Tangled Branches: Cultivated

happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia

Friday, September 30, 2005

Woolly Bears

While walking at Ellanor C. Lawrence park this afternoon, I saw a woolly bear caterpillar which had the longest brown band I've ever seen. I didn't have the camera with me, so no photo to prove it. In fact, it didn't have any black on the back end at all - just the first 3 or 4 segments from the head were black and the rest brown. So, I jumped to the conclusion that we're going to have one horrible winter. But I had my folklore backwards - the less brown and more black, the worse the winter is supposed to be. And even though the experts tell us that there is absolutely nothing valid in this bit of folk wisdom, I'll take it as a sign that our upcoming winter will be mild. I think we deserve one.

I always like to see the woolly bear caterpillars in the fall, but the folks in Vermilion, Ohio are positively crazy about them (take that however you want to).

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

LibraryThing

Oh no, I've just found another fascinating way to waste time. LibraryThing. I need to clean up my bookshelves anyway, but I'm afraid to find out how many books I have. It's very easy to catalog current US books, but for old or foreign titles you'll have to enter all the data manually. I have a lot of old books and a lot of Folio Society books, so that could get tedious. We'll see how it goes.

What I really need to do is to get outside and plant my snowdrops...

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Vacation

We were out of town most of last week, visiting Charleston SC. Neither spouse or I had ever been there before. We included one garden tour in our itinerary (Middleton Place), and I have a few pictures, but haven't uploaded them yet. I've been writing up our restaurant reviews over on the food blog before I forget what we ate. More later....

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Monarch Migration

There was an interesting article in yesterday's Washington Post about a project to document and publicize the migration of Monarch butterflies. The Papalotzin project is following the migration with an ultralight aircraft. They're currently in Washington DC, with an appearance scheduled at the Fiesta Musical at the National Zoo tomorrow. The project is sponsored (in part?) by the World Wildlife Fund. Is there a blog? You bet.

Friday, September 16, 2005

American Ladies

Now that I have your attention, another butterfly story. Yesterday I added a new butterfly to the backyard list. I was stuck indoors waiting for an appliance delivery, when I happened to glance out the window and see a butterfly that didn't look like one of the usual suspects. I grabbed the camera and headed outside. Here's the result. Do you think five pictures of the same butterfly are too many? Do click through all five of them though, because the best one is last.

Monday, September 12, 2005

All Bugs, All the Time

<whine>Been too busy again to do much outdoors, but I managed about an hour in the garden this morning.</whine>

This is just a short checking-in kind of post. Meanwhile, enjoy the new pictures (mostly ~~bugs~~ butterflies), including The Katydid on the Door and Entangled Imitates Georgia O'Keefe.

<off-topic>Going to see Old Blind Dogs at Jammin' Java tonight. Anticipating a good time.</off-topic>

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Stuff to Look At

I just had to link to this post from Polly of All Tangled Up. She's posted lots of pictures from the Kew Horticultural Show.

I couldn't find any other info about this show online, but while I was searching I discovered that Kew has an exhibit on now that I would love to see: Gardens of Glass: Chihuly at Kew. I love glass, but was never very interested in Chihuly's work. This looks like an amazing display though, and apparently he's been doing this sort of thing in gardens for quite a while. It does remind me though, of those glass mushrooms you can buy from Kinsman (and others?). They have some like that at Meadowlark Gardens.

And then I found this link to the Telegraph's Gardening site. Lots to look at there - I'll have to make a return visit.

But before I got sidetracked I was going to ask "Anybody else know of any good online photos of horticultural exhibits from other recent fairs"? (Maybe I should check flickr?)

Thursday, September 01, 2005

What's that Sound?

Today's Washington Post gardening column featured a new Field Guide to the Grasshoppers, Katydids and Crickets of the United States. It seems like a worthwhile addition to the field guide library, but look at the authors' cool web site: Singing Insects of North America. I just learned that the sound I always believed was made by some type of cicada is probably from a katydid instead. Such an incomplete education I've had.....

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