Vernonia glauca, broadleaf ironweed. I got a small seed packet from the NC botanical garden about 20 years ago, and now they have spread all over the garden. Unique specimens define different garden spaces, but I like having a few species that seed around randomly and tie everything together. 🌱

Happy Summer solstice. This is a pinhole camera 6 month exposure photo I took from Winter solstice 2024 (bottom line of the photo) to Summer solstice 2025 (top line of the photo). The lines are the Sun as it appears to move across the sky and gets higher and higher until we get to Summer solstice.

Hitching post for Amish buggies beside the Tesla supercharger in Ephrata, PA.

Visited an orchid nursery in another state and discovered that they are using one of my photos as a label. (am amused and flattered, not annoyed) 🌱

Bulbophyllum auratum. Maybe. Purchased today. The thing about Bulbophyllums is that like Haldane’s beetles, the Creator apparently had an inordinate fondness for them, and the approximately 1 zillion species are often misidentified by orchid growers. 🌴🌱

Happy Juneteenth! “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” — Fannie Lou Hamer

Finally got some significant rain. Storm door tree frog approves. About two inches overnight. Hoping for a little more before the system moves out. It’ll take a lot more to get moisture deep into the clay.

Dumbass python dropped her rat in her water bowl, and now she can’t find it. Brain the size of a pea.

Rhododendron ‘Little Maria’ = R. viriosum x (viriosum x gracilentum). I thought the buds might abort in the 100+ F heat last week, but nope. Despite the backcross to R. viriosum, R. gracilentum is dominant for size (or lack thereof). #vireya 🌱🌴

Absolutely amazing fragrance! Lilium x sulphurgale ‘Vico Gold’ 🌱 If you like lilies, you need this cultivar.

🌱 From my FB "Memories"

WRAL news has cut into an interview with JD Vance to show the Hurricanes’ plane on the runway at RDU. Split screen: Vance on the left, plane on the right, but whatever Vance is saying about Iran is completely drowned out by the jet engine. That has to be deliberate. 😂🤣

Bigleaf magnolia, Magnolia macrophylla is just the most tropical-looking native tree. 🌱

Aerides houlletiana from Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Flowering now high in the greenhouse eaves. It grows in an empty plastic basket with its roots dangling. this clone has somewhat pale color compared to others I have seen, but its fragrance is a lovely sweet lemon scent. 🌴🌱 #orchids

This is the only carnivorous plant that is a specialist predator. The edible white hairs of the collar attract termites exclusively. New pitcher of Nepenthes albomarginata in my greenhouse this afternoon. 🌴 🌱

Crude, mindless vandalism of nature. I guess we can be grateful that the scumbag was dumb enough to post a video of the crime. The gator was estimated to be 50 years old and was well known locally as the largest in the area.

The current drought has been upgraded to “exceptional”, the most severe category, but this dog vomit slime mold still managed to form a nice plasmodium.

Right on schedule, my Calopogon tuberosus are blooming again. A bee that tries to scrape off the false pollen is likely to fall onto the end of the curved column and end up with the real pollinia stuck to its back. 🌱 #orchids

Rhododendron niewenhuisii. The name is bigger than the plant. This is a lowland epiphyte from Borneo, and it likes warmer temperatures than most vireyas. Cool foliage; pretty, but not spectacular, flowers alone or in pairs. 🌴🌱

Domingoa purpurea, an epiphytic orchid from Mexico and central America. The flowers are at the end of a long, wiry stem growing from a little cluster of mottled, leathery leaves. They are pollinated by hummingbirds with excellent eyesight. 🌱 🌴

Just a smol bean in need of assistance. #herps

I know almost nothing about horse racing, but it sure is fun to watch Golden Tempo run.

Adorable young kestrels surprised by a butterfly.

Soldier beetle, Chauliognathus species, on a Crinum flower.

Sadly, the fledgling was deceased this morning. More happily, the other two were busy testing their wings yesterday, and today they and the parents have disappeared into the woods. This pair of hawks had a single chick last year, so two surviving this year isn’t bad.

One of this year’s red shouldered hawk babies had an unsuccessful first flight and is now sheltering under our neighbor’s car. Hopefully it will be OK tonight.

Horticulture: you will have friendly interaction with people of every gender, sex, race, nationality, etc you can imagine, but you can also curate the experience to a degree: carnivorous plant growers skew young and goth. Gesneriad fans seem older. Bonsai growers care most about aesthetics.

Can I interest you in a moist owlette as a timeline cleanse? This is Sassafras the Eastern Screech Owl from the Cincinnati Zoo (@cincinnatizoo.bsky.social, but via their FB) and I love him very much. Eastern Screech Owls (Megascops asio) are native to eastern North America.

Squirrels: breaking branches and stealing figs before they are even ripe. Me: Growling and yelling and jumping around and flinging pebbles. Neighbors: ???

🪼 Your tax dollars paid a scientist to squeeze jellyfish through cheesecloth. Osamu Shimomura processed tens of thousands on an NSF grant to understand why they glow. He found a protein that glowed green under UV light. Called it "green protein." Nobody cared. For decades.

#sixonsaturday 30-05-26: roses, deutzia, cordyline, kalmia, armeria and yacon…. Make your choice! 🌱 fredgardenerblog2.wordpress.com/2026/05/30/s...

Nick’s Roadside Assistance (“We’ll get you across”) is back in business for the summer. Please drive carefully during this road crossing season. #herps

Hippeastrum ‘Bargain Bin, No ID’. I got three of these about four years ago and put them in the ground because I didn’t want to expend any effort on such sad and ratty looking bulbs. They survived and the flowers are enormous. 🌱

Crinum ‘White Queen’ (Powellii x macowanii). This is the earliest flowering crinum in my garden. It is supposedly a Luther Burbank hybrid, which would make it at least a century old (Burbank died in 1926). 🌱

Spigelia marilandica, woodland pinkroot. Hummingbird’s delight. 🌱

Fresh new upper pitcher on my Nepenthes burbidgeae x platychila. 🌴🌱

Neighbors: “Thanks for feeding the cat. He’s very shy. You may not see him.” Neighbors’ cat: *hops up on counter, puts his paws on my chest, and gazes deep into my eyes*

Can’t tell if the pile in the middle of the street is dog turds that I should be angry about or wildlife scat that I should be excited about.

Here's a free version of the same article gcaptain.com/drowning/

In the greenhouse today, Bulbophyllum thaiorum, a minature epiphytic orchid. . . 🌱 🌴

I posted this plant last year, but I’m posting it again on account of its extreme awesomeness. Asclepias variegata, redring milkweed. Definitely a top ten North Carolina native wildflower. 🌱

I had not heard about Basil (Brush, surely) before, but it’s a little odd that he stowed away from UK to US to get free healthcare.

Nocturnal garden perambulation after a rain shower gave me the first luna moth of the year. . .

Alright my Blueskis, I'm the only biologist at my agency so I don't have close professional peers. I've got an idea to run by you (you heard it here first!): invasives as umbrella species accidentally preserving habitat. Check out today's incredible sphagnum and skunk cabbage bog! 1/3

I let the Carolina horsenettles grow in one of my flower beds and got some interesting clavate tortoise beetles.

"Think back to your childhood. Do you remember when the anxiety started?”

Took a little night walk down to the neighborhood salamander swamp. I think this is the earliest date in 20 years that it has been completely dry. Some summers it never dries completely. Coyotes were making a racket somewhere nearby, and fishing spiders were hanging out on tree trunks.

Gardenia jasminoides marks the start of summer in my garden. 🌱

Declare, Tim Powers The Long Ships, Frans G. Bengtsson Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke (I disqualified LotR just because)

Some kind of fairly large geometrid moth caterpillar on one of my vireya rhododendrons. It is colored and textured just like a twig and holds itself completely rigid, even when rudely poked. I like its style, so it can stay for now.