Painted Ladies in the Garden
We haven’t seen a Monarch since last weekend, but today there were several Painted Lady butterflies fluttering around the Mexican Sunflowers (Tithonia rotundifolia) and the various Rudbeckias.
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Notes from a wildlife-friendly cottage garden
A Bird and Pollinator Video Retrospective
Last night I included a video Judy made a couple of years ago in my post. That got me looking at other videos she had made. She had fun making these videos with her Nikon camera but then stopped, I think she may have been discouraged about getting the kind of quality (focus, etc.) that …
Study Gives Reason To Bee Hopeful
A new study demonstrates that prairie restoration brings back the bees, both in numbers and species diversity. Here’s an article about it from the website of the Nature Conservancy. Unfortunately, the study itself is behind a pay wall, but you can read the article here.
This Monarch Butterfly Was Not Ready For Its Closeup
So yesterday I was out in the front garden when I spied a Monarch Butterfly on the Rose Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). This was the third Monarch sighting of the year, not including some caterpillars on the Butterflyweed (A. tuberosa).
Butterflyweed and Some Monarch Numbers
The Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa) is blooming. We have several species of Milkweed in the garden, but A. tuberosa is the first of these to bloom.
The Lurie Garden Bee Hives
So guess what? Judy and I were invited to see the bee hives at the Lurie Garden. We visited during our lunch break last week.
A Movie About the Cats of Istanbul
The other night Judy and I went to see a movie called Kedi – a documentary about the cats of Istanbul. We visited Istanbul at the end of 2009, and had loved many things about the city – including the omnipresent cats. Judy took the photos in this post during that trip.
A New Tool for Wildlife Gardeners
Native Plant Finder is an online resource for people who want to attract more wildlife to their gardens. The website is sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation, with support from the University of Delaware and the US Forest Service. It draws on the work of Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home and Professor of …
A Pollinator Paradise
Rhonda Fleming Hayes is the author of Pollinator Friendly Gardening, and we were able to visit her Minneapolis garden on the first morning of the fling.
Monarch Butterflies Head South After a Disappointing Year
Since the middle of August Monarch Butterflies have been a steady presence in the front garden. There have been at least two fluttering around almost every day. This past Sunday there were three, passing through on their way south to Mexico.
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