; 2/ the herb garden, next to the catnip; 3/ behind bee balm in hilltop bed
  • Planted two perennial tickseeds (Coreopsis “moonbeam”) in herb garden to add some yellow (there was too much lavender/purple without anything to pop it)
  • Applied rabbit repellant (cow’s blood, $21 for a spray bottle for which the sprayer broke after applying repellant to four plants) to the milkweed out back in the evening
  • Cut seed heads from rue
  • Deadheaded indigo salvia and yarrow
  • Weeded
  • Dug up a passionflower volunteer and moved it to the trellis. It seemed to still be attached to the mother root, from which no new passionflower grew where it needed to grow. Not sure if the volunteer will make it after I ripped it away from the main root.
  • Trimmed bee balm to keep it out of the bird bath.
adirondak chair under dogwood
My new perch
Cosmo from seed by mailbox
Goldenrod in herb garden
Flower boxes refilled early July
Transplanted goldenrod, dill, and spent bee balm
Back bed, with newly transplanted goldenrod
Front bed with birdbath

Status of the garden: July

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We’ve been away or I’ve been working the past few weekends, so I haven’t had a chance to spend much time in the garden. It’s a beautiful morning, though, and I took a few photos before starting work today.

The current status of the garden is: in bloom. In bloom and being eaten by bunnies.

  • Echinacea, zinnias, milkweed, blanketflower, lavender, blazing star, black eyed Susans, bee balm, hydrangea by the stairs are all in bloom, and the yarrow is in its second round of blossoms.
  • Bee balm is past it’s peak and is looking pretty bad. We need something low and bushy in front of it to hide it’s legginess.
  • Joe Pye and Shasta daisies should bloom soon. I don’t see flower buds on the hilltop hydrangea.
  • Mailbox wildflowers are doing great. Cosmos, candytuft, calendula, and a blue flower — maybe stock? — all blooming.
  • Bunnies ate the yellow milkweed in the back garden and also many of the wildflowers. The remaining wildflowers are slower going than out front. Calendula seems to be doing well.
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From the hill: black eyed Susans, blazing star, and zinnias
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Zinnias we grew from seed
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Milkweed before the aphids come; no caterpillars yet
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Echinacea looking good in July

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Herb garden needs to fill in
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Wildflowers from seed mixed with established indigo salvia
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I replinished the flower boxes last week; they had browned pretty badly

Lawn to garden: success!

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Earlier in the year, I wrote multiple times about our different strategies for killing grass to build a flower bed. Since then I’ve blogged pictures from the garden, from reading, writing, butterfly-watching, and blogging under our dogwood tree, and photographs of the butterflies and caterpillars who live in the small ecosystem we helped create.

I realized though, that since my April post about building a flower bed, when we were still in the process of killing grass, laying out cardboard, and shoveling mulch, I never brought it back around to show the garden in its full summer glory, with before and after pictures. So here goes (I don’t have before and afters from the same angle, but hopefully you’ll be able to see the difference):

Before:

mulch on newspaper 19
Building the bed

 

Now:

flowers_0067
Morning flower bed
Basil forest
Flowers in the morning
Monarch caterpillar
Monarch chrysalis
Caterpillar feet
Monarch on Joe Pye weed
Parsley flowers
Reading under the dogwood

I wanted an herb garden and a butterfly garden, now we have both butterflies and herbs. We’ve made endless batches of pesto and basil gin smashes.

The kids and I check for caterpillars and chrysalises every day. At last count we have about 8 monarch caterpillars and 10 swallowtail caterpillars, and we think we found a monarch chrysalis in progress yesterday in the rue bush. All the work has paid off :-).

August in the garden

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All that work laying out flower beds, killing grass, shoveling mulch, and digging 150+ holes to drop plants into has paid off. I’m sitting under the dogwood tree, watching a hummingbird drink from pink salvia flowers not ten feet away while further down the garden a monarch lays eggs on the milkweed. 

It has been weeks since I’ve had a chance to bring my chair under the dogwood to enjoy the flowers, but yesterday, beast though it was for all the chores, I got all of my must-dos done so I could do exactly that: sit under a tree and watch the hustle and bustle of a summer flower garden.

Writing and butterfly-watching

We’ve been getting more butterflies as August marches on, and I usually see them from the car window as I arrive or depart the house, or from the living room window while I type on my laptop for work. Not enough do I come out and sit in the fresh air with the mountain breeze and the insect sounds. 

Yesterday, amidst all the chores and errands, I squeezed in some gardening in the horrid heat. I got to see everything up close again and engage with the flowers, the herbs, the bees, the dirt, the aphids. I waded through waist-high salvia to deadhead, chopped forests of thigh-high basil, cut milkweed so infested with aphids I couldn’t touch it without getting little orange bodies all over me, and pulled tufts of grass and dandelions until my fingernails hurt. 

And in the middle of all that chopping, weeding, and squirting aphids with soapy water, I saw our first monarch caterpillar. That fat, squishy, striped baby butterfly made every bit of the work worth it.


Now, I hear the rat-a-tat of cicadas, the buzz of two fat bumblebees, the honk of a Canada goose flying overhead, and the shh-shh-shh of my husband sanding our canoe in the garage. A cool breeze lifts the pages of my pretty journal, and glassy dragonfly wings shimmer in sunlight over the grass. The butterflies weren’t out when I first came out. The morning was too young. But now they’re coming.

butterfly on joe-pye plant

Butterfly watch

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It’s Sunday morning and I’m under my tree again. These past days have been hot ones, but under the dogwood, I’m able to stay cool. This is my favorite place to be on weekends — in a camp chair, in the shade of my favorite tree, observing the garden.

A few minutes ago, from the chaise lounge inside,  I watched a swallowtail drink from the milkweed for a good five or ten minutes. Its big wings beat furiously as it flitted from flower head to flower head and drank deeply. When it finally flew away, it staggered like a drunken sailor.

“Maybe it was a female and now it’s going to lay eggs on the parsley!” I said. “Or the rue.” I tried to peer farther out the window to see the parsley plants.

Then it occurred to me that the resident bird population might eat any caterpillars we get. “They’ve eaten all the blueberries, too,” said our son.

Oh well. This is the way of things.

I moved outside for a better view of the host plants, to watch for any signs of egg-laying. The swallowtail hasn’t come to the parsley, but a hummingbird is drinking from the bee balm about 15 feet away. It’s tiny body shimmers emerald in the sun, and its wings hum as it beats them fast enough to hover while it drinks from red trumpets.

Ooh ooh! Here comes the swallowtail! Towards the parsley, close to the parsley, will it see the parsley?

Nope, flew by without stopping. Dang.

It’s okay. Butterflies have been rare so far this summer. Now they’re finally coming. They’ve found the little oasis we tried to create, filled with host plants for caterpillars and nectar for adults. I see five flitting through the garden right now as I type. 

I’ll keep watching.

Filling vases

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The baby basils have become bushes. I cut 10-15 stems, tucked them in a glass vase, and the emerald green plants don’t look like I touched them. I could fill five vases before the removal of any leaves would be noticeable.

Tonight the vase of basil scented the dinner table while we ate homemade pasta and pesto with bright red tomato slices.

I forgot how fun it is to cut fowers and herbs from the garden, put them in water in clear glass, and decorate tabletops and dressers with them.

The lemon balm is a mounding bush now — ample stems for trimming — and the Rosemary has spires long enough for cutting, too. Those would smell lovely in mason jars in our bedrooms. I’ll go snip some before the sun goes down.