Butterflies are Free....

Variegated Fritillary butterfly

Well, perhaps not free, but they are periodically plentiful at certain times.  I am a bad gardener in the sense that I don't pay a lot of attention under normal circumstances to the butterflies in my garden, although I do give occasional thought to selecting native plants and other plants that will attract them. 

Pipevine Swallowtail

The recent bloom of my 'Blizzard' Mockorange and 'Globemaster' Alium coincided to lure in the butterflies like.....well, like flies. The Pipevine Swallowtail at the left, however, preferred the hillside of Purple-Leaf Honeysuckle for its evening meal.  I took all eight of the different pictures within about 1/2 hour one evening.  Identifying them took much longer. 

Painted Lady butterfly

I'm not very good at identifying them, but I've made my best attempt here and I owe any accuracy strictly to a 1991 Emporia State University publication titled 'The Kansas School Naturalist, Vol 37, #4;  Checklist of Kansas Butterflies. Better experts like GaiaGardener (whose previous posts stimulated me to take a look at my own butterflies) will have to check my identifications carefully. 

Dogface Butterfly

The phrase "Butterflies are free, and so are we" is a line from the theme song to a 1972 movie that was also named Butterflies Are Free. It was one of the first movie roles for beautiful actress Goldie Hawn, memorable to a young teenager primarily for the glimpse of the panty-clad gluteus maximus of the then-young and still just-as-gorgeously-perky Ms. Hawn.  Beauty, indeed, exists in all creatures of God.

Checkered White butterfly

I suppose if you are going to visit a white Mockorange near two colonies of insect-eating Purple Martins, you would be best served to be mostly white yourself, invisible, as long as you stand still.

Virginia Lady butterfly

Some butterflies show signs of being the worst for wear, even though the season is early.  Battle-scarred and missing limbs, the goal of life remains the same; leave behind another generation, and you've done your duty for your species.

Skipper?

The identification of many butterflies seems to hinge on pretty small differences and sometimes, judging by the pictures posted on the WWW, it is important to know the regional differences in color intensity and patterns that may exist.  The "skippers" group defeated me in my attempts to identify the butterfly at the right.

Red Admiral butterfly

I am only a novice here in a foreign land filled by fairy-like aerial wraiths, but I will undoubtedly return again, lured by the ephemeral nature of the prey and the rich legacy of the field.  And maybe, just because I like being able to spot a brief blur and proclaim it "Red Admiral", a regal-sounding name if ever one existed.

Carefree Bloomer

'Carefree Spirit'

I promised this post to some visitors to my garden (well, actually they were captive relatives quickly lured into a stupor by my incessant babbling about the garden).  During a garden walk, they had described a spectacular rose bush growing in their neighborhood.  As we walked further along the garden, seeing all the roses who still retained a bloom or two, they added that it was a "simpler" rose with few petals, and that it was red, and maybe had a white center.  I took them, in time, to my 'Carefree Spirit' rose and they proclaimed it as the rose they had seen, although mine was much smaller at two years of age then the bush they remembered.







'Carefree Spirit' (MEIzmea) does indeed put on a spectacular bloom display, and she will continue to bloom freely throughout the summer.  Introduced by Conard-Pyle in 2009, her actual origin is a little confusing as she is listed as being bred by both Alain Meilland or Jacques Mouchotte (a breeder in the House of Meilland) in 2007.  Do I sense some Gallic discord in the House of Meilland?  She is also listed in helpmefind as the result of a cross between a 'Red Max Graf' seedling and a seedling of 'Pink Meidiland' X 'Immensee', and in other places as a descendant of 'Carefree Delight', a previous AARS winner.  If she really has 'Max Graf' and a R. kordesii seedling in her background, even my limited knowledge of rose hybridizing would leave me to suspect that the bush is very vigorous and winter hardy, and indeed she is completely winter hardy in my climate.  This is indeed a tough bush, surviving and doubling in size during a summer and winter of drought, and the glossy dark green foliage requires no spray against fungus or beast.  So far, even the deer have left it alone. In 2004, the All American Rose Selections group stopped spraying fungicides at its test gardens, and Carefree Spirit was the first (and still the only) shrub rose after that revolution of care to win the coveted AARS award (awarded in 2009). Thanks to God that the rose marketers have grown some sense about the characteristics the public desires in new roses, because roses like 'Carefree Spirit' may yet rescue us from 'Knock Out' hell. If my garden visitors can recognize and covet such a rose, then so will the public at large.


 My 'Carefree Spirit' is about three feet tall, and she is supposed to reach 5-6 feet at maturity.  She bloomed in the late group of roses in my garden, with 'Madame Hardy' and 'Chuckles' and 'American Pillar' to name some other late roses, so she's bringing up the rear of the first rose bloom and starring in her own time.  I will admit that her allure is entirely due to the bounty of her blossoms because 'Carefree Spirit' is scentless to my nose and she isn't thornless either.  Ah well, no rose is perfect.  Except 'Madame Hardy' of course.  And, my readers, let us please choose to ignore the closeness of the phrase "bounty of her blossoms" to "bounty of her bosoms" in English.  I'm an old man, love of roses can possible be taken too far, and I should be allowed my small literary illusions without comment.

Magic Number Four

Chipping Sparrow eggs?

It never fails.  Just today, on a day of vacation to work in the garden, I was puttering around as usual, all the while thinking "what should my next blog be about?"  It must be blatantly obvious by now that I could blog ad infinitim about roses, evermore adding one more to the list of roses I've discussed, but Garden Musings already is top-heavy with roses.  If roses were the only thing I ever wrote about, I'm afraid I'd risk alienating some readers.  Believe it or not, I do occasionally try to relieve the monotony here for those who aren't unwaveringly rose-crazy.


Like magic, the answer to my question lay in the 'Carefree Beauty' rosebush I had just trimmed.  There, deep in the heart of this stalwart rose, was a tiny nest, about 2.5 inches in diameter, with four of the cutest little sky-blue-speckled-with-black eggs I've ever seen.  After an exhaustive search through my field guides and the Internet, I believe these eggs are most likely those of a Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina).  It is a very common sparrow around here in the summer, and the nest placement, about 4 feet off the ground in a bush, is correct, and the eggs are distinct and resemble the available pictures on the Internet.  Thankfully, these eggs don't resemble one of the many sparrow species in this area that are light blue with lots of light brown spots or I wouldn't have been able to even guess at the origin.  I'll try to confirm the identity with a visual of Momma Bird in the next few days, but it is going to be difficult at best.  I've scared her off the nest a few times today, but haven't been able to discern anything but a quick brown blur darting into the nearby viburnums.
 


Killdeer nest

I also found yet another Killdeer nest today while mowing, also with four eggs.  Why does four always seem to be the number of eggs for birds in Kansas anyway?  This new nest was placed almost exactly where another brood was raised two years ago, on a hillside in very short grass.  I would never find these nests if the Momma wouldn't try to lure me away, feigning a hurt wing.  Today's Momma didn't even bother with that;  she just sat on the nest and fixed me with a baleful eye while I mowed around her.  For the life of me, I don't understand why they don't nest in the taller grass that I never mow, in this case just 10 feet away, but I suppose they have their reasons.  I think they're pretty gutsy to lay these eggs on the almost bare ground.  The wider view below will give you a better idea of how exposed these eggs really are;  the eggs are in the center of the picture.  It must be a tough life to be  Killdeer chick.

Gallicandy Pink

'Gallicandy'

Yes, I'm aware that you may have a little difficulty deciding that the picture at the right is a rose, not a big wad of bubblegum, but that's only because of the pink bubblegum coloration of this aptly-named Hybrid Gallica.  This is 'Gallicandy', one of Paul Barden's creations growing in it's second full summer in my garden.

'Gallicandy' (or ARDtuscoth) was bred by Barden in 2003, according to the information on helpmefind.com.  She is currently about 3 feet tall and around, with a mature height expected of 4 to 6 feet.  The third of my Barden hybrid gallicas to bloom, she seems to have a sparser bloom than the others ('Marianne' and 'Allegra'), but she also has a longer bloom period, over one month and still going.  Of course, that all may change as she gets a few more seasons on her.  I'm hoping, at the least, that at mature size she blooms more freely, if not as long.

Blooms are very double and approximately 3.5 inches in diameter.  The bright pink color holds well, barely fading over more than a week in the Kansas sun.  Fragrance, to my nose, is moderately strong, not as strong as 'Allegra', but not mild by any means. This is not a bush I'd want to tangle with because it is armed to the core with prickles, but I think she'll make do well with a light trimming every year.  The foliage is medium green, matte, and clean, with no blackspot visible despite my principled non-spraying.  She has held up well to the winter cold and winds of Kansas and she survived last year's drought without extra water after August. 

I'm not going to say yet that 'Gallicandy' has won over my heart as a favorite yet, but she has got potential.  Even in this first year of bloom (she didn't bloom as a small band last year), her overall production is equal to better known Gallica's like 'Charles de Mills' in my garden.  And anyway, where else can I find a rose that looks, for all the world, like it's producing big wads of pink bubblegum?