An early phone call roused me this morning and I was asked what plans I had for the day.
Plans? Unless there is a medical appointment, I don’t make plans. I just wait to see what happens.
This morning, however, something prompted me to get out my macro lens and go looking for tiny things.
It turns out that identifying bugs is harder than identifying plants. I still have no idea what this creature is. I doubt he has good intentions for the Rose of Sharon.
But I let him get on with his day and moved on.
We miss so much that is too tiny for our eyes.
The Spirea buds are just as lovely as the flower.
Simple grass seeds!
Fragrant Sumac.
Spirea Japonica
We bought this two years ago because it had such beautiful blooms, but it was so shocked by our methods of gardening that it refused to bloom last year.
This year looks more promising.
Now just where these came from, I don’t know. Probably seeds blown in on the wind or carried on some bird’s feathers. I nearly made a mistake, thinking they were the dreaded knot-weed, because they are growing wild.
In fact they are inoffensive ox eye daisies. I love daisies. I have to. My mother’s name was Daisy. Not that she ever used it.
A mature dandelion.
Does the dew not render it beautiful?
Now of course, we’ve come to weeds.
“False Baby’s breath”. The garden it full of it and I don’t find it un-lovely, but it wants to choke the life out of every other plant.
So I am obliged to remove it.
Except where there are cobwebs. I can’t destroy those.
What can I say about Mullein? It’s rather coarse beginnings eventually produce tall stalks with multiple yellow blooms.
Here, it grows wild and quite profusely. I won’t destroy it although it tends to grow in inconvenient places.
It is said to be good for breathing complaints and is made into a product sold in health food stores.
This rather sweet little chap I took to be a form of dandelion, but PlantNet set me straight identifying it as: “Mouse ear hawkweed”.
Glad I checked. It grows on the lawn just like what I confused it with.
“Lawn”? I should have said, “in among the grass and other things, like this delicate ‘grass-like starwort'”.
Inevitably I found a weed that had to go.
Not this one. Field pepperwort struck me as too pretty to remove at this stage of its life.
It is in the flower bed at the end of the driveway. The one I feel ought to be kept “respectable”.
After an hour of sorting out that mess, I came inside and told Grant the best thing for us to do is replace it with a concrete block and a flower pot.
Last time, I moaned about the Yucca which is thriving in all directions, leaping with enthusiasm. Not the least daunted by my recent efforts to restrain it.
This morning though, my efforts were required elsewhere.
It looks perfectly lovely, out in the fields, where it adds colour and shape to one’s view. And I daresay other things as well.
It’s called “Common sheep sorrel”, so perhaps it feeds the animals it is named for.
But it doesn’t look good in a flower bed.
So it had to go.
Which is easy to say.
First I noticed another green thing of which there was too much and was about to seize a handful when I noticed lots of little caterpillars.
It would have been unsporting to ruin their day, so the “Cypress spurge” got a reprieve. Except:
Having decided to tidy this flowerbed, yet again, I retired the camera, or I would have photographed the wee caterpillars this morning. And they were “wee” itty bitty little things like a match stick.
But in order to illustrate my story, I went back out just now, some 3 hours later and got these pics.
Fat little buggers are scoffing the lot. So I won’t have to deal with the spurge.
Like the beetle, I am unable to identify the type of caterpillar. It will eventually turn into some flying thing and I imagine there will be clouds of them!
As for me, I am now sporting a whole new row of lumps on the side of my head, courtesy of some other flying thing. See, my problem is that I tend to do things on the spur of the moment, like weeding the garden, so I don’t stop to consider…
If I was into planning, maybe I would consider applying insect repellent.
Now there’s a thought.
Why spoil the spontaneity!
Quite!
Wow, I love the close-up pictures!