Adult Monarch on Tithonia (Photo credit:http://palmraeurbanpotager.com)
The biggest highlight in my garden this week happened today when I spotted a Monarch butterfly sipping zinnia and globe thistle! A rare sighting, as they have nearly disappeared from my area, it totally made my day, week and month! (The above is a photo from fellow blogger Robbie’s garden as I didn’t manage to get a shot of my special visitor.)
Here are just a few of the floral highlights in my garden this week :
Papaver somniferum and Echinacea purpurea alba
The very last of the poppies– the bees and I will miss them. The coneflowers are coming in to replace them.
Sweet Pea (Lathyrus odoratus)
The sweet peas continue to please with color and fragrance.
Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’
Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ has big mop heads up to 18″ across that will eventually turn lime green and make a nice dried flower for winter.
Hosta blossom
Hosta are putting forth their lavender and white blossoms, which attract the hummingbirds. I hear their delightful squeaks and the zoom of their wings as they whiz past.
Two of the four dahlias I bought this year are blooming. Aren’t they gorgeous?
Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus)
I love seeing the cheerful sunflowers at the back of the summer border. The goldfinches are happy about them, too, and have already been inspecting them for ripening seeds.
Ligularia ‘The Rocket’
Lastly, three clumps of Ligularia ‘The Rocket’ are lighting up the shade garden with their golden candles.
That’s the best of best here for this week. What’s lighting up your gardens lately?
Eliza Waters 
wat an awesomE butterflY shoT! 🙂
Thanks go to my friend!
Beautiful shots Eliza, I love that orange dahlia, and I miss mine.
Thank you, Karen. Your spring is coming soon!
I know, I am impatient.
I understand that – esp. well in 6 months! 😉
We have a family of hummingbirds that drop by our study window at least daily. I think they’re studying us. We wave and say, ‘Hi’, and they go on their way … magnificent creatures. 🙂
Love it! They are curious creatures.
Thanks for all the colors!
You’re welcome – my pleasure!
Amazing shot. So beautiful.
Thank you, Gigi.
Looks beautiful, gorgeous flowers. Monarch is such a magnificent butterfly.
Thank you!
That yellow-rosy red Dahlia is spectacular! I rarely catch photos of the butterflies in my garden either but a sighting always lightens my heart. My resident hummers are a feisty lot and seem to spend more time chasing one another from the feeder outside our kitchen window than they do sipping from flowers or the feeder.
Thanks, Kris. Hummers seem to bicker around sugar feeders, but not so much around flowers. I don’t care for that incessant fighting (it seems they are wasting their energy – but heck, if it’s sugar-water, it’s high test) so I don’t keep feeders. I offer lots of flowers instead. 🙂
I have had no luck with dahlias! Yours are fabulous and I love your hydrangeas. Robbie is to be congratulated on that butterfly shot…Wow!
Thank you, Lisa. Yes, Robbie shot is amazing. It glows! She lives in the best area of the country for monarchs – their numbers are the highest in the Midwest.
Gorgeous gorgeous!!
Thank you, Mary. 🙂
What a gorgeous garden and captures. The Monarch is a beauty!
Thank you, Cindy. Do you get monarchs at the Holler?
Beautiful set of flowers!
Thank you, Mike!
Oh those dahlias!
🙂 IKR?
Beautiful poppies and sweet peas! Mine are just starting to come up, so something to look forward to. I’ve been out dividing Heleniums, and was enjoying the first Paper Whites and Winter Cheer Narcissi, Muscari, and Hellebores. This morning there were baby lambs on the lawn, the combination of a loose fence and a not usually open gate. 🙂
Thank you, Cath. You paint a lovely scene in your garden right now. Spring bulbs and lambs gamboling on the lawn! 🙂
Nice shot. I’m still watching here in IA. No Monarch in my yard yet.
That monarch shot was taken two years ago by my friend from the Twin City area. Are you near there? Minnesota and Wisconsin has some, I’ve heard. Their numbers really are precarious. Although last winter was good, one bad winter could tip the balance. They need something like 10 good years to regain their numbers. Fingers crossed.
Not near, but southeast of Twin Cities and east of Des Moines. Some friends have seen them recently.
A real treat for the eyes!
Thank you, Belinda. I feel happy every time I look at it!
Love the papaver and so nice to see dahlia’s again…love them.
Thanks very much – they are among my favorites.
Reblogged this on Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie.
Thank you kindly for reblogging!
Beautiful. Especially love that first photo and the last – Ligularia is new to me and looks stunning in the filtered sunlight. 🙂
Thank you very much, Cathy. The friend that gave me the Ligularia just visited and was pleased by how well they had adjusted to their new home. They put on a nice show!
You have a beautiful garden, Eliza. Mine has little in it yet except the occasional cow, but the butterflies have found my tiny flower bed 🙂
Thank you, Sue. If there are cows, then you have that magical ingredient nearby: compost! 😉 I envy you starting a new garden, it is exciting to design and dream!
I have ahuge, full compost bin…and the local manure… but just one little flower bed.With things all up in the air now with Nick’s plans, I may hold off making more… I’ve no idea how long I’ll be here. If all goes well for Nick and his Em, the north calls.
A lovely bouquet; and a butterfly shot to make anyone’s century 🙂
🙂 Thank you, Derrick!
Lovely
Thank you.
This should have been two posts because I was in awe and could hardly get past the first photo. That needs an enlargement, frame, and a wall where you can look at it every day. 🙂
Thank you, Judy. I love that photo – the monarch glows!
such a lovely colourful palette in your garden, Eliza!
Thank you, Ann. Bright colors show well from a distance. 🙂
Wonderful pictures, and so happy about the Monarch.
Thanks so much!
Beautiful, Eliza – every photo tells a story! I haven’t seen a monarch yet, although I have lots of spicebush and yellow swallowtails. I lost most of the Asclepius over the winter and just replaced it, maybe I’ll get lucky attracting monarchs next year now that I have food for them 🙂
The northeast corridor for monarch migration was the hardest hit. I so hope we can turn the population around. I think it is up to us gardeners to provide the food necessary, so I’m glad you’re planting Asclepias.
My
🙂
I love your dahlias – this is the first year I have had them survive (they look awesome). I bought a $5 hydrangea that looked sad, but it has started to grow and I think it will be money well-invested. I am hoping next year it will be gorgeous!
I always check the bargain table to see if there are any plants worth rescuing. It is always gratifying to see them survive and thrive. I hope your hydrangea is grand!
It is nice to save a plant – or at least give it a try!
Yes!
I love anyone who has a butterfly make their day, week, month! 🙂 Such a great spirit, Eliza.
Thanks, Kim. Simple pleasures, eh? 🙂
Monarch of the garden. What a beauty! As are all the flowers featured.
Thank you, Laurie. I was so thrilled with the monarch sighting.
Everything is looking wonderful – particularly like that Ligularia
Thank you! summer is just the best!
A visual treat!
Thank you!
How lovely to spot a Monarch in your garden! They show up here occasionally, but not often. (There are desert Asclepias that serve as host plants for the caterpillars, but I don’t know where to get hold of them…) And I love the shot of poppy and coneflower together. The combination may not last long, but it’s certainly a pretty one! 🙂
Thank you very much. 🙂
You certainly have plenty of highlights lighting up your garden Eliza. It is difficult to choose a favourite, I am though very found of dahlias.
Thank you, Brian. Summer gardens are wonderful!
Your garden is prolific Eliza! The Monarch is a beauty – – and I truly do love Hydrangea.
Thank you, Dor. Hydrangea is a great performer for sure.
Fantastic butterfly shot – absolutely perfect. Lovely garden photographs ~
Thank you, Mary.
I don’t know what I am doing wrong; I cannot get the dahlias to blossom. The bottom leaves keep dying. There was one tiny bud but it never opened. I never had any luck in Fl. either. I keep trying but believe I have spend too much money for nothing. 😦
Hi Chris, it may be several things. But don’t give up hope! Here’s a link that may be helpful: http://ucanr.edu/sites/scmg/files/29784.pdf
I love all of these, specially the Poppies
The Echinacia also, I meant to say
Thank you, Maria.
I love this post!! All of these photos are beautiful!! So much color and life! The life all around, flowers, animals, insects…are my favorite thing about Spring & Summer. ❤ That is a beautiful butterfly! I haven’t seen one like that recently but I see small white ones occasionally, which are also beautiful. Thank you for sharing so much loveliness! 💙 😀 Very life affirming post!
Thank you kindly, Kim. 🙂
I like your dahlias, I’m going to have to give some serious thought to getting some.
They can be really spectacular in the late summer garden. Thanks, David.
I also spied a Monarch in my garden last week Eliza! So exciting. I think I lost my Rocket this year – haven’t seen a sign of it. We are so dry and I know it prefers a little more moisture. Sure do miss those beautiful yellow spires, but enjoy that lovely photo of yours. Something I did discover however, a nest of yellow jackets underneath my wine barrel on the driveway! I was watering it and they all swarmed out – just one little sting on my foot – but we are hiring a professional for this one. It is in too public of a space and well, I have to water. I love the sunflowers! Next year I am going to find a good place to plant a bunch even if I have to dig up a patch of grass!
Yay to the Monarch sighting, notch another one for the northeast corridor!
We have a large yellow jacket nest in the ground to the right of the front door and we’ve done two night sprayings and still haven’t got them all (Raid makes a serious jet spray) and though I don’t generally spray insects, experience has taught me that, come August, things get really ugly with those guys.
Sunflowers are really wonderful, aren’t they? The birds love ’em. Maybe you can randomly tuck them into the backs of your sunny borders?
The yellow jackets are GONE … he used a spray on a long pole so he could spray up underneath – not sure what it was. Then he sprayed a spray made with chrysanthemum which I am skeptical about as 99.9% of the ingredients were “other.” If I could have rigged a spray like that, I would have used the spray I purchased in the past which is mint based – they hate mint. Then he sprayed with some sort of dust to prevent them from coming back. But anyway, it is a relief – they were quite active and we all know yellow jackets can become aggressive. He was quite a salesman – commenting on the paper wasp nest in the garage eaves and trying to tell me a harmless black ant was a carpenter ant … I had to admire him. He just didn’t know what he was up against with me ha ha. I hope you have eradicated your problematic nest by now Eliza. I would love to tuck Sunflowers into my borders but I have to tell you it is a jungle – I just don’t think they could compete to grow large from seed. I will try it, though – early, early spring because it is a great idea! Thank you.
Glad to hear the YJs are gone. Ours persist, as I’ve discovered yet another hole – this nest must be huge underground. 😦 We’ll have to give it another go at night. We need one of those extenders like that guy had!
Oh I wish you the best Eliza – sounds scary! He had at the end what looked like a caulk dispenser that would activate the spray.
How beautiful Eliza and the monarch shot your friend took is stunning. I love to see Annabelle in the garden
Thank you, Dorris. 🙂
Dahlia’s are my hands-down favorite flower, although I have a very tender place in the garden of my heart for sweet peas — my Mom’s favorite.
They are both wonderful, I have to agree!
Thanks for your gracious like of my comment in common wp network, Eliza, and thereby connecting me to your green and floral world of hydrangeas, sunflowers and dahlias, to recap just a few. You are indeed lucky to be surrounded by home area of several acres facilitating adequate vent to your green urges. In sharp contrast, mine is just a small compound around my home which is also home to some hydrangeas, jasmines, hibiscus, roses and a few orchids, in addition to a few trees such as Graviola, Simarouba, Terminalia Arjuna and the Golden Apple. May your greening continue to flourish. Best wishes…
Thank you so much for your visit, Raj!
So good that you had a Monarch visit you! It scares me that we seldom see them anymore, or the other species I used to see as well. Yours is one to celebrate 🙂
She has been coming every day for lunch! 🙂 Makes me wonder where she goes when she is not visiting my garden. Do monarchs make rounds like goldfinches?? 😉
That is a good question. And I wonder whether she should be on her way South, or whether that is for the next generation? I just saw a fat caterpillar the other day, and thought it had better hurry…
As I recall, now through Sept. is migratory time. This one may have come from further north and is fueling up. But without tagging her, I have no way of knowing. I’m just really hoping she hatched locally, as we’ve had nothing the past few years.