New Garden Bed Does Well Despite Drought

Posted on June 9, 2011 by Meredith

The drought is hitting Texas hard — fires in West Texas, shriveled-up lakes, suffering wildlife, and many a plant succumbing to the lack of water. But my drought-hardy natives are doing relatively fine, all things considered. The garden has toughened up for the hot summer — it has had to, because I’m just not a person to water much. Sure, the plants would look more lush if we had rain, but lush doesn’t matter in a drought. Surviving does.

The butterflies have been relatively few this year so far, thanks to the drought, but the bees have been plentiful. We’ve seen more native bees than ever, and even our bee boxes are getting used — yippee. In particular, the wood ones in the shade are popular. The bamboo box is in the sun and to my knowledge has not been visited by any creature, bee or otherwise.

We’ve been adding plants around the raised hot-tub pond, bringing the dirt up in a sort of berm. I know it doesn’t look like much at the moment, but it will transform over time. As the plants grow, the pond will have a backdrop of taller evergreens, and the berm itself will be covered in wildlife-friendly plants of all shapes, colors, and sizes. The leaves you see are used as mulch — they are doing an excellent job of keeping any weeds under control and keeping the soil moist, and they are freeeeeeeee.

To build the berm, we used the dirt that had been dug out to form our still fantastic sun garden pathway. Amazingly, we still have at least half of the dirt left even after creating the berm — this will become additional contour somewhere else in the yard, most likely. Actually, I should back up in this story — first we dug out ugly Bermuda grass from around the pond, covered the area with cardboard and newspaper, and THEN built the berm. We also mixed in some well-needed compost.

Leftover flagstone from the patio project became a pathway across the berm.

Leftover flagstone was also used to create steps to the built-in pond bench. I plan to refine the steps, but they’re a start. You can see that we don’t water grass. Bit by bit the Bermuda grass is dying out, and the Buffalo Grass is naturally taking over, particularly in the back half of the yard. This patch is still mostly Bermuda, though — die, die, die.

I’ve been transplanting plants to the berm from around the garden, and amazingly they’ve done well despite the transplant (organic seaweed during planting helps). The Texas Lantana is happier than ever before, not doing well in its first location near the pond pre-berm. We’ve got Lindheimer’s Senna, Mealy Blue Sage, Gregg’s MIstflower, Chocolate Daisy, Blackfoot Daisy, Milkweed, Missouri Primrose, Basket Grass, Engelmann’s Crag Lily, Flame Acanthus, Rock Rose, the world’s tiniest Evergreen Sumac, and non-native Almond Verbena and Dutchman’s Pipevine, with lots more to come once fall rolls around.

Above is a young Soapbush, Guaiacum angustifolium. It was a treasured find at the last fall Wildflower Center sale, but I didn’t get it in the ground right away and I’d almost given it up for dead by the time we made it to spring. However, just look at it now. It seems quite happy in the berm. Someday it will have the most adorable purple flowers.

The wildlife moved in immediately — always a sign that we are doing something right. The sparrows flew in to see what seeds they could find in the freshly placed soil. Doves walked up the berm, and then they walked down the berm, almost like ducklings in a row. Skippers and hairstreaks and swallowtails and bees arrived to visit new blooms.The dogs love it, too. They’ve got a new obstacle to run laps around, and they’re actually using the flagstone path to cross the berm… most of the time.

And look, a little mining bee began to work on a nest in a patch of bare earth.

The drought is terrible, but there is hope for the garden. Given that the birdbaths and ponds have constant avian traffic, I know the drought is really rough on the wildlife right now. We even had a doe visit the front yard birdbath for the first time yesterday — I’ve never seen one venture this close to the house before, so she must have been really desperate.

You can see her ribs, poor little skinny thing. I don’t mind the deer, but I make sure to not directly feed them (I plant unpalatable plants in the front). Without natural predators, there also isn’t a natural balance to the ecosystem as would be found in the wild — no population check. But that doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t go out to them during times like these. She can drink water from the birdbath if she likes.

I do have to post a picture of my friend and neighbor Jan’s screech owl babies. I imagine they’ve fledged by now, but as soon as I heard about them, I zipped down for a picture. A-dor-a-ble!

That makes two successful nests in the neighborhood this year! My husband made the boxes for Jan and for our own backyard owls following the Audubon building plans. We’ll tweak the design a little next time for easier access for cleaning, but otherwise, they are obviously good nest box designs.

I leave you with a parting image of a House Finch watching a sunflower seed fall.

Oh, well, little finch, rest assured it won’t go to waste. There will be plenty of birds happy to collect it from below.

Wildlife Spotted… and Spotted Wildlife

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Meredith

Say what?!!

That owl up there is driving us crazy, though I’m sure it would say the same about us. All day long it sticks its head out of the nesting-box hole and does NOTHING. Nothing except occasionally stick its head out farther to see what we’re up to in the yard (which usually is us sticking our heads around trees to see what the owl is doing). Just go ahead and show us some baby owlets or bring in a rat or make an eerie screech owl noise or something, would you? We’re so happy our screech owl is here, but it’s just weird that it hangs out of the hole all day long.

That being said, I have a feeling I’ve been unnecessarily blaming our frogs for causing the odd shortage of our once-abundant toads. Most likely I should be blaming the screech owl. After all, we’ve apparently set up a rather nice buffet table for the owl, which watches over the pond from its vantage point up in the nesting box. The male toads come out at night, innocently croaking loudly to attract a potential mate, and it’s just possible that their call instead acts like a beacon to bring the silent predator from above right to them.

Check out who this green frog is watching — someone better be careful!

Of course, it’s entirely possible the pond frogs really are to blame — they are certainly not above cannibalizing (toads are actually frogs, you know, and frogs will eat frogs). It appears we have created the ultimate frog haven in our hot-tub pond. The frogs spread themselves out across the water (so as to not get too close to their hungry neighbor, I assume), and then they wait for whatever moving morsel dares to venture close. I’m still trying to determine the species we have — at the very least, we have both American Bullfrogs and Southern Leopard frogs, but the markings are odd on a couple of them.

And they are all getting big. The largest bullfrog is getting downright scary (cue “Jaws” music).

I still have to get in the pond to get acorns and such out of it — my spring cleaning is way overdue — don’t I look forward to it with Gigantic Freaka-Frogazoid there joining me! I’m just kidding — I love frogs.

Of course, also on the toad hunt might be this Checkered Garter Snake — it has a perfect waiting spot among the pond rocks. Our garden habitat is an ecosystem at work, that’s for sure. All the same, I suggest all toads immediately head to our front-yard pond. It’s smaller, but a little toad-safer for the time being.

Here’s one toad we found alive and well — hop and hide, little one! Hop and hide!

Nearby, a cardinal flew in for a seed and a close-up. Blue Jays splash in the birdbaths, hummingbirds dance in sync together, doves play follow-the-leader… and still our screech owl sits in its nesting-box hole.

All around town, the wildlife and native plants are doing their best to handle drought conditions. Check out this beauty seen at McKinney Roughs — it’s a Great Purple Hairstreak.

Don’t see any purple on it? That’s because there isn’t any. By the way, this little beauty’s host plant is Mistletoe — consider it a plus side to the parasitic plant.

This next image is of a beautiful little Southern Emerald Moth — however, its wings were up instead of laying flat, and it didn’t seem able to fly, poor thing. This is the second time I’ve seen this moth in the same condition at the same locale, Hornsby Bend.

The Retamas (also called Jerusalem Thorn) lining the ponds at Hornsby Bend are in full bloom right now. These airy-yet-thorny native Texas plants tend to spread when they get plenty of water, but the bees and birds sure love them. It’s understandable. Beautiful yellow blooms and thorns for protection — sounds great to me.

Bees, generally speaking, do love the color yellow. Bees visiting Prickly Pear blossoms go a little crazy with it — they act almost drunk.

But the winner of the bee-attracting flowers right now is the blooming century plant down at Natural Gardener.

I think several hives of honeybees came to visit.

Too bad I couldn’t climb up there to get a closer look. To put the height in perspective, take a look at this:

Time to get back out in the garden while the temperatures are still pleasant with our temporary cold front — hopefully more wildlife will join me!

Cute Squirrel Overload

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Meredith

Guest photos from my friend Christopher Denton! Talk about the perfect tree hollow and squirrel playground. This family of five will have me smiling all day long and then some.

Wait a minute, I see only four. Where’s number five?

Not here.

Or here.

Aha, here it is, sharing the hollow.

Wait a minute, is that guy getting closer?

What, is he nuts?!!

Chris and many other friends have converged from both coasts to visit us here in little ol’ Austin, and we’ve been having days and days of fun. Thank you so much for letting me share your photos, Chris!

The Improved Improved Feeders

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Meredith

Our seed feeder fell a few days ago due to a faulty temporary hook, and it suffered an unfortunate crack in the tube. I have to give out kudos to Wild Birds Unlimited‘s lifetime guarantee. Eddie at the north Austin store repaired my feeder on the spot for no cost, and the only trouble I had was trying to get myself to leave the store without wanting to buy every feeder they had in the store.

I came home determined to go back to the original hook we’d used for years, and I intended to improve the cattle-panel cage we’d created to keep the doves out. Smaller, removable — and it now fits nicely under the protection of the dome. FYI, WBU sells a very nice cage that works with their feeders — I just had excess cattle panel available at no extra cost to me.

And sure enough, the doves have officially been fully thwarted. The new and improved cage keeps the doves out — and the squirrels in, haha (one squirrel panicked when my family was heading out to the car and it couldn’t figure out how to go back through the cage openings the way it came in — I had to rescue it by lifting up the dome with a broomstick).

With the smaller cage, we’ve seen an expected slight reduction in the sheer numbers of little songbirds that hang out on the cage at a time, but they don’t have any problem getting seeds. Cardinals and their companions just go right in, and blue jays can now hang from the outside of the cage and grab peanuts from any of the holes they want. They also can fit in the feeder, but it’s a tighter fit than before. The only ones unable to use the feeder are the doves.

I’m just happy because the cage is nice and compact now, and there are no longer excess wires about. And it’s back on its nice sturdy hook. Though I didn’t take a picture of it, I used 16-gauge wire to create a pseudo cage on the top of the cattle-panel cage, so that the cage can rest on top of the tube and still be easily removable when I’m filling the feeder.

The finches now enjoy their thistle feeder in front of our kitchen window — it hangs from a shepherd’s hook, along with a hummingbird feeder (so now we get to enjoy hummingbirds from the kitchen, too).

FYI, I took down the pretty hummingbird feeder my aunt gave me (she knows). See the rust on the top of the feeder? That same rust formed on the inside of the feeder, and that is very dangerous for hummingbirds. Iron contamination kills hummingbirds, and it doesn’t take much. As soon as I saw rust, that feeder came down.

This is a case where it’s ok to buy plastic (glass feeders are more expensive and they can break, but they are an option, too). Pick a feeder that has zero metal, including copper, and make sure that it is easy to fully clean inside and out. Stick to white cane sugar to make your nectar — for the same reason as above — other sugars can contain iron and hurt the hummingbirds.

With the sun being so hot these days, I’m glad I have so many water sources available to the wildlife, and I’ve seen birds visiting every single one of them lately. I try to be really good about replacing the water every couple of days. Not only is that important for the birds’ health, but you want to prevent mosquito larvae.

I’m very happy with all the changes. And the doves are back to foraging on the ground.

According to Eddie at Wild Birds Unlimited, doves need seeds without the shells, so when they consume the traditional sunflower seeds, they don’t get the nutrients they need, and that’s why they always seem hungry — they eat and eat and eat and come back for more. They do like millet, but millet is not a recommended seed for home feeders. Not only does it attract the pest birds that never leave — doves, house sparrows, and blackbirds — but because it’s wasted by other birds, it can harbor bacteria when it sits around too long. If you must use millet, only sprinkle it on the ground, and make sure to only use enough that can be consumed in a day. I don’t buy millet at all — the doves will have to make do with the peanuts and corn. The cage has really helped — we are down to a very manageable number of doves.

Chirp!

Bird Brains

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Meredith

I wouldn’t have thought it, but doves are smart.

They have been determined to find a way past the cage we put around the birdfeeder –pretty much since the very moment it was first up there.

The cage is there because the doves had flocked to the feeder between 20-30 at a time, all grabbing as much as possible from the feeder before the next birds shoved them off. We just couldn’t afford to fill the feeder twice a day, which is what was starting to happen. And the little songbirds couldn’t get through without a pause in the dove line-up.

The cage worked beautiful, and the doves struggled to find a way in. They had trouble landing, and they weren’t keen on putting their large bodies through the cage “windows.” Instead, they had to accept the food we sprinkled on the ground for them. And suddenly we weren’t having to fill the feeder more than once in 3 days. Heaven.

But the drive for the treasure of seed inside the cage kept those persistent doves trying. They’d observe the other birds patiently. And finally some figured out how to land just right to get their body through an opening. They could either hold onto the cage precariously, stretching their neck through to grab some seed…

or if they landed just right, they could hop through the window and walk on the tray below.

Well, now they are used to it and we are back to two doves at a time sometimes on the feeder. Still better than the 20ish that would fight over the feeder — at least the cage prevents that!

The thistle feeder is getting plenty of use now. Lesser goldfinches must be living nearby, because several of them visit regularly now.

And of course, our lovely resident house finches enjoy the thistle, though they go for the big feeder whenever it’s available.

Which it mostly is, except when these bird brains show up — squirrels.

But the squirrels don’t eat a lot, so we mostly enjoy watching their agility and cleverness.

Sometimes birds will share the space with the squirrel… usually on the opposite side of the feeder. The squirrel never seems to care.

And the cage has really been amazing — it’s a constant show of songbirds now, all sharing the feeder and taking turns. Chickadees, Cardinals, Finches, Titmice, and more. They all gather up.

Clever birdies.

So I guess if someone calls you a bird brain, you should consider it a compliment — because these birds are smart!

Content Again

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Meredith

My initial shock and dismay over the vast destruction laid to my Cinnamon Sun sunflowers and Zexmenia by millions and gazillions of caterpillars all at one time were fortunately temporary emotions, and I’ve adjusted to this new level of habitat. I’m back to feeling happy, content, and utterly pleased. The butterflies fluttering about the garden today are more numerous than I’d ever dreamed of (I’m still astounded by this, I admit), and they swept me up in waves of joy and peace. Soon, all those hundreds of ravenous Bordered Patch caterpillars that caused me momentary freak-out will create an even more amazing butterfly scene — who can argue with that?

So I won’t dwell on the skeleton leaves and plant carcasses they are leaving behind and I will instead rejoice in the fact that most of the plants so far are surviving and putting on a beautiful bloom display — 30 blooms almost entirely on one Cinnamon Sun plant alone. I get to report on new butterflies in the garden, as well, and also bees and spiders, and this habitat mama is happy as a clam.

If ever there was a question about sunflowers being so aptly named, I present this photo as a clear argument for the appropriateness. It shows the fiery side of the sun in flower form. In fact, I almost named this post Sunrise or Sunset after this shot, because that’s what it makes me think of, but I actually took this in the middle of the day, so it would be cheating.

As I hovered around my sunflowers, alternating between pictures of blooms and caterpillar damage, I was joined by hummingbirds just a few feet away at the Standing Cypress, flying closer to me than ever and completely ignoring me. I missed the snapshot, though, because the two hummingbirds suddenly had one of their feisty spats and flew off. I’m not sure they even realized how close to me they were.

And then I saw the bees at the sunflowers, and my attention turned back to the fiery blazes before me. These weren’t honeybees — they were “Yellow Butt Bees” as I called them when I first saw them (Please don’t think that’s their real name! I was just distinguishing them from the similarly-sized honeybees we all know. Besides, perhaps “Yellow Belly” would be more appropriate; I can hear Yosemite Sam now calling them Yellow-bellied Varmints… except they are no varmints!). The best I could do was try to get some pictures in the poor light so that I could ID them later. I believe they are the species Megachile perihirta. Western Leafcutter Bees. Texas natives, woot.

Why are they called Leafcutter Bees? Well, they cut small little circles out of leaves and use the pieces to fashion little nest cells, adding to them some nectar and pollen for the eggs they’ll lay. These solitary bees are some of the bees that benefit from Bee Boxes.

At one point, one of the bees looked straight at me. The little bee looks so cute that it seems unreal — my son actually thought I stuck the bee image onto the photo. I like to think that it was posing for the camera and not considering me a momentary threat. In any case, it was cute enough to become a header shot for the blog page (scroll up and click refresh if you’d like to see it).

At the same time as their larger cousins, tinier native bees were also busy at work. They are harder to see, crawling in and out of the little flower parts.

These native bees are the best pollinators a garden could ask for. Hugs to them all.

Back at the Gregg’s Mistflower in the Spider’s Favorite Locale, a spider reigns queen predator. I believe she is a Banded Garden Spider, Argiope trifasciata. And I think she might be the very same spider I found in the same spot a couple of weeks ago, perhaps then a juvenile and now mature (I’ve edited that post). She’s a beauty, and highly successful in her predator talents. She had four wrapped-up carcasses that she was very focused on, and within hours she had consumed them, removed them, and repaired the web, ready for more.

She’s as beautiful on her upper exterior…

as she is underneath. In fact, I shot the picture below first before I even realized she was facing away from me.

I spy what might be pollen seeping through the silk encasing — might that be another bee? Gah. The nature of nature, once again.

To follow up on the Bordered Patch butterflies, I’m happy to report that they do eat Straggler Daisy, or Horseherb. In fact, there are already other groups of them out there munching away. The ones in the picture below are a little too small for me to identify for sure as Bordered Patch, but they are surely related, at the very least.

I took a few of the more severely devasted sunflower leaves still covered with tons of caterpillars and relocated the little crawlies to the Horseherb for a dietary change, and so far so good. There are still many dozens on the sunflowers, but I feel better about all the plants’ chances at this point. And as I mentioned last time, I’ve got plenty of Horseherb to go around. I also discovered even more groups of young caterpillars on the Zexmenia, but those plants are fairly well established and are thus on their own. I read that one Bordered Patch female can lay 500 eggs — now I understand why I have such an invasion of munching munchers.

The older caterpillars are looking quite interesting, now that they are getting large.

Hmmm. Another caterpillar discovery. I have Genista moth caterpillars munching on one of my Texas Mountain Laurels, and eggs on another. But from what I read, the laurels should be okay. There are so many mountain laurels here in Austin, Texas, and they all do okay, right? The damage is ugly, though, but not devastating. I think. Hmmm, I feel the inkling of worry again…

I’m not sure whether these are Genista eggs, but I suspect they could be.

While I was walking around outside, something large moving by caught my eye. At first I thought it was a bird, but then I realized it was a butterfly. From a distance I couldn’t tell whether it was a Giant Swallowtail or an Eastern Tiger, but it was definitely huge. And then it came down right by me for a nectar feast on the butterfly bush. An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Yay!

It’s the first time one has stayed still long enough for me to get a non-blurry picture. The sun was too harsh, but I’ll take what I can get. I continue to have a wary eye on the butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii, a non-native with a questionable reputation), but it earned big points when that Eastern Tiger landed upon it.

I’m still waiting on my Giants to emerge from their chrysalises. I’m getting nervous, as I always do.

Buckeyes are here now! New visitors to the garden. So beautiful.

And I still can’t resist the charm of the Cinnamon Sun sunflowers. More pictures must be posted.

See what I mean?

Bittersweet

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Meredith

I’m having another Wildlife Lover’s Moral Dilemma, but this time it’s of a different sort. Up until now, my love of butterfly caterpillars has known no bounds, and I’ve gone out of my way to plant larval host plants and create a Caterpillar Hotel and so forth. But today caterpillars have rained on my parade, and my beloved caterpillars have come back to bite me, or at least my precious flower favorites.

It’s been raining a lot lately, and so I’ve not been in the garden too much, grudgingly recognizing that the nutsedge and bermuda are taking over again in the meantime. But a glimpse out my bedroom window got me excited — blooms lower down on the tall Cinnamon Sunflowers meant I had a chance to take new photos of my dark red blooms. I rushed outside in a dry pause from the rain… to a horrible sight.

The first thing I saw from a mere glance was a mass congregation of black on the leaves of one of my yellow sunflowers. Caterpillars, and a lot of them.

Then my eyes opened wider. There were more on the plant next to that one. And on down the short row.

Then I was hit with the realization that they’d completely defoliated many of the leaves of the yellow sunflowers, to the point that I’m not sure whether there’s a future in sight for any of the already-struggling annuals.

In fact, I’m quite certain that two of the smaller plants are dead, or at least zombies. I hadn’t even shown a photograph of a bloom from the poor traditional flowers — I’d been waiting for them to get bigger. I felt such sadness.

And then, like a scene in a horror movie, I turned slowly to look at my Cinnamon Sunflowers, dread gripping my heart.

The first thing I saw was caterpillar poop, and a lot of it.

Ok, something’s eating my Cinnamon Sunflowers. Looks like a few caterpillars. At this point, I’m still thinking it’s ok — I knew the flowers were larval hosts. I accepted that.

But as I opened my eyes beyond the poop to the damage and destruction above, around, and beyond, my heart started breaking.

I have what I can’t seem to call anything else — an infestation — of literally hundreds of caterpillars of all sizes. I knew by the spines that there was a good chance they were butterfly caterpillars, but still… in those numbers?

Part of me wanted them to be something that I could consider pest caterpillars, so that my moral dilemma could be simpler to deal with and I could find a soapy bucket of water. But no, as near as I can tell, these are the larvae of the Bordered Patch Butterfly. At some point, I am going to have incredible numbers of chrysalises and several dead, once beautiful sunflowers. Was this gorgeous butterfly from just a few weeks ago one of the culprits?

Despite the destruction, I can’t bring myself to dispose of the caterpillars, or feed them to the birds, nothing. Must… love… caterpillars.

I can’t love the butterflies without supporting their eggs and babies. I guess I’m just going to have to watch them devour my plants and hope that the sunflowers, at least the larger ones, will recover.

I thought about moving the Bordered Patch caterpillars over to the Zexmenia, also a host plant. But that’s when I discovered hundreds of caterpillars were over there, too. My beautiful Zexmenia, already getting eaten up, too. Gah! It’s ok, Meredith, it’s ok… planted as a host plant. All good.

Here’s what I want to know: when exactly did these Bordered Patch butterflies show up laying eggs? And OH MY GOSH JUST HOW MANY EGGS CAN THEY LAY? Holy cow. And where are my beneficial predators now, now that I need some ecoystem balancing? Hello birds, stop feasting on my seeds and get yourself some live protein. Leave a few so there’s still a good population of butterflies, please. Why didn’t anyone tell me that Bordered Patch butterflies and their cousins are the rabbits of the butterfly world?!!!

According to some sources online, Straggler’s Daisy, or Horseherb, is a larval host plant for the Bordered Patch. I’ve got plenty of horseherb, so I did try moving some of the caterpillars over. They wouldn’t eat while I was watching, and then the rain came again, so I’ll have to monitor them for awhile before moving the rest over. Cross your fingers — there’s a glimpse of hope for the sunflowers if I can pull this off. I’m not holding my breath for too long, though, since so many other sites didn’t list the little groundcover as a favorite host plant.

Between the masses of caterpillars eating my CinnSuns and the masses of nutsedge and weeds abounding in my garden, I just want to cry. And yet, I’m so happy we’ve had rain — just an absolutely wonderful thing in central Texas during the summer. And I can still smile at the Gulf Fritillary caterpillars on the passionvine.

I saw one starting its chrysalis stage today — it’s a J right now — and I happily discovered a chrysalis hanging from a Mexican Redbud branch. (I also discovered a passionflower bloom in the redbud tree — that pesky vine has done it again!)

But overall I feel like I’m being tested, and I’m not sure whether I’m passing or failing. Passing as a wildlife lover with a high level of tolerance for munchers; passing as a butterfly grower. Failing as a gardener who wants beautiful, intact plants around; failing my new sunflowers. This isn’t my veggie garden– with my tomatoes, it was a war I had to engage in, those hornworms and stink bugs. Now the line in front of me is blurry. Should I be thinking of the crazy numbers of caterpillars as pests or be happy that I’m supporting more butterflies?

No worries, it’s still the latter. I just need to get used to this new concept of caterpillar quantity and re-evaluate my planting methods. Clearly I need more sunflowers so that my plants aren’t so easily overtaken. That will work, right? Learn to share, butterflies!

Hang in there, sunflowers. I know this is tough love from mama.

A smile from a damselfly to cheer us up… 🙂

Bittersweet. That’s what it is. Bittersweet.

Caterpillar Hotel

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Meredith

This weekend I taught all about creating habitats at a conference for kids. As part of the presentation, I brought along this little guy — one of our black swallowtail caterpillars.

Talk about a wonderful assistant — not only did he delight the families in the workshops, but he and I visited with a lot of people as I carried him around during the rest of the conference. It was simply too hot in the car for me to leave him in there, so he got to walk around with me, happily munching on dill set in a bouquet of native TX flowers.

When I got home, I let him go back to his world of giant dill in my backyard. Later I walked around to check on my other caterpillars and to look for more. I’m thrilled to have found our first Gulf Fritillary caterpillar on our Passionvine.
But when I went to check on the new bird poop caterpillars I’d found the day before on my Wafer Ash, I saw with alarm a hornet visiting the leaves of the tree, hunting the same way they hunt the caterpillars on my milkweed. I was relieved to find two of my caterpillars were happily munching on the citrus leaves.

And to my delight, I found lots of eggs all over the tree. Here’s a caterpillar with a few eggs nearby.

But to my horror, my third little caterpillar was dead. My first thought was that a hornet had killed it, but this was a false accusation, because on closer inspection it was clear that my little caterpillar was being feasted upon by two bugs I didn’t recognize. It turns out that they are predatory stink bugs. Predatory stink bugs? I’d never heard of such a thing. And what — they are considered beneficial bugs in the garden, so I can’t get rid of them? I have to just let these stink bugs feast on my caterpillars? Now THAT stinks! I thought having to accept hornets and wasps going after my caterpillars was bad enough. Thinking about it, I saw somewhat similar bugs over on my dill a few days ago. I think I know what’s been contributing to the deaths of some of my swallowtail caterpillars.

Well, I couldn’t bear it the thought of more giant swallowtails falling prey to the terrible sucking tubes of these clearly ferocious predators, so I decided that my remaining caterpillars earned deluxe accommodations in our Caterpillar Hotel, a collapsible laundry basket that has soft, breathable fabric on the sides. It’s perfect, and we’ve had great success so far, with 3 caterpillars going to chrysalis stage. I’ve released one beautiful butterfly already — here it is, a Black Swallowtail just before release.

So I gathered dill and wafer ash for the two caterpillar species and put the plants in a bottle of water. Then I collected my caterpillar assistant and my two adorable bird poop caterpillars. Isn’t it a lovely Caterpillar Bouquet?

Bouquet in the hotel:

Yesterday I wasn’t worried about the Gulf Fritillary (he’s on the other side of the yard), but today I’m having second thoughts and might be checking him into the Caterpillar Hotel as well.

I know I can’t rescue all my caterpillars — nature must take its course — but here and there I don’t mind lending them a helping hand.

It might be time to set out a new banana to distract the hornets and wasps, as well. I’ll add a rotting one for the butterflies — they love it so. HOLD ON — BRILLIANT IDEA — I’ll move the predatory stink bugs to my tomatoes and let them do their thing on my true pest bugs! By Jove, I think she’s got it!

Speaking of butterflies, a new species has entered the garden. Bordered Patch — what a beauty! Unfortunately, my pup scared it off after I grabbed only a couple of shots.

Over on the dill, this damselfly let it all hang out, wings included.

The dill is going to seed. I think it’s still pretty, even when brown. There’s plenty of dill left for the swallowtails, though.

The Cinnamon Sunflower is reaching toward the sky — now officially taller than its neighbor, the Mexican Redbud tree. I hope the tree doesn’t get a complex. Looks like a couple of buds are forming — I can’t wait! The giant sunflowers by the house are still struggling, poor things.

And the pretty Flame Acanthus blooms are flashing red from behind the wispy Big Muhly.

We finally got Mr. Vulture moved — now he looks down on us from our chimney, as he was always meant to do.

He can stand guard over the Caterpillar Hotel.

BogeyMan Freak Out

Posted on June 5, 2010 by Meredith

There’s very little in nature that disturbs me. I can watch with fascination the way predators stalk their prey, study the little bones left behind in owl pellets, and look at snotty-faced hogs like they’re as cute as bunnies.

I adore spiders, all of them.

It would never occur to me to kill one, unless my family was in danger from a venomous one. Some of them make such beautiful webs — incredible works of art and science and skill all rolled into one, though to the spider it’s a just a normal way of life. I’ve walked into more webs and had more spiders in my big mass of hair than I care to admit, but I still love them.

I could cuddle with the biggest of snakes.

I’d probably prefer not to have to outrun a taipan or to fall flat on my face in front of a rattler, but that’s life or death — and that’s different. I guess I’m not a fan of ticks, either, but then who would be? They carry terrible diseases and suck your BLOOD. But they don’t invoke fear in me. Not that feeling of panic that makes you shriek and want to flee far away. Well, there was that time in a deer grove near Uvalde that I looked down to see hundreds of ticks crawling onto my shoes — I’ll say that I did stare for a moment with fascination before doing the big “Get These Terrible Ticks Off Me” dance. None managed to reach my skin, thank goodness.

I study flies and bees and slugs with equal amazement. Animal carcasses you find on a trail? Gross, yes, but the stink would drive me away before the sight would.

People say bats, and I run outside with a camera. I love the feel of slimy earthworms in my hand. I’ve been stung by a scorpion and lived to tell the tale. I’ve dealt with wasp hives and hornets and learned to appreciate the creepy-crawling of the zillion-legged centipede. I’d curl up with a lion if it wouldn’t eat me.

But there is a creature that gets to me. Perhaps that’s a poor way to word it.

The freak-out creature for me used to be a roach. I still remember the horror from my childhood of waking up in my room in the middle of the night, freaky shadows cast on the walls by oleanders outside the louver windows, their leaves and branches swaying eerily in the strong wind. In a moonlit spot on the wall, I saw a dark spot, and as my eyes adjusted I realized it was a the biggest roach I’d ever seen (and living in Corpus Christi at the time, I was no stranger to roaches). But this one was clearly the Big Bad Brown Roach from Dark Forces of Evil, and it was watching me. I could feel its little eyes staring at me from across the room.

I stayed as still as I could, trying to muster the nerve to call out for my mom, or better yet flee. But it held me trapped by its dark gaze, long antennas wiggling all around, and I’d never felt such an intense moment in all the five years of my life. And instinctively I knew something was about to happen, and I grabbed the edge of my blanket in my hands just as that giant roach flew across the room directly at me. FLEW! I had never seen one fly, but this sucker did, and my screams of terror from under my blanket must have woken up the whole neighborhood and probably utterly panicked my poor mother who had to find out what was torturing and trying to kill her youngest daughter.

My grandmother’s house had lots of roaches. Little ones and big ones. Driven by that roach’s attack on my childhood innocence, I went after them with a vengeance whenever I was visiting and saw them. By the way, I can slap a mosquito with the best of them. Grandmother had an infestation of crickets, too, but I could tolerate them somewhat. That reminds me of the year of the grasshoppers, when swarms of giant grasshoppers covered northern Texas, and they’d fly at us across the water when we tried to go sailing, a big white target for long-legged flying green grasshoppers. Shudder. I remember my stepmother shrieking over and over again while holding up a big towel to keep them from landing on her. A few years later, it was the year of the crickets, and stores had to sweep them out by the thousands onto the sidewalks and streets. They’d make a wall look black as they crawled up the sides.

In a biology lab in college, I once had to dissect a live roach. Not those flat little scurrying things we all find to be pests from time to time. No, this was one of those big fat roaches from the southern U.S., Georgia as I recall. We had to basically dismantle it body part by body part, including the fat globs of marshmallow creme, until it was nothing but head and gut tract — and it was still alive! Its little jaws just gnawed away. THIS is why roaches will outlive humans by millions of years.

In case you are wondering, I was a Zoology major in college. We weren’t given a choice about dissecting things, and I won’t list them all here. But the scientist side of me took care of business, and really, the internal organs were just as fascinating as the animals themselves. Bodies in general are works of wonder. Beyond that, I tried not to think too much about what I was doing.

I do recall the Giant Rat in high school. One night I was closing the curtains on our louver windows (I will NEVER willingly have louver windows in my adulthood, given the horrors they bring) when I saw a fat scaly tail hanging from the curtain where the drawstrings were. MOM! A giant rat! Neither of us wanted to try to get it out of there, and it wasn’t budging on its own, and all we could see was that terrible tail dangling. So we decided to leave the door to the garage open to give it a chance to leave on its own (it probably came in through there). And we went to bed. Next thing I knew, my mom was nudging me awake, whispering that the giant rat was in her room. Why on earth she left her bedroom door partly ajar with such a monstrosity loose in the house, I’ll never know. This time we went in with brooms in hand, ready to defend against and drive out the small intruder with giant freaky tail. It turns out that it wasn’t a rat, neither giant nor little, but the cutest little baby possum (sharp teeth and all), and it was just as scared as we were. We gently helped it outside.

But while I might squeal at the sudden scurries of little mice or the unexpected appearance of a snake around a corner, none of it disturbs me, and my reaction turns fast to interest. But the creature of all creatures to utterly unnerve me is this. The Harvestman. The Bogeyman, if you ask me.

Some people call them daddy longlegs, or granddaddy longlegs. But whatever you call them, don’t call them spiders. Because that’s what they are NOT.

The harvestman is an arachnid, yes, but not a spider. Its body segments are closely joined to seem fused into a single oval.

And they’ve got those freakily long legs. If they just stayed still, I could MAYBE get used to them. But…

The way they bob up and down and quiver as they walk, they way they gather in black throbbing blobs on walls, the way they move their long legs around when threatened– EEEEEK. I never really cared for them before, but visiting the narrow cave at Enchanted Rock in college and crawling in dark spaces only to look above and realize the ceiling is quivering, and then to realize with horror that you have thousands of pulsing harvestmen inches from ALL YOUR HAIR, and yeah, that’s what did it for me. The word for the masses is “aggregation,” a term you never want associated with creatures that freak you out.

It’s the quivering. It’s the way they move. I really should capture a video, but I’m feeling pretty weirded out just by how close I had to get to take the pictures. Why? Because when I got close they started to move! They freaked out and started moving and pulsing up and down and then waved their long second legs around like antenna at me, and then I freaked out and I’m just lucky I didn’t fall off the ladder I was standing on. Did you know that the legs can keep twitching after they are detached, due to little pacemakers in the first segment? I read that — I did not try it out. Apparently detaching their twitching leg is actually a defense mechanism to help them escape from predators.

But in researching them, I reluctantly have to admit that they should probably maybe sort of go on the list of a garden’s beneficial creatures. They are predators and scavengers both, and if they’d just stay out of sight, they’d be kind of sort of tolerated in my garden. They can’t hurt me or my family, other than to give me a heart attack! But no, they are currently on my house, and if their numbers start to increase and my heart starts getting that fight or flight feeling too many times, they’re going to have to go. I will not have big quivering wiggling black masses making me relive my cave experience over and over again! THIS IS WHAT NIGHTMARES ARE MADE OF, PEOPLE.

Let’s jump right in with a new poem shall we?

I think that I should never see
A Harvestman coming straight at me
Even worse is what I fear
That thousands of them gather here.
Lurking, bobbing, on the wall
Legs that make them ten-feet tall

FYI, I’m not actually scared of the harvestman. I won’t really run screaming in terror when I see it. But it does creep me out a lot, a LOT, and you won’t catch me hanging out around it for long. They might creep me out, but I don’t really wish them ill will. I just wish them a new location.

So I’ve told a long tale, and in it confessed my nature weaknesses. What in nature freaks you out?

———–

EDIT, same day: A funny thing happened after I wrote this post. I finished saving it and got in the car to head to a swim meet. I was still all creeped out after writing the post and doing all those pictures, so I was still thinking about the effects the harvestmen have on me and I started thinking up new lines for the poem. Well, I was driving on a rather long empty road and a cop pulled me over. It was a beautiful blue snazzy “police chase” kind of car, too — one of those new ones that make your jaw drop. Part of me thought it was kind of cool to be pulled over by the most awesome police car ever. Of course, I was in a mini-van — not so cool. Well, the dialogue went something like this:

Ma’am, do you know why I pulled you over?

Ummmm… (serious pause here) maybe I was driving too fast?

Yes, ma’am — that stretch of road is marked as 45, and you were going 60.

         Oh. (pause) Well, I was thinking about something that had me freaked out. It was
         those harvestmen, those daddylonglegs. And they were all on my house. And they were
         quivering and bobbing, and I’m still creeped out by them. And I guess I didn’t know
         I was driving fast. I’m not a speeder by nature.

Please sign here, ma’am.

Here? Okay.

Thank you, ma’am. Well, this is just a warning about your speed. It would have been a ticket, but in all my years, I’ve heard lots of stories, and I’ve never heard one like that before.

By the way, Austinites, don’t speed on McNeil, that part near the railroad as it heads toward Wells Branch. Mr. Cool Cop Car might be there waiting for you, but if he is, he’s really nice.

Growing Up

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Meredith

I love the rain. Everything just looks so green afterwards.

But even without the heavy rainfall this week, which I was so grateful for (by the way Austinites — you can thank me for the rain on Wednesday because it was my watering day and I got up and watered– Murphy’s Law was in full effect, because the rain showed up that evening… now if you got hail, too, that’s not my fault…), this year we are enjoying massive growth of pretty much everything in the garden. I suppose that sounds reasonable, as in the plant world we are in Year 2, at least for some of our plants — the rest are still young. Following the saying “Sleep, Creep, then Leap” — it is clear that our plants are enjoying a growth spurt!

I am envisioning a garden of giants before long — the thought crossed my mind that I might have to trim some of these back at some point. Whoa, that’s too much for this girl to think about right now.

But take a look at this Rock Rose, one that I don’t even remember planting in that spot. It’s massive. Right now I’m just letting it do its thing, but I’m sure that other gardeners are wisely shaking their head, saying that I’m going to be dealing with lots of little Pavonia babies everywhere and soon. (Here’s where I’ll tell you that one of my other Pavonias already made lots of babies, as I discovered a couple of days ago. And it was a much smaller plant!)

On the plus side, I hope that the natural shade that the larger plants in the butterfly garden will provide this summer will help the smaller ones get through the heat and sun. Downside is that right now everything appears to be the same height. Somewhere in the middle of all that is a Texas Kidneywood, as well as a Barbados Cherry, which at some point should provide the height variation the garden needs. They need to be in their Leap Year, too!

All around the garden, I’ve got new plants I’m excitedly watching. Exotic Love Vine, an annual vine from Mexico and Central/South America, still hasn’t produced any flowers, but I find myself admiring its beautiful leaves everyday. I guess the love effect is already, well, in effect, even without the amazing blooms it hopefully will produce. Maybe they bloom in fall.

Now check out this great stem — hoho, Great Stem.

Now at 4-foot tall, this Cinnamon Sunflower is already bigger than some of my trees. Still no evidence of blooms. The leaves themselves are the biggest leaves of any plant I have on the entire property. For comparison, I placed a Pomegranate leaf on one of the Sunflower leaves — I still don’t think it does it justice.

For the record, the Cinnamon Sunflower’s growth is putting the Giant Sunflower’s growth to shame. I haven’t taken pictures of the Giant yet, so it better do some catching up!

The Passionflower is blooming like mad. I’m still waiting for the Fritillaries to show up.

But here’s a little Phaon Crescent come to visit.

The Purple Coneflowers are doing some strange things this year, but at least they are officially blooming. Some big, some small, some tall, some flat, some wide, some droopy…

This odd Coneflower has a striped appearance.

Speaking of Great Stems (giggle), here’s another one. Check out the thorns on this wee tree, a Toothache Tree, or Prickly Ash. The thorns are currently longer than the stem is wide!

We’re fortunate to have two species growing — Zanthoxylum hirsutum (shown) and Zanthoxylum clava-herculis (very much still a sapling). If you haven’t heard of these trees, they’re fun. Chew on a leaf and your mouth goes numb for a few minutes. Back in the old days, they served to help with toothaches, hence the name. Bonus — a larval host for the Giant Swallowtail butterfly! I look forward to our trees getting bigger.

Venturing back to the butterfly garden, I paused to admire a strawberry-like annual, the Gomphrena, that I spur of the moment planted a couple of weeks ago. It’s a dwarf compared to the older perennials, but I appreciate the red color that was needed in the garden.

And ugh, a decision to make. This rogue not-native Lantana has popped up in the yard near the pond. Now I have to decide whether to pull it. This is why I stick to the native Lantana urticoides/horrida (Texas Lantana–has orange/yellow/red blooms) — I don’t want to contribute to the easily-spread other kind. I know where it came from, too — my neighbor had one. Had. I notice she pulled it out this year.

Over in the veggie garden, I discovered an abundance of peppers! Garden Salsa peppers, and they are inspiring the Mexican meal we will have tonight. I didn’t even see them start out as babies, and here they are.

Meanwhile, their leaves are getting munched by these little culprits — tiny (but pretty) grasshoppers. The admiration stops there. They are munching on my peppers, my tomatoes, and my Exotic Love Vine. Stop it, grasshoppers!

The tomatoes are certainly growing up. They’ve outgrown their cages, keep trying to topple over, and so bushy I’m feeling a little concerned. Next time, I’m going for the big collapsible and way over-priced Texas cages.

The runner beans have grown up past the trellis. I’m hoping we’ll actually get some beans before the heat of the summer really hits us. I feel we’re pushing the season a bit.

And the perennial Bell Pepper is producing fruit again. I look at this plant in wonder — it survived last year’s terribly hot summer, made it through fall and winter without any attention from me, and here it is, still growing. I didn’t know they could do that. Talk about pushing seasons!

Plants aren’t the only things growing up around here. I’m about to have a teenager in the house (egads). And at 12, he’s already 6-feet tall. We’re going to do a final “kid” measure tomorrow, the day before he turns 13.

And these fledgling cardinals showed up this morning. Three of them. I love how their feathers are in transition. Mama and papa should be proud! You can tell my blood sugar was dropping at the time — the camera was shaking! I’d eaten breakfast, but only just. Not enough time to hit the bloodstream, I guess.

I’m pleased that birds are finally starting to pay attention to the thistle feeder. I abandoned the thistle socks awhile back due to the damage the eager birds were doing — I kept having to replace the feeders. But wow, they did love those socks. It’s not off the project list — I just needed a regular feeder to keep around constantly.

Yeah, I see you squirrel. I know what you’re up to. Yeah, I know you see me, too. And yes, I saw you on the birdfeeder this morning. I noticed the young squirrel nearby, too, watching you do it. Naughty squirrel.

So the organic garden is growing up. The birds are growing up. The squirrels are growing up. My kids are growing up. And I guess the evidence is there that this gardener is growing up, too. If I haven’t already done it, I guess I have to do away with my newbie status officially, my crutch when I don’t know what in the world is going on in my garden. But the greenery around means I must have done something right, newbie or not. If in doubt, add compost — that’s my motto! I’m loving it and ready for more.

For a look back at the garden beginnings through its first year, visit this page.