Gardeners! Share your garden photos and garden chatter here.

[SquarePeg]

New flush of blooms on the Scentsation honeysuckle. I’m sitting on my deck reading and I can smell the fragrance from here. Heavenly! Now if I can just get that blue jay to STFU!

 

[terri]

You just have the magic touch with honeysuckle, @SquarePeg - first the Major Wheeler and now this stuff! Wow.

I did snip off several of those pods on my Scentsation, but left several just to see how it plays out. I do like those pretty little red berries it makes - too bad the birds don't seem to like them.

Oh - and the sign is fabulous!

 

[cgw]

Backyard tree hydrangea. Horrifically bad air quality yesterday worked like a warming filter!

View attachment 289306

 

[SquarePeg]

Some late summer flowers finally blooming in the garden. We had about 3” of rain the other day and everything just exploded into bloom afterwards. No matter how much we water there is no substitute for rainfall!

Zinnias! California giants (left) and Elegans (r)

Bishop of Canterbury dahlia

Jowey Frambo dahlia

Gladiolus - this years are gigantic

Cardinal flower

Cosmos taking over the butterfly garden

Another clematis - had to cut it down to the crown at the end of June after it started to die out from clematis wilt. It climbed about 7’ up to the roof of the shed. I was just happy to see some new growth - so surprising to also get blooms!

Still not a lot of butterflies this year. A couple of hummingbirds fighting over the honeysuckle but I don’t have my long zoom back from Fuji yet so no pics

 

[cgw]

Endless amusement for my soon-to-be 98 yr-old FIL after we dropped a large buddleja off at the family ruin a few days ago. Box seat at his kitchen window. Pretty insect magnet!

 

[SquarePeg]

Endless amusement for my soon-to-be 98 yr-old FIL after we dropped a large buddleja off at the family ruin a few days ago. Box seat at his kitchen window. Pretty insect magnet!

Even my butterfly bushes are ignored by the butters this year. I wonder if there’s some type of predator in my garden that I haven’t spotted. Definitely have a lot more birds this year than previously.

 

[cgw]

Even my butterfly bushes are ignored by the butters this year. I wonder if there’s some type of predator in my garden that I haven’t spotted. Definitely have a lot more birds this year than previously.

This one was minutes back from the nursery. Plopped it down and two monarchs and a hummingbird moth checked in immediately. Birds? Busloads of chickadees. Goldfinches, flickers,
woodpeckers large and small, robins, grackles, and Cooper's Hawks to thin the herds. Last winter was long and tough and suspect reproductive rates went up. Tons of bunnies this spring, too.

 

[Rickbb]

I’ve noticed a big drop in butterflies flies and hummingbirds this year in my area, like 90% drop.

I’ve only seen 3 monarchs and maybe a dozen swallow tails. Unusually I have dozens of swallow tails and skippers per day. Some days none on the flowers at all this year.

Bumblebees, hummingbird moths, native bees are also way down.

I hope it’s not a continuing trend for next year.

 

[SquarePeg]

This one was minutes back from the nursery. Plopped it down and two monarchs and a hummingbird moth checked in immediately. Birds? Busloads of chickadees. Goldfinches, flickers,
woodpeckers large and small, robins, grackles, and Cooper's Hawks to thin the herds. Last winter was long and tough and suspect reproductive rates went up. Tons of bunnies this spring, too.

Sounds like the exact same contingent of birds that we have here on the daily. Also, a lot of Cardinals and Blue Jays. And many many many doves.

I’ve noticed a big drop in butterflies flies and hummingbirds this year in my area, like 90% drop.

I’ve only seen 3 monarchs and maybe a dozen swallow tails. Unusually I have dozens of swallow tails and skippers per day. Some days none on the flowers at all this year.

Bumblebees, hummingbird moths, native bees are also way down.

I hope it’s not a continuing trend for next year.

Exact same here! Last year, no matter when I went out to the garden I would always spot at least one or two butterflies, especially the swallowtails. Monarchs Didn’t really show up until late in the season last year. This year I’ve seen two monarchs, and maybe five swallowtails the entire season.

Hummingbirds Have been pretty steady, but no hummingbird moths this year and many fewer bees than previous years.

 

[Jeff15]

 

[cgw]

Spider Plant(Cleome)
Annuals from seed experiment(2025)

View attachment 289346

 

[terri]

After an 11-day gestation in the chrysalis, when I stepped out this morning to check on it, I saw this:

This butterfly was ready to be born!

Since a hot sun was coming up, I decided to move the cage indoors. By the time I set it down, we had progess:

A few more minutes of struggling to open up the wings:

And there we were!

I returned the cage outside in the shade and let her think about life for a few hours.


Once she (I confirmed that by the absence of the black dots when I got a full wingspan later) started fluttering around a little bit, it was time to release her.

She seemed reluctant to be drawn from the cage but I finally got her clear and she immediately went aloft to the nearest tree.

I saw her fluttering around a little while ago. It's been a good day.

 

[terri]

We weren't overwhelmed with butterflies this summer - but they were steady every day and there was nice variety. Many more Monarchs this year - I'm guessing the additional swamp milkweed plants are to thank. They also liked the coneflowers and the buttonbush.

The coneflowers did very well and are still blooming, and I regularly see Monarchs, a few black swallowtails, a few eastern tiger Swallowtails, and lots of bumblebees.

A resident a few streets up had beehives; I blame the drop of honeybees on the fact that they sold the house and the new owners asked for the hives to be removed. I still have a lot of honeybees out there, but not the swarms I used to see.

Oh! I also saw a juvenile Baltimore oriole at the feeder! I've been weaning the small locals (finches, sparrows) off of the jelly for the last few weeks, so there happened to be some jelly in the feeder. The local feedstore said several people have reported seeing them. Apparently the adult Orioles have largely hit the road but the juveniles are enjoying their stay this year. Yay!

 

[cgw]

Woodland Tobacco
Annuals from Seed Experiment 2025

 

[SquarePeg]

My red bee balm is still going strong. First blooms were before the end of June so it’s been blooming for almost 7 weeks straight. I experimented this year by cutting back about a third of the outer stems just when they started to bud so it had an initial bloom of 2/3s in the center of the plant. I dead headed those as the outer stems bloomed and now we have the dead headed stems blooming again in the center. I’m dead heading the outer stems as they fade so we may even see a 4th round of blooms at some point if the hot weather holds. It’s a bit messy looking because of all the pruning and dead heading but I like a bit of a chaos vibe in the garden.