I can imagine the college kids!

Fingers crossed for rain for you!!

Gorgeous photos! I do believe you have the color better on the lobelia.

What do you do with the Monarch eggs???

And thanks, about the rain. I'll report in if it does rain, you betcha. Once I finish jumping up and down in glee and going out and running around in it for a while!

I took the leaves with the eggs off the plant and now I have the leaves in a plastic tupperware container with lid. When they hatch they will be very tiny and happy on a single leaf. When they get large enough, I'll move them to my caterpillar rearing container, which I'm expecting any day now from Amazon! I'll need to get a small tropical milkweed plant to put in the cage to keep them happy. Otherwise, just supply them with lots of leaves.

My gardening buddy Coleup has a ton of Monarch caterpillar eggs right now from her milkweed that she is going to need help rearing.

I guess it isn't safe for them to just leave them on the leaves? (Obviously I know nothing at all about this!)

Yeah, they are deliciously tasty snacks for all kinds of predatory insects, and given that the monarch population is at critical levels, we are trying our best to preserve them.

Ah I see! Thank you for doing that!

It is my first time spotting and collecting Monarch eggs!

That's even more special, then. Wow.

I have a link to share I keep meaning to post somewhere, it's a blog called The Deep Middle by someone in Nebraska I believe, but he is very deep into Monarch gardening and habitat creation etc. He has other pages related to that too. I'm a bit too foggy brained right now to go after that, but this is reminding me I want to so with luck, tomorrow.

thanks, Kyla! I look forward to seeing it!

Freshly blooming this morning:

Aster 'Purple Dome'
Coreopsis 'Red Satin'
Black and Blue Salvia
Rebloom on wisteria
Thyme
Still enjoying fruit on my Lonicera

Kyla, you were trying to get an ID on this plant:



I think it's a sedge. I don't know what kind, but it looks like a sedge to me.

As always, Cat, looks beautiful! Very exciting about the butterfly eggs!!!!

Karen, thanks, yes, that got IDed and called out for a thug by many people! Apparently it's a real bad'un. Well, I knew it was, just not quite HOW bad. Yellow Nutsedge and it's in the database too.

Catmint, as always those are some scrumptious pictures. It gives me hope that you have fresh blooms, first bloomers! at this time of year.

We didn't get any rain.

Two blooms from this morning:

Honeysuckle:

and Hosta:

Nab, the black and white flirty cat, helped me take both of those. He particularly helped with framing and focus. He really wanted to photobomb with his tail but I resisted his catly blandishments.

Thanks Typ and Kyla! :-)

Kyla I love that honeysuckle and hosta bloom! Too funny about the cat! I have trouble with that when I try to take pics indoors. :-D

Yes, they do like to be the center of things!

Here's one more picture from this morning. I tried to get both the dill flowers and the Stella d'Oro in focus but no could do. Still, this turned out pretty:



That's the third time this dl has bloomed. It must like where it is.

Pretty!

1st monarch egg hatched! Tiny little thread of a baby monarch cat has eaten a tiny hole in the milkweed leaf!

Wonderful!

For today:

1) Ornamental Pepper 'Black Pearl' getting bigger. Looking forward to its fruit!
2) Buddleja 'Miss Molly'
3) Sedum 'Autumn Fire' almost ready to bloom


1) 1st bloom of the season on my Anenome 'Robustissima'
2) 1st rebloom of my Phlox 'Paparazzi Sparkling Blue' in ages
3) Kyla, this is my Tagetes lucida. It is quite small! But maybe it doesn't get quite enough sun where it is.


1) Snapdragon 'Sonnet White'
2) Ageratina 'Chocolate' (a variety of Joe Pye Weed) getting closer to its full seasonal flowering.

Beauteous! And I think the Texas Tarragon needs a lot of sun maybe?

This is a picture I thought came out nicely; the noid pink rose in Hannah's corner. It has really responded to my work, removing all the ivy from its base and adding some organic soil amendments, manure and such. It has two other buds.



Here it is again, where you can see a bit of the surroundings:



We had (again!) about an eighth inch of rain overnight, so pretty raindrops on the rose blossom.