Choice Morsels

It's getting to be sweltering in the early afternoon, so I headed out  by 10 a.m. to get when it was still below 80 to mow the back yard.  I did a little clean-up on spent day lily stems and my Cannas with diluted Neem to give them a little protection and being further devoured by Leaf-rollers. (The lavre of Long-tailed Skippers!)  But it's been long enough; they should be done now. I saw my first butterfly today, a Gulf Fritillary!  lenty of Pondhawke dragonflies about, though I haven't caught one on camera this year--yet! (These are one of the few dragonflies that will perch and rest long enough for a picture!) I've got a pair of Thrashers, which is type of large brown bird, eager to pick up any popcorn or chips I throw out on the ground! Plus, I was delighted recently to see the courtship ritual of not just one pair of Cardinals, but two! He offers her a seed. She accepts and that seals the deal for one nesting season! Today's featured pic is a collage I p...

I continue to work on adding things to my various rain gardens. Yesterday I was moving some young native orange lilies into place down the length of the outside of flag stones edging the back yard rain garden.  I'm excited to see the grassy shoots of the rain lilies I planted in there starting to popped up and look forward to taking pictures of them in bloom.  I've decided to move some of my Chocolate Elephant Ears into the gravel portion of that rain garden to pick up the color of the Giant Red Leaf Tropical Lily.  Today's feature Garden Pic is the first blooms of my Blue Stokes Aster: I bought it at Lowe's last fall, splitting it into 3 sections when I planted it. It's a full sun perennial that spreads , so I was deliberate on where I planted it. Though classed as 'blue' you can tell this blue leans to the lavender, but that is ver y common in flower color classifcation. After all, purple has an element of blue in it! That's why you...