On Deck

Come on up the stairs for dinner on the deck. That's my second year of container gardening in the corner. I started one last year after seeing all the great containers that bloggers were posting on their blogs. This year's looks better, and I even added a second container full of sweet potato vines.

That's 'Red Star Cordyline' (Dracena) in the center. I brought it indoors last winter, kept it alive, and used it to center the container again this year. Simple cream petunias and red Calibrachoa work with the color scheme, with the calibrachoa spilling over the edges. In the summer, these needed watering every other day.

Just drop in and have a seat. Every chair rocks a little. Go ahead and put your legs up while I fix a snack on the grille.
Haven't seen you in a while, and never saw you decked
out in brown before - very appropriate for this time of year.
And, pardon me, but my have you grown, (especially
around the bottom.)

Critters' Annual Labor Day Picnic

Like last year, I spent Labor Day weekend laboring in the gardens, preparing them for fall. This year as last, weather was perfect for working outdoors clearing out dying vegetables past their prime, cutting back flowers fried by the summer, coaxing remaining plants into a few more weeks of bloom, and transplanting to fulfill the grand master plan. (Really, there is no master plan.) Also like years past, a few critters stopped in for their own Labor Day picnic.

The praying mantis arrived in the early morning and waited for a meal to happen by on the foundation wall. Bumblebees preferred to dine at the sunflowers and cosmos at the picnic, delaying my maintenance work on the cosmos to the evening.

Butterflies prefer zinnias. Your highness the monarch arrived and joined several yellow swallowtails and one black swallowtail chowing down. One yellow swallowtail looked like its wings had been chow.

A summer cicada tried his trapeze act on my deck cable railing. Newcomers noshed on the Mexican Zinnias. Several of these brown butterflies (or moths?) never before seen had six eyeballs tattooed onto its wings. An internet search revealed it as a Junonia coenia or common buckeye. You can't hide from the internet!

Garden Calendar:   • Blooming: pink cosmos, canna, nasturtium, mexican zinnia, zinnia, sunflower, rose, rudbeckia, spiderwort, cleome, salvia   • Harvested: 2 peppers, 2 tomatoes, 1 cucumber   • Planted: lettuce, spinach, radish

Critters' Labor Day Picnic

These are a few shots of the Hexapoda family members that stopped by for a snack in the front garden this past Labor Day weekend. Consider this snippet a fun departure from my more serious regular weekend posts.

Yellow goldfinches regularly stop by to feast on the coneflower seeds. They are more of a breakfast and brunch crowd. The black coneflower seedheads look like the disgusting remnants of a wildfire, but the bright yellow visitors don't mind, so the plants are not dead-headed and I lose some additional blooms. The finches are very camera-shy though but I will keep trying.

The bees are loving the abundant blossoms on the purple basil plants. These are not honeybees, but resemble them in size and coloring. The wings are different, and these bees maneuver around like hummingbirds.

The yellow butterflies enjoying the red cosmos are not very common here. Maybe they are stopping by on their way south? They are very similar to the more common white cabbage moth, but they did not sign the guest registry.

I can always spot one mantis each year lurking somewhere in the front yard. This one waits on the crocosmia leaves and is a slender 4-inches long (10 cm). I am told they do not like pesticides (who does) so having one hanging out is a good sign of a healthy organic garden. Chemical pesticides are not normally used, but I will spritz some neem oil on selected plants there when things get out of hand. A mantis likes to chow down on nasty buggers, so they are welcome here. This is the first one that came wearing a brown suit - I believe they can change their color from green to brown. I consider it an insult that it chose brown instead of green to blend in with my garden.