September 2010 Archives

One of the signs of fall in Missouri is the last dance butterflies do on their favorite flowers.

Over summer, I noticed Pearl Crescent Butterflies are very partial to Missouri's Black-eyed Susan Wildflowers.

Considering these perennial wildflowers centers are maybe 3/4 inch wide, they can get crowded.

But then Pearl Crescent Butterflies are not very big themselves.

After trying to photograph these charming tiny butterflies, I was surprised to discover this little mating dance once I downloaded the photos.

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

I can still remember the fall a few years ago when I found a corner of my garden filled with blooming White Snakeroot wildflowers.

Without my glasses on, it looked like it had snowed.

I don't know how these Missouri wildflowers made it into my garden; it's more likely I moved into their territory since they like rocky woods.

These perennials can grow up to 4 feet but I only see them about 3 feet tall, sometimes with long branches covered in white flowers.

Now I remember, I love seeing White Heath Asters blooming in fall, especially because of all the yellow bugs, bees and butterflies, like this Buckeye, that like them as well!

These charming Missouri wildflowers are usually covered with visitors!

These Missouri wildflowers are nature's version of floral baby's breath, filling Missouri roadsides in fall with ethereal clouds of daisy-like flowers.

White Heath Aster flowers are not very big.

You can find White Heath Aster green florets low to the ground in springtime, which I've found is the best time to transplant them.

I keep forgetting how big White Heath Asters get but they seem to nicely fit in wherever I plant them, like keeping this Autumn Sedum (left) company.

My cats usually sit quietly next to each other at inside windows enjoying passing wildlife. Unless I work late; then schedules go out the window and cats go wild.

My oldest cat Margaret and I sat together earlier tonight and watched a boxing match in the kitchen between Boo Boo Bartholomew and Bobcat.

Can't you just hear them?

"Did, too."

"Did NOT."

"Did TOO!"

"DID NOT!"

Maybe it's another sign of fall in Missouri.

No, Margaret can't explain it, either.


Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

My very shy cat Bob - or Bobcat, to differentiate him from Minister friend Bob who takes exception to being referred to as hooked on catnip - enjoys watching wildlife from inside windows and usually hides from visitors and cameras. He's invincible now that he has a new "box."

When Bob was a kitten, can you guess how many times I scrubbed that dark spot under his chin thinking it was a dirty spot???

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

Meanwhile at the other hummingbird feeder on my deck, another honey bee was doing her best to get through the bee guard to get to the honey water.

This little Minnesota Hygienic bee was one of several who spent Labor Day weekend raiding hummingbird feeders on my deck.

I wasn't sure the half inch honey bee was able to actually reach the sugar water until company arrived.

Now butterflies - this is a Pearl Crescent Butterfly -  and hummingbirds supposedly like their sugar water at different strengths; so do honey bees.

On this day, however, the quality of the sugar water didn't seem to make a difference and boy, word was sure getting around!

 

Over this summer, I've become friends with a Black Swallowtail Butterfly.

I've named him Pappy, short for the French word for butterfly Papillon.

The relationship started late this spring, when I started to hang hummingbird feeders in the same spot on my deck.

 I didn't think much about it at first, until I started to see a Black Swallowtail Butterfly taking a drink at dusk every night.

At first I saw the tear in his left wing and wondered how he was still flying.

Then I saw the chunk out of his right side.

I'm not an engineer but aerodynamically-speaking, the odds of him making it around the garden easily seemed to be getting worse every few days.

Because he gingerly walked around the hummingbird feeder, I could more easily admire the blue color on his remaining wings; the way his wing tips were orange, and how he moved back and forth across the surface of each of the feeding stations.

I wouldn't be surprised if Black Swallowtail Butterflies dip their wings on their way out like fighter planes - he seemed to always make a couple of extra swoops around my head and my clicking camera before he left.

He may not be the prettiest Black Swallowtail Butterfly in the garden but he's figured out how to survive.

Some days, that in itself is enough of an accomplishment.

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

Over Labor Day weekend, my Minnesota Hygienic honey bees paid my hummingbird feeders on my deck a visit.

There were only a few at first; it's been a very hot summer in Missouri this year, and I remember reading honey bees can get bored if they don't find pollen to carry back to the hives.

Since very little is blooming this time of year, I figured my honey bees were looking for something to do.

Not wanting my bees to leave - there are always long paragraphs in bee books on why honey bees swarm and leave a hive - I decided to get a closer look at how they were planning to raid the hummingbird feeders.

If I were only half an inch long and found a big red hummingbird feeder full of delicious yummy sugar water, I think I would try to get to it, too, wouldn't you?

In the past, I've given the concept of a bee guard on a bird feeder maybe half a thought.

As I watched these little honey bees trying to get to the honey water, I wondered who came up with the idea of marketing these hummingbird feeders as bee proof.

Their final solution cracked me up!

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

I helped a friend recently reorganize her yard so she can add more flowers that attract butterflies.

As we were heading to the back garden, she asked "how do you really know butterflies like these plants?"

My biologist friends say some butterflies prefer certain plants because they're a source of favorite food, or a favorite spot for cocoons. Other butterflies are less picky and enjoy a variety of flowers, like Pearl Crescent Butterflies, which have several variations to their coloring and are the most abundant butterflies in the Midwest. I sure have a number of them working their way through my garden.

Finding butterflies in the garden is one of my favorite signs of summer in Missouri. Once summer flowers are in bloom,  I know for sure Pearl Crescent Butterflies are fond of Missouri Black-eyed Susan wildflowers.

When I think of late Missouri summer, a lot of colors come to mind but not necessarily blue, unless you have a patch of a cute blue Missouri wildflower called Dayflower.

A relative of Spiderwort, Dayflowers have thick fleshy stems that easily sprout new plants. Dayflowers  grow low to the ground, and their flowers last only a day.

You can't mistake them, though, their blue color is beautiful!

According to Edgar Denison, who wrote the definitive guide to Missouri Wildflowers, there are five species of Commelina  in Missouri, named after Jan and Kaspar Commelin, distinguished Dutch botanists. The top two petals represent them. The third, much smaller blue petal on the bottom represents a third Commelin brother who died young.

I like Dayflowers because they often grow where nothing else will grow. Although I tend to find them in shady spots, I also have them in a sunny spot of my vegetable garden, growing happily with blue vinca next to my sitting bench.

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

There are few Missouri moths more beautiful than the lime-colored Luna Moth.

I spotted my first Luna Moth one evening as it was circling an outside light fixture. Once established in an area, Luna Moths seem to return every year. I have an unidentified shady potted plant on my deck that yearly seems to be a Luna Moth nursery!

Full-grown Luna Moths can be as big as 4-5 inches long and are a sure sign of summer in Missouri.

This juvenile Luna Moth was about 3-inches and was spending time in that unidentified shady flower pot.


Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

They look like they belong together, don't they?

 

As we were picking a bouquet of Ironweed wildflowers for his Mom, one of my young neighbors asked if I thought Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man was "a wildflower kind of guy."

If he isn't he should be, this wonderful Missouri wildflower is definitely a hero of a perennial native flower.

According to Edgar Denison, writer of Missouri's Wildflowers book, there are several kinds of Ironweed, some different only by where they won't live.

I've had Ironweed wildflowers volunteering in several of my gardens and they're most welcome, regardless of what kind they are. Their reddish purple flowers, usually at their peak mid-summer to fall. are great color in the garden and flower bouquet.

 I'm also guessing they get some moving help from butterflies, like this lovely Yellow Swallowtail Butterfly.

I had just walked back into my kitchen from the garden when Margaret, my cat, made a running leap at my head.

When I reached back, I found something had hitched a ride so I shook my head.

On the nearby oak kitchen cabinet, I found this praying mantis.

Margaret also was very interested so I grabbed a kitchen towel, and a camera, and tried to
capture this little guy. The picture is terrible but he seemed to know he was safe because he stopped squirming, which gave Margaret a good excuse to stop trying to protect me.

After a few minutes, I took the praying mantis outside and released him into a potted plant.

Don't you just love those green legs?

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill

September came in on a summer storm; it's been raining all day, until a few minutes ago, at sunset.

One my favorites signs of fall is blooming asters, especially wild purple ones.

I transplanted a few years back and now delight in finding them scattered through the garden in no orderly fashion.

Over the weekend, I found the first blooming purple aster of the season. They're tiny, maybe the size of a dime.

When I walked back the house, I saw these two butterflies on the flower. Can't you just hear them?

"This is my flower."

"Is not."

"Is, too!"

 Little Glassywing Skipper Buttterfly is on top, not sure what the other one was. Definitely both juveniles!?

Amazing they could both fit on that little purple aster.

Charlotte

Gardening to Distraction on a MO Hill