Friday, March 17, 2017

What's happenin'


Yay, I'm nearly done pruning in all the gardens. This afternoon, I was in the front yard, pruning and pulling, when I happened to glance down...oh, time to go fetch my camera! Can you find what I spotted in the photo above? (Answer at the bottom on this post.)
Our poor woolly butterfly bush still hangs on (sorry for the bad photo). We planted it in May 2009. I went ahead and pruned it some just to see what happens.
I'm always happy to see one of my favorite Blanco County species return for spring––snapdragon vine.
My antelope horns are coming back up!

 So is my zizotes milkweed!
I've gotten a patch of narrowleaf blue-eyed grass started in the back yard. Such pretty little flowers.
And then there's the management problem that comes with gardens, native or not. I love chile pequin, but soon you have young'uns sprouting up everywhere. So I've been yanking those along with white mistflowers and pearl milkweeds. 
Look who's still living our our back porch screened door! My thread-legged bug friend! I check on him/her every night. 
 Found this pretty moth (ID to come) the other day.  
Back to management problems. Like when you don't have enough of a host plant to feed hungry mouths. Right now, pipevine swallowtail moms are out in full force, laying eggs (above) on our non-native pipevines! It won't be long before they eat up (see the tiny larvae below?) what's there. 

 The Mexican buckeye flowers are lovely, too.

What I spotted: a white-lined sphinx moth!

3 comments:

Melody McMahon said...

Wow! What good camouflage that moth has! Thanks for the garden tour of your yard. This time of year it's so much fun to see what comes back after the winter. I just saw that the Showy milkweed I bought last summer at Medina Nursery is coming back. Now if I could only get Antelope Horns to return! Happy Spring to you and James!

sl lawrence said...

I'm so glad you like (& include) insects! When I was a child, we used to call your 'thread-legged bug' Walking Sticks. : ) I keep the pipevine plant also for the pipevine swallowtails. Such fun to watch the whole cycle. I need to try the snapdragon vine again. Mine failed. Thank you.

Sheryl Smith-Rodgers said...

Showy milkweed? I'm not familiar with that species. Sounds cool. I LOVE Medina Nursery! And do you live within the Hill Country, sl lawrence? Mine reseeds and has been coming back.

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