Coneflowers are blooming their happy looking heads off in the Patch right now…

They are like strange alien palm trees stretching their other-worldly rocket silhouettes up into the martian sky.

Echinacea has to be one of the most cheerful blooms…

and as an unexpected surprise, the waning olive / orange hues of the seed-heads blend well with the new paint color on our house, courtesy of the infamous Chevy Tahoe.

Talking of purple-orange things:

I caught this Pipevine Swallowtail larvae

Battus philenor

moving at full steam across the decomposed granite in my front garden, and was it moving fast.  It paused briefly to allow me to get these shots in, before it was off again.

Both the caterpillars and the adults are very conspicuous, promoting their protection of noxious chemicals that they obtain from the poisonous plants on which they feed, specifically pipevine plants in the genus Aristolochia.

Pipevine Swallowtail adults are black and the males have an amazing electroluminescent blue sheen to their hind wings. Females sometimes have a hint of the blue but are mostly black. The undersides of the hind wings are decorated with white and orange spots. When they feed, Pipevine Swallowtails rarely stop fluttering, making it hard to get a good look at them, and a decent picture.

Okay, one final purple… and one of my unruly favorite plants is wafting its incredible Gothic scent all over the Patch right now…Evergreen Wisteria:

Millettia reticulata

I say unruly, as this plant requires a significant amount of space and support and pruning.  I have three of these plants in the Patch and they all boom a slightly different times, lucky for me.  This one always is the early bloomer, sprawling over trellises that I have positioned behind my bench.

The aroma sitting on this bench right now is amazing, reminding me of dank, patchouli infused, London Gothic night clubs that I used to frequent as a vampire in another life.

On the vegetable front:

After transplanting last weeks tobacco hornworms my tomatoes continue to produce in large numbers…

Although the pest onslaught has continued…

“Were getting close lads…1st platoon, on my order…”

One of my eggplants also had some rather unsavory visitors:

The bottom fruit of this eggplant had pushed itself into the soil on the inside of the stock-tank, on prizing it to the outside of the tank, I immediately noticed that something was horribly wrong:

Eww, Eww, and more Eww!

“Why you little…”

My tomatillo plants on the other hand are bug free and going completely bananas…I have never grown these peppers before, and I had no idea these plants would get this large.

Pole beans are finally ascending well, after a slow start, with the recent showers and rains we have had in Central Texas.

Finally:

Pride of Barbados is breaking into bloom.  One of my favorite foliage plants.

My Datura silk handkerchiefs have now turned into these droopy, umbrella-canopied seed pods.

In an adjacent loquat, I captured this…

…a silver-spotted skipper, another first in the Patch, and check out that white paint spill!  The war-paint looks like it has been painted on.

Epargyreus clarus

This is a large dark brown butterfly with long pointed forewings and white patches on the undersides of the hind wings, and orange patches on the forewings. This skipper rarely sits with wings completely open. More often they are held together or just slightly separated just like this one.

“Ach! I prefer the white and tan, ah knew the blue was a buug mistake!”

Stay Tuned for:

“Animal House”

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