May 30 was a good day for pictures

[thanate]

Butterfly weed (milkweed family, great feeder of monarch butterflies) with hidden lightning bug:



From the pond, we have:

Iris vericolor, in two colors (determined by the age of the flower-- the paler ones are older)


Pickerelweed! (It's just fun to say, really...)


I planted this last year and promptly forgot what it was (though it's blooming, so I could look it up.)


I don't know what this one is either, but that's because I didn't plant it. Best guess is some kind of weird phlox cultivar.


...And the crazy alien flowers (Beebalm/Monarda.) They are mint family, so prone to taking over the universe, but huge and exciting and I've had at least two hummingbirds come visit them. Which I know, because one was male & the other female.

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

They're all so beautiful!

[ivy]

Wow, my Monarda never looked like that! Yours must be far happier in the location that they were planted in. What kind of dirt are they in? (Clay with some amended compost for mine... clay was pretty much all we had.)

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I have weird coastal plain soils that I don't fully understand; it's kind of clay-ish, but more yellow than red, and this particular bit was also under some large yew bushes for probably 60+ years, until I killed them off to put in my butterfly garden. Honestly, I think it's this excited because it's a third year plant in decently meadowy conditions. (Unless I'm counting wrong & it's a second year plant, in which case I'm in trouble...)

I've got some M fistulosa in the side garden (more moisture, less sun) that is much less tall, and spreading more slowly. Also, I think Ursula Vernon has talked about having take-over-the-world beebalm in her very clay NC garden, so I don't know that that's the deciding factor.