Monday, October 10, 2011
Monarchs and saffron crocuses
This past weekend we spent in Wilmington, NC. Meg and I visited Airlie Gardens and spent some time on the beach at Fort Fisher. Then we decided to take the ferry over to South Port. While waiting for the ferry I looked for migrating Monarchs. I found 22 Monarchs hiding from the wind and nectaring on Eastern Baccharis, Baccharis halimifolia. Baccharis is ready just in time for the Monarchs as they pass through.
I tried to video tape 7-8 Monarchs on Baccharis but did not move quick enough. Below is a video of Common Buckeyes on Baccharis. Bad news in walking across the field my sandals found the sand spurs which were also ready to deploy from the plant. Later I removed about 100 sand spurs from my socks. Next time wear hiking boots.
While in Wilmington we bought two new camellias. One I have seen in bloom Moon Festival and awesomely huge crinkled pink/red bloom. The other camellia Leslie Ann featured in the above photo, the blooms are about 2 inches.
Got home tonight and Meg showed my our Saffron Crocus. Last year we just got foilage, this year these beautiful blooms. see the red saffron strands...
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16 comments:
The Monarchs have been a delight this year!
After seeing your Saffron Crocus I want to grow it too. On my list....
Sherry
nice...
Nice looking camellia and I wouldn't mind have the Crocus as well. Lovely!
So cool... do you harvest the saffron strands? I would love to know more.
Love the video. Looks like a great day out and about. I saw the migrationof the monarchs once in Santa Cruz,CA. Beautiful stuff.
Sherry,
Been too busy to see many Monarchs.
John,
I snared these crocus at Duke gardens garden shop I think.
Carolyn,
Don't know much either about these crocuses, the first blooms today.
Rohrerbot,
I spent 3 months on the Eastern Shore of Virginia tagging Monarchs back in 2004. Santa Cruz must have been nice.
Randy, leave it to you to have such great pictures of butterflies, even though you had to brave less than ideal conditions to get them.
Great crocus, too.
What a beautiful monarch photo you captured! My saffron crocuses didn't bloom this year. Nor did it grow any greens. I'm hoping the bulbs were not eaten by squirrels. (sigh)
That camellia is beautiful, and the crocus splendid. I am also wondering if you will harvest the saffron strands.
FlowerLady
A monarch was visiting the mistflower when I came home from work yesterday. My husband said it had been there for 30 minutes or so. Unfortunately, he didn't think to take a picture of it and it was gone before I could get my camera.
The saffron crocus is beautiful!
So many buckeyes!
Green with envy for your new Camellias...if they had any at the plant sale I would have purchased some! With the drought I lost two. :-(
What is the yellow bloom at the top of the post? The one with the Monarch? Have lots that look like that...not sure of what it is.
I know the white flowered Baccharis... but seem to recall the male flower is whiter and the female is yellower(or vise versa). I was thinking your yellow blooms were maybe one of the many varieties of goldenrod we have around here. I guess I should have read your description better.
How great to see so many Buckeyes! Fun video. Beautiful crocus!! Thanks for posting the article. Did you read Krugman's OP-ED. There is a link on my latest blog post if you missed it.
Those are plenty of buckeyes in one plant! But here, i love most the crocus, very lovely colors of red and violet. Is that red strand the style and stigma at the end? And is it the part eaten?
I am so going to miss the butterflies this past year. As odd as the weather was, there were more butterflies than in previous years. Your video was wonderful showing them congregated. I saw more of that this year than any. I hope that is a good sign of things to come.
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