Camera Critters

Late summer/ early fall is the time for skippers

and American Ladies, flexing their beautiful wings.

Lots of purple and sunshine yellow, a mecca for nectaring insects.

To see more critters of all sorts, visit Camera Critters.

Blooming Friday -- September Peak

The star of the garden every September is always the Bidens. Some years we also have Bidens in the ditches next to the pastures, 1200 feet on each side. Not this year, though. I think DH mowed down the young seedlings in May. The ditches need to be mowed every year to keep the woody plants down, but we need to try to get it done in late winter or very early spring instead of April or May.

But there are a lot of Bidens in the garden.

At first they start off looking like any other garden plant, with
a regular amount of blooms, and then there is an explosion of color.

Something is needed to offset all of that yellow -- this is a Knockout
rose, whose garishness I sometimes don't appreciate and sometimes I do.

Buddleia 'Potter's Purple'

View from an upstairs window.

On a gentler note, pink and white Lespedeza.

Hibiscus syriacus

Crinum 'Royal White'

Hardy ginger lily. It has a heavenly fragrance like that of Japanese honeysuckle but with more coconut tones.

Mexican petunia

Spiderwort 'Zwanenburg Blue'

and roses. This is the tea rose 'Duchesse de Brabant' with Transylvanian sage.

Rugosa rubra with Buddleia Potter's Purple in the background

Buds of the tea rose 'Devoniensis'

'Aloha'

and the lovely 'Clotilde Soupert'.

For more Blooming Friday posts, visit Katarina at roses and stuff.

Camera Critters

These little guys love to sing in the drain pipes.

Green Treefrog

The butterflies love the flowers

but sometimes they just want a drink. I had dumped out the horses' water trough earlier.

Look what I found under the well cover: a female black widow spider! We have lots of these on the farm, under leaves, under rocks, and under water troughs that haven't been used for a while, yet I rarely find them in the garden itself. So I'm careful to wear gloves in certain situations.

*no spiders were harmed in or after the creation of this post*

Bidens are the great insect favorite this month. The flowers are literally abuzz with dozens, even hundreds of bees, wasps, flies, moths, and butterflies.

Another that looks like a Tim Burton creation.

Digger wasps are very common this time of year, buzzing in circles above lawns in great numbers. They are beautiful wasps, with their iridescent blue-black wings and chestnut abdomens with yellow markings.

To see more critters of all sorts, visit Camera Critters!

Blooming Friday -- September Queen

Our native wildflower Bidens (species either aristosa or polylepis) is the queen of the garden during the month of September. Bidens is a reseeding annual native to wetlands in the eastern United States. It's fairly inconspicuous until it starts growing rapidly to its full size of 4-5' high and wide in August. The pinnate foliage is a deep bluish green if the plant receives enough food and water and I think it's very handsome. In September it puts on a wonderful show, when it is completely covered in bright sunshine-yellow flowers. The flowers are even fragrant, especially en masse.

The plants are completely abuzz with insects feeding to their hearts'
content. There are literally hundreds of bees working the flowers.

For more Blooming Friday posts, visit Katarina at roses and stuff.