Wildflower Wednesday

The Bidens are fading and going to seed now, but this is what they looked like at their peak one week ago ~ a vast sea of golden yellow.

 

 

 

 

 

So such yellow needs a counterpoint of something else, blue, pink
or purple. The lavender berries of Japanese Beautyberry are nice
 

but the rich royal purple of American Beautyberries are even more striking. The
color of the fruit is so beautiful the shrub can be forgiven its graceful gawkiness.
 

 

The delicate sprays of Muhly Grass blooms

 

Spiderwort 'Zwanenberg Blue'
 

 

The Bidens display extends for over a thousand feet behind the garden, in the ditches next to the pasture. I always wish there was more.

 

 

Insects of all sorts love them.

Pearl Crescent

 

Gray Hairstreak

 

Female Cloudless Sulfur

 

Buckeye
 

I don't know what this little guy is but he's cute.

 

Eupatorums other than Joe Pye Weed and Blue Mist Flower grow wild here.
Here is an elegant-looking wasp on Hyssop-Leaved Thoroughwort.
 

Today I am joining Gail at clay and limestone for wonderful Wildflower Wednesday. Better late than never!

Blooming Friday ~ Diamonds are not forever

Riches abound in the garden. These sweet Prairie Phlox from this spring and Spiderwort 'Zwanenburg Blue' are graced with a delicate coating of diamond dust

 

 

while Purple Muhly Grass sports a fortune's worth of sparkle.

 

 

While these diamonds are ephemereal their worth is priceless. Join Katerina at roses and stuff for more Blooming Fridays.

A Big Bowl of Sunshine and What's in the box?

The farm is literally a big bowl of
sunshine right now, even on cloudy days.
 

The show started with a few hundred flowers
 

and quickly progressed to thousands. There are the brilliant
yellow flowers of Bidens polylepis everywhere
 

 

all abuzz with insect life.
 

 

I wish there were more along the upper part of the driveway
 

 

but there are tons in the new beds in front of the house
 

at the front of the big perennial bed
 

 

 

and in the bed beside the neighbor's pasture.
 

Not only are the Bidens themselves
brilliant, they combine brilliantly with other colors.
 

The Bidens-less parts of the garden provides a rest for the eyes. lol
 

Look what I found in a box intended for recycling. Penny doesn't usually do cat-like things like this so I was surprised to see her in there. She is slow, deliberate, without the usual balance and athleticism that cats possess. We used to think that she was perhaps drain-bramaged from being dropped on her head as a kitten (before we had her) ;), but after watching a program on Animal Plant I think she's just a throwback to her Persian ancestry. lol

 

At Twilight

I have been too busy working in the garden to blog, weeding and putting out many of the starts from seed that had turned the front porch into a jungle, only leaving a cleared path to the door and for me to reach the plants with a hose.

The weather is so, so much nicer than it was a month ago, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way. Still a little hot ~ upper 80's and I'm waiting anxiously for 70's so there's no "I'm in an oven" feeling in the middle of the afternoon.

The late afternoon light is fleeting and before you know it it's gone and it's twilight, time for the white flowers and evening bloomers to shine.

Garlic Chives
 

The Four o'clocks don't open until after six anyway.
 

 

Indigofera 

The longer I have this Knockout the more I appreciate it. I like the hot pink color of the flowers with the Bidens.

 

 

Cardinal Flower is blooming in the ditches. This is a wildflower
that I don't attempt to cultivate anymore ~ Cardinal Flower
grows wild here and I just let it do its own thing.
 

I do love the glimpses through the trees of the sun-bathed pastures
at the end of the day ~ ours
 

and the neighbor's.
 

 

The Japanese Beetles were gone by August this year and so we have roses again. I think I have the neighbor's guineas to thank for that; there are more than a dozen of them and they cover great distances every day in search of food.

'Pink Pillar'
 

Rugosa
 

I've been seeing Viceroys around for the last month and obviously the
Monarchs are here too. These cats are munching on Mexican Butterfly Weed.
 

Next year I'm going to put out more of this milkweed, as well as more parley for the Black Swallowtails. The Black Swallowtail cats really enjoyed the parsley! Now poor DH doesn't have any. lol So next year I'm going to put out rows of it, rather than one plant. It did better than the tomatoes, which were a miserable bust. The Black Swallowtails are gorgeous and I've enjoyed seeing them dancing and twirling about in the garden.