My Ladybug Invasion

This weekend we went to the most amazing garden shop : Lukas Nursery .  This is a shop that really embraces nature and eco friendly gardening.  They even have a Butterfly Encounter exhibit where you can walk through enclosed butterfly gardens full of many different species of butterflies.  Of course I did end up finding some incredible plant specimens for my garden, and as I was purchasing I saw packages of live ladybugs being sold.

Last spring my garden was LOADED with ladybugs but this spring they've been very scarce, unlike the whiteflies and aphids which have been plenty.  If you didn't know, ladybugs are an amazing natural pest control. They are voracious eaters and a treasure to any wildlife gardener.  A few years ago I bought ladybugs through the mail, and it was wonderful to let them go, but we did have many casualties. It was great to find some that were obviously thriving in their package.

When you open the package, be ready. They are ready to get OUT! They come streaming out of the bag and up your arms, up your sleeves, into your bra. They are extremely thirsty and will try to drink the sweat right off your skin (ewww gross, I know). In the absence of sweat, they will even nibble, I joked that they were after blood, but it  isn't that bad, unless you have several hundred doing it at once and then it's a little uncomfortable in kind of an itchy way.  So if you decide to release ladybugs into your garden, make sure to spray the plants you intend to put them on with some water. It keeps them on the plant longer and they definitely will appreciate it.

A lot of them seemed so excited to be released they actually started mating so I am really hoping they will lay plenty of eggs in my garden so I will see ladybugs all summer.

I was so inspired by these beautiful red lady bugs that I decided to create my own Etsy Treasury Collection including teammates from EliteSixteen and TeamXtreme:

Going Green

This beautiful collection including my newest little hedgehog set was created by my EliteSixteen team mate DeDe of SwedeHeartVintage . I am enamored of all things green and woodland!

I have been once again trying to create the garden of my dreams. We've been having a horrible drought for the last few years so it's been tough. Watering is a miserable chore once we hit the middle of summer. Normally we would have rain storms every single afternoon but last summer we got totally cheated and had very few. I'm trying to be very careful to plant things that I know will thrive so I had to longingly walk past the beautiful foxgloves and heliotropes when at the garden center.

A big thing for me is planting things that attract wildlife. Last year my husband and I went out hunting and brought back samples of wild passionflower vine, which we rooted and planted. It's sturdy, not quite as showy as the cultivated varieties but infinitely superior at keeping up with hungry caterpillars.

The caterpillars are such a wonderful educational source for my children as they complete their life cycles. This is a gulf fritillary caterpillar and when it is mature it will look like this: The Gulf Fritillary Butterfly . When they near time to create a chrysalis often we will bring them inside so that we can watch the process.  Our garden has host plants for about 10 different species of butterflies at least.

A Walk in the Woods

Today began with gloriously overcast skies.  Summers in Florida are not always the most pleasant for hiking, and I really needed my nature fix, so we decided to go for a hike to enjoy the pearly gray skies and slightly cooler temperatures.

Almost immediately after starting along a trail we spotted many deer tracks.  It was a bit late in the morning to see deer so there was little hope of a sighting.  We could see deer tracks in all sizes, even some smaller than my thumb. Of course, I didn't think of taking a photo of the tracks at the time, but this would have been a nice play to insert one. 

I really love velvety green moss, one of my favorite things to line a terrarium with (I even have a little crop of it at home).  This piece of moss peeking up through the oak leaves looks almost like a green heart. There's a bit of reindeer moss growing on top.  I saw lots of reindeer moss, but did not pick any because it is protected. 

We saw quite a large variety of mushrooms, lichens, and moss.  These last few days of rain have really brightened the moss and lichens and helped the mushrooms to pop up. 

We saw some wildlife, although it was elusive and difficult to capture in photos.  We saw a large cottontail rabbit,  tufted titmice, cardinals and red-winged blackbirds.  Mostly we heard the birds singing, and the cicadas buzzing.  Then, I almost walked face first into this:

It's hard to tell in this photo...but this is a large golden orb weaver spider. They really love to create enormous webs across a shady pathway.  Most of the ones we saw measured about 2 to 2.5 inches across, not what you want to walk into face-first, that is for sure!

As we walked, I found this burnt log, that looks almost like it could be the skull of a dragon:

I love to forage through the woods for interesting bits of nature to bring home, and today I found the greatest prize. I found a deer antler! Each year a deer grows new antlers and at the end of a season they shed them.  I'd always hoped to find one, and today was my lucky day.
Here's a photo of it back at my home:

I also found what has been my Holy Grail plant of terrarium creating: The British Soldier Lichen.  It's not an uncommon species, but not usually common in the places where I've looked. Here's a photo of it with a bit of the green cushion moss I'm growing:

It has the most beautiful little red "flowers".  I'm guessing that's how it got it's name--because of the beautiful shade of red, like little "redcoats".

As we were leaving, happy and invigorated from our hike, a friendly black vulture came down and seemed to pose for me:

Today was such a treat, I wish I could do this every single day.  It's so inspirational to be out in nature. My soul feels recharged, my mind at peace.