A Trickle of Native Insects Begins to Appear....

FINALLY!  We've lived here for about 16 months now and at last I am beginning to see a greater variety of  insects attracted to and living in our yard.  It's so exciting to go outside and see native pollinators nectaring at the few little blooms we have scattered around, or predatory insects patrolling the foliage and flowers.  It sure goes to show that changes don't have to be big or dramatic to have an impact.  Every little bit counts.

So here are some of my recent finds....

Gulf fritillaries (Agraulis vanillae) are gorgeous butterflies, with silver patterns on the undersides of their wings and an almost fluorescent orange coloration on the top side.  The fresh individual in the top photo was nectaring at garden phlox (Phlox paniculata), while the tattered one in the lower photo is nectarying at Flyr's Nemesis (Brickellia cordifolia), a rare wildflower in Florida that has recently become available at some native plant nurseries, including 7 Pines Native Plant Nursery in DeFuniak Springs.

Out and about, I'm seeing more gulf fritillaries flying everywhere these days, presumably due to the time of year.  However, I'm starting to count on seeing them regularly in our yard since we finally have some caterpillars eating the maypop vines (Passiflora incarnata) that we planted on the lower terraces last spring.  Just as monarch caterpillars only eat milkweeds, plants in the genus Asclepias, so gulf fritillary caterpillars only eat maypops and passionflowers, plants in the genus Passiflora.

Predators are pretty rare in the yard still.  It took me around 5 years to start noticing them regularly in my Kansas gardens, so I'm trusting that they'll increase in number as I garden naturally here.

With a lake right out the back door, however, we do have several dragonfly and damselfly species.  One of the species I've just started to see is the eastern amberwing (Perithemis tenera).  A male and a female have staked out the small patch of powderpuff (Mimosa strigillosa) in the front yard and I can count on finding them there essentially every day.

Although this species is quite small for a dragonfly, the male eastern amberwing, shown above, is easy to spot since he's dramatically colored, with shining amber-colored wings and a darker amber body.  Up close, the camera captures yellow markings on the thorax and abdomen that the eye generally misses.  The female, however, is much different....

...and much drabber.  Her darkly blotched wings and more sober colors don't attract the eye as her mate's colors do, but that's probably the point.  She, too, has yellow markings on her thorax and abdomen. 

These small dragonflies are said to eat "tiny, flying insects", which I interpret to mean mosquitoes.  Hopefully my male and female eastern amberwings will produce lots and lots of baby eastern amberwings to patrol my yard even more thoroughly!

Another colorful species that I've observed, photographed, and been able to identify is the metallic green bee, Agapostemon splendens.  I've always loved the metallic green bees, especially the ones that are entirely green, because of their vibrant coloring.

Shown above, the females of Agapostemon splendens are especially beautiful to my eye and earn their "splendid" moniker based on the beautiful shadings of blue and green on their abdomen.  Note:  I have no real idea why this species was labeled the splendid green metallic bee, but I think the abdomenal color IS splendid.

Here's another, closer look at that gorgeous color.  Look, too, at the pollen load that this little bee is carrying - the pollen from this species of flower is white, not yellow, and that's a LOT of pollen clustered on her hind legs!  She still has to finish her load and, most importantly, fly back to her nest with her carefully gathered provisions.  Like many other native bees, the Agapostemon bees nest in the ground, usually in a tunnel dug by the female.  After digging the tunnel, the female gathers together a ball of pollen and nectar, lays an egg on it, seals off the cell, and repeats the process several times.

Interestingly, like the eastern amberwing dragonfly above, Agapostemon splendens is another dimorphic insect species, with the male looking significantly different from the female.  The photo above is a male of the same species.  While the thorax is similar to the female's, the abdomen is completely different - males sporting a natty black and yellow stripe pattern that is vibrant, but not as pleasing to my eye.  This little guy was fun to watch.  He seemed to perform head stands as he fed, diving deeply into the flower to get his prize.

Unlike the colorful green metallic bees, the next bees I want to share with you are somber black with a few white markings.

Another native bee, this is a carpenter-mimic cuckoo-leaf-cutter (Coelioxys dolichos) - a name that seems more interesting than the bee looks, at least on first appraisal.  That's the bloom of a wild lettuce (Lactuca sp.) that she's feeding on.

What drew my attention to this bee was the pointed abdomen, which is very distinctive.  Cuckoo bees are parasites on other bees.  The females of this genus of cuckoo bee, Coelioxys, use that sharp abdomen to break into the nests of their host species and lay eggs on the pollen and nectar stored there for the host's eggs.  Because female cuckoo bees don't have to provision their own nests, they don't have pollen baskets and they aren't seen carrying pollen;  they do, however, still have to feed themselves.

This particular species, the carpenter-mimic cuckoo-leaf-cutter, is a parasite on a single bee species called the carpenter-mimic leaf-cutter bee (Megachile xylocopoides). Ironically, when I went to look up M. xylocopoides, I recognized the pictures as showing the same species as another, unidentified bee species in my recent photos!  I even took the photos of the two different species within a few feet of each other, just 1 day apart!

Here is the male carpenter-mimic leaf-cutter bee (Megachile xylocopoides), also feeding on wild lettuce blooms.  Did the two bees, the predator and the prey, hatch out of the same nest?  There's probably a good chance of it.  At the very least, it would appear that the nests were nearby.

There are many more sightings I'd love to share, but this post is long enough for now.  Hope you're seeing lots of interesting insects in your gardens, too!

Watching the Gardens Evolve: Florida Scrub Skullcap

Sometimes I really irritate myself.  When I went to look for a picture of how an area of the garden looked when we first planted it earlier this spring, I realized that I had taken exactly zero closeup photos.  I remember thinking that the garden looked much too bare to be worth photographing.  Good grief - SURELY by now I would know how much fun it is to watch the evolution of growing things throughout the seasons!

Anyway, here is the best I can do:  a greatly enlarged (and therefore fuzzy) "closeup" of one corner of my newly planted front flower beds, taken on April 17th of this spring....

I want you to notice the 3 plants that are right at the corner, in the center of the photo.  The tall, rather leggy plant is Ohio spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis).   The 2 shorties in front of it are Florida scrub skullcaps (Scutellaria arenicola) that I purchased, on a whim, from Dara at 7 Pines Native Plant Nursery.

I love skullcaps, but I knew nothing about this particular species except what Dara told me.  Since I really didn't know what I was getting, my hopes were high, but my expectations were pretty low.  Frankly, I'd be happy if these 2 plants liked where I planted them enough to survive without looking too bedraggled.

Here's what those 3 plants look like right now.  I've been enjoying the Ohio spiderwort, which has been blooming every day for weeks and weeks.  That shade of blue just lifts my spirits.  I had literally forgotten about the scrub skullcap, so I was shocked to realize, yesterday morning, that some of the blue in that corner of the garden was actually coming from a bloom spike on the Florida scrub skullcaps.  How exciting!

Looking at this closer photo, the skullcap bloom spike is going diagonally from the lower right hand corner to about 2/3 of the way to the upper left hand corner.  The blue in the background at the top comes from the spiderwort blossoms.

I do need to get a closer photo of the blossoms for you..... 

Comparing my plants to those I see in pictures online, I think these 2 individuals may be getting a little too much water.  The plants seem taller than expected and rather floppy, which I didn't anticipate, and the bloom spike a little too elongated.  Greg's wanting to get our grass up to a reasonable standard, since we're living in a neighborhood, so we're using the sprinkler system that was here when we purchased our home.  I don't think these plants need or particularly want the extra water, but hopefully it won't hurt them too much either.  Certainly you don't get much better drainage than our highly sandy soil.


I'll be watching these guys a lot more carefully in the upcoming days.  What a great surprise on a hot and humid mid-June morning!

Spring Blooms Anew

It doesn't seem fair to go through spring without posting a few "pretty" pictures, so I'm going to give into the urge while I have time and energy tonight.

Since this is a new location and a new garden, I'm still in early days yet, learning what will thrive here, what will just survive, and what just doesn't like this yard.  Hopefully these flowering beauties will all be thrivers.

One of the plants that I just put in this spring is downy phlox (Phlox pilosa) that I bought from Dara at 7 Pines Native Plant Nursery in DeFuniak Springs.  We purchased 3 of these at the end of January and planted them the next day.  At the time we bought them, one plant was just beginning to bloom.  The photo above was taken on March 23rd; 3 weeks later, all three plants are blooming as much or more today as they were in this photo.  So, as of right now, these downy phlox started blooming at the end of January and are still blooming strongly 2 1/2 months later!  Not bad for perennials, especially perennials that I haven't dead-headed.

Next on my spring showcase tour are these golden ragwort (Packera aurea), another great purchase from 7 Pines.  These plants were also purchased at the end of January and planted shortly thereafter into very dry shade under a large southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora).  So far, they are doing better than I even hoped for. 

The beautiful little golden flowers started blooming a couple weeks before this photo was taken on March 23rd, the same day the photo of the downy phlox was taken, and they are just now beginning to go to seed.  While I'm tickled about 6 weeks of bloom, I'm most excited about how well the basal rosettes of leaves are doing, as one of my favorite things about these plants is their low, pretty foliage throughout the year. 

Hopefully, in a couple years, this entire area will be carpeted with golden ragwort plants.  To facilitate that, I'm going to leave the spent flowers on the plants until the seeds have dispersed.  Then I will cut the stems off and just let the plants function as an attractive groundcover for the rest of the year.

Moving to the back yard, we planted a trio of Florida flame azaleas (Rhododendron austrinum) next to the sea wall about a month ago.  Two of these plants are just moving into full bloom now and I am loving their vivid orange blooms and bright new foliage against the backdrop of the shifting lake waters.

Of course, I love their blooms up close even more!

I do plan to solve the "plants plopped into the middle of grass" issue...but that will have to wait for quieter times, I'm afraid.

Last but not least, in this little spring tour, are the beautiful little white violets (Viola sp.) that came along with one of the Florida flame azaleas, nestled at its base.  So far I have no species identification for this plant, but I am enjoying its dainty beauty anyway.

As I've written this post, I've realized that I haven't gotten photos of several other blooming plants in the yard, but I'll have to save those for another day.  I hope your spring is bringing you lots of fresh beauty all around!

Milkweeds - A Different Kind of Valentine's Day Bouquet

This isn't the sort of dilemma I would have faced on February 12th in Kansas.

Last Friday, Greg and I were in the back yard with the dogs when Greg looked down and said, "You've got to be kidding me!" There, on the 90% dead tropical milkweed plant, were 2 monarch caterpillars, alive and kicking.  There were 2 problems here - the weather was due to get down to freezing in the next several days and, even if it didn't, there were only about a dozen leaves left on the plant. In no way was there enough foliage to feed 2 monarch caterpillars.

Then I remembered our recent visit to 7 Pines Native Plant Nursery.  Didn't Dara say that she'd moved a block of white milkweed into her greenhouse to overwinter?  A block of white milkweed that had turned out to be well salted with monarch eggs, which had turned into monarch caterpillars, which had munched their way through her plants and successfully pupated? If those white milkweeds were still in her greenhouse, would there be enough foliage for these guys?

So I called Dara to ask. Yes, she had white milkweed in her greenhouse. It was Asclepias perennis, which likes a wet spot in the garden.  That wasn't ideal, given my sandy hill yard, but Dara reported that the plants were leafing back out and that she'd be glad to sell us some.

Greg and I discussed our options.  He said that he'd been planning on ordering me a bouquet of roses for Valentine's Day. Then he asked if I would prefer some milkweed plants instead?

Of course I jumped at that idea! Even if the caterpillars didn't make it, or if the milkweed plants didn't like our yard conditions, we were still attempting to make our yard more wildlife friendly.  The roses - while they would be very much enjoyed and appreciated - would be dead in less than 10 days.  The milkweeds seemed like a great Valentine's Day flower arrangement to me.

So Greg and I jumped into the car and headed up to DeFuniak Springs, where we found a nice block of white milkweed beginning to leaf back out, just as Dara had promised, along with a couple swamp milkweed (A. incarnata) and a couple butterfly milkweed (A. tuberosa), also leafing out. After my normal lengthy period of cogitation, I decided to get 6 white milkweeds, 2 swamp milkweeds, and 2 butterfly milkweeds.  We then had a relaxing and enjoyable time wandering the nursery and finding a few other gems that HAD to go home with us, as well as talking with Dara and Lloyd about such weighty topics as sausage, beer, and Ft. Walton Beach restaurants.  Finally Greg and I said good-bye, got back into our car, and headed home, intent on caterpillar rescue.

Since the weather was predicted to get down into the 30's for the next 2 nights (and since the milkweeds had been in the greenhouse all winter), I decided to transfer the caterpillars to the new milkweed plants and put the grouping in our laundry room, by a floor length window. 

When we went to get the caterpillars, we found FOUR, not two.  The transfer was quick and easy.  I stayed in the laundry room watching until I saw 3 of the caterpillars beginning to eat, then left them undisturbed for the night.

Sadly, I wish I could report that all 4 caterpillars are doing wonderfully, but I can't.  We keep our house in the low 60's;  perhaps that's too cold.  Perhaps monarch caterpillars don't like to change from one species of milkweed to another as they're growing.  The next morning I could only find 3 of the 4 caterpillars.  For whatever reason, the caterpillars I could find seemed sluggish and uninterested in eating.  Yesterday morning, I could only find 2 caterpillars.

This morning I found one caterpillar obviously still alive and one, seemingly dead, down on the soil in one of the pots.  The weather was warmer today and the sun was shining this morning, so I carried the monarch rescue flat out to the back deck, putting it beside the remnants of the tropical milkweed that all of the caterpillars had started on.

When I checked on the caterpillar this afternoon, it had moved back to the tropical milkweed plant, although it was resting on one of the old, dead stems.  I still did not see either of the "missing" 2 caterpillars.

At this point I plan on leaving the monarch caterpillar back on the tropical milkweed where it hatched out.  We are not due to get below freezing in the foreseeable future, so it should be fine.  I will manage the Valentine's Day milkweeds as appropriate to try to keep them healthy until I feel like it's safe to plant them out in the landscape.  Hopefully, while they may not have ended up rescuing these particular monarch caterpillars, they will still become nursery plants for many more monarchs in the upcoming months and years.

Sometimes our best efforts just aren't enough.

7 Pines Native Plant Nursery

One of the tough parts of moving is forging a new supporting network.  I expected to have to find a new plumber, new doctor, new electrician, new grocery store, new stylist, etc. etc., but I was flummoxed after the move to realize that I needed to find a new source of native plant material and that, even worse, I had no clue where to begin.

In Kansas, I had found a fairly robust group of alternatives for acquiring native plants, including roadside collection of seeds, a few excellent individual plantspeople, Dyck Arboretum, and the occasional nursery.  Here in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, I was finding nothing but...box stores.  Worse, when I looked at the plants in said box stores, they literally ALL bore the disheartening label, "We have been treated with neonicotinoid insecticides to provide a death trap for any and all insects in your garden."  Okay, maybe that wasn't exactly how the label read, but that's essentially what it meant.

Searching online, I finally found mention of a native plant nursery near DeFuniak Springs, about an hour away - 7 Pines Native Plant Nursery.  Last fall we made the trek up there and I was incredibly pleased by what I found.  Last weekend we went back, and I am happy to report that my initial positive impression was spot on.

7 Pines is a real treat to visit.  Located out in the country, north of DeFuniak Springs, I find that even the drive to get there is relaxing and enjoyable.  Of course, any decline in your blood pressure due to relaxation on the drive out will be immediately counteracted by the excitement you'll feel once you turn in at the gate!

For there, gleaming in front of you, are several long, well ordered beds of native plants, carefully labeled and just calling out to go home with you.  Best of all, as soon as you pull in, you will be greeted by Dara and Lloyd, the owners, who are both extremely knowledgeable and very friendly.

From common to unusual, 7 Pines has a wonderful variety of plants, reasonably priced.  I won't bore you with the entire list of what I've purchased, but it was enough to make Greg groan!  Best of all, the plants are healthy, well rooted, and NEONIC FREE!

Over the course of the last week, Greg and I have managed to get most of the plants we purchased into the ground, so I'm beginning to get the itch to return to 7 Pines and pick up more plants.  I have a sneaking suspicion this is a trip I will be making many times in the future!