A Garden in Bloom

Our garden has been more beautiful this summer than any of the other 18 summers we have lived here.  I suppose that is not unexpected since we have been dabbling in the garden since day 1.  It hasn't all been forward movement; some things we have done have been more successful than others.  But then experimenting is half the fun.

This is the front of the house.  We have a stone path that leads from driveway across the front and around the side to the patio in back.

From the right perspective, the coneflowers make it look almost prairie-like.

But that illusion disappears when you stand up and look in the other direction.

The asiatic lilies were prolific.  This bed is behind the garage and my office window overlooks this scene.

We went crazy one year and planted a border of asiatic lilies around the entire front and side garden beds.  The orange lilies are in bloom in this photo.  A few weeks later, the pink star gazer lilies that were inter-mixed began to bloom.

I managed to overwinter the canna lilies and they made a beautiful comeback once they got back onto the patio.

This is the front of the house.  The front door is tucked around to the left of the garage.  Most of the plants are herbaceous perennials that have self-seeded.  

We started with 3 liatris plants, 6 moonbeam cosmos, 3 purple coneflowers, 3 black-eyed susans, and 3 butterfly weed plants.

The back garden is shadier and on the north side of the house.  We have ferns and hostas in the lower garden, which is the shadiest.  In the upper part we have astilbes, more hostas, lilacs, hydrangeas, bell flowers, balloon flowers, lungwort, speedwell, and lots more. 

The trellis separates our yard from the neighbors' yard.  The hummingbirds love the geraniums and begonias in the hanging baskets.  For some reason, the clematis (at the left end of the trellis) was more interested in growing bushy than in climbing the trellis.

I'll end this post with a backlit view from underneath a crane's bill geranium.  This little plant has blooming its heart out all summer and shows no sign of slowing down.

We have gotten so much pleasure from creating it and watching it progress from spring, through summer, and into autumn for 18 years.  With any luck, this is our last summer here in this house;  leaving it and the garden will be bittersweet.  Hope you enjoyed the tour; we certainly enjoyed our time here.

Monarch Butterflies

These butterflies are a marvel.  Amazingly, they are migratory!  They overwinter in Mexico and southern California, and in February start to migrate north.  They breed and lay eggs in the southern USA.  The progeny from those individuals fly farther north and the process is repeated , with monarchs coming as far north as southern Canada.  In August, they turn around and head south.  The generation that overwinters lives up to seven months, while the others live only 2-3 months.  This is explained much more clearly in Wikipedia at this site.  Please click on the images to see the details.  

Monarch Butterfly nectaring on purple coneflower

This large butterfly feeds mostly on milkweed, Aesclepias spp.

Aesclepias spp., especially this A. tuberosa, have toxins that the Monarchs accumulate in their tissues.

Most butterfly predators are sensitive to the toxins and have learned to avoid these brightly colored butterflies and their equally brightly colored caterpillars.

Look at this impressive wingspan - 4 inches and then some.

This female is trying to find the perfect spot to lay her eggs.

They always lay them on butterfly weed.

You can see the tip of abdomen just starting to curl inward.

Curling even more.

curling so much that she tips forward almost onto her head!

Whatever it takes to squeeze out an egg.

Here she lays one on the bud of butterfly weed florette.

I came back later to get this photo.

And here is an egg laid on a leaf.

With a close up look here you can see  stripes and even the hint of a caterpillar face at the tip of the egg.

A face like this one.

After munching on butterfly weed leaves, they get bigger.

and bigger (double click to see it REALLY BIG!).

Finally they will form a chrysalis, but I have not been fortunate enough to find one.  


We specifically planted the butterfly weed to support these butterflies. It has been such a great pleasure to see and photograph the monarchs at the northern extent of their range.  Butterfly weed has been included in many wildflower projects in these parts of the US, so on this end of the migration, things are pretty good.  Unfortunately, on the southern end where they overwinter, deforestation is putting monarch butterflies at risk.  It thrills my soul each year to see the monarchs arrive and further the species for at least another year; and this year has been a banner year indeed.

Butterfly and Moth

After a slow, cool start to summer here in Minnesota, our garden came into its own in late July and early August.  The flowers, birds, and insects have been a delight to watch in their splendid glory.  Even though we have been busy getting the house ready to sell, I have managed to take lots of photos of the flora and fauna.  But I haven't been able to manage posting a blog entry, until now.

One of the lovely insects that has been flitting around is the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus).  This female is feeding on butterfly weed; in fact she was holding on for dear life as the wind blustered around.   The blue on the hindwing is seen only on the females.

I have seen her or other females in the garden for several weeks now.  They are quite

large with a wing span of around 6 inches (165 mm) for the females and a little smaller for the males. 

These swallowtails have lovely colors on the upper and undersides of their wings.

The blue (first photo)is more visible from above and the orange is more visible from below.

I find the Eastern Swallowtails to be one of the most beautiful butterflies in North America.

On the other extreme is this moth, Palthis angulalis - Dark-spotted Palthis.  It is in a subfamily called the "litter moths", which reflects their usual habitat.

It is fairly small; that is an oregano leaf it is on in the photos.  And at first glance, it seems drab.  But look at that structure sticking out from its head!  What is that?

From a different perspective, you can see the interesting shape of its wings.  

From above it looks to me like an F16 fighter plane.

In fact, that was how i keyed it out.  I did a Google search on "moths that look like F16s" and found the genus in the 3rd item.

That took me to http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740, a great site that I use pretty often.

  Now if I could only figure out what is going on with that funky schnoz ...