Lovely Painted Ladies
Painted ladies Vanessa cardui spend a lot of time in our native garden. This one is sipping nectar from Siskiyou Wooly Sunflowers...
After the rains
Plants look refreshed after the steady rains that lasted for a day and a half. The reflections in the raindrops caught in the plants are...
Blooming natives
For some reason many people think that California native plants are dull and without lovely blossoms. Here are several natives blooming...
Monarch Caterpillars munching and growing
We are no longer raising monarch caterpillars indoors, just letting things happen naturally. Currently there are more than eleven pots of...
Honeybees in the blooms
Oh, if I were a honey bee, I probably would be so happy at this time of year when plants are producing the first blooms of the season,...
Mining Bee and the Tricolored Gilia
Just as I hoped, the Tricolored, or Birds Eye Gilia reseeded throughout our native plant patch, and now there is a lovely mini-meadow....
In the garden now
The garden is full of surprises and plants grow lusher, attracting all kinds of insects and birds. The lambs' ears Stachys byzantina...
The monarch caterpillars are here
...and my have they grown within a couple of weeks! As you may recall from a post last month, I noticed a monarch butterfly circling our...
The much maligned, beneficial wasp
I took this photo last weekend of a Sapygid Wasp on one of the Yellow Coastal Bush Lupine blossoms Lupinus arboreus . And see the nasty...
More first blooms of the year
It's always so exciting to see the first blooms on a plant, especially when you've been battling voracious slugs throughout the late...
