Saturday, August 30, 2008

Success!! We Have Black Swallowtails!

Well, if the monarchs won't turn out (as if I were baking cookies!), the swallowtails will. The wife and I came home last night after dinner to see a black swallowtail paw-ing at the roof of his enclosure. The other swallowtail chrysalis outside was already vacated--it hadn't been in the morning. What timing. Reminds me of a few weeks ago when two monarch cats were within a foot of each other, venturing out on to the lawn.

So after some sub par pics--see below--we released the swallowtail (a female I think) into the great unkown. And what did the little ingrate do? Just took off to the empty lot next door and beyond. It bypassed all my lovely butterfly bushes and coneflowers and asters and....

After the butterfly pics, why not engorge yourself with my asiatic lilies, blooming late because I planted the bulbs around July 4th.

And I just picked up some new books: Planting Noah's Garden: Further Adventures in Backyard Ecology by Sara Stein, and Planting the Natural Garden by Piet Oudulf, so potentially more cerebral posts (which I know I've been lacking) may be coming in a few weeks--or I might just keep posting "fluff" posts about fragile flying insects while I bang out my dissertation and grade poems / essays. Oh, what to do.



4 comments:

Frances, said...

OOH, Piet O., my new favorite garden designer guy. I agree with his vision and am trying, trying, trying to get this garden to reflect that. Have so much fun with it and let those butterflies sow their wild oats before returning to your offerings. That mantid is a little creepy, what is he, an albino?

Anonymous said...

Finally, good news! Congratulations.

Unknown said...

Congrats! I love that picture of the mantis... he looks like he's a confection, all sugared up like that. (Yeah, I know, it's dew. Whatever.)

What's that first lily, the one with the white and the dark burgundy colors all together on the petals? I really like that one in particular...

Benjamin Vogt said...

Frances--Actually, outside, he looked green to me, but maybe that's albino? He was big, and thankfully a good distance from the monarch cats, for now.
OFB--Finally, indeed!
Kim--Isn't it cool, that lily? I like it even better than 'Landini,' and I'd been urgently hungry for Mr. L for a year. It's 'Netty's Pride' http://www.dutchgardens.com/Netty+s%20Pride%20Asiatic%20Lily/31517,default,pd.html. I think from now on I'm going to plant new asiatic bulbs on July 1, on purpose, just to get a "2nd" flush of these in late summer.