Sphinx moths and swallowtails

Right now, we're having a LOT of white-lined sphinx moths and pipevine butterflies in our Wildscape! This evening, we counted seven or eight moths nectaring on our salvias. For the past week or so, I haven't even tried to count the pipevines. But we see some every day in the gardens, and they've been depositing eggs on our pipevine plants. Oh, and last night I saw a juvenile robin taking a bath in one of our birdbaths! It's BUSY around this place!

Look what James did!

So some neighbors, Butch and Linda, a few years ago gave us two vintage Blanco street signs before they moved. James stuck in our storage shed until he figured out a use for them. Bingo! He came up with a brilliant idea of installing them in our Wildscape! Aren't they cool? Cindy at K&C Supply in town suggested that he use recycled pipes, which he did. Looks great, James! Thank you thank you thank you!

Stock tank refresh

Check off another project from our to-do list! Yesterday, we freshened up the stock tank. We didn't do a complete water change-out and tank cleaning, but we did pull out plants for trimming.

I tidied up the lemon bacopa (it really smells citrusy!), which spread over to the water lily pot.

There's a ham in every family.

Next we worked on the horsetail rush. Man, does it put out the ROOTS! But somehow, it survives all the hair cuts, year after year.

As best as I could, I siphoned out the stringy algae gunk. I only caught on gambusia, but we got it out of the net in time.

Ta da! Much better! See the one gambusia swimming over the rock (left bottom side)? In a few weeks, we'll take the dwarf water lily to nursery to have it divided. I haven't have that done since April 2014. Yikes! It's been THAT LONG?

Well, okay, stay, lantana

See the new growth coming up?

Back in January 2012, I declared that a Lantana camara in our Wildscape had to go. That's because they're not a true Texas native, and some biologists consider them to be invasive. This particular lantana bush (which produces pink and yellow blooms) already lived in our back yard before I moved into the house in April 2002. 

So anyway, I hacked and hacked on it in 2012. But it came back and has continued to return each spring since then. So, okay, you go ahead and stay, Lantana camara. I haven't really seen any new ones. If I do, they're the native Lantana urticoides with orange flowers. 

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!

First hummer!

I thought I heard a hummingbird this afternoon. So I made a small batch of sugar water. Half an hour after I hung two feeders, a male black-chinned showed up! Welcome back! 

Thank you for shooting the video, James! I do apologize for my abrupt exclamation at the end......I didn't realize he was filming.

What's up in our Wildscape

Peach tree

So I finally went outside with my big camera and got some shots of what's blooming right now. And it's a lot...

Tenpetal anemone

Yellow honeysuckle

Pink mint

Golden groundsel (can you find the snowberry clearwing moth?)

Skipper

Rosemary

Crossvine

Spiderwort

Coral honeysuckle

Oxalis

Texas nightshade

Salvias!

AND IF YOU SPOT ONE OF THESE (BELOW), PULL IT! KILL IT! FORBID IT IN YOUR GARDENS! 

THIS IS MALTA STAR- THISTLE, A DASTARDLY INVASIVE!