Frayed Around The Edges

My garden is sometimes a soothing place where I can unwind and just chill… like today.  I stand here after pruning a group of runners on my side of the old blackhaw viburnum when the buzz of wings makes me lift my eyes to see a hummingbird flitting about my head checking me out… then off it goes.

It is also a wild place, where tranquility and turmoil live hand in hand.  While humans have been able to create safe haven for themselves in order to repopulate without much interference of things wanting to eat them, the remainder of nature is still bound to the old ways of producing enough population of their own kind in order to feed the rest of hungry nature and survive beyond extinction.

Personally I think there is no meaning of life, but my life does have meaning.  My compassion and the ability to empathize has given me great purpose, especially when I began to think with conviction.  How great I have become or not become is of little importance to the creatures I have brought into my fold over my lifetime.

I walk my garden in morning, because to walk it in the afternoon would be suicide by mosquito bites.  The air may be a bit heavy, but a cool breeze teases with me, in, and then back out of reach.  Nothing special today.

Flowers are aging, berries are forming, and the cone flowers and phlox are tangled in each other’s arms.  Virginia creeper is clambering up and over the fence faster than we can pull it back down and uproot.  Then there is the new stuff blown in on the wind.  She's a bit frayed around the edges, with the youth of spring long gone.

A new batch of cicadas has left their exoskeleton calling cards attached to the deck posts after they clawed their way through the clay to the surface for their short life above ground.  What determination to complete a journey begun years ago.  I confess that I have found cicada chanting annoyingly irritating, but their love song begins to grow on one after ten or so years.

With the wilting bits of the garden refreshed in moisture from a garden hose, one bids adieu to another August day in the neighborhood, and greets an evening by staying indoors.  This lady will gladly welcome autumn with wide opened arms and a big grin on her face.

Easter Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly on Phlox 'Jeana'

Exoskeleton of cicada

Notice the claws used for digging out of the ground.

 'Hot Lips' Turtlehead, Chelone obliqua

American Bumble Bee with a type of Plant Bug 

Joe Pye Weed and 'Hot Lips' Turtlehead, Chelone obliqua

'Winterthur' Viburnum berries in their greenish white stage,

before turning pink, then blue.

Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly, Papilio troilus

on Joe Pye Weed Flowers

Notice the body hairs that extend onto the wings of this specimen.

I think this is a female by the irredescent blue coloring.

Male Carpenter Bee on Joe Pye Weed flowers

American Bumble Bee

Out of focus hummingbird

Small Solomon's Seal, Polygonatum biflorum

with blue berries.

Monarda bradburiana, also called Eastern Bee Balm

One to two feet tall with soft pink flowers in late spring.

Leaves are beautiful, and mine cascade over the edge of tall pots.

Butterfly Weed with Green Sweat Bee

Wild Petunia, Ruellia humilis

Flowers open at night, and fall off the next afternoon.

Ripe Spicebush berries.

A berry is still green on this bush.

Probably feather of a Common Grackle

in potted Aromatic Asters that will be planted in fall.

Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly, Papilio troilus

on flowers of Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa 

'Winterthur' Viburnum 

This little branch is changing to fall colors,

probably due to lack of rain and intense heat.

 Tall plants are Horseweed, Conyza canadensis

in side garden where there is exposed topsoil.

Summer annual that moved in on its own.

Quite a few tiny bees are on it.

I think the bee is a Leafcutter Bee.

Tip of tiny flower looks like a daisy,

and the seedhead looks like a tiny dandelion seedhead.

I keep it for the insects.

Eastern Leaf-footed Bug
Leptoglossus phyllopus

Bug is piercing the berry of an American Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana

to suck contents out. 

 

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