Are you tired of passionflowers yet?

This lovely little thing is Passiflora mooreana.  It’s easy to suspect the photo for making it look kind of faded and blue, but that’s the way it looks in real life – the whole plant has a kind of sage green tint to it.

a solo shot in the light of the westering sun:

They smell sweet, too.  I really love the ones with sweet scents.  It’s surprisingly powerful, for such a small flower – the flower is only about two inches across, if that.  Here it is next to P. caerulea. 

and a closeup of the center:

another one that’s blooming well right now, is Passiflora incarnata “Bill’s Delight,” a pure-white selection of the native species from Companion Plants nursery.  I had one of these a year ago, and then it suddenly died from the roots up – it looked like slugs ate the skin off the stem.  Now, it’s going gangbusters, sprawling out of its pot and putting up new shoots.

We have two big Golden Orb Weavers in the garden this year – I am going to start feeding them grasshoppers.  The mantises aren’t eating them up fast enough. 

\and the “Scentsation” rose that I planted for Chris is doing well – I really want for it to start putting out more flowers at a time, but it is still adapting and getting its feet under it.

 

 

Moth Night

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This is something that I’ve always wanted to do, and have never done.  Now, I’ve hung around outside buildings and watched the moths and other night-time insects come and go… but I’ve never done the full-on, out-in-the-woods, light-and-a-sheet type experience, where you trap moths with light and count and observe and all that.  So, I figure it’s National Moth Week coming up a month from now, I should do it.

We’re being hosted by the Cedar Ridge Audubon Preserve, (just south of Oak Cliff) with ID guidance and leadership from Dale Clark of the Dallas County Lepidopterists’ Society.    We’ll be meeting up at 8:30 PM, and staying until half past midnight, or when we get really tired.  Or later, if there are lots of cool moths.  It’s not a wildly exciting experience, but it’s got a certain geeky cool factor.

If you’re on Facebook, I’ve set up an event page where you can RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/532248110170072/

It’s pretty straight-forward; we’re gonna look at moths and other bugs that fly up to lights, and look them up in books, and take pictures of them, and let them go after.  We won’t be killing or pinning anything, because of the Audubon’s rules, although we will detain the moths to ID and photograph them.

Y’all let me know if you’re interested in coming along!

Here’s a video, with kind of an idea of what to expect:

Sneak Peek

I’m sorry about the previous post being locked – it’s got a lot of information that’s not quite public domain yet.  But the general idea, I can give you….

 

Before Bill Wyatt passed in 2009, he and I had a talk about getting somebody to replicate his silk reel design.

 

These nice folks stepped up.  I met Roy and Henry at SOAR last October, and they agreed to give it a try.  We’re in the process of testing the prototype.

 

Yaay, silk!

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