Redemption and Judgement

If I hadn't felt a responsibility to remove (mow) the spent peony foliage down last weekend, I would have entirely missed the annual bloom of the nearby and sadly neglected Hamamelis virginiana, my erstwhile 'Jelena' that I now believe was sold to me falsely identified.  In fact, the pale yellow blooms, plentiful as they are, might have still been missed if the foliage of the shrub had not already dropped. My love-hate relationship with this shrub has not improved over the past few years during my abandonment of its care, but with this latest attempted display of blooms when nothing else braves blooming, I have resolved to follow Luke 6:29, "offer the other cheek", and allow it a chance at redemption.

That last statement, written down and seen  and reread in words, seems blazingly presumptuous, an open declaration of my self-proclaimed status as the garden's judge, jury, and executioner; carelessly risking a lightning bolt or two cast in the direction of my blasphemous gardening soul.  Upon further contemplation, however, I do view the gardener as the God, or at least the stand-in Caretaker, of their garden, making annual and daily decisions about the lives and survival of all the creatures within the gardener's gaze.  Perhaps we are merely the Instruments of Divine Provenance, under illusion that we have any control in the garden, but the act of gardening is at least pretending that we are the ones deciding what to plant, where it goes into the ground, and how it is cared for.

I think that's quite enough digression into the philosophical abyss for one day, ProfessorRoush.  Returning to the subject du jour, suffice it to say that I have allowed this Hamamelis to be overrun by the wild Rosa multiflora that has been growing in the same space, and the Witch Hazel has suffered greatly in the absence of my attentions.  I first noticed the R. multiflora several years back, and have enjoyed its spring display of blossoms and the orange hips that follow it into autumn, but enough is enough; a choice must be made.  One can hardly discern the straggly limbs of the Witch Hazel from their entanglement with the long slender canes of the rose.  This Judgement Day seems overdue for these two plants. 

At its base, shown here, the multiflora rose is seen growing to the left and slightly behind the Hamamelis.  Low to the ground, I braved the thorns and branches and, one-by-one, chopped the rose canes off close to the ground, spraying the still-green stumps with brush-killer to prevent any regrowth.  Finally, the only chore left was to disentangle and remove the rose canes from their close embrace with the Witch Hazel, a task accomplished with only a minor release of profanity and loss of blood by the gardener.  The common name, Witch Hazel, was appropriate for the "toil and trouble" it caused me this day.

It stands now, alone, my (likely) Hamamelis virginiana, looking perhaps despondent at the loss of its volunteer companion, but with a better chance for growth and survival.   I will prune it this spring to encourage it to fill in and prosper without its former competitive neighbor.  The blooms themselves are not as large and brightly-colored as I expected when I planted it, but as my garden shuts down and awaits winter, I'll accept whatever gifts it may meagerly send in my direction.   

Peony Planting

'Coral Sunset'

I don't know about the rest of youse, but ProfessorRoush, he is off in the world planting peonies today. A late "backorder" from John Scheepers came in this week, and today I must, I must, I just MUST, get these into the ground alongside the Orientpets and other bulbs from that establishment that I received and planted some weeks ago. 

 That darned Scheeper's catalogue, along with its sister site, Van Engelen Inc., are becoming a major drain on my annual planting budget as my gardening focus turns towards low-maintenance plantings.   I already planted a number of new daylilies this fall and the Orientpets that I'm fascinated with often come along with a few other miscellaneous bulbs that catch my eye in the catalogs.  I'd forgotten, however, that I'd ordered 4 new peonies from Scheepers.  Today, I'm planting 'Raspberry Sundae' (a peony I've long coveted but it struggles here), 'Sorbet' (my previous start purchased at a big-box store is, in reality, likely a common 'Sarah Bernhardt'), and two roots of 'Joker', the latter an irresistible pink-edged white double peony that caught my eye as I viewed the catalogue offerings.  Hopefully, next Spring I'll be showing those off to you!

Today, however, the peony of focus today is one I planted just last year, blooming for the first time in my garden.  The photographed peony on this page is 'Coral Sunset', an early bloomer that captures the sunny disposition of May in Kansas and gifts it back to the gardener.   I've wanted this 1965 Wisser introduction  since I saw it on a slide in a lecture his son, Roy Klehm, gave at the National Botanical Garden in 2008, and I finally planted a labeled specimen last year.  It was healthy this year for me, and produced 5 or 6 of these beautiful blooms that perfectly color-complimented the potted pink Pelargonium behind it.  'Coral Sunset' received an APS Gold Medal Award in 2003.   

If they are not in bloom and you can't confirm the variety visually, there are really only two ways to buy plants that you covet.  First, purchase a known start from a trusted local or online nursery and hold them accountable for its identity.  That's the smart way to spend your money.  Alternatively, you can purchase a bargain plant whose name you vaguely recognize from a big-box store and hope and pray to the gardening gods that it is not mislabeled.  Sometimes, the latter works out as it did the year I purchased my 'Lillian Gibson' rose from Home Depot.  Often, it doesn't.  I can't tell you how many peony roots I've purchased that were labeled as something I wanted but turned out to be just one more 'Sarah Bernhardt' bomb.  However, two years ago, I purchased a container of two peony roots labeled as 'Coral Sunset' and, looking at the picture to the right as one of them first bloomed this summer in my south-facing back bed, they just may be 'Coral Sunset' or its nearly identical but taller older sister, 'Coral Charm'.    Wouldn't it be something if I have three of these gorgeous coral creatures already?

Surprise Snake

There I was, minding my own business last weekend while I was doing some fall-cleanup chores; you know, things like putting the peony supports up for the winter, filling the bird feeders, and mowing off dead peony stems.   And there it was, trying to be inconspicuous and camouflaged for the surrounding.  Luckily for both of us, it moved.   Do you see it?   As you look closer, please be courteous and ignore the fact that most of the "green" stuff here are weeds (Common Dayflowers). Sometimes, one surrenders to the chaos.

Here, I'll outline it for you.  Now can you find it?   Thank God, at the time I discovered it that I wasn't weeding on my knees with bare hands like I did in this bed during the hottest part of the summer!  It seems late in the season to come across a snake, and it was relatively cool that day, maybe 55F at the time I took this picture, so I certainly didn't expect the encounter.  Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of snakes in the grasses of the prairie, but I rarely see one.  Just search for "snake" in the search box on the right hand side if you want to see other species that I've encountered here.

I'm sure this is a North American Racer (Coluber constrictor), and a big one too.    If the species maximum length is up to 55.5 inches, this one was every bit of 50 inches long and 2 inches in diameter at its thickest area, although I didn't ask it to hold still for any measurement, nor did I go inside and come back out with a measuring tape. In fact, once it recognized that I had noticed it, it quickly slithered away, gone as I attempted to zoom in for better detail.  I got more detail than I really wanted anyway; just click on any picture here to see it full size.  

Here, I'll give you a closeup of the head.   Now can you see it?   Internet sources tell me it is harmless, not really a constrictor, and prefers to dine on insects, frogs, lizards, small mammals, and small birds rather than large, hyperventilating gardeners.  But if you've read my blog since its beginning, you know that factoid doesn't bring me any comfort.   I hate snakes, although I do acknowledge their value in controlling vermin in my landscape and I am less prone to running headlong into the next county at the sight of one then I used to be.  Regardless, if this guy's (girl's?) home territory is really 25 acres, I'll likely never see it again.   Or so I hope.  One sighting is more than ample.

Missed the Memo

Sweet Gum

ProfessorRoush woke up this morning a little late, reading on his bedside clock that it was just prior to 7:00 a.m.   Normally his eyes shoot open, fully awake, at 5:30 a.m. and he seldom sleeps past 6:00 a.m, so that was a little odd, but pleased at gaining a little extra sleep, he went about his Sunday in his usual pattern; 1) close bedroom door so Mrs. ProfessorRoush can sleep in, 2) let Bella out, 3) feed Bella, 4) get on the computer to read the news and forums and blog.  It was dark still, and a glance out the window told me there was frost on the ground, but I entirely missed realizing that it was still too dark for 7:00 a.m.

It wasn't until Mrs. ProfessorRoush rose an hour later and turned on the television for the news, expecting that she was a little late for "Meet the Press" and finding "Sunday Today" in its place, that we realized that the governmental tyrants had once again failed to repeal "Daylight Savings Time" and have forced themselves upon our biological clocks.  Again.  It was still 7:06 a.m. and I'd been up for over an hour.

This morning, I had intended to blog about the changing colors in the landscape and the beauty that Fall brings to the prairie, but instead, I'm aggravated that the time arbitrarily changed and the madness continues.  I have nothing to look forward to except a week of being sleepy early in the evening and driving to work with the sun in my eyes.

Sour Gum

Along the way, I was planning to point out the fantastic colors of the Sweet Gum, Liquidambar styraciflua, (photo above)  that I planted near the barn, and to talk about the pros and cons of my Black Tupelo, Nyssa sylvatica, which is also known as a "Sour Gum" or "Black Gum" tree.   The latter is one of the most dependable trees for red foliage each fall, but I've found that you had better be quick to enjoy it because the leaves turn and then the first cold wind will strip them off.  I could be also waxing poetic about my Red Horse-Chestnut (photo below), Aesculus x carnea, a true "three-season" tree with pinkish-orange flowers in spring, yellow fall foliage, and the brown chest-nuts I pick up from around it in the winter.

Red Horse-Chestnut

I should, instead of ranting about the authoritarian time change, be planting the bulbs that arrived via mail this week, admiring the fall colors of the prairie, and enjoying the last relatively warm days before I have to force myself out into the cold each week for necessary seasonal chores.  But thank you, One World Order, for this disruption  in my pattern as I once again face your unreasonable demands and the upset of my entire metabolism.  A Pox on both houses of Congress!

County Crush

In the modern world, there are many, many things that the curmudgeonly ProfessorRoush does not understand.  Chief among these is the proliferation of late night television ads promoting iPhone and video games such as "Candy Crush."  Growing up in the era of "Pong" and "Space Invader" standalone kiosks, ProfessorRoush never caught the passion then, and subsequently never became addicted to the generations of video and computer games that followed.  Are these TV ads really cost-effective ways to promote the games and make money?   Or are the games themselves just a doomsday plot by nefarious actors, a mass way to engage the masses, similar to the gladiators of Rome?  Does no one else remember a young Ashley Judd acting in Star Trek Next Generation Episode 106,  circa 2002 and titled "The Game"?

Sorry, I'm off on a tangent from my original goal for this blog entry.  This isn't supposed to be about all the things I don't understand.  My original intent before the temporary mental digression was to rant as coherently as possibly about  a specific recent action by the country roadskeepers.   Bear with me, Readers, as I get to the point.

Walking Bella down the road on September 19th, I noted that the wild Liatris punctata clump that I watch for near the road and that I'd written about previously, had bloomed once again and was, in fact, proliferating nicely (see photo above and compare with the previous year).  Tall and colorful, and breathtakingly beautiful, it came complete with some pale yellow Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice) butterflies as this photo proves. 

More recently, however, I noted that the county had mowed the roadside with a bushhog, as it does annually to increase traffic visibility near turns and make the roads "neater," an activity that my German genetic heritage regretfully approves of.   This year, however, the county mowed a broader swath, a "two mower-wide path", and in the process cut off all these beautiful Liatris clumps before they could form seed.  Please take a moment of silence here for this elimination of beauty from the prairie and mourn as well for the butterflies and bees deprived of food.  Dear County, was that act of environmental fascism really necessary?  Ozymandias, King of Kings, gaze on what you destroyed!

Thankfully, on a brighter note, even a two mower-wide swath didn't reach these fledgling Liatris further down the road.  I can only hope to see these mature and spread across the untouched prairie of our neighborhood.

What's my purpose here?  In a broad sense, it is to write again that, as always, nature is better left alone and I'm happier when it is.  And also I recognize that perhaps, just perhaps, ProfessorRoush doesn't fit so well in the "modern" world.

Lilacs, Lavender, & Lepidoptera

ProfessorRoush fully realizes this entry may seem like a rerun of last week's post,  but he came back from a short trip today to see that Syringa vulgaris ‘Nazecker’ had bloomed in his absence; more blush pink than the springtime blue tones it normally holds, but blooming gloriously nonetheless.  And fragrant, sweetening the air, detectable by my non-discerning nose for 10 feet around it!

Once again, these blooms are covered in butterflies, luring in this beauty with its folded upper wings and slightly green body as one example of the attention it captures.  I'm terrible at butterfly identification, but I think I can legitimately limit this one down to the Skipper family, and further, as a Grass Skipper  (subfamily Hesperiinae) due to the vertically-held upper wing pair and other characteristics, such as the oval club ( or "apiculus") on the antennae tip.   But which Grass Skipper?  It could be a Sachem, or another Skipper entirely.  I can't find a perfectly matching picture and there is a lot of variation within the species and genders of this group.  I don't believe it's a Fiery Skipper because it has longer antennae than that species, but I need an assist to ID this one correctly.   Phone a friend, please?

In contrast, the Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia) feeding on this nearby lavender is easily identified by the large, colorful eye spots on both upper wings.  I enjoyed reading and learning about this widespread species, including the fact that it was featured in 2006 as a US Postage Stamp.

The 'Nazecker' lilac pictured here provides a backdrop to my lavender "hedge", so these two species and more are concentrated and attracted to a small area of bloom right now.   Are they drawn to the area by fragrance, bloom color, bloom form, or some other factor?   I'll never know, but I do know it was first the sight of the  bountiful lilac and then the movement of the Lepidoptera that drew my attention here.

I wish I could identify a few more of the Skippers that were moving around, but, as you can see, many are shy about opening their wings to help a fellow out.  Oh, if only I could make time stand still at will, to freeze a moment so I could experience it fully and examine them to my deep content!  Alas, like the life of a butterfly, these instants pass quickly in my own life, experienced briefly, but never still.  I'm just not willing, as the Lepidopterists of old, to kill and "pin" these specimens for my leisurely examination.

Lilac Libations

Earlier this week, ProfessorRoush noticed that one of his "old French" lilacs was blooming.  It is not, in itself, an unusual occurrence for a lilac to bloom here in the Fall, although I am always grateful and attentive when they do.  This year, this old and anonymous Syringa vulgaris has already dropped most of its leaves but is quite prolific in bloom, a half-dozen inflorescences adding fragrance to the cool morning air.  A neighboring pink 'Maiden's Blush' and lilac-colored 'Wonderblue' are also blooming in this row, more sparsely, but blooming nonetheless.

When I first noticed the bloom, I merely thought "well, that will be my blog subject for the week," and snapped a few pictures to document the occasion in time and memory.  The shrub is ugly at this time of the year, bare and worn, and the panicles mildly out of place against a background of drying prairie, but the presence of a lilac out-of-season is still a gift from the gods and an occasion to celebrate.

I was entirely unprepared, however, two days later, when I saw a Monarch (Danaus plexippus) butterfly flitting about the blooms, and I failed to capture more than a blurred butterfly-silhouette at the time.  I was more deliberate and careful today, however, when I noticed, not one, but several Monarchs on the fragrant blooms.

They were patient, these Monarchs, uncaring that I hovered nearby as they slowly made their way over the panicles, briefly feeding at each floret as they went round and round the inflorescences, silhouetted and then in full glory to my phone camera.  One of my frequent failings as a photographer is to capture images of insects in perfect focus on plants, but these golden subjects were nearly posing still, allowing the lens and the photographer to sync up for a frozen moment of glory.

As I marveled and frantically took photo after photo, I finally noticed that not just Monarchs, but other butterflies were taking advantage of the offering of late-season nectar.  The fuzzy-bodied Silver-Spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus) in the photo at the right, is likely the third "flight" or generation of this year, but it too was patient enough to pose for the admiring ProfessorRoush.  I owe the ID, by the way, to this amazing Pocket Guide to Kansas butterflies.

A "libation" is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an offering to a deity or spirit, and in this time, in this place, the lilac is surely offering a libation, its precious remaining energy as nectar, to these delicate deities of the wind.  God Speed, Monarchs and Skippers all, on your travels to the future.   May the flowers in your path be sweet and the wind be always at your back. 

A Hawk's Garden

It never fails.  Every spring, ProfessorRoush is a neat freak in his garden, and then, come every autumn, I'm exhausted by the constant effort to stay atop the endless chores, acceding to the clamor of chaos, and waving the white flag in surrender to the wildness of weather and weeds.  And yet, somewhere in between spring and autumn, there always appears an opportunity to choose.  To choose between anarchy and intent in my garden, to choose between disorder and design, between entropy and enlightenment.

Such was my choice, this past summer, to perhaps remove this blackened Cottonwood stump or to leave it in place.  Once a mighty, young, and hearty tree, its health was wrecked by an ice storm years ago and it spent a decade struggling to regrow damaged limbs from exposed heartwood and then, last year, the final large branches fell and it failed to grow any leaves at all.  I let it burn with the prairie around it this spring, and indeed encouraged it to burn by piling dry debris at its base, hoping to erase its presence and its memory from my landscape, but this blackened and hardened stump persisted.

For some time, I contemplated asking a friend to fell this stump along with another dead and starkly-branched tree in the back yard, but then one day I saw a plethora of Tufted Titmouse (Titmice?) using the latter as a gathering spot and decided on the spot to postpone removing these blights from my yard.  Blessedly, what was once a spur-of-the-moment random decision has become a monument to my garden's nature.  Thank you to the Titmice and the Hawk.

The Red-Tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) pictured here and above has been hanging around for the past few months, using the cottonwood stump as a primary hunting perch as it lives out its hawk-life existence on the prairie.   I've also caught it sitting higher on the house roof twice as I came home from work, and once on the frame of my shade house, as you can see pictured here and below.  In the meantime, the eternally hungry rabbits have all but disappeared from my garden beds and I have high hopes that the local pack rats are quaking in their urine-soaked, disgusting debris-pile homes.  Red-tailed Hawks are the most common and the largest bird of prey on the tallgrass prairie and you can see that this one believes it is King (or Queen?) of all its domain.

Once, while mowing, I barely missed snapping a picture of what I call "my" Hawk lifting off from the ground, snake carcass in its talons, but I will never forget the thrill of that final "swoop" and the calm Hawk sitting in the grass looking satisfied at its catch. Gardening friends, if you face a similar choice, I promise you won't regret letting hawks be hawks, and in a broader sense occasionally allowing nature to be in control for a day, for a week, maybe even for a season.  Some say a garden is defined by its boundaries, by the vision of the Gardener, but I submit for your consideration that our best efforts are spent in concert with the natural world around us, not fighting against it. And I can't help but feel that this Hawk agrees with me.    

Clear Skies and Long Views

It occurs to me that some of you may fear that this blog is, at times, in danger of becoming a "weather report", justifiably so since ProfessorRoush shares that same fear with you, and yet I still cannot resist showing you this view, as it presented to me a couple of evenings back as I turned onto my road:

In the west, I saw this view and thought, "that's a rain cloud," and yet we had no rain predicted.  I was not prepared, however to check the weather on my phone and see that this thunderhead belonged to a single isolated cell that was still more than 60 miles distant (radar screenshot taken at 6:49 p.m.)!   Salina Kansas, to the storm's south, is 66 miles from me!  How's that for clear air quality?

I haven't calculated the earth's curvature over that distance, and I know this storm probably reached tens of thousands of feet into the air, but, still, I can scarcely believe I was able to see it coming at that distance.  The world is a wonderful place, full of surprises if we only let them in.

I watched the cloud through the evening as the storm tracked from our direct west.  At 8:07 p.m., it was still more than 25 miles away to our west, but it ended up passing barely to the south later that evening.   My  last view of it below is at dusk, 8:07 p.m., still to the west and at the same time as the radar capture seen to the left, with barely enough light from the setting sun remaining to outline the storm cell.  Lightning was flashing in the storm itself as I watched, and it is no wonder that the Vikings could conclude that Thor was angry in the center of that cloud.

Perhaps now you can better understand my fascination with weather events here in my view from these semi-arid, rolling grasslands where rain is sometimes measured in drops and the wind can strike fear in a brave heart.   Better at times, I wonder, would we be if we were this garden spider, a Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia)  that has patiently tended its web in this exact spot near my back patio for over a month.  I can't tell you how many times I've almost shortcut across this bed into this web, but so far it has survived obliteration from myself, Bella, the neighbor dog, and the weather.  I'm happy for the spider's presence because  it is another sign that Fall is coming and it seems to justify my seasonal neglect and provides some natural pest control for my garden.

Everything's Alright

Believe me, ProfessorRoush is very aware that he's been "blog-absent" for a couple of weeks, but life sometimes makes other plans for us.  This past 2 weeks, the "other plans" have included some emergency medical visits and surgery and hospitalization of Mrs. ProfessorRoush, and the mere fact that I'm blogging now should be taken by all as a clear sign that she is mending.  Slowly, but progressively.

During a period where I was traveling back and forth from home to hospital, missing my wife and worrying about her surgery and recovery, I was struck one evening by the likely Divinely-inspired appearance of the Sweet Autumn Clematis that grows on my now-neglected gazebo.  I built this hexagonal gazebo nearly two decades ago merely to have a place deep in the garden to escape from the sun and sit on a swing on a hot day.   Surrounded by a honeysuckle on the south, a struggling 'Romona' clematis on the west, and the Sweet Autumn clematis on the north, I've neglected the gazebo a bit, especially the last couple of years, and it is beginning to show its age.

Hence, as I have not paid any notice to it this summer, I was surprised when I saw it suddenly in bloom from my bedroom window and I realized the clematis had climbed through the top of the gazebo.  In my tired and lonely mental state, I was struck speechless by the gift and the perfectly-timed message from nature, and I received that message loud and clear.  I took this sweet-smelling, perfectly-white, delicate but determined floral display as a certain sign that my beautiful bride of  nearly 43 years would be okay, and my fears and worries melted away at the sight of it. 

A view of the inside of the gazebo reveals the path of the clematis as it sought out the sunlight and clung to the cross beams.  "Life", as Michael Crichton wrote, "always finds a way".   This Sweet Autumn clematis is the only one I have allowed in my garden for several years because I've learned it will self-seed everywhere here in this climate and become invasive. But now that it has demonstrated its resolve to thrive, and superimposed itself on my mind's eye alongside my love for Mrs. ProfessorRoush, it is likely that I'll allow others to grow here in the future.  After all, who am I to deny the forces of life and ignore heaven-sent messages? 

Mowing Musings

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (dark form)

If you've followed this blog long, you have probably guessed that many of my photo inspirations, and the majority of my "musing" time occurs during mowing.  That means that while he gathers his thoughts and the materials for these blogs, ProfessorRoush is often sitting atop steering a rapidly spinning knife moving at 2-4 miles/hour across the lawn and around, over, or through various obstacles, some of which turn into lethal projectiles when they exit the mower deck.  And this all occurs while my attention is distracted to the borders or plants beside my path of mowing rather than staying focused on the task.  It is a miracle that I have yet to injure anything more dear than an errant clump of groundcover.

Flowers, animals, insects, weather, and my general sense of the world are all fair game for my attention and interest while mowing.   For instance, within the last two weeks,  I've mowed while simultaneously racing the absolutely beautiful rainstorm encroaching from the northwest (photo at left), and I've had the (I believe) newly hatched, dark form Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus, photo at top) fall from an ash tree right into my lap as I passed.   The "dark form" of this dimorphic butterfly means that this specimen is almost certainly a female.

In the former instance, I kept one eye on the sky as I mowed, both hoping for rain and hoping it would hold off a few extra minutes until I could finish.   In the former, this beautiful and delicate creature that my passage disturbed was unable to fly, and so, afraid that the circling Purple Martins would spot it struggling in the grass, I stopped the mower and gently lifted it back into the lower branches of the ash, under concealment and away from the hungry Martin eyes.   After, of course, I took an extra moment to photograph and document its presence and beauty.

Flannel Mullein

As I mow near the periphery of my influence, where the "yard" changes over to bovine-grazed or bush-hog-mowed native prairie, I keep an eye out for blooming wildflowers, learning their identities and habitats, timing my worldview by their annual growth and bloom cycles, and discovering which insects or fauna each attract.  On a recent mowing,  the bright yellow, nonnative, drought-tolerant biennial  Flannel Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) was blooming (above and at left).  This woolly-leaved plant is said to have been traditionally boiled with lye to make a hair dye, presumably for use by those who believe that "blonds have more fun"/  Left alone, unmowed unlike the clump above, those yellow eye-catching spires reach taller than my head and spread enormous, soft, hairy leaves across their base.  

Blue Verbena (Verbena hastata) was also blooming on "mowing day" and was attracting an energetic Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice) butterfly to pollinate and feed from it.  Blue Verbena, also known as Blue Vervain, is a native, very drought-tolerant plant and a common tall perennial of my prairie.   Its seeds are a major source of feed for the finches and sparrows of the area, and, as you can see, its nectar attracts its own admirers.

Blue Verbena & Clouded Sulphur butterfly

The complimentary coloring of the  light yellow butterfly and violet Verbena naturally-form a nearly perfect color-wheel contrast, and I couldn't resist stopping the mower once again to grab these photos.  Capturing this rapidly-moving butterfly in a still moment takes patience and time, both of which I provided and yet I was still unable to capture a suitable photo of it with wings outspread. 

Some weeks, my mowing time is extended from around 2 hours to 3 or 4 hours depending on the scenic distractions and the number of times I stop for photos or to remove random offensive weeds.  But can you really blame me?