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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...

16 comments:

  1. The Monarchs have been a delight this year!
    After seeing your Saffron Crocus I want to grow it too. On my list....
    Sherry

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  2. Nice looking camellia and I wouldn't mind have the Crocus as well. Lovely!

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  3. So cool... do you harvest the saffron strands? I would love to know more.

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  4. Love the video. Looks like a great day out and about. I saw the migrationof the monarchs once in Santa Cruz,CA. Beautiful stuff.

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  5. 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.

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  6. 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.

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  7. 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)

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  8. That camellia is beautiful, and the crocus splendid. I am also wondering if you will harvest the saffron strands.

    FlowerLady

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  9. 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!

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  10. So many buckeyes!

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  11. 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.

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  12. 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.

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  13. 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.

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  14. 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?

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  15. Anonymous9:26 AM

    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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