A New Butterfly

 When we were sitting out today, I noticed a brand new to me Butterfly.  I quickly Google Lensed it and found it is the White Admiral.

Apparently it is a subspecies of the Red Spotted Purple which we have a lot of.  The white banding covers up most of the red spots but the blue is still visible.

The Great Lakes region is the intersection between the ranges of the two subspecies and apparently they can hybridize and create unique color variations.

  That would be fun to see.

Afternoon in the Garden

 I have always said that June is my quiet time in the garden.  All I do is weed, water and wait.  That routine is extending well into July this year.  No complaints... but things are a little delayed.  I trim a few things.  Sit for awhile.  Fertilize something.  Go back and sit....  

Food is coming out at a good pace.  There are zucchini and onions and green bell peppers.   There is always Cole Slaw in the refrigerator. I am accumulating pickling cucumbers to make the first batch of pickles.  There are a handful of green beans ready to eat. 

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on a butterfly bush

Honey Bee on a Buttercream Sunflower

Daylily of the Day are these white lilies.  Either these are the deer's absolute favorite, or their bloom time coincides with my desire to fight about it running out.  I dug a big clump of them out and liberated it to the edge of the field after the deer ate every bloom and bud during a rainstorm.... through the netting.  I'm going to replace it with a rock.

Annuals Update

Here is an update on my annual flowers.  August is when they finally look their best and you wonder "why was I in such a hurry in May?"  I didn't even start my Marigolds until the end of May and that was also when I weeded these Snapdragons out of the gravel and transplanted them into a tray.  Snapdragons will handle quite cold temperatures so they will continue to flower for a couple of months.

The free Volunteer Snapdragons - Costa Mix

I tucked extras into bare spots

Proven Winners combination pot featuring El Brighto Coleus,
Charmed Wine Shamrock and Purple Fountain Grass 

The second matching planter

Exhibition Mix Coleus
These are not as impressive as last year but they are competing with a Sweet Potato Vine for water and that has made a big difference.  The vine is beautiful though

 .

First Flame Celosia

The Dahlia Patch

The Coleus cuttings and volunteer Celosia are beautiful

End of Summer Dahlia

These are perennial, not annual, but worth mentioning

Little Lime Punch Hydrangea mail ordered as gallon size this spring.
I think I could have gotten three blooms if the deer hadn't trimmed it

My favorite ornamental grass Fox Trot Pennisetum

Two Spicebush Butterflies at once!

Power Pole Project #1

The next door neighbors have a back-in area in their driveway that needed a rework.  The crane truck that removed the property line trees this spring dealt out some wear and tear, and then when additional work was done in their backyard, one of the dump trucks caught the end of the RR ties and the thirty year old wall gave up completely.  It is a short retaining wall that levels the driveway and keeps people out of the landscaping on the other side.  In NY state, residents are no longer allowed to purchase or transport used RR ties.  I'm not sure what makes them environmentally acceptable when they are under a RR track but deems them a hazard when they are lining your driveway, but that's the way it is.  Someone we know mentioned that they knew where we could get fragments of broken power poles for free, so we pursued that avenue and came up with enough to do this project and one for me too.

Removing the old ties

Digging a proper trench with the backhoe

We pulled out the three layers of old RR ties and cleaned out the trench first with the backhoe, and then by hand.  The wall was about twenty feet long, but we decided to shorten it a bit, making it easier to get big trucks past it in the future.

When we were done digging, we had a straight, level surface to start with and we lined it with some gravel to fill in any unevenness.

One of the power poles was cedar and fairly uniform in width its entire length.  With a chainsaw we cut lengths of pole between 14" and 20" long.  The idea was to randomly mix the widths and heights.

As we mixed chunks from both ends of the pole, we started plumbing and straightening the wall.

Just another inch this way...

We put a tall chunk at the end which will have reflectors nailed to it.

When we were satisfied with the pattern and straightness, we filled both sides with crushed stone.

Tamp.. tamp.. tamp..  more tamping

Water will fill in any little voids and firm up the gravel

Now all that's left to do is put the driveway back

The change in grade is about one foot

The driveway side will be low enough not to catch any bumpers

Now the neighbors are going to freshen up their landscaping with a rock garden, mulching with gravel which is very low maintenance.  The grasses are divisions from my own grasses on the other side of their drive.  For three hours of work and almost no material cost, the driveway is fixed and the landscape bed has an attractive backdrop.

Even with all of the work going on, I still had time to watch some butterflies.

Do you see that their are two on the Milkweed?

Don't overlook this little Azure

Flowers

Let's just take a moment to enjoy the flowers that I have successfully defended from the deer.

Stella Supreme

Anzac

Anzac

Happy Returns

Chum

Sundried Tomato

Black Eyed Susan

Sweet Sugar Candy

Prima Ginger Echinacea

Sugar Shack Button Bush

Swallowtail Butterfly

The First Monarch of the year

Another Butterfly

 Today I finally caught the Viceroy butterfly on camera.  There were several butterflies today, all being very territorial about the flowers.  The Viceroy was the easiest to catch up to.  They are slightly smaller than a Monarch, but if you don't have both to compare one to the other, you can tell them apart by the black line across their back wings.