25 and counting

A few weeks ago I began a new project garden, inspiration I saw from another garden. That project – identifying plants with garden metal labels.

I have done two different fonts and today completed all 25 labels I received using my cricut machine.

It has been a great project as it has given me the opportunity to take inventory of what I have. The great part, I still have more plants to identify.

I have tried to plant natives in the garden, as they can tolerate whatever weather Southwest Florida throws at them, and they multiple and fill in empty space quite nicely. A good example of this is the blanket flower and coreopsis, otherwise known as tickseed.

Here are a few of the flowers that have been identified so far.

Blue butterfly bush
Purpletop vervain
Goldenrod
Wild lime
Firebush
Starry rosinweed
Penta
Zinnia
Blanket flower
Fire spike
Spiderwort
Plumbago
Lantana
Almond bush and an atala butterfly.

Rain kissed garden

According to the local news, Southwest Florida is experiencing its greatest drought in 8 years!

It was such a welcome sound to hear the rain coming down this morning, kissing the garden. It did not come down long, but it was an awesome downpour. With the overcast sky, the ground hopefully will stay wet for a while, giving the roots time to soak up the much needed moisture.

Here’s just a few of the butterfly nectar plants.

Zinnia
Penta
Starry rosinweed
Fire bush

The orange-barred sulphur caterpillars were also active on my cassia tree. There are tons yet again munching away.

A celebration of sorts

Today my daughter and I began our first butterfly garden many years ago not knowing what kind of passion it would evolve into over the years.

Here is one of our favorites, a gulf fritillary, one of the first to visit our first garden, and since has been a constant visitor. It is always one of the first to flutter into the garden every morning to find its breakfast.

Today it’s preference was the variety of pentas that I have in the garden.

Graceful

Graceful comes to mind when I see the giant swallowtail glide through the garden. This butterfly grabbed my attention immediately and held it as it fluttered throughout the garden, landing on my wild lime to deposit eggs, as well as nectar from my red penta flower.

The giant swallowtail’s forewing spans 11.7 to 17.5 cm for males and a span of 13.5 to 18.8 cm for females. The demand your attention when they flutter in the garden, just for the pure size of them.

The females tend to lay single eggs, cream to brown, on the upper surface of leaves – citrus plants – that are 1 to 1.5 mm in size. The larval, caterpillars, will go through five instars (stages) and they mainly eat at night.

Penta

Featured

It’s not often the white penta’s have visitors, but this male monarch butterfly was going to town on sipping tons of nectar. It gathered some pollen through his travels too.