Learning to See the Beauty of Nature in Our Gardens
My family spent the day hiking the trails at the Cincinnati Nature Center in Milford, Ohio this past Saturday. It was a beautiful, perfect day to get some fresh air and snap photos of all the new life popping up in the woods and at the ponds. The amphibians have already been busy laying masses […]
I think it’s safe to say that those of us who do not live in Florida are sick and tired of shoveling snow this winter. I for one am dreaming of Spring in a big way! So I was looking through some of my photos from years gone by and thought I would share […]
This is the time of year I think most of us gardening folk are itching to get back out there tending to our plants and critters. I’ve been taking inventory of my seeds, shopping around for new bee boxes and bird houses and mentally designing new flower beds. Since my brother and I spend so […]
After nearly 20 years of gardening to support butterflies, I would have to say that our native eastern purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) are the cornerstone of our (myself and my brother’s) butterfly gardens. Our beautiful wildlife gardens would not be complete without these hardy flowers. They are generally pest and disease free plus they […]
I hope everyone had a beautiful Thanksgiving weekend with their families. I found these photos in my archives and thought they would be perfect for the season. I love to do “set-up” shots to highlight seasonal themes . . . colorful gourds being some of my favorite subjects. My brother built an arbor this year […]
When I was a kid my grandmother had an annual tradition of collecting native bittersweet vines (Celastrus scandens) for her fall bouquets and harvest decorations. Mom, Granny and my brother and I would pile into the station wagon and drive down country roads and other out-of-the-way wild places and fenced farm fields in search […]
The scientific name for this tiny insect is the varied carpet beetle (Anthrenus verbasci). Carpet beetles are pests in the home and in natural history museums. The adult beetles eat pollen and nectar, but their larvae feed on biological fibers from carpets, clothing, feathers, plus insect and animal collections. Carpet beetle larvae hatch from eggs […]
Lacewings are delicate insects that are considered to be beneficial to your garden. I’ve observed them in my beautiful wildlife garden during the day and at night. To the casual observer they appear to be clumsy fliers, but that may serve as a survival technique. From what I’ve read, they have sensory organs at the […]
Question Mark butterflies can be elusive if you don’t know how to attract them to your beautiful wildlife garden. They are drawn more to sap runs (often created by woodpeckers) and rotting fruit than the flowers in your yard. If you have a plum or cherry tree you may see these and other butterflies feeding […]
This “weed” is a host plant Honeyvine milkweed (Cynanchum laeve) is a vigorous, perennial trailing vine that is native to our eastern and central states. Some people consider it to be a nuisance “weed”, but I call it Monarch caterpillar food. Hardy hearts I like the honeyvine’s heart-shaped leaves and the fact that I never […]
This month I’ve decided to share a new discovery made by my brother Wayne in his beautiful wildlife garden. He found a very interesting insect sitting next to a chair inside his screened-in gazebo. We had never seen anything quite like it before. The eyes looked like those of a lacewing, the forelegs resembled a […]
