Butterflies and Bees

One of my favorite pastimes is watching the bees and butterflies enjoying the bounty of our island beds.  This year seems to be shaping up to be a good year for them.

This lovely pink flower is much beloved by the pollinators of all types that visit our garden.  But I have no idea what it is!! 

In fact, at it's base, I have a sign which states "I don't remember planting this"!  The very fact that it has taken hold and is thriving so well leads me to believe that it is, in fact, a weed.

If anyone knows what it is, I would really appreciate if you could let me know in the comments.   here's another photo, showing the forming seed heads.

The bumblebees also love the Salvia Greggi., there are usually at least five of them bumbling from bloom to bloom at any given time.  They make me smile.

Another visitor this week has been this Black Swallowtail on the Dallas Red Lantana (at least I think think it's a Black Swallowtail).  I haven't had much luck getting a good photo of it's wings to ID it with.  I tried again earlier today with no luck at all!

I have better luck taking photos of Gulf Fritillaries.  They seem to like landing on blooms to eat, rather than fluttering around like the Swallowtails do.  Makes the photos much easier.  Here's one on the Violet Queen zinnia. 

Here's another one enjoying the Profusion zinnia.  You can also see the sign I mentioned earlier in the post.

I'm also seeing Monarch butterflies in the garden. This looks like a female, so it's not one of the ones I released a couple of days ago from my Monarch Nursery, which were both male.  

Speaking of the Monarch Nursery, I still have 4 chrysalides in the enclosure in the bathroom.  Here's a photo of some of the caterpillars before they changed.

And here's one who has left the milkweed and climbed to the top of the enclosure to make his chrysalis.  

I'll probably get a lot more caterpillars and chrysalides later in the year, as the Monarchs prepare for their migration.  Last year I had a total of 30.  I'll see if I can match that this year :-)  Wish me luck!

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

A Perfect Day in Fall

It seems that fall may have finally arrived in my little corner of the world.  The skies are clear and the temperatures dropped into the 50's overnight!  Right now it's a very pleasant 75 degrees with low humidity.  I probably should be doing more actual work out there than I am -- all I've done is a bit of weeding to get rid of the ever encroaching nutsedge and bermuda grass in the island beds.

But I'm also taking the opportunity to sit on the patio and read and enjoy the sights of the garden without sweating. It's all the same stuff I've shown you before - zinnia and cosmos, salvia and cleome.  But now we have lots of winged visitors too (in addition to my own contributions in the form of newly hatched Monarchs)

I've had wonderful success with this Big Cube cage I got this year.  In addition to the 9 Monarchs I was able to hatch in August, we ended up with another 15 chrysalides in the cage and 6 have hatched in the past two days!

This is one of the newly hatched Monarchs, enjoying some nectar before getting ready for the migration. Also in the photo is another visitor - a Gulf Fritillary.  We have five or six of them hanging around at the moment.

Below is a short video of the same scene :-)

Below is another visitor we see at this time of year - a buckeye.  Those markings really do look like eyes, don't they? This one seems a little ragged, but he's not letting it slow him down :-)

And finally here's another video I took showing some of the Gulf Fritillaries enjoying the zinnia.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm going in for surgery on Tuesday October 11th. It's rather major surgery, so I probably won't be posting in my blog for a while. I'm so glad I got to see some of the butterflies hatch before I went in, and my husband promises he will keep an eye on the other chrysalides and release them once they have hatched.

I'll see you on the other side!

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Bring on the Butterflies and Planning for Next Year

 Ahhh, my favorite time of year.  I know I say that a lot, but it's true!  We get a little respite from the blistering heat of summer and it seems like the garden sighs with relief too.

Much of the zinnia that self-seeded throughout the islands beds is on its way out now, but this patch is still vibrant, and getting lots of attention from butterflies and bees.  I've been busy collecting seeds for next year :-)

It took me a while to get this photo of a gulf fritillary nectaring on the zinnia.  He seemed to be overwhelmed by choice and kept flitting from bloom to bloom before I could focus on him.  Finally he settled down and I was able to get some good shots.

This is the first Buckeye I have seen this year, so I was pleased to be able to watch him for a while and get some photos.  I don't know if it's just my imagination, but it seems like we've had more of them, and earlier in the year in previous years.

I had planted native milkweed roots earlier in the year and some of them came up quite quickly.  But for some reason, they didn't thrive.  Not sure if it was because of too much competition from the zinnias, not enough water, too much water, or what, but only one of them made it, and I wouldn't exactly say that one is thriving.  Luckily, we still have lots of tropical milkweed, as this Monarch butterfly discovered.

Sorry about the bad quality of this photo of what I think is a Pipevine Swallowtail, but the photo was taken through the blinds and a rather grubby bedroom window, zoomed in across the garden to the Vitex tree. This is the first of these I have seen this year.

I haven't seen a hummingbird here at the house since last weekend, but was thrilled to be able to capture this photo of a female ruby-throat at Kleb Woods before they all head south.   
 

I suppose it won't be too much longer before I will be cleaning up in the garden, pulling out the spent plants and prepping the beds for next year.

I've looked back on the successes (and failures) from this year and am making plans for next year.

Our garden always seems to be dominated by orange, red and yellow, so I definitely want to add some more variety next year - more whites, blues, purples and pinks to offset all the orange.

I made a start the other week by ordering some seeds from Park -- Achillea Summer Berries, Cleome Queen (mix) and Agastache. And just this morning I spent a pleasant hour browsing through the Native American Seed catalog and trying to narrow down my list!

What plans do you have for your garden next year?


Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Happy Labor Day!

 I hope you have enjoyed your Labor Day weekend.

I'm keeping this post short and sweet today, as I overdid it a bit, moving desks and shelving units around in my office/studio.  I just thought I would share this photo I took of a Gulf Fritillary earlier in the week.

I'll try and get back to my regular blogging schedule next week, and I'll show you how my office/studio turned out :-)



Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Mother Nature Knows Best

I've been sort of grumbling to myself all summer about our overgrown front border and how the New Gold and White Gold Lantana really weren't doing much.  They looked vigorous, and they looked green, but there weren't many blooms.  Not as many as I remembered from last year.

I should have realized that Mother Nature knows best.  I had been expecting blooms at the wrong time!  Just recently, both the New Gold and White Gold started blooming again.  

 
And today, right on time, the annual Dance of the Butterflies seemed to start in earnest.

I love this time of year! This is when I start seeing Gulf Fritillary butterflies, seen here, as well as Buckeyes and Painted Lady butterflies.

This morning I stood in the front garden, in the shade of our young Live Oak tree, and zoomed in on the flowerbed, snapping photos left and right!

The tropical milkweed is coming back into bloom again too, having been trimmed back a couple of weeks ago.   This Monarch seems to be enjoying it. 

 Is it one that hatched in our garden?  I guess we'll never know, but I like to think it is.

What butterflies are you seeing in your garden this summer?

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Winged Wonders

Even though we're still locked in the worst drought ever in Houston history, I thought I'd blog about something more cheerful today.

I had seen a hummingbird in the garden a couple of weeks ago.  Although I thought it a bit early, I decided to go ahead and put my feeders out.  This weekend I have been entertained by at least three hummingbirds zooming around the garden, performing an aerial ballet that wears me out just to watch them.

I've only been able to snap a couple of photos, but I thought I'd share them anyway.

Our pine tree was the perfect place for them to sit and watch guard over the feeders to make sure no other hummingbirds came close.  Several times this weekend, I've glanced out the back door to see this little figure up in the tree.


I can never quite figure out how people get those photos of several hummers at the same feeder. The ones in my garden seem to spend all their time chasing each other away from the feeders, even though there were enough feeders to go round. 

I was pleased to see that in between taking sips from the feeders I had put out, or chasing/being chased away from those feeders, the hummers also seemed to enjoy the blooms on the crepe myrtle tree and the vitex. 


In addition to the hummingbirds, there have been some other winged wonders in the garden this week.


Overall this year, I haven't seen many butterflies, compared to years past, but this weekend saw some activity which I was able to get photos of.

I saw this little skipper on the white Texas Star hibiscus - he was so intent on collecting nectar, he was still there after I had gone indoors, got my camera, put fresh batteries in it and came back outside again.


The "Yellow Gold" lantana in the front garden seem to be favorites of many butterflies, including this Giant Swallowtail...

... and this Gulf Fritillary.

As I look over the monitor of my computer and out the back door, I can just catch a glimpse of my little hummingbird friend, resting in the Crepe Myrtle, next to the feeder.  All is peaceful... for now...



Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Weekend Meet-Up and Winged Visitor to the Garden

At our weekend meetup at Ursula's house, it was great to meet and chat with some of the Houston Grows garden bloggers. We had a wonderful time browsing around Ursula's garden, swapping plants and enjoying a nice lunch.  I was also blown away by the butterflies flocking around Ursula's Mexican sunflowers! I've never seen so many butterflies in one place!  Of course, you can bet I came away with some Mexican Sunflowers!

Back in my own garden, I have some orange too, in the form of this Indian Blanket/Blanket flower (not sure which, I apparently neglected to note this in my garden journal when I planted it)

I'm particularly taken by the chocolate brown speckles at the ends of the petals.

It's popular with butterflies too.  I didn't have the swarms that graced Ursula's garden, but this one allowed me to take photos.

 

That's it from me today. I was working till midnight on Sunday and was busy at work today too.  I need to catch up on some sleep!

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.