Discovery Journal

Whorled Milkweed is now blooming in the backyard gardens.
First Bloom Date This Year: 7/16/2020

The gardens attract their share of damselflies. Seen today was this female Familiar Bluet, feasting on her prey. Damselflies are tricky to photograph because the auto-focus has a hard time locking onto their extremely slender body. This image was taken using manual focus.

Cardinal Flower is now blooming in the backyard gardens.
First Bloom Date This Year: 7/15/2020

Dragonflies and damselflies are some of the most exciting visitors to the gardens. Because their eggs are laid in or near water, they are often associated with pond and creek environments. But their diet is carnivore, and they will travel to where the food is, which means we get to see a nice variety over the course of the year in our backyard.

Butterfly activity is up lately. Here are some of the visitors I have been seeing in the backyard and at the pond a few blocks away.

Common Ironweed
First Bloom Date This Year: 7/12/2020

Last year, we added two native Buttonbushes to our side yard and they are proving to be a huge success.

There is a lot of information out there about attracting Eastern Black Swallowtails with host plants in the carrot family like carrots, parsley, dill, and fennel. Sometimes the invasive Queen Anne's lace is mentioned. However, none of these plants are native. The Eastern Black Swallowtail is a native butterfly, so what did caterpillars eat before we brought our garden plants across the ocean?

A squash vine borer was seen seeking nectar at swamp milkweed in the rain garden. Squash vine borers are native but are frequently considered garden pests because they can completely decimate plants in the squash family.

This week a grass-carrying wasp, likely Isodontia elegans, was identified in the backyard rain garden. The native wasp was found on a Little Joe Pye Weed cultivar.