The Monarchs are coming

To the north and east of us, the fall migration of the Monarch butterfly has already begun or very soon will. Fragile wings determinedly beat their way south, guided only by instinct.

They seek a place that, in their brief lifetime, they have never seen. But their instinct tells them it is there and that they must go. And they do, by the millions.

We've had Monarchs here for most of the year. It seems clear that the changing world climate has now made this beautiful butterfly a more or less permanent resident in our area. But most of its kind, true to their heritage, still make that long trek to the interior of Mexico in the fall and back north again in the spring. They will be arriving in our area to join our permanent residents over the next few weeks.

My stand of butterfly weed served my yard's Monarch population all last summer and through the winter and spring of this year. It was devoured again and again by generations of hungry caterpillars, but within days of being devoured, it would sprout new leaves and begin to get ready for the next hungry crew.

But finally there came a hungry crew that the butterfly weed wasn't prepared for. In the late spring, a horde of aphids completely destroyed my plants before I even fully realized that they were under attack. Where were my ladybugs when I needed them?

Following that onslaught, I did some judicious pruning of the plants and kept them watered in the hope that they would again make a comeback, and a couple of them did make some feeble efforts. In the end, though, it had all been too much for them. I finally had to admit that they weren't coming back.

Whenever I saw a Monarch nectaring on my flowers this summer, I always felt a little guilty because I knew there was nothing in my yard on which she could deposit her eggs.

Nevertheless, I was reluctant to plant more butterfly weed in the heat of the summer and, truthfully, I was distracted by other things. I consoled myself with the thought that my next door neighbor has a healthy stand of butterfly weed, so if my butterflies had the need, all they had to do was fly over there.

This week, as I idly watched a Monarch flitting around my yard, I decided I had delayed long enough. Soon, there will be migrants here as well and they will need somewhere to lay those eggs. It was time for me to venture out to the nurseries once again.

I headed on over to my favorite local nursery, sure that they would have what I needed. I found some very healthy-looking, very bushy one-gallon pots of Asclepias curassavica and also some Asclepias tuberosa, our native butterfly weed which is not always easy to find - just what the butterflies and I wanted. I bought three of each.

Late this afternoon, after the sun went behind the trees in the west, I took my three new butterfly weed plants to my butterfly/bee/hummingbird bed. I dug the holes, took the potting soil off the roots and plopped the plants into their holes. I "mudded" them in with plenty of water before I covered the roots with soil and topped it off with mulch. I'll have to continue to keep them watered to make sure they don't dry out until they get established, but with any kind of luck, in a couple of weeks, I could be seeing scenes like this once again:



Monarch on my last year's stand of butterfly weed.

Locavores enjoy staycations while tending their edible landscapes

(I'm taking the day off from blogging because - well, it's my birthday. But here's a blast from the past, summer 2008 archives to be exact, which still seems topical.)

Looking through the style sections of newspapers or magazines this summer, you'll see three buzz words or phrases appearing again and again: (1.) locavore, (2.) staycation and (3.) edible landscape. Taken together, they represent what I hope will be the next big trend in lifestyles in this country. I think we would be a better and healthier country for it.

Locavore is a word that I don't remember ever hearing until this year. It's an offshoot of the local food movement which has actually been gaining in popularity for some years now. I think it has been helped along in recent years by all the scares about unsafe food products and the suspicion that we can no longer depend upon the Food and Drug Administration to ensure the safety of commercially produced food.

In addition to food safety, it also is tied to a philosophy of supporting one's local producers of food who are one's neighbors and who are often small-time gardeners or farmers who take a great deal of pride in the quality of their product. And, in the event that something does go wrong, you know where to find the person responsible!

Locavores enhance communitarianism with their support of locals. That strengthens communities and that is a very good thing.

Also good, I think, is the trend this summer of families spending their vacations at home. Now, I am all for travel. It broadens the mind and refreshes the spirit. But often there are hidden treasures to be found in one's own neighborhood or even one's own backyard.

I know, for example, that there are any number of wonderful attractions in the Houston area that I still haven't gotten around to seeing even after 20 years! I could probably take a different day trip every day from now until the end of summer without visiting any place I had seen before. Even people who live in places that are not as replete with museums, parks and wildlife areas, spas and playgrounds as Houston can find plenty to do in their own neighborhoods if they truly look.

The staycation seems to be primarily a strategy for handling higher gas prices and I think it is a very healthy reaction to that challenge. Conservation is always a good thing. We should practice more of it.

Both the locavores and the staycaters have come together in the renewed popularity of Victory Gardens. This movement, started at a time of war, had dropped out of favor for many years, but this summer I've been reading more and more stories about urban-dwellers who are turning their yards - even their front yards - into edible landscapes. It seems to be an idea whose time has come. Not a moment too soon, in my opinion.

Increasingly, people who have never gardened before or have never grown vegetables before are trying their hand at it and finding how very satisfying it can be, not to mention how much tastier the food is when you grow it yourself. There is even a new category of entrepreneurs for busy city folks that can't find the time to grow their own garden. They can hire local gardeners to come and grow the food in their space. Such people who hire others to do the hard work are known as "lazy locavores" but I say it's better to be a lazy locavore than a non-locavore.

Amid all the doom and gloom news this summer, I find stories about these trends to be encouraging. Perhaps we haven't completely lost the ability to respond positively and not just in the old knee-jerk ways to challenges and to seek solutions that enhance our lives and the environment. One can hope, anyway.

A gardener's week - #1

(I've decided to start a new Friday feature of the blog, a summing up of my week in the garden. Here's the first.)

I could sum up my week in the garden with one word: Hot! If you press me to use a second word it would be: Dry! Yes, it is August and the garden and the gardener are suffering. The rains of July are only a dim, faded memory.

In truth, we never got as much rain in my yard in July as some spots in the area did, but at least it was frequent enough that watering the garden was mostly unnecessary. No more. I've had to break out the sprinklers again this week, much to the delight of the avian population in my yard.

Birds do love flying through a mist of cool water on a hot day. Today, I saw a battling pair of hummingbirds flying through the sprinkler's spray actually pause and hover for just a moment before they recalled their argument and resumed the chase. Anything that can bring even one moment's peace to the Eternal War of the Hummingbirds is worthy of note.

Speaking of hummingbirds, it is that time of year when traffic from these little guys is beginning to pick up in the area. I'm certainly noticing a lot more activity in my yard, and, unfortunately, just now, there are few blossoms in the yard to attract their attention. Their favorites, the Anisacanthus 'Flame acanthus' and the Cuphea 'Cigar plant' are both at a pause in their blooming. This week, I cut the overgrown and floppy 'Flame acanthus' back rather severely to encourage more bloom for the fall. Within another month, it should be blooming again, but for now, what can I offer the little visitors?


Now's the time to break out those feeders and keep them clean and filled. I refilled this one this morning and this lady was waiting impatiently on a nearby limb, chittering at me, as I rehung the feeder. As soon as I stepped away, she nipped in...


...and had a long, long drink.

In addition to cutting back the Anisacanthus this week, I've been trying to bring some order to other parts of my yard that have become very overgrown due to my neglect over the last several weeks. I did my annual pruning of the wild hedge along my back fence and found that the elderberries, pokeweed, and beautyberries are having a bumper crop of fruits this year, more feasts for the berry-loving birds.

I also tidied up the cannas. They are suffering a severe attack from leaf-rollers. I cut off the offending leaves as well as the spent bloom stems and the plants looked a lot neater when I finished. Some of them should give me another round of blooms in the fall.

Some of the roses are doing better than others. All of the 'Knockouts' are pausing briefly now before they put on another flush of blooms. Poor 'Belinda's Dream' has been struggling to keep blooming, but this week I took pity on her and cut back all her stems a bit. I'll give her some food and plenty of water and let her rest from producing blooms for a while. There'll be time enough for that in the fall.


Meanwhile, in another part of the yard, 'Caldwell Pink' blooms on, unfazed by the heat or by my neglect.

Sadly, some of this week's gardening projects did not turn out well at all. We bought three tomato plants, 'Champion II', and planted them for the fall garden, but obviously, we should have given them more protection from the brutal sun. They didn't survive. Our vegetable garden plot is really the one spot in our yard that has sun all day long. In the spring and fall, that's a good thing for veggies, but right now, it's just too much. Shade cloth is in order.

I'm very happy to report that other garden projects have turned out well this year. For example, this one:


This is the mason bee home that I hung in the old apple tree this spring. I didn't know if the bees would actually use it, but they have! Repeatedly, in fact. You can see that three of the tubes are presently in use, but several more have already been used and have ushered new bees into my garden. It feels good to be able to help our wonderful native bees.

Of course, it is always good to be able to help the butterflies, too.


This week, I photographed this beauty as it enjoyed the blossoms of my Clerodendrum bungei 'Cashmere bouquet'.


Pipe-vine Swallowtails are common visitors to my yard. I just recently installed two 'Dutchman's pipe' vines so that they will have something on which to lay their eggs. I haven't seen any eggs or larvae on either vine yet, but I'm hoping.

Although these butterflies are common in my yard, what caught my eye was this butterfly's size.



It was huge! At least in comparison to the Pipe-vines that I usually see. At first, I thought it was something else. According to the field guide, these butterflies can be from 2 3/4 - 4 inches in wingspan. Well, this one was every bit of 4 inches and seemed even bigger.

As we near the mid-point of summer and the temperatures get hotter and hotter, it is harder and harder to force myself into the garden to do the things that need to be done, but little gifts of Nature like butterflies and hummingbirds definitely make it a bit easier.

The song of summer

Cicadas. Theirs is the sound of summer. It might be a bit of a stretch to call it the "song" of summer, but it is certainly the background music for everything we do outdoors in summer.

The noise of one alone may not be that noticeable but multiply that one by scores or hundreds and you get a chorus that can at times be earsplitting. Some find it annoying or even painful, but I've come to appreciate the cacophonous sound.

At this time of year, the birds are going silent. Most have finished their family responsibilities and have or soon will begin the next big event of avian life: the annual molt. They will get rid of their worn old feathers and grow bright new ones to take them through winter. This takes a lot of energy (so keep those bird feeders stocked) and birds in the midst of molt do not want to call attention to themselves and so their songs become fewer and farther between. Our yards might be almost silent at this time were it not for the cicadas.

At night, of course, we have the music of the frogs, crickets, and other denizens of the dark, but during daylight hours, the cicadas reign supreme.

The summer music of the cicadas is one of the earliest memories of my childhood. We called them "dry flies" where I grew up. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was because they appeared at the driest time of year or maybe it was because of the dry shell they left behind when they molted from nymph to adult. I can remember being fascinated by those dry shells that were a ghostly image of their former occupants.

That shell is only one of the many interesting things about cicadas. They figure in the folklore and songs of many cultures and in some parts of the world they are considered delicacies for the dinner table!

The cicadas in my yard are luckier than that. They have an appreciative audience for their "singing" and they don't have to worry about winding up on my dinner plate. The only things they do have to worry about are hungry Blue Jays and the cicada killer wasp.


It is amazing that this wasp, which is smaller than its prey, is able to capture and overcome the big cicada, but this one certainly has.

The Blue Jays and wasps might make some inroads on the population, but I suspect I will continue to be serenaded by this summer songster when I venture into the garden. And that makes me happy.

Wordless Wednesday: Mellow yellow

Berry pickin' time

(From the archives, 08/16/09.)

For berry-loving birds, late summer and early fall in Southeast Texas, and indeed throughout much of the Southeast, must seem like heaven. It is at this time of year that many of the berry-producing plants in the wild begin to have ripening fruits and suddenly the birds are presented with a veritable banquet of a variety of some of their favorite foods.

There are many native shrubs, trees and vines that produce berries that birds find tasty, but three in particular come to mind. These are pokeweed, elderberry, and beautyberry. Perhaps they spring to mind first because all three grow in my backyard.

Our yard is, in most respects, a typical suburban yard, but it is unique in one way. It has a bit of wilderness that thrives along the back fence where all the plants were planted by birds and other creatures of Nature. This wild hedgerow has been allowed to grow there all these year partly on purpose and partly because we just never have gotten to that section of the yard in our remaking of our landscape. Even when we do get there though, I think the wild hedge will still survive. The birds love it too much to destroy it.

The hedge is made up of a tangle of shrubs and vines but it is given its structure by the berry-producing plants, pokeweed, elderberry and beautyberry. Usually the first of the three to ripen in summer is the pokeweed berries.


A rangy pokeweed shrub hangs heavy with fruits in various stages from green to purple-black to bare stems already picked clean by the birds.


A close-up view of the berries of the pokeweed.

Now, pokeweed is a very versatile plant. It has a long and interesting history of use by humans from Native Americans right through to modern practitioners of herbal medicine and even some devotees of a Southern gourmet dish called "poke salet."

I can't say that I've ever tasted poke salet but I had an uncle who liked it and looked forward to those first tender shoots each spring. We had a rampant patch of the stuff that grew near our barn and as soon as the shoots were above ground, Uncle Bud would come over and pick them for his "mess of salet."

Uncle Bud may have been wiser than we knew because pokeweed has numerous medicinal qualities and usages. One of its common names is "cancer-root" and indeed it is being investigated for its possible utility in fighting that disease.

But the birds couldn't care less about any of that. They just like the berries and as soon as they ripen, they are there to pick them. The chief picker in my yard is the mockingbird, always first in line when any berries are being served, but the other birds including cardinals and wrens get their share as well.

The second berry to ripen, and it may actually sometimes be the first, is the elderberry.


The elderberry actually has a rather lovely flower and when the large shrub, or small tree, is covered with these lacy white umbels it can be quite an attractive sight. Elderberry flowers are visited by butterflies, especially those of the swallowtail family, and by bees, so it has great utility for wildlife in addition to the birds.


The tiny, shiny, almost black berries are plucked as soon as they ripen. You can see that several have already been taken from this bunch. By the way, those green and pinkish berries next to the elderberries are the berries of a vine that I know as the "pepper vine," although I'm not sure that is its correct name. Birds like them, too.

In addition to its uses to wildlife, elderberry, too, has a long history of usage for humans. The flowers are said to make a tasty tea and, of course, the berries can be eaten by humans as well as animals and they can be used to make (I'm told) a very passable homemade wine.

If you want to use the berries, though, you'll have to be quick! The birds are watching and waiting and once the berries turn that shiny purple-black, they will not be long on the plant.

The last of the three berries to ripen and the longest lasting on the shrub is the beautyberry.



The beautyberry is well-named for these berries do make a very attractive display, and the plant, with its gracefully arching limbs, is being used more and more in landscapes by native plant aficionados.

The beautyberries generally hang on their plant into the late fall and winter, so we can infer that they are not quite as tasty to the birds as the other two berries. This could also simply be because this is a much more substantial berry that doesn't quickly perish. The other two are soft berries and if they are not eaten soon after ripening, they will disintegrate.

The beautyberries, though, hold up well and are a boon to the mockingbird, as well as other berry-lovers, far into winter. They offer a welcome variety to the diet of the birds in that season.

If you are a person who likes to use native plants and to garden for wildlife, especially birds, you might consider adding some of these plants to your landscape. Neither the pokeweed nor the elderberry is an especially attractive plant, so you might want to look for an out-of-the-way spot to grow them. Beautyberry, on the other hand, makes a lovely show and would be an asset in almost any landscape.

Plant these shrubs - or even let the birds plant them - and, trust me, the berry-pickers will flock to your yard.

A new garden visitor

Long-time readers of the blog may remember my friend Sam Box. For those who don't remember, let me explain that Sam is an Eastern box turtle who first turned up in our backyard some 20 years ago and has lived there ever since, and probably for a long time before. We normally see her off and on through the spring and summer and into the fall, and at some point during her sojourn with us, she started coming to the back porch to cadge dry cat food. After that we saw her more predictably and regularly.


This was how Sam looked a year ago, as she was photographed on our back porch. She has a distinctive patch of damage on her carapace, which she has had for as long as we've known her. That's how we know she is Sam and not some other turtle. (Yes, when my husband named her Sam Box, we thought she was a male; we later decided she was a female.)

Here it is the first of August and so far I haven't seen Sam at all this year. That's not unprecedented. There have been entire years in her history when I haven't seen her only to have her return the next summer, but it is a bit worrying because I've been in the yard a lot and if she's there, it seems that I would have seen her. Nevertheless, I still retain hope that she is out there somewhere and that I'll see her some day soon.

In the meantime, though, look who has showed up.


I was working in the backyard a couple of days ago and happened to look at the back porch to see this fellow "turtling" his way toward the cat food dish. I don't know his name and don't know if he's a relative of Sam's. He, too, has very distintive damage to his carapace so he'll be easy to recognize if I see him again.


This is obviously a fully-grown box turtle with a few years under his shell, a shell that looks very worn, but he looked alert and healthy and he obviously had been told about the dry cat food because he dived right in. I left him in peace to have his snack.

I hope to see Sam soon, but if this is in fact the end of her era, at least it is nice to know that there are still box turtles in the yard to carry on the tradition of "Dinner at the Cat Food Snack Bar".