Warning: this post may not be suitable for readers who are upset by insects eating other insects. As I wrote recently, our friend Jo ana came over to help with the garden last week. She is a keen observer of the natural world. This applies to insects as well as flying Geranium seeds. So we …
gardeninacity
Notes from a wildlife-friendly cottage garden
While we are waiting for the snow to finish melting, maybe now is a good time to tell you about our cats. We got our two cats, Molly and Walter, last August. They were part of a litter being fostered by our friend Joanna for a local cat shelter.
My recent life feels as if it can be divided into two periods, BC and AC (Before Chemo and After Chemo). Having been through the first round of six treatments, I have no desire to discuss chemotherapy. It’s enough to say that while many have experienced much worse than I, the modern improved version is …
There’s a hole at one end of the Driveway Border that I had expected to be full of colorful flowers by now. But it was not to be. A number of plants have been harmed by Four-Lined Plant Bugs (FLPB) this year, none more so than the Culver’s Root (Veronicastrum virginucum). Here’s how the Culver’s …
So before I write about spring cleanup in the garden, which is going pretty well, I have to touch on an unpleasant subject. Namely, my failure to protect all my woody plants from girdling.
These days there are too few opportunities to go outside and putter in the garden, basically because the garden is frozen.
A recycled post from the National Wildlife Federation recently reignited a debate in our house concerning the humble opossum. Possums give Judy the creeps, but I think that people generally, and gardeners in particular, should roll out the welcome mat to North America’s only marsupial.
The number of Monarch butterflies out in the Front Garden seems to have peaked. For a while there were 6 or 7 at any typical moment, just recently it’s dropped to 3 or 4. I take this to mean that the core of the southern Monarch migration has passed through our area. Within a week …
I always get excited when a new butterfly makes its first appearance in the garden. This happened a few days ago. At first I thought it was a Black Swallowtail, but then realized it didn’t have a “tail” and that the color and markings were very different.
Lately the Front Garden has had so many little creatures flying about that it’s almost impossible to make it to or from the front door without getting hopelessly distracted. Let’s have a review of some of the creatures who been doing the distracting.
