Echineacea blooms attract butterflies! #naturephotography

 

To attract birds and butterflies we added six more pink native Echinacea to our front yard garden. The bunnies trimmed a few for us; but, left us a few with buds. One just started blooming! We've been enjoying the butterflies that Echinacea attracts.

Shown above was a female Monarch visitor yesterday. This morning we spotted an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on that particular bloom. Before the season is over we will surely see bright yellow goldfinches too; they also love Echineacea pupurea coneflowers.

Happy Gardening!

Related Links
How to identify a Monarch butterfly

Photos and blog post Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.

Kayaking lesson in NJ Pinelands with Harry! @PinesAdventures @PinesAlliance #fun #physicalactivity

Smile Harry!

Harry and I learned basic kayaking skills in an introductory 3-hour class yesterday hosted by Pinelands Adventures in Shamong, NJ. No one in our group tipped over. If we can do it, you can do it! The weather was perfect too, as you can see in the photos. For us, this great outdoor activity was even a better workout than canoeing.

We decided to try kayaking since our canoe is too big for some of the twisting and turning rivers here in NJ. A smaller, 8-13 foot kayak can better maneuver than a 16.5 foot canoe.

Before we began, as with any outdoor sport in the summer, we made sure to start with eating a hearty breakfast. We took our hiking water bottles filled with plenty of fresh water to stay hydrated in the hot afternoon sun. We also packed bananas for a healthy snack along with good 'ol PB and J for lunch. 

Here is a really short video clip that I took during a break while floating on the water. There were songbirds, turtles and lots of yellow blooming water lilies.

We practiced our newly learned paddle strokes on Paradise lake, a calm, quiet and peaceful, private lake that was once a cranberry bog. Special thanks to John Volpa for teaching us.
 
This was our third event at Pinelands Adventures. We look forward to going back for more fun and adventures. Maybe our next trip will be a self-guided kayak paddling trip.

Photos, video and blog post Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.

Our tallest flowering plant; blooming now through fall! Cup plant #gardening #nativeplants

Cup plant Blooms

Daisy-like, yellow, native garden Cup plants (Silphium perfoliatum) are blooming now through fall in our NJ garden. Cup plants grow even taller than Jerusalem Artichokes, which are tall too. We have them both growing together on the edge of our veggie garden.

Cup plants prefer wet soil, but can grow in average soil. With all the rain we've been having, our Cup plants are thriving; they grow as tall as 9 feet!

The name comes from the way the leaves wrap around the thick stems making a "cup" that water collects in. A little watering hole for birds and insects.

Photograph and blog post Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.

Today in Our Garden #GardenCuizine #gardening CANCER WARNING on my gardening gloves... say what?

Today in Our Garden

July 14, 2019

We've had a great gardening weekend, as always! I was hoping to attend Pat Sutton's garden tour yesterday, but we didn't get our reply registered in time. Maybe we will make it next year. As it turned out we got a lot done in our own wildlife friendly, native garden.

We added a few new stepping stones in Harry's Native Pocket Meadow. Recently, we have been diligently weeding out invasive mugwort. 

Check out the video I posted on Twitter this morning. Click here. Native plants in the video include: Hairy Mountain Mint, Woodland Sunflower, Blazing Star Liatris, Echinacea and Big Blue Stem grass.

Our lizards weren't out yet at the time of my video. We have lizards everywhere in the front and back yard. They are friendly and like the sound of human voices. They wait until the concrete stones are nice and hot from the sun before they emerge from their hiding places. I did get another video clip with a Lizzy. Stay tuned. I'll post it asap.

Yesterday, we got the supplies we were looking for; Harry replaced another rotted out raised bed. Raised beds made w/wood don't last forever. Wood rots and gets termites. We had some cedar planks that rotted and needed to be replaced. We bought concrete corner pieces and wood at Home Depot for the new bed (shown in photo above).

I also bought a much needed pair of new garden gloves. I was shocked that they came with a cancer warning!! Say what? ...Go figure, a cancer warning on gardening gloves! I found that really strange. I got the gloves at Home Depot and they said: WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov on the label. Had I read the label before I got them I would not have gotten them. I still have no idea what in the world is in my gardening gloves that could lead to cancer. Why would Home Depot even carry them? "Made in China"...

I took Mom out for a garden tour today! She hasn't been out back in a while. Here are a few photos of our outing. Lots of butterflies and blooms; we had fun!

 Blog post and photos Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.