Water is key

After such a long hot summer and the dreadful heat (there's no other word for it) of the last 3 weeks, water in the garden is essential for the 'backyard' wildlife.






















The birdbath and the two additional dishes on the ground are avidly visited by birds of all sorts, squirrels, and perhaps even a chipmunk or two. I surprised a chipmunk returning from my walk a couple of mornings ago. This evening, a blue jay, not a usual visitor to the birdbath, was taking a drink.

With natural water in such short supply, it's interesting to observe how much our 'backyard' critters rely on the water we provide. It's a bit of work keeping the birdbath and dishes clean and filled up almost on a daily basis, but nice to see how it's being used so much.

I just wish it would rain. It's so odd that there are floods and continuous downpours in the Midwest, and we're in the worst heat recorded historically. The heat's so extreme, the drought isn't mentioned so much in the media, yet. Those of us who are gardeners and outdoors people realize how bad it really is. It means that fruits don't develop, leaves drop off prematurely, and lots of people who aren't noticing are going to lose plants in their landscapes.

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The nature in gardening

We're fortunate to have a welcoming and peaceful garden, with lots of space. It suits us well. We've tried to re-create the sense of nature -- of 'being in the woods' -- from our part of the world, the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The yard definitely wasn't lovely when we started, being nothing much more than a vast expanse of lawn punctuated by a few large trees, so we have the satisfaction of having nurtured it ourselves. The journey of becoming gardeners as well as botanists (there is a distinct difference between botanists, horticulturists, and gardeners, for sure) and taking pleasure in the rapid growth of many plants is continuing, as we worry about this year's drought and drag the hoses around.

Our garden is largely a native one, but still is suffering from the lack of rain, especially some species. The Joe-Pye that I love because of its attractiveness to butterflies is more than sadly droopy in the afternoon heat, in spite of all the extra water we've given it, even in the low-lying swale. The pleasure that I have being out in the garden is such a respite from stressful days. And the view from my study window makes up for being behind the computer. Noticing things like a sudden descent of a group of blackbirds gives me a break from whatever is demanding my attention.

I had an experience this summer that I was reminded of recently. In DC for a conference, each morning as I walked to the conference hotel, I passed an activity center for homeless people. By eight am, a good number of people were outside waiting for the center to open. One morning, I noticed a middle-aged woman digging in a small bed she had created next to the building. She was 'planting' weeds in small holes that she had carefully dug. She looked up at me as I walked by, and beamed.

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Monarchs flying through

Seeing more butterflies now is encouraging after so many weeks of none to few. The monarchs are one of the signs that fall is coming, a welcome thought in these weeks of upper 90° weather, parched earth, drooping plants, and no rain in sight.


Monarchs spend the winter in north-central Mexico and the fall and spring migration usually comes through South Carolina. The last temperate zone generation of adults triggered by the short days and cooler temperatures are the ones that make the final flight, the successive generations fueled by the cycles from adult to egg, caterpillar, and chrysalis, all on milkweed. Their visits to nectar-rich flowers are fun to watch, especially in light of the remarkable migration that occurs. Here was a monarch visiting a zinna -- a great butterfly flower because of easy perching and abundant nectar.

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Tromboncino squash vines

Tromboncino squash are really amazing. I first tried them as a squash vine borer-resistant zucchini-like squash. Here in SC, my yellow squash and zucchini efforts have resulted in only a few fruits before the vines succumb to borers. But Tromboncino squash are tough customers-- a different species than zucchini and yellow squash, and hailing from Italy and the Mediterranean (they're actually related to winter squash, Cucurbita moschata 'Tromba d'Albenga'), they grow robust, sprawling vines that root at the nodes, and their stems are borer-resistant. Unfortunately, in the satellite garden, where I've had two years of rampant vine growth (and abundant squash production), the hungry woodchucks have been nibbling any plants I put out there to the ground. So I transplanted some fresh seedlings from my main vegetable garden, and have been training the vines on the fence.

Notice the growth in the transplanted vine along the fence in the picture above!

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Butterflies and caterpillars

I've been watching tiger swallowtails do their spiral courtship dance near the phlox this morning. The black one is the female, the yellow the male. She'll lay her eggs on all sorts of host plants -- tulip poplar, ash, and black cherry, among others. It's great to see some butterflies now after such a poor season to date. The April freeze followed by drought must have really taken its toll on butterflies, since they've been conspicuously absent up until now.

One of my first forays into gardening as an adult was gardening for butterflies. In spite of being a biologist, I had no idea of what caterpillars or butterflies ate, not much about their life cycles, and certainly little about their feeding preferences. My fellow students did pollination projects, and my best friend reared caterpillars in plastic bags as part of her research, but I was oblivious to the nuances.

But, starting to learn about butterflies, their host plants, and caterpillars was fascinating, and I quickly became hooked. Expanding my attention to all sorts of garden insects, birds, and other wildlife was the next step and has been wonderful fun.

Only just now am I starting to see the striped caterpillars of black swallowtail butterflies, here munching on a fennel flower in the vegetable garden.

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Passionflowers and carpenter bees

At mid-day in the meadow, the passionflowers open up. Our native passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) is a lovely sprawling vine (sometimes a bit too sprawling, but it's easily pulled up when it gets out of hand). Each flower only lasts for a day, fading quickly. They're pollinated by carpenter bees, who drink the nectar pooled at the base of the flowers. I noticed this bee busily working one of the flowers about noon. Check out the pollen on its back! It's such a great example of how flower shape is adapted to promote cross-pollination. As the carpenter bee takes up nectar, pollen is continuously brushed on its back, to be transferred to the next flower visited.

This bee had so much pollen on its back that it was getting down around its mouthparts. Apparently, the pollen doesn't taste good, so she/he busily cleaned up, taking a break from nectar drinking.

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Yard long beans and ants

I've loved growing yard long beans (Vigna unguiculata ssp. sesquipedalis) for the last few years; they're so unusual-looking, productive, and tasty, with the added bonus of beautiful flowers and attractive foliage. I first noticed yard long beans in Asian markets, marveling at their size and the flexibility of the pods. They're incredibly heat-tolerant, being native to Africa, and are easy to grow. (They were first domesticated somewhere in North Africa, and then spread throughout Africa, India, and Asia. In the process, cowpeas and yard long beans were selected for their different characteristics.) Interestingly, an older gardener in Belton told me that her mother grew yard long beans here in SC, perhaps the field pea relative that's also viney. Cowpeas are documented to have been brought from Africa by slaves. Yard long beans (also commonly called asparagus beans) can be snipped up and cooked like green beans, and have a lovely taste. Another nice aspect is their beautiful flowers, which have extrafloral nectaries visited actively by ants.

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