A Bloom Boon

This is one of my favorite times of year...when everything is just starting to pop in the garden. My amaryllis plant is experiencing unprecedented growth...six beautiful, long-lasting blooms so far this year.

My tiger lilies are doing well, too. I bought one limp lily clearanced to .99 several years ago and planted it. The second year, a few small lilies came up, but each year, they grow and spread nicely.

The ditch lilies are up, too! Ditch lilies, or Hemerocallis fulva, are great for poor-soil areas. You may have seen great patches of them along the highway, hence their nickname. They thrive without attention in dry soil and full sun, so are perfect for areas of your yard that other things won't grow in. Be cautious, though. They don't play well with others and will quickly choke out competing plants in their vicinity.

My yellow yarrow had its first blush of color recently.

My favorite, though, is the hot pink. Each year the patches grow and spread. I can't imagine my garden without these colorful plants.

The feverfew bush is blooming...

...and I've gotten the first bloom on my "Endless Summer" hydrangea.

I love seeing all the individual petals unfurling.

The small dill patch from last year came back and spread with a vengeance. Dill seeds insinuated themselves into the cracks in our concrete driveway and grew rapidly. They smell delicious when you back over them! :) Thankfully, we have dill all along the fence line, too.

The first zinnia bud has appeared...

...as has the first cosmos bud.

My mallows have grown nicely and are just starting to go to seed. I planted cosmos around the mallows to provide a nice leafy 'cover' for the ground, and so that I'd patches of tall orange flowers to cover up the stalks when they go to seed.

Like every year...a surprise! I've got 6 or 7 larkspur plants growing in various parts of the garden. How did they get there? I don't know, but I'm really enjoying them while they last! An interesting fact: giving someone a specific type of flower denotes a particular meaning...i.e., a carnation means friendship, etc. Be careful who you give a larkspur to, though...larkspurs signify fickleness!

Insects have had quite a time with my flowers this year. I don't recall it ever being so bad before. The leaves on most of my zinnias have been eaten down.

My oriental lilies have fallen prey to another invasive insect, which has swarmed all over the leaves and buds, causing them to shrivel.

I don't use pesticides on my plants. Thankfully - I think - I've got more praying mantises than ever before. Another ootheca has hatched recently. These tiny mantis nymphs are still swarming all over the area near where they hatched from. They'll eat many, many garden pests.

In another part of the garden, this young praying mantis, from a different ootheca, looks alert on a leaf.

A lightning bug rests up for his nighttime performance. I've always loved lightning bugs and miss seeing them...there are so few of them in the city, compared to what I am used to in the country. I've read that lightning bugs are fast disappearing. Human encroachment on their habitats - woods and meadows - have decreased their numbers, but they also suffer from something called 'light pollution'. Lightning bugs communicate with each other with the flashing light of their abdomens. They can get confused with all the lights they see - headlights, lights from houses, street lights - and become unable to signal properly for a mate. That's why I love having big, messy gardens with pesticide-free insect control like (shudder) praying mantises...not only it is beautiful to me, but it can provide a safe haven for all types of insects.

Spiders are another great form of insect control. I found a large funnel web spider web behind my phlox. I know that like praying mantises, spiders are good to have in a garden. I'm still a little afraid of them, though, especially aggressive ground spiders like wolf spiders.

I seem to be obsessed with hover flies lately. I've bee photographing them on the yarrow...

...the feverfew...

...and on random leaves and stems. I can't help it...I think they're quite beautiful, with their tidy proportions, nicely lined wings, and evenly patterned abdomens.

Being on vacation recently gave me a chance to start a new knitting project. I wanted to make a slouchy hat in one of my favorite colors, mustard. This hat was designed by a Scottish woman who was born in the Shetland Islands and who recently released a book of patterns inspired by her life there. This particular hat uses a traditional lace pattern called 'cat's paw'. It didn't look like much after I finished it, but therein lies the magic of blocking.

One supper plate later...

...and voila! It's a perfect fit, and comfortably slouchy. I can see grabbing this hat in the fall, just before a long, brisk walk.

Another knitter sent me a surprise package this week, of vintage buttons. I love buttons of all kind, and these were beauties...pearly pinks, silvery bell-like circles, faux diamonds, some that looked like burnished steel, deep reds, pale greens, and calming blues...and a whole hodgepodge of whites, creams, browns, blacks, and bronzes.

I was glad to have a little surprise, because I needed a pick-me-up. Todd is out of town again, and I absolutely feel miserable when he's gone. He'll be home soon, though, and meanwhile I have lots to keep me busy...

Enjoy your week!

Take the Road to a New Zip Code

There's nothing like a good old-fashioned road trip. I've driven cross-country more times than I can count, but it's been a few years since my last trip. That's why, when Todd needed to drive to Missouri for an education conference, we decided to leave a little early for some much-needed road-trippin'.

After visiting friends outside of Springfield, we skirted the more touristy Lake of the Ozarks region for a southern state park that looked interesting: Ha Ha Tonka. Ha Ha Tonka, or "Laughing Waters" as named by the local Native Americans, is a beautiful park with 16 miles of hiking trails. With sinkholes, natural bridges and soaring cliffs created by the karst terrain, and even castle ruins, we were ready to hike, even with the 98 degree temperature.

My main focus was on the local insect life. This Great Spangled Fritillary lingers on this wildflower, getting its fill of the nectar.

This Asterocampa celtis rests on the concrete wall of the visitor's center.

Two Grey Hairstreaks (Strymon melinus) share a moment of connubial bliss on a clover plant.

This is an Eastern Tent Caterpillar moth (Malacasoma americana). In its spiky, black and orange caterpillar form, it spins silky tent-like webs in trees that can grow up to two feet long. They can cause great damage to young trees.

An azalea moth (Datana major) sits in the cool shade.

A pipevine swallowtail (Battus philenor)'s iridescent wings remind me of peacock feathers.

The whole park was alive with the whirring and singing of cicadas. Unlike the cicadas we had in Indiana last year, these are 13 year cicadas. They emerge for just a few weeks in late May and early June. After mating, the female cicadas will lay their eggs in tree branches and re-emerge in another 13 years.

They have very distinctive orange-red eyes that make them easily identifiable.

They were so numerous that it was no trouble to observe them at close range. Todd and I were able to see the males thrumming their abdomens to create their distinctive song, hoping to attract a mate.

The abandoned cicada shells clung to overhead leaves and branches.

Even these abandoned exoskeletons have a use. This assassin bug takes some time to search out some leftover fluids here.

Perched on this stem, a brown stink bug prepares for a meal. Stink bugs, so named for the smell they release as a defense mechanism when threatened, can cause serious damage to many different kinds of crops.

We came across a killdeer nest and the parents, anxiously fluttering nearby. Killdeer lay their eggs on the ground. When a potential predator approaches the nest, the adult killdeer feign injury, flopping helplessly and splaying their feathers. The predator sees an easy meal and follows. The bird flies a short distance and continues its act, hoping to distract the predator enough so that it forgets about the eggs.

This five-lined skink's age is easily determined by its tail. Juveniles have a bright blue tail, while the tails of adults are usually a light brown. The purpose of the blue color is to draw attention away from more vulnerable parts, like the head.

We saw salamanders, too, and this northern fence lizard.

There were such beautiful wildflowers, too, like these nodding columbines that were growing out of cracks in the big rocks surrounding the sink holes.

I love the stacked columns of blooms on this wildflower.

There are many varieties of coneflowers in Missouri, too, and fields of black-eyed Susans.

The unusual topography at Ha Ha Tonka is caused by karstification, where water with a slight acid content acts on soluble bedrock, like limestone. You can see the evidence here...

...and here.

This tree, growing out of the forest floor by a karst rock formation, has been affected by the minerals it absorbs from the groundwater. It is almost completely petrified.

We were curious about the castle ruins in the park. In 1904, a wealthy Missourian, Robert Snyder, purchased over 2500 wooded acres. He built a 3-story castle with the help of a European architect.

However, Mr. Snyder was killed in an automobile accident in 1906 - one of Missouri's first. His family struggled to keep the property but eventually had to lease it out to someone else, who made the property into a hotel. In 1942, a fire gutted the property. Only ruins remain.



We couldn't leave Missouri without a visit to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum in Mansfield. I've been a fan of her books since childhood and have read several adult biographies as well. The thought of seeing Pa's fiddle, Mary's braille slate, and Laura's handwritten manuscripts - in person! - was really exciting. The museum did not disappoint. These items and more were on display...along with copious photographs and artifacts described in Laura's books - her "Ambition" essay, the lace given to her by her best friend Ida, and name cards of her friends. I finally got to see Mary Powers' 'copperplate' printing...in person!

The nearby farmhouse, too, was amazing. Laura's husband, Almanzo, designed and built their house himself, with custom cabinets and working surfaces geared toward his 4'8" wife. Nearly everything in the fully decorated home is original. Truly amazing.

Their daughter, Rose, built another house about a mile away for them to use as a 'retirement home'. It was much more modern than their farmhouse, and they didn't particularly like it. They stayed there to appease Rose, but moved right back to their beloved farmhouse when she left town.

I stood on the back porch and looked out over the front lawn...the same view Laura had from her sitting room, and her kitchen windows...windows that Manly put in especially for Laura, so that she could see some sun while doing the dreaded task of making bread. It was a really special moment for me.

So much accomplished in just a few days...good quality time with my beloved husband, good hiking, good sightseeing...and even some knitting on a slouchy hat for fall!

I look forward to many such road trips in the near future, when Todd finishes his dissertation.

Have a great week!