And we have a chrysalis!

Many moths spin cocoons. Butterflies create a chrysalis to protect themselves during the final stages of metamorphosis. (I am getting my monarch information from here. That site has better photos - I am finding it difficult to snap pix without disturbing the critters too much.)

Just hanging around

Closed for renovations

We're right behind you!

Now that the end is near for one of my monarch caterpillars, I am finding it much easier to remember to check on the habitat. To extend the main milkweed stalk, I twisty-tied a shorter one to it. Now the remaining caterpillars will be able to climb to the top of the mesh ceiling.

Out of sight, out of mind

One problem with keeping the monarch caterpillars locked away from the cat is I forget to tend them. A milkweed stalk does not last long even when standing in a jar of water. Also, caterpillars can fall into the jar of water (I rescued one). All I need to do is remember to give them fresh leaves everyday, but somehow that is too much.

Another problem is fresh leaves may also have eggs on them - or even a teeny tiny caterpillar the birds haven't found yet. I really need to get on the ball here or I will miss out on the fun of releasing a live monarch into the wild.

With all the rain we've had lately, it is all I can do to keep ahead of the mowing and trimming. Yesterday I was feeling rather blue about the yard. Today I weeded a bit, though, and discovered it's not as bad as I thought. The raised beds are relatively weedfree. It's the areas that are not protected and mulched that are problematic. In past years, my SO has helped out a LOT, especially battling weeds. This year his contribution was primarily the moving of the wood chips from driveway to backyard. That reflects some progress. Once it cools down, I will corral him into helping me tackle (my side of) the (neighbor's) privet.

A little catch-up

Sometimes I think I have too many hobbies. Other times I just seem to be inefficient or lazy. I'm retired, so all "goals" are self-inflicted, but I know I am happiest when I feel like I have accomplished something by the end of the day. Blogging tends to fall by the wayside.

Monarch update: I think I have put six caterpillars into the butterfly habitat. I'm hesitant to check the leaves too thoroughly, as if a caterpillar falls off its leaf (a common reaction to disturbance), there is no way it can climb back on.

When it's time for cocoon formation, they will want to climb up and attach to the top of the habitat, but right now there is no way to do that, either. I'd like to add another milkweed plant, but a danger of doing that is introducing a predator. The newly hatched larva are SOOOO tiny I think the smallest spiders could make a meal of them. What is a monarch foster mom to do?

August is rudbeckia season. I have some scattered around the yard; next year, there should be a lot more. Thanks to all the rain we have received, the coneflower and rudbeckia transplants are doing great (as are all the weeds). The butterfly weed is okay; it takes a while to get established.

It's easy to forget about the 'Limelight' hydrangea. It is in a corner I don't visit often except to mow, and then I am looking down, not up. I caught a glimpse of it over the fence while walking the dog the other day and realized it is in bloom.

The late season 'Royal Standard' hosta is in bloom as well. The hosta in general have somewhat recovered from dog trampling but only because I fenced off that section of the yard. I would not be walking daily were it not for the dogs, but sometimes I wonder if my health is worth all the damage they do to the yard.

I continue to pluck blossoms from the cosmos and dyers coreopsis on a daily basis, and in less than 24 hours, there are MORE. A LOT more. There is a lesson in deadheading there, I believe (although the marigold are much slower to recover from just such a denuding). Some plants are in desperate need of deadheading - those flowers are definitely DEAD - but then I see goldfinch feeding on the seeds. Maybe the birds and I can reach a compromise of some sort.

They grow up so fast!

I have little bitty monarch caterpillars! Ironically, the eggs on the first leaves I picked did not hatch (not fertile?), but after ordering the butterfly habitat, I saw a monarch laying eggs on the milkweed by the deck. I grabbed a couple of leaves from there and those are the ones that hatched.

Day 1 (or 2?)

I didn't write down the caterpillars' "birthday", so I'm a bit fuzzy on exactly when they hatched. (And I suffer from CRAFT - can't remember a freaking thing.) I *think* day one they looked like teeny tiny meal worms, but by day two the stripes were visible.

Day 3 (or 4?)

Now you can see the antennae, which for some reason just makes me go *squeee*!

Day 4 (or 5?)

The first indicator that there were caterpillars was the appearance of frass (caterpillar poop) in the bottom of the mason jar. This has to be kept cleaned up, so now not only do I pick up dog poop and scoop kitty litter, I am mopping up frass.

Frass

Initially, I set up the butterfly habitat in the kitchen, weighting it down with a couple of bricks in what turned out to be a vain hope Beau (the feline destroyer of all things fine) could not knock it over. Unfortunately, the mess sides are perfect for snagging cat claws. So now the habitat is in the bathtub, behind a closed door.

Butterfly habitat

According to the instructions, this habitat can incubate up to 30 butterflies at a time, so of course I went out and found five more leaves with eggs. It is not limited to monarchs, either, so maybe next year I'll be able to raise some swallowtails or something. Science is fun!

Road trip

My SO and I went on a little road trip, to the Columbus IN and Nashville IN area. Everything looked so *green*, from the Hoosier National Forest to the fields of corn and soybeans. Obviously, they have had plenty of rain.

We didn't go hiking - too humid, too tick-ridden - but we did wander Columbus a bit. Despite the wonderful architecture and bits of art here and there, the plantings were rather ho-hum. Just as Minneapolis is rife with hosta, Columbus is full of coleus, mostly in pots.

The Inn at Irwin Gardens has a large formal garden. We didn't want to pay for the official tour, so took pix from outside the fence. There is also a large greenhouse known as the Gardener's Farm, but we didn't visit that, either.

Columbus is home to Cummins. The building downtown sports a long promenade-like pergola, which reminded me of my attempts to grow something on my pergola. Hopefully, these pix will continue to remind me next spring.

We strolled down to Mill Race Park, again in hopes of seeing something interesting plantwise. No such luck, but we did come across the Clock Tower. The elevator was out of service, but athletic types use the stairs Rocky-like for exercise. According to one runner, 125 steps! There are also notices about suicide prevention on the backside of the structure.

One nice garden we visited was at the Story Inn ("One inconvenient location since 1851"), but I was too distracted by the heat and hunger to take pix. We ate pulled pork, smoked on the premises, in the basement tavern there.

So, why did we travel to the area? No particular reason. Nashville was a bit of a disappointment; it used to be an artist colony but now is rather touristy. We did visit a weaving studio and a weaving store and a couple of yarn stores, though, so I had a good opportunity to contribute to the local economy.

Back to earth

After yesterday's excitement, the rest of the garden seems rather blah. But there are pretty pictures of pretty flowers to show.

'Lucifer' crocosmia

Lemon yellow daylily of unknown origin

Volunteer sunflower

Blazing star

'Aphrodite' Rose of Sharon

'Black Beauty' zucchini

Those zucchini illustrate what happens when one turns one's back on the squash plants for a moment. I did a search on my blog for 'zucchini' and found lots of references for zuke recipes. Today it was zucchini and basil over pasta.

I'm so excited!

After reading about Jason's success at raising some monarchs, I decided I just had to search my milkweed patch for some eggs. But first, I watched a YouTube video to get a better idea of what I was doing. (I would have provided a link but the video I saw was mostly about the danger monarchs are in. Yes, we know! That's why we want to gather their eggs!)

While eyeballing the undersides of the leaves, I noticed evidence of some chomping but no caterpillars. I also saw plenty of other critters that may or may not eat monarch eggs and/or baby caterpillars. Apparently, the eggs provide a "pop of protein" - just like poultry eggs for people.

Just when I was giving up hope, a couple of monarchs arrived. The milkweed is past its bloom time, so the butterflies were not looking for nectar. I stood very still and waited until one of them landed and hung along the edge of a leaf for a moment or so. When I inspected the leaf, this is what I found:

I harvested two leaves, each with one egg, and put them in mason jars, replacing the lids with paper towels to allow for air flow. I don't have anything else very useful for raising monarchs, so I ordered a butterfly habitat on Amazon. The eggs should hatch in about four days, so that gives me a little time.

Meanwhile, SQUEE!!!

Harvest

I am not growing much food in the garden this year, but there are a few items I cling to. Besides the cukes and zukes, there are green beans as well. Despite the plethora of farmers markets around here, I still think fresh-picked from my own garden tastes best.

Zucchini blossom

Zucchini

Cucumber blossom

Cucumber

There are several beds devoted to dye plants. Initially, it pained me to nip off all the blossoms, but miraculously, the next day there are more! The hollyhocks are about done, though.

Cosmos sulphereous, dyers coreopsis, black hollyhock

I wait for the hollyhock blossoms to fall on the ground before harvesting them; if you pick them off the stalks, you just might end up with an angry Japanese beetle on your hands. The other day, I watered the hollyhock before picking up the fallen blossoms, and the buds bled blue. I'm excited about dyeing with them.

More HOT

More oppressively hot weather is here for a couple of days. And it is dry to boot, so most of my gardening has been watering. I have two rain barrels and the kits for attaching them to the downspouts, but I have not been able to bring myself to cut up the downspouts. Good thing the outside faucets are on the old well.

Rattlesnake master is one plant that looks like it is made for the heat.

This is daylily season

Coneflowers are starting

Bee balm is also doing well

I think this coreopsis needs to be divided... in the fall

Hope you are keeping cool this weekend!

Jeepers creepers

I didn't realize I had so much bindweed in my yarden until it bloomed. It is rather inconspicuous while creeping across the mulch and twining up anything vertical, but it's hard to miss once the white blossoms emerge. First thought: ooh, pretty flowers! Second thought: OH NO!

So I spent a good part of today attacking that, along with creeping Charlie, quack grass, Virginia creeper, wild grape vine, etc. There is some poison ivy in the front yard that I am saving for another day. July must be the month for creepers and climbers. I even pruned one of my 'Betty Corning' clematis vines a bit, along with the juniper bushes that were blocking the view from the den. Now I can watch the monarch butterflies flit right past my milkweed. Is there a secret to getting them to lay eggs?

While weeding the milkweed patch, I discovered that the poke milkweed appears to have been eaten by something. I also transplanted some butterfly weed into the same bed; some of it is doing quite well, while others did not. There are still two blueberry plants hiding in there - with berries! - but I think I'll let the rabbits have them now that I get my berries from Costco.

The spicebush that I thought had succumbed to winter rabbit damage came back to life, but then volunteer pokeweed and golden rod surrounded it. I moved it to the south side of the garden shed. I used to have a compost pile there, so the bush should do quite well, as long as I don't forget it is there.

Now that I can't complain about the heat - normal temps are in the forecast for at least a week - I will gripe about the lack of rain. A few weeks ago, we received almost too much rain, 6" in two weeks, which is probably why so many normally polite plants have turned into sprawling monsters. Now I am having to water, some things daily, others every other day. At least the lawn is slowing down.

I took some pics the other day, but the lens on my camera kept fogging up. Maybe next time.

Housebound

MORE "heat advisory" weather! I planned to do a little weeding this morning, but after walking the dogs, I decided to hunker down inside. Tomorrow doesn't look promising, either. At least I mowed and trimmed yesterday, so things look somewhat tidy out there (except for the weeds).

What I call "ditch lilies" are busting out all over town, but not here. None of mine receive full sun, plus last year I divided some and those are still getting acclimated to their new locations.

This leaf damage seems to be limited to some suckers on one of the redbud trees. After a Google search, I concluded that this is evidence of the leafcutting bee, a native and beneficial pollinator. I see so few pollinators in my yard anymore, this one is more than welcome.

Despite my error in starting seeds too early inside, the resulting plants are (mostly) doing okay. I am growing these cosmos (cosmos sulphureus) to dye yarn, but the orange color is so vivid, I would consider planting them just for that alone.

The seed packet tacks on the word "red" to its name and in the package photo they look red, but mine are definitely orange tinged with red.

Another dye plant, dyers coreopsis (Coreopsis Tinctoria), produces lovely blossoms, but the plants are gangly and sparse.

I abandoned my original plans for the Profusion zinnias, to plant them mostly in the front yard, and put them in pots instead. Most are doing quite well and provide a nice accent for the back deck.

Too bad it's too hot to sit on the deck.

These three annuals are on the short list for next year. The dye plants need to live up to their hype first, though.

Around the yard

The weather is going to turn hot, hot, HOT for a few days. Even with AC, I get to feeling logy when it sizzles outside. I'm just glad it doesn't last long. Why do people move south when they retire? Beats me.

I think I did a blog post once bemoaning the views from my windows and deck and in general around the yard. While those views aren't necessarily a lot better, I find there are some that provide simple joy. Not something one would see in BH&G, but then the yard is for ME, not a general audience.

It also occurred to me that I usually take photos of plants and flowers head on, face to face. That strategy shows the plant but not the plant in its environs.

The tao of some views is more difficult to capture than others.

Anyway, back to the head on photos. I've come to the conclusion that one difference between tiger lilies and daylilies is the tiger lilies look down while the daylilies look up. Maybe they are looking at each other?

The hollyhocks are for dyeing with, but I wasn't sure about how to harvest the blossoms. Turns out that is not a problem, as the blossoms curl up and fall off. I just need to pick them up every day or two and put them on a screen in the garage to dry.

My container experiments this year are growing crocosmia and penstemon in pots. The crososmia grow from corms, so once they started to send up shoots, they took off.

The penstemon is a perennial, so this is its first year sleep. I had an extra hibiscus, so that has gone into a pot, too. I'll move the pots into the garage for the winter.

The pole beans are starting to blossom.

The dill is blooming, too. Looks like fireworks.

I couldn't decide which 'Luna Red' hibiscus photo to use, so I'm posting both of them. The blossom is almost bigger than the plant, which is about 15 inches tall.

I started the hibiscus plants from seed this past spring, so was not expecting to see any blooms this year. I am happy to be wrong!

This Japanese beetle is on an aster, although its favorite garden plant is the hollyhocks. What a pest!

Last night I mowed and tonight I watered selectively, so now I can hunker down for the weekend and let the heat pass on by. Stay cool!