Entertaining Guests in the Garden

I was sitting on the patio this evening, sipping a glass of wine, going through box upon box of natural history papers, booklets and trail guides from Larry Lamb when Alyssa exclaimed "Ohhhhhhh!" from the veggie garden.  As it turns out, our 2 fennel plants have become the new home to 3 Black Swallowtail caterpillars!  I saw a Black Swallowtail nectaring on Back-eyed Susan here last year but had none to report for the home list this year so far.  Exciting stuff, I'm looking forward to checking in on them as they munch away.

While I had the camera out I thought I'd go on a bit of a garden tour; it's a great time of year with lots in bloom.  Back 3 years ago I chucked a few seed heads of Pale Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida) into a blender to free up the seeds which I then scattered into my early-stage naturalized garden in the back yard.  The first and second year I got leaves and only leaves, but this was the year the plants decided to go all out.  Pale Purple Coneflower isn't exactly native to Ontario, or Michigan or Ohio for that matter, BONAP shows that it occurs in the far northwest of Indiana after which it's distribution stretches all the way through the prairie states into Texas.  But I love it, along with other out-of-province beauties like Prairie Petunia (Ruellia humilis) and Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata) soon to bloom out front.

I'm looking at my Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) a little more suspect after reading Allen Woodliffe's great post on the perils of insects meeting their demise at the hand of milkweed or the predators lurking within it. 

Hoary Vervain (Verbena stricta) is just beginning to flower.  I think I've mentioned before the joy I get watching bees working away on the flowers late in the season only to drop to the ground as each individual flower falls from the plant under their weight.

Foxglove Beartongue (Penstemon digitalis) is seemingly the pollinator favourite at the moment.

I am perplexed as to how Wild Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) could be holding on to a few lingering flowers into the second week of July, but alas, a handful remain even while the surrounding plants have already lost their flowers, leaves, produced seed and dispersed the seeds, weird.

The Michigan Lily growing in the back yard in a sunny location lost their last petals a couple of days ago.  When I left for work this morning the ones in the front yard were deep orange and ready to burst, which by this evening they had.  One of these days I'll grab a lawn chair and wait for it to happen before my eyes.

After going out on a search for Dorca's Copper butterflies last year I decided to pick up a Shrubby Cinquefoil (Dasiphora fruticosa), less for attracting Dorca's and more just for my own enjoyment, or maybe as a cue for when I should be out at some of the known population sites if I want to go see one...apparently now is the time.

Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) adds a nice splash of blue alongside the Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) shown below.  I was at a site in Hamilton today looking at a patch of the non-native Creeping Bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides) which looks alot more robust with an upright stalk of blue flowers.  The upper leaves of Harebell are thread-like, very dainty.

Red Baneberry (Actaea rubra) is a great plant for a woodland garden; you get the spring blooms of white, followed by the formation of these lush red fruits come summer.  The thin pedicels (the part which attaches the fruit to the flower stem), which you can see in this photo, are a diagnostic feature to differentiate the red from the white.  White Baneberry pedicels are notably thicker.

Let's end this post on a real stunner (ha), Tall Thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana).  By fall these flowers will have transformed to an elongated, cottony seed head.