I saw this guy on the verbena and came inside and checked my e mail, went back out 15 minutes later and it was still on the verbena! This photo was taken from 2 inches away with my little G11 camera. Looks pretty good right? Lets look closer at the photo below.
News from the garden. We received at least 6 inches of rain in the past several days, it was much needed! The pond had looked pitiful with only weeks left before it would have dried up. Today the pond is back to a normal low level back to its summer edges at least.
Good news is the hellebores are perky looking, not wilted and desperate looking. Bad news is another 4 ft camellia might be dying, only the top leaves are green with a few buds. I'd forgotten to mention on of my big butterfly bushes looks bad too, the trunks are all whitish and scaly looking.
We have been picking Lemon Cucumbers this past week, they somehow survived the mildew and are now fruiting. Yummy!
8 comments:
Oh! Poor Little Yellow! What drama goes on in our gardens Randy! Well, you have immortalized this little one... perhaps when the spider is through dining you might save the shell and lovely wings. It is a perilous world out there in the bush. Yeah for your pond and cukes! I hope you are wrong about your other plants demise. Beautiful photos! ;>( I look forward to your chai tea someday! ;>)
Poor little thing! So shocking. So happy you got some rain. It is desperate here as we've not had any in more than a month. And before that it was only like 3.5 inches within the preceding months. Things are desperate for my garden. I am busy rethinking gardens to be more drought tolerant. Things might not be so bad if I didn't have so many trees and tree roots but the shrubs and perennials just aren't competing well. I've lost quite a few things. Sorry on the loss of your 4 foot camellia. This is a tough loss. The evergreens seem to have the worst problems. I bet the buddleia will recover but if not, they are generally short lived anyhow and can be easily replaced. It's funny because in my garden they are the best drought tolerant shrubs so I'm expanding them next year.
I have seen scale down low on the trunks of buddleia, It is usually white and can be scrubbed off or sprayed with some dormant oil.
So unfortunate, especially as this butterfly is such a rare visitor to your garden. I was similarly shocked earlier this year, when a goldenrod spider had a honeybee in its clasps. It stayed there for three days dining on its prize! I think it's unfortunate that our pollinators get ambushed among the flowers, but I suppose the spider has to eat too...
Randy, how artistically appropriate that the yellow butterfly would be on the purple verbena... lovely in color but not so on its demise.
PS: that Night Blooming Cereus is exquisite.
Note for myself: start only 1 lemon cucumber next year! ours have been more prolific than zucchini.
Oh, i didn't know that spiders also eat adult butterflies! Thanks for telling us that. But do they also suck the larvae? I haven't seen them do that even if we have lots of spiders, small to big, in our area. I got a new info today.
Aww how sad!
Good job with the lemon cukes. I only got two this year before the plants succumbed to mildew. They are so delicious, though, that 2 were worth the effort!
Hi Randy--this is Chris Hitt. I am home briefly before heading back to CA. I would really like to talk with you about getting in touch with Sharna. Could you give me a call at 919-967-9844.
Thx
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