This morning, when the sun came out, the flowers were all abuzz with activity after a few days of rain and clouds. But first, a handful of flowers-only photos...
More of the daylilies are opening a new round of blooms-- or maybe it's just that different daylilies are in flower, compared to a few weeks ago, rather than that there are that many more...
The old-fashioned orange daylilies are still going strong. They take a while to get going in my garden (not until well after mid-summer, this year), but once they do, they last a fairly long time.
I think this clump came from Mom, last year. It's one of the shorter varieties, but it's a definite rebloomer. Quite a few buds lined up, ready to go!
Duranta 'Sapphire Showers' is still pretty. No sign of the golden berries, yet.
Salvia 'Pizzazz Purple' has gotten taller than I expected. I love this plant, this year!
The dark-rose rose of Sharon has begun to bloom, now. We've also had a few flowers on a volunteer I potted up and planted out along the fence row. I could've sworn I'd gotten all my volunteers from around the purple one, but apparently this one came from near the white rose of Sharon, because the blooms are all-white singles. It doesn't matter-- both are pretty-- though I do think I prefer the purple.
Hydrangea 'Little Lime' is still blooming. Very nice color-- gently green-tinged cream aging to touches of pink.
Along the wilder south side of the fenced yard, there's a beautyberry bush growing. I love the way those look, so I hope we can manage to keep it, if/when we clear out down there... Eventually, these green berries should all turn red-violet.
I've started to notice large spiders in the woodsier places. It won't be too much longer before "big spider season"-- fall. I always seem to forget about them until they make their reappearance. They're not dangerous, but the thought of accidentally walking into one of their webs and ending up with one of them on me is still terrifying.
The Rudbeckia 'Autumn Sun' / 'Herbstonne' has already lost a lot of its petals-- probably not helped by all this rain we've been having. I'm not sure if I should deadhead or not, since I don't know if prompt deadheading can result in another round of flowers... I probably won't, this year. The seedheads look interesting, and I'm not worried about potential self-sowing. (I'd be glad if it meandered around the garden a little, in fact.)
I think this is a pearl crescent on the petitie butterfly bush.
I'm uncertain of this one, but maybe it's a common checkered skipper. Very pretty, for something with "common" in its name.
Is this maybe a long-tailed skipper? Whatever it is, while the wings are less showy than some butterflies, their furry-looking bodies are a nice blue-green. There were many of them around, today.
They seem to love the Mexican sunflower (tithonia).
I've seen the occasional Gulf fritillary around the tithonia, too. We have some passionvine (which these butterflies use as larval host plants) growing elsewhere in the yard, but I've yet to notice any eggs or caterpillars. Last year, I think the green anoles ate most (if not all) of those poor caterpillars. (Why didn't they eat those awful Eastern tent caterpillars instead?!)
Eastern tiger swallowtail, another fan of the tithonia.
And what's that peeping through the lattice?
It's a monarch! I haven't seen many of these, that I can recall. Just this morning, I was saying that the tithonia is supposed to be popular with monarch butterflies, but that I hadn't seen any yet-- and then just a couple of hours later, this one made its appearance.
There was also a sulphur or two, but it wouldn't sit still long enough for the camera.
Not a bad day for butterflies, by my standards. I think they were excited that the sun had finally come out again. Of course, it clouded over and poured later in the day, but we're on our way out of this heavy rain phase. Back to the typical scattered showers for next week!
