Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Ping
I'm still here. Beautiful fall weather has descended and I just don't feel like sitting in front of the computer. I haven't even done much photography lately; I'm content to just enjoy being outdoors before it gets too cold. And the vegetable garden is still producing. I've been drying peppers, freezing peppers, eating peppers, and making hot sauce. I like peppers. Here's a photo I did to accompany some given to my in-laws. 
I asked the spouse if he could ID them for his family and he said no, hence the photo guide. 'Bulgarian Carrot' was new to me this year, but has become a favorite. Thick walls, hot, and early. A real winner.
Here's something I never saw before - a walking stick (insect).
I think the correct ID is Northern Walking Stick (Diapheromera femorata), but let me know if I'm wrong. Ordinarily, they should be in the woods eating oak leaves, so I'm not sure what attracted it to our front door.
Leaves are starting to drop and the deer are munching their way through the woods. You see things that were hidden before. These Euonymus americanus fruits for example. 
E. americanus is apparently a deer favorite because we have many many wild plants of it in the woods and almost all of them get chewed off as soon as they attain any size. They overlooked enough of this one to let it produce a few fruit capsules.
I wish I knew more about mushrooms. We get a progression of them spring through fall. I keep thinking that I'm ignoring free delicious food through my ignorance at identification, but fear of making a mistake has kept me from sampling any. I need an expert to come here and guide me. 
These were huge and obvious and the only ones of their kind I saw as I meadered through the woods yesterday. I have no idea what they are...
Labels: chiles, euonymus, insects, mushrooms, peppers
Friday, July 24, 2009
Dead Leaf, No, Wait
I was about to brush a dead leaf away from the front doormat this morning, when I noticed that it was curiously symmetrical. Curious, that is, for a leaf. But not for a moth.
It turned out to be fairly easy to look up. I searched for orange moth on bugguide.net and it showed up on the first page of search results.
This is the Spiny Oakworm Moth aka Anisota stigma. They spend the winter underground as pupae and emerge in the summer as adult moths. The adults do not feed, according to Butterflies and Moths of North America. The caterpillars, however, are voracious consumers of oak leaves.
Fortunately we have plenty to spare.
Now I have got to go clean that doormat so it looks good the next time I find an interesting moth on it.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Butterflies and Associates
A mostly-pictures post with all of last Friday's butterfly photos. With any luck I can repeat the exercise today. Butterflies are fluttering and dragonflies are zipping and hovering all over the garden and meadow at this time of year. I find dragonflies to be much harder to photograph than butterflies.
You've already seen the Great Spangled Fritillary, but this is a different shot.
I created a Flickr account several months ago and have been posting photos there as well as to Picasaweb. The photo above is posted at Flickr.
This American Lady butterfly was nectaring on Spotted Knapweed too, but then flew off to rest in a Juniper tree.
Two different kinds of Oregano are in bloom and both are very popular with the butterflies and bees. This is an Orange Sulphur on the purple/pink flowered Oregano. I think the botanical name is Origanum vulgare, but Oregano taxonomy is confusing at best.
Here's a Cabbage White on the same Oregano. A very common butterfly, probably the most common butterfly in my garden, but check out the bee about to come in for a landing.
On the white-flowered Oregano, I found a Gray Hairstreak...
...which seems to be the same individual I photographed earlier in the meadow. Notice the same notch out of one wing.
Now we come to the Skippers. They still drive me to despair trying to identify them. Any idea which one this is?
These two, I believe, are Least Skippers. There should be more of them around for future study.
OK, that's it for the butterflies. Now we have the associates. 2007 was the first summer I planted lots and lots of Verbena bonariensis. Suddenly, it became easy to photograph clearwing moths because they just can't get enough Verbena nectar. They're so attracted to it that they let me get very close with the camera. This is a Snowberry Clearwing Moth.
And, lastly, a new-to-me dragonfly. This - a Banded Pennant - is small compared to some of the helicopter-sized ones I haven't yet been able to photograph.
Labels: butterflies, dragonflies, insects, moths
Monday, August 18, 2008
Hanging Out to Dry
Walking through the garden near lunchtime yesterday, we came upon this newly-emerged female Black Swallowtail. Her colors were vibrant and fresh, and she was nearly motionless.
By the time I got back with the camera, she started to move around a bit. That's how I determined that she was a she. If she was a he, there would be a prominent band of yellow spots on the upper surface of the wings. But since she is a she, she wears less yellow and more blue.
I thought she might be ready to fly away at this point, but she wasn't quite ready yet. I left her alone to get used to life as a butterfly.
Labels: butterflies, insects
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Wild Things
Some wild things I photographed this afternoon. This is almost a pictures-only post, except for one question. Do you recognize the plant in the first photo? I'm stumped.
Labels: butterflies, dragonflies, insects, rhexia, wildflowers
Monday, July 21, 2008
Metallic Beetles - NOT Japanese!
I was wearily flicking Japanese Beetles into a jar of soapy water this weekend. They're thick on everything now, including basil! I don't remember having this much trouble with them on basil. Other favorites this year are the Cupheas and 'Red Shield' Hibiscus, which was just starting to look good. Drat. To me, the beauty of the Japanese beetles is what's disturbing. I brush them into a jug of soapy water, where they suffocate, but even in death their carapaces are exquisitely rainbow-colored. To be so beautiful and deadly, to be so beautiful and leave beauty slaughtered in your wake...
This beetle might be mistaken for one of the dreaded JBs if you're not paying close attention. It's about the same size, but with a slightly more elongated shape and waaaaay shinier and prettier.
And it only eats Dogbane, hence its name - the Dogbane Beetle (Chrysochus auratus). Sources differ on whether it eats Milkweed as well, but I found it on Dogbane and it wasn't eating anything.
Another metallic beetle that's been hanging around is the Green June Beetle. I don't like this one as much. For one thing, it's huge - about an inch long and almost as broad. For another, it buzzes around me while I'm working in the garden. And for another, the larvae are said to be destructive root feeders (like the JB grubs). Grudgingly, I find its dull metallic sheen somewhat attractive.
But I refuse to say anything nice about Japanese Beetles. I'll let Diane Ackerman say it instead.
Diane Ackerman, Cultivating Delight
Saturday, July 19, 2008
A Crittery Day
I was tempted to title this post All Creatures Great and Small, but resisted.
There seemed to be an unusual amount of wildlife activity yesterday. Early in the morning I walked up to the vegetable garden to find that something had tasted my first semi-ripe tomato. Time to get out the plastic netting, darn it. And Japanese Beetles were everywhere, including on the basil. While I was in the garden, the Pileated Woodpeckers were making a fuss in the woods - calling and drumming and chasing each other.
I came back to the house for a second cup of tea, and found a young buck deer wandering through the woods in back - munching as he went. This was the best picture I got.
I count 3 points on each antler, so that makes him a 6-point buck? I obviously don't know enough about deer and need to do some opposition research. For instance, territoriality - does seeing one buck of that size mean there aren't any others nearby? Does he have a lady friend? Relatives? Does anybody know of a good resource for learning about deer?
The birds were very active yesterday and not just the woodpeckers. While I had the camera out I noticed a small grayish bird foraging, warbler-like, in the trees. It turned out to be a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.
Later in the afternoon I gave a recently-planted Viburnum a deep soaking with the hose. While I was moving the hose around, some tiny critter jumped out of the way. I first thought it was an insect, but looking closer I found the tiniest frog I've ever seen.
I left a bit of a plant label in the photo when I cropped it, so you can get an idea of just how small it is. My best guess is either a Leopard Frog or a Pickerel Frog. Any frog experts out there reading this?
We ended the day sitting on the front porch listening to the late summer sounds. The Cicadas have been singing for a couple weeks, but last night the Katydids joined the chorus. The fireflies provided the light show.
Labels: critters, deer, frogs, insects
Sunday, July 06, 2008
The Butterfly Airport
Have you heard of the Fourth of July butterfly counts? I have my own undisciplined, unscientific version which consists of hanging around the Butterfly Airport (Verbena bonariensis) and watching.
OK that first picture was a moth, not a butterfly, but looks to me just like a plane taking off. I haven't been able to get a good photo of the larger scene with all the butterflies fluttering around the flowers - this is the best one.
In just a few minutes, I counted six species (maybe more; all those indistinguishable brown skippers!) - Black Swallowtail, Clouded Sulphur, Eastern Tailed Blue, Gray Hairstreak, Sachem?, and Cabbage White.
The flower in the middle picture above is Verbena hastata 'Pink Spires'. It's sort of a secondary airport for smaller butterflies.
Other butterflies seen over the weekend, but not on Verbena and not photographed, were Regal Fritillary, Common Buckeye, and some type of Crescent.
Labels: butterflies, insects, moths, verbena
Saturday, June 21, 2008
First JB of the Season
I was going to write something about the Summer Solstice (happened yesterday), but perhaps the first Japanese Beetle of the season is as good a marker for summer's midpoint as any.
The despicable creature was taunting me from the tip of a wormwood branch this morning.
Labels: insects
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Fireflies and Mountain Laurel
Ah, Memorial Day weekend. The psychological start of summer in the mid-latitudes of the United States. So why are we still shivering in the cold? The fireflies think it's summer. We sat on the front porch Friday evening, bundled up in sweatshirts and woolly slippers to enjoy the summer weather, and the fireflies appeared right on schedule. We first saw them last year on Memorial Day weekend. I'll stop whining now, because it's supposed to warm up a lot by Monday.
Let's look at something pretty instead. Don't these Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia) flowers look like they belong to spring instead of summer? The pale pink color and delicate patterns make me think early April instead of late May.
We have a large Mountain Laurel shrub at the edge of the woods. It suffered from having the woods cleared away around it (in order to build the house), and when we first moved here I wasn't sure it would survive. And truth be told, it still looks a bit rough. The height is well over my head (but I'm not tall), and many of the branches are bare. I may cautiously snip it back to see if it will resprout from some of those bare branches, or I may not. I could just plant something shorter in front of it.
The structure of the flower is interesting. See how the stamens support the petals like the spokes of an umbrella? National Geographic magazine, June 1917, reports that "...the mountain laurel has taken care that no visitor shall escape without rendering it the service of messenger. When the flower opens its stigma is erect, but the anthers are fastened down with a trigger-like arrangement, one in each of ten little pockets in the flower. The bee that creeps down into the flower for a sip of nectar releases a tiny spring, like a mouse entering a trap. The released anther flies up and dusts its pollen on the hairy body of the insect."
Mountain laurel nectar is said to be toxic, but apparently not to ladybugs.
There were at least two mountain laurel shrubs blooming last year. I don't see any others this year. I do remember that one had paler flowers than the other, but I don't remember them being white. The photographic evidence says otherwise.
Or could it be that the color was lighter last year because the weather was warmer?
Labels: fireflies, insects, kalmia
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Firsts
There have been a lot of first-of-the-season events over the last week.
First dragonfly. Same kind as last year.
First hummingbird. It buzzed right by my head on its way to __? Somewhere else.
First singing wood thrush.
I think - think - I head the kowp-kowp-kowp of a yellow-billed cuckoo on Saturday morning, but it was hard to be sure with the flock of noisy blue jays all around.
First time I noticed the lovely scent of 'Rainbow Loveliness'. I decided to pick a tiny bouquet for the house before the rain ruined the flowers, brought it up to my nose expecting a spicy carnation-like scent, and instead got .... lilacs? That's how it smelled to me anyway. Not at all dianthus-y, but sweet and strong.
First bizarre-o insect of the year. Moth larva? I have no idea.
Labels: birds, dianthus, insects
Monday, August 20, 2007
Things with Wings
Want butterflies? Plant verbena!
I was just astounded at the number of nectar-sippers hovering around the Verbena bonariensis this weekend in the country. Just in casual observation, I counted at least six different species of butterflies - Tiger Swallowtail (both light and dark forms), Spicebush Swallowtail, American Lady, Zabulon Skipper, other skippers (names still elude me - sorry), and a new one for me: the Common Buckeye. If it's so common, howcome I never saw one until this weekend?
And there was a different clearwing moth there too - this time it was Hummingbird Moth, and I have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to photos. I restrained myself and only posted four of them (1,2,3,4).
And speaking of embarrassment, after Lisa wrote last week that she only gets good photos of butterflies when they're mating, I claimed never to have seen such a thing. Well, look (adults only, please). I think there will be more Snowberry Clearwing Moths.
While I was taking these photos, another absolutely huge moth landed on a tomato plant. I have only a crummy picture to prove it, but I think it was a tomato hornworm adult.
More from the crummy picture department. I tried several times to get a good picture of a hummingbird this weekend. I failed. They were almost constantly feeding on the coleus flowers in front of the house, except not when I had the camera in hand. There is a hummingbird in this picture, but I'll let you search for it yourself. I think I'll try Ki's suggestion and see if I can get some decent video instead. Check out the huge coleus plants though. The tallest ones are close to 4 feet, not counting the flowers.
Labels: birds, butterflies, insects, moths
