Yesterday’s early overcast soon dissipated and I went out to see what I could see…
I
Phlox appears to be very popular with groundhogs.
In frustration, I rescued one plant last year and placed it in a flowerbed behind the house, where hopefully it would be unmolested.
It is so well concealed, I almost missed the blooms myself.
Rose of Sharon also attracts wildlife.
Deer nibble on it.
These plants are on the far-side of the garage and tend not to be noticed.
When we remembered to look, a lovely surprise.
Not just one bloom, but several.
And lots of buds.
No doubt the absence of deer this summer is significant.
A solitary doe visits occasionally but there is no sign of the herd.
No sign of wild turkeys, either.
And now “our” fox has disappeared.
That is to say, we have not seen her since Sunday.
She hardly checks in with us, and I’ve no idea what foxes get up to, so hopefully she’s just busy elsewhere.
With 11 aging cats to think about, we are hardly short of animals to fret about.
But we miss her sweet face.
While I was looking at the Rose of Sharon, I took a picture of wild grasses and flowering knot-weed.
It has a delicate and pretty flower but is very invasive.
While I try to discourage weeds that are likely to become a problem, I am quite happy for others to remain.
The tumbleweed in my front bed had become quite a feature and I had allowed a poke-weed to remain.
But Grant took exception to them one day and yanked them both out.
Now, if I could get him to deal with some of those ground level weeds…
The milkweed gets a lot of attention, not least from the tussock moth caterpillars that have progressed from cute and “furry” to rather more ferocious-looking.
In both incarnations they are voracious.
It’s not just tussock-moths competing for the milkweed. Aphids.
Whoever knew they looked like this?
All sorts of beetles
Queen Ann’s lace reminds me of a snow flake.
Because of the prolonged dry period period, it’s been some time since our grass man was here. Now, of course he’s hopelessly backed-up but it’s fun to see what else grows besides grass.
Field mustard. And some variety of fly.
All of these things flourish down in the field, but I won’t risk going down there where ticks also thrive.
Pretty weed with an ugly name:
Daisy flea-bane.
It is allowed to live in a flower bed adjacent to my very humble zinnias.
Looking hopefully at the afternoon sky, I decided watering could not be avoided.
So out I went.
When the first drops fell, some 10 minutes later, I soldiered on because I’ve been led astray before with that sort of tease.
Soon I was wet through.
It turned out to be a fairly decent thunderstorm, of not very long duration and soon I was back out looking at the rainbow…
The morning after a good storm, there is always lots to photograph……
Queen Anne again!
How do they get all this done so fast?
Amazing Nature.
Now, let’s see. To water or not to water….
What would you do?
Thank you, Carolyn, for today’s pictures of the beauty of nature. I would water!
Joanna
I don’t water because we have metered water and watering the garden costs too much. It is not usually an issue with all the rain we get, but this year is shaping up to a ‘drought’ summer.
Aphids can be deterred by a simple spray of soapy water. It doesn’t kill them, and doesn’t harm the plants. But they find somewhere else to go.
Best wishes, Pete.
I have lost a lot of plants this year to excessive heat. Watering is largely pointless as a combination of sun and wind steals all the moisture very quickly!
All your flower photos were lovely but I was extra thrilled to see you had zinnias too as they are our family flowers.
I would water them … because it seems that’s a trigger to the rain! You took some pretty amazing looking pictures of the spider webs and your garden is actually full of colour – that’s beautiful!