This was our twelve month appointment face last week. Thrillingly thrilled. I snapped this quickly right before we left for the doctor's office. I'm thinking of all of the things that have changed in the last twelve months (minus any real hair growth, of course), and it's reminding me of these friends we've been blessed with...
We've been inundated with Monarch caterpillars this spring. Our poor Mexican Milkweed has had a bit of trouble keeping up with the monsters! One day I counted more than three dozen. Greg and I finally registered our garden as an official butterfly habitat with the
North American Butterfly Association, and the Browne Butterfly Bus Stop has been born!
Piercy and I were only able to find a couple of chrysalises. This one was next to the garbage and recycling cans, where it appears that many, many a pupae have spent days turning into their four-winged selves. The golden flecks in the cocoon are incredible. I cannot believe these simple creatures undergo such a phenomenal transformation in so little time.
And now for a tour of the gardens...
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| Bat-Faced Cuphea (cute little bat!) |
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| Queen Elizabeth, Greg's very first successful propagation |
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| Moonflower (Datura) |
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| Lion's Paw |
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| Maggie Rose |
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| Beautiful plant I'm forgetting the name of that Greg's mother brought over |
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| Mother of Thousands |
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| Anacacho Orchid Tree |
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| Sweet little maple coming back |
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| Meyer Lemon Bloom! |
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| Ice Plant a-Blooming |
Your "Mother of Thousands" looks so much more beautiful than mine, dear Meghan! These plants are quite popular at the lab bench of many a graduate student in the Plant and Microbial Biology department at UC Berkeley. For one, they're easy to find (just wait for one of those little darlings to drop into a pot), and they're hardy enough to survive months of neglect by the graduate student with the worst green thumb ever conceived.
ReplyDeleteStill, when one neglects to transplant the growing plant to a larger pot, it grows grumpy and flops over on itself (despite my best efforts to keep the stalk upright using a glass pipette). This depressing site caused me to forgo watering my poor plant for months on end, and I think that now it is on its way to plant heaven. Good timing, too, as I will be moving on from grad school in less than a month.