Cool! Observations

I've noticed some cool and interesting things in my garden over the past week. Some more obvious than others.

For instance, this obviously is a plant you don't want to get too close to, right?

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Unless you're a female praying mantis I guess:

That seems like a pretty darn safe place for that egg case -- well done!


Rose mallow sure does produce a lot of seeds:

I guess that's why Mike was eager for me to take one earlier this year. Anybody want seeds?


Canna 'Paton' just keeps blooming:

This was the best $2 I spent last year... or was it the year before?


The pond is ever-changing and always surprising. Enjoying the view of the plants and past them:

The dragonflies have more use for the plants than I do:

So cool! When I think about something of this size living and thriving under the water, it makes me want to find out so much more: what has it been eating? Where does it hide -- in the muck at the bottom, or in the plants? How many underwater creatures are there below the surface? How many different types? Why didn't the fish eat this juicy morsel? (You get the idea.)

Speaking of the pond, the algae is 95% gone now, and the water is as clear as it has ever been:

I'd like to take credit for this -- the addition of the beneficial bacteria certainly has been helping -- but I think it was the 4" (10cm) of rainfall we've had recently that really helped. The fish aren't used to the clear water, and are hiding a lot more these days. (Good thing there are lots of submerged plants to provide concealment, or I might actually get to see them once in a while.)


The rain helped everything else too, like this unplanned combo of garlic chives, cypress vine, and Rudbeckia triloba:

The garlic chives were the only thing I planted here myself, but this combo appears here every year in late summer. I love it!

The bees love it too:

Those garlic chive blooms attract so many pollinators! They're a great late-season bloomer (and will pop up everywhere in the garden. I almost have enough of these for commercial production now).


Speaking of late-season bloomers:

The scarlet sage (Salvia coccinea) is always wonderful. I love the velvety stubs of the emerging blooms, especially with the dark-calyx varieties. Hummingbirds love these blooms, which is cool too.


Another plant that loved the overdue rain was the bamboo, which can grow rhizomes so amazingly fast when it's hot and there's enough water:

This division is just a couple of weeks old, and already it's trying to fill the pot with rhizomes!

Which reminds me: I need to do a lot more rhizome pruning soon, or I'll be sharing bamboo with both of my neighbors -- whether they want it or not.

And that's not cool.

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