Like buttah



I'm a miracle!

Last fall, Josh went to Home Depot and noticed that they had a ton of plants on sale. Among the sale items were some butterfly bushes, and he's a big fan of those since they have them at the Audubon in Topsfield and typically have about a thousand butterflies and hummingbirds jumping all over them at any point in time.

So he bought three of them for about $2 each. I wouldn't have paid that much. He basically brought home sticks in a little pot. (Though the sticks did have a few leaves.) I had very little faith that they would do anything, but we decided to cut what little foliage they had on them back (as is recommended with butterfly bushes) and plant them in the front bed. As you can see, they were miracle plants.



Showoffs.



The butterflies do seem to really enjoy them, but I haven't noticed any hummingbirds around them yet.  But we'll give it time. These should be blooming for much of July, maybe August. Unfortunately, the aphids think their leaves are delicious, so I have been spraying them with anti-aphid gunk. I have resigned myself to the fact that absolutely everything in our yard is going to be consumed by some creature, and it's a battle of wits from here on out.

I love flowers that are made up of about a million tiny blossoms. Each tiny flower makes a big flower, and has so much color! A tiny red center, with a tiny yellow ring around that, then it shades out from a lavender to a blue around the edges. Fancy.


All those flowers in one blossom -- you have to wonder if they all get along.



Shove it over, you're blocking my light!



What's a flower got to do to get watered around here, anyway?