Absolutely overflowing with physostegia virginiana, send halp

Don't need to wonder who's cotyledons these are anymore (could have guessed from the empty pods next to them)

Pawpaw flowers and serviceberry flowers!

I could have planted spring ephemerals years ago but no. Perhaps this will be the year to prepare for next year.

Bought some soil and sprinkled seeds on it. Good weekend.

Accidentally putting a dozen seed packets in pants pockets through the wash counts as stratification, right?

"E" is for escorting 150 pounds of dog to picnics.

The ideal time to vacation/be off routine is daylight savings time - completely bamboozle the circadian rhythm

Maybe expanding to wet soil this year. Very different from my full sun dry clay. Time to plot the plot!

Penstemon digitalis "can be semi-evergreen in the South" (wildflower.org) even in a foot of snow.

I've been meaning to snap some winter pics of evergreen plants but they are currently everwhite.

Native plant bios need more winter photos. "Partially evergreen" doesn't mean much.

Do you - like me - suddenly need portraits of every pet in the neighborhood??

Contemplating if I have room for yellow or purple giant hyssop and whether to go yellow or purple (agastache nepetoides vs schrophulariifolia)

I made the thin coat dog a dog coat with the thick coat of the thick coat dog, so now both dogs have winter coats. No dogs were harmed in the making of this dog coat.

Definitely agree, my experience has been similar!

The horrors persist, but so do the coral honeysuckle flowers.

There are a few partridge pea and obedient plant putting out fresh flowers, despite most their neighbors being done for the year.

Almost partridge pea harvest time

A surprise hiding under the partridge peas. Rough buttonweed, Hexasepalum teres?

So many late checkouts on a cloudy day. [4 pictures of bumblebees on flowers]

Art is just so fucking cool. I love scrolling my feed here and seeing piece after piece of what feels like the true universal language of humanity. Even if we don't share the same words you can draw a picture of something that matters to you and I will feel it in some way. I love that connection.

The physostegia virginiana patch is constantly buzzing with dozens of bumblebees and surely other little creatures.

CWG needs a metric for end of mosquito season.

Share a meal with someone

A different, smaller and lighter brown skipper. Not shown are a black swallowtail and a cabbage white. Excellent butterfly watching today!

Weekend brunch!

Bouncing back. Tree friend gave me grafting tape to bandage the stump and now 4 new lead nodes sprouting.

Not even peak physostegia virginiana season yet. These are the same white starts that have blushed pinker with time.

The neighborhood monarda fistulosa bloom at different times

physostegia virginiana starting to bloom in earnest. this should be a straight species, pink last year, but starting off white.

Same spot, 15 minutes apart, new friend: red spotted purple?! The thick vertical stem in both pictures is the same obedient plant.

One of the pawpaw trees lost its main branch :(

we all need a little bit of help sometimes

A hummingbird clearwing sitting on a glass wall of an office building!!!!!

New neighbors down the road clear cut the massively overgrown mess of English ivy, periwinkle, privet, and more. Should I show up with welcome to the neighborhood cookies and seedlings?

Judging by the dozen+ occupied flowers, there was a rager of a bumblebee party last night and many didn't stumble home. This one didn't even find a comfy bed!

Teeny tiny orange mint moth on mountain mint. Wingspan about 1 centimeter.

Early check in at the bee hotel last night

Look at this lil skipper I almost mistook for a clearwing moth.

And a hummingbird clearwing moth!!

The marigold "lawn" is doing well. It is pretty buzzy and the zebra swallowtail seems to enjoy it too. Only about 6 inches tall, so I think I'd recommend this as a lawn-to-pollinator-garden strategy.

Managed to get a picture of the snowberry clearwing moth near a bumblebee, for scale. I'm constantly surprised by how tiny and easy to miss they are.

A good bug day: zebra swallowtail and snowberry clearwing moth sightings!

Are you from one of these states? Then we need your help to save American science! The Senate Appropriations Committee will be marking up the President's Budget Request for science on Wednesday. People have been saying the proposed cuts "decimated" US science, but that's wrong: they are apocalyptic

Rain covered serviceberry shrub, which hasn't taken tree shape yet.

Zebra swallowtails are stop-in-your-tracks-under-a-blazing-noon-sun stunning.

Wasn't up for doing battle this year on a patch of difficult to convert grass/weeds and just chucked tons of petite marigold seeds there. Now it's a delightful little marigold patch that's starting to bloom.

Midsummer meal

Rushed outside to stand in the baking sun to watch a zebra swallowtail figure 8-ing around the pawpaw trees