Insects in My Neighborhood in April

I have seen both beneficial insects and insect pests in my neighborhood this month. Here are some I was able to capture with my camera.

Insect Friends

I and my neighbors have many herbs that provide forage for bees and other welcome insect visitors. I love hearing my herbs buzz. Below is a happy bee on my rosemary. The bees are also enjoying my black sage. 

Below is a butterfly enjoying my black sage. They don't mind sharing the sage with the bees.

I was very happy when I saw a ladybug on my wormwood yesterday, but I was unable to get a photo because I was working and didn't have my camera handy. I do have a photo of a ladybug on a vetch plant not far from home, though.

Insect Pests

The reason I was so happy to find the ladybug yesterday is because my calendula plants have been attacked by aphids this month. Ladybugs love to eat aphids. I hope the ladybug I saw will stick around and bring friends. I tore out this plant and another heavily infested calendula to try to keep them from getting any worse. There's still plenty left for the ladybugs. 

I also started seeing baby boxelder bugs yesterday. I didn't have my camera near me, but these bugs visit in droves every year. They get worse in fall. The photo below shows a mature boxelder bug on what I believe is a borage leaf. They don't do much damage, but they can be pests. 

If you enjoyed this post, please share it. The sharing buttons are just above the comment box at the end of this post. The photo below is especially designed for pinning. 

This is my ninth post for the 2016 AtoZchallenge, a Blogging Challenge for the month of April, 2016. My theme is Things You Can See or Experience in North San Luis Obispo County. Here are links to the other posts if you missed them.

A is for Acorn
B is for Barney Schwartz Park
C is for Cattle in Wine Country
D is for Dark Star Cellars
E is for Electric Wires
F is for Family Farms
G is for Graveyard Vineyards

H is for Horses

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The Garden is Full of Surprises

It's beginning to look like spring in Paso Robles. Not only are there trees flowering on the streets and in neighbors' yards, but the plants that have been awaiting nature's call are beginning to wake up and bloom. The garden is full of surprises. 

To the right you see my irises waking up. Two days ago I could see the buds that had not yet shown their purple color. Five days ago there was actually one flower near these buds, but it faded before I could get out with my camera. One flower appeared in this particular clump of irises last year in December, but my purple irises usually don't flower until April. Here's another view of this iris patch taken today.

It's not just irises. Rosemary is beginning to show more blue flowers and on the top the blue is winning over the green. This will make the bees very happy. The black sage plant you see behind the irises is also just beginning to produce some open flowers. The calendula never seems to sleep, but since the rain it is producing some of the largest blooms I've seen all year. Here's one of them.

The biggest surprise of all I discovered in my garden was what you see below.

Just after I planted some kale seeds I had collected last week before the rain, I discovered this plant growing a long distance from the mother plant I'd collected seeds from before I pulled the plant out. This is where the mother plant was in June last year. You can see it flowering and making seeds. I like collecting and saving my own seeds. 

You will notice the kale is growing in front of the house. At the back right you can see the garage wall. To get to where that photo of the kale volunteer plant was taken, you would need to  walk around the garage and across the driveway -- not a very direct route for the wind to blow the seeds. 

Had I planted the seeds myself in the poor soil at the edge of that clump of gazanias that gets nothing but rain water, I doubt if they would have sprouted. Who would choose a place like that to plant? God did. It appears the plant is thriving with no help from me at all. Nature never fails to amaze me. 

Bloom Where You Are Planted Mug
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I Saw My First Butterfly This Year Today

It's amazing how almost all my sages are blooming now, but the one that gets the most visits from the widest variety of insects seems to be this black sage plant. The bees always flock around it. At dusk swarms of moths have been flitting from blossom so fast I couldn't see more than the whir of their wings. Today, though, I saw my first butterfly. It was camera shy and fast, but I did catch it in a few poses. This first one is a side view with the wings slightly spread.

This view shows how skillfully the butterfly can camouflage itself in the blossoms of the black sage. Although it shows a completely different color when its wings are spread and you can see the upper side, it blends right in when it's wings are closed like this.










I finally was able to capture this butterfly with its wings spread, and that helped me identify it as a Painted Lady. It may be an American Painted Lady. But it's definitely not the Monarch I had thought it was before I looked it up.




What butterflies are you seeing this spring?

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