Volunteer plants are the best! I was going to buy some more Corky-stem this year, and I still may, but now I don't have to buy as much. More money to spend on native pipevines! I can't believe February is already here! I'm going to have start making lists and making purchases. Gotta get those plants in the ground before the butterflies show up.
In other good news, the pellitory is starting to appear. Well, I haven't found it yet in my yard, but I'll have to go check over on the side where it sometimes comes up. It was all over MOSI. The Red Admiral uses it as a host plant and most years I get the opportunity to raise a few. Even though most people would say it's a weed, I leave it alone because of the host plant thing, but also because it largely dries up and disappears by about May. This is also why I only see Red Admirals in the spring. They also use nettles as a host plant, but no one is planting those in their garden!
The Virginia Pepper Grass is also making its comeback in preparation for our White butterflies. It, too, is considered a weed but dries up like the pellitory. I know some years my boss has dashed through the gardens at MOSI trying to find one plant that isn't dried up for the caterpillars. Both the Great Southern Whites and Checkered Whites use it but the Checkered are more common in my part of the county. Pepper grass grows along the medians and sides of roads. I used to drive home on the interstate and just watch hundreds of them flying around as I was stuck in rush hour traffic.
Lots of other things are leafing out, too. The Redbuds are blooming. My Black Cherry tree has leaves again so that's good news for my Red-Spotted Purples. In bad news, oak pollen season is here. My allergist actually cuts back the amount they inject in my allergy shots so as not to overdose us.
Today is gloomy and my phone app says there is a 100% chance of rain. Bad for the butterflies, but the plants need it so in a way, it is good for the butterflies. I was talking to a guest yesterday who treats people with traumatic brain injuries (I meet the neatest people) and we were comparing the brain to the environment since they are both such interconnected systems where if one thing goes wrong, you potentially lose everything. I also met a young woman who was talking to her child and pronounced "proboscis" correctly. I feigned shock that she said it right and we laughed. She admitted she was a nerd but I told her, "This is a science museum. We love nerds!"
