This is what can happen when we don’t trim the holy crap out of every edge in the yard. I let this native crossvine volunteer up a wall and now LOOK AT THIS BEAUTY.
Of course, ugly things can happen when you never trim at all, but right now I have BEAUTY and I’m looking at it. Continue reading “Accidental Crossvine”
My “What a Butterfly Means” was published last week. I wrote it after watching a newly eclosed gulf fritillary butterfly on a passionvine at Warner Park Nature Center’s organic garden. Continue reading “What a butterfly looks like”
There are swaths of yellow right now in Elmington Park: small yellow blooms massed in the lawn. I hope the city doesn’t mow soon, because the yellow is Nashville mustard—our mustard—and it needs to go to seed and spread. I saw it on the way to Hebrew School, and as soon as I could, I went back and parked the car in the lot, then parked my body flat on the grass.
Snowberry Clearwing. Sounds like a unicorn name, doesn’t it? But it’s a type of sphinx moth—Hemaris diffinis—and before it becomes a moth, it’s a caterpillar. The caterpillar even has a single “horn,” though fake (to scare predators) and situated on the rear (to confuse predators). Continue reading “Snowberry Clearwing Caterpillar”
The day after July 4th is a let-down because of the firework tents. Fireworks are legal to sell in Wilson County, so that’s where we go to buy. Most of June, there’s a retail tent at each big intersection, as well as at intersections big only to folks who have to cross them every day. Till yesterday, the tents were lined with tables decked with patriotic skirting, and full of customers buying armloads of flammable goodies. Tax is figured on solar calculator or iPad, depending on demographic of the seller. Continue reading “Couchville Cedar Glade 7/5/16”
If you like wisteria,
If you can momentarily forget this is the exotic wisteria classed as invasive here,
If you need to lie on a blanket and see sky through cascades of blue-violet racemes,
and if allergies permit fragrance in Surround Sound,
go to the front lawn of the old Catholic Diocese on 21st Avenue South. Evening air intensifies the scent.
Here’s a spring flower so teeny you might never know it’s in the yard, but I bet it’s there. If you have a patch of the usual European yard weeds like speedwell and ground ivy, go look for this native one nearby. Continue reading “Little Miss Nomer: Baby Blue Eyes”
Today’s native flower pic is courtesy of our accidental driveway-crack garden. This Evening primrose (Oenothera biennis) was a volunteer rosette sprouting beneath the water barrel last summer, and now it is so tall I wonder if my bats might be swooping down to gulp the moths that pollinate it at night. Continue reading “Driveway-Crack Flowers: Evening Primrose”
