A Walk Through The Fall Garden

This morning in my walk through the garden, I noticed a few more migratory butterflies. I mentioned earlier the Monarchs were hitting my garden around September on their way to Central America and now I have two more species that are trying to find warmer weather. The Common Buckeye (below) is commonly found in the Northern United States and Canada. In the fall they migrate south in response to light and temperature where the overwinter in larvae form.

common buckeye

enjoying morning sun in my lantana patch

 The second butterfly is the Gulf Fritillary. This species named for the Gulf region can live year around in southern climates, but usually fly to the midwest in spring and then migrate back south in the fall. They are distinct for their feeding patterns, mostly the passion vine and their cocoon that looks like a dead leaf.

gulf fritillary on lantana

 Some bloomers right now, mid October, are the salvia's. I wait all year for these 8-10 inch yellow blooms to tower over my perennials.

giant yellow salvia

cardinal spires a hummingbird favorite

mexican sage with giant salvia and a volunteer cosmos..stunning color

red shrimp plant a simple bloom and pretty chartreuse green stem and leaf

again mexican sage, yellow salvia and firecracker bush to the left

and we can't forget about the simple bloomers...good ol' begonia, a repeat volunteer four o'clocks and butterfly ginger all in white. Lastly the beautiful white bloom of the chinese snowball viburnum.

begonia

white wonderful smelling ginger

simple volunteer four o clock

chinese viburnum

So just to give you a heads up...upcoming blogs winter seeding in the greenhouse, how to create a bird feeding station, hydroponic strawberry bed, how to make a diy filter for pond and diy fairy garden.

Happy Gardening!
Nicki