Butterflies and Bees

(monsters at dusk)

Ok as of Friday at measuring time, the sunflowers have broken 120" in height, that's officially the size of 1 story of a building.

It's interesting to see them start to bloom.






Another things that's been happening lately is the orange and yellow wildflower committee has been going bonkers, and they're starting to attract butterflies; today a Monarch visited to take care of some business.






And it appears that the bees are interested in getting in on the action as well.





And here we have the entire happy family, along with a sunflower starting to bloom.

Successful Crossbreeding Experiment

Successfully cross-pollinated sunflowers with venus flytraps, and a special strain of kudzu, to create a self-aware sunflower that is used in annoyance training with small yappy dogs. The sunflower pretends to eat the dog, and is trained to let the yappy dog drop from its jaws when it stops barking. It is important to feed the sunflower a treat though, or it starts preying on squirrels.

112", getting hungry

(BTW sunflowers are up to 112". It appears that there is a chance they will break 10 feet, which would be great. I'm not quite sure how they stand up straight, but I get the impression that they are voracious. Perhaps I could go back to school for biology or see if my cousin Dr. Kendra could help me figure out the genetics. Maybe blending with venus flytraps would be enough. Wouldn't want sunflowers to take the blame for decimating the squirrel population.)

Sundragons, Dragonflies, Renaissance Faire

First off, the flowers are going kooky. Well actually they seem to be reaching their growing height, and starting to develop little green spindly things at the very top, which I think are going to turn into the yellow seed heads.

So the top contender is now 97" tall as of today in the picture above. Hoping will grow to 8 feet at least; we'll see.

Then, an interesting thing happened; this past saturday I was out and came across a nice dragonfly, which seemed to want to have its picture taken.





And after I took the picture of the dragonfly, we went off to the Renaissance Faire in Bristol, WI -- which is a recreation of medieval times, with actors, actresses and enthusiasts walking around, jousting, all kinds of interesting artistic creations and so on.

If you'd like to see a few pictures from the garden and renaissance faire, click here and then to advance through the pictures, click on the yellow button with the black triangle at the upper right of the picture.

55 inches and some bloomers

So the tallest monster is up to 55" in height today; doesn't have a name but I may call him "Shorty". Or I guess it might be a her.

Speaking of the birds and the bees . . . this past week I sat down one time and was watching a bumble bee sidle up to a few of the blue wildflowers that have started coming through.



So the bee would come up to the blue flower, and stick his head up into the flower, and then clamp on his landing hooks, and the bee was so heavy relative to the flower that it would bend over about 3-4 inches; then it would spring back up as the bee went on his way to the next flower.

As I understand it, according to scientists, aeronautical engineers and entomologists, the bumble bee is simply not supposed to be able to fly period. It's wings are simply too small relative to the size of the body. But the bumblebee evidently doesn't keep abreast of the latest scientific "discoveries" and happily flies along, defying the laws of science.

Mysterious Growing Things

Some flowers had been planted by the previous occupant of this abode and are starting to make themselves known -- other plants come from the envelopes of wildflower seeds obtained at Whole Foods and scattered around the first week of May.

Today I learned the difference between a potential wildflower, and crabgrass, so the process of weeding the wildflower jungle has begun.




blue wildflowers


gutter raiding marauder


experimental mini garden



orange - not sure what they are



Is it a weed or a flower?

Close up

This is a more sunny picture, revealing the close competition in height development between various contenders in the Sunflower 500.

The anti-caterpillar department is monitoring for any potential munching, and there has been discussion between members of the Thinning out committee about potentially relocating a couple of the beasts in this picture over by the fence in the backyard.

In a new development, the research and development lab has located a plastic halloween pumpkin head that could serve as a basis for a scarecrow. Everyone agrees that early strategic planning is important in order to pre-emptively deal with the reality of the seeds later in the summer, which are likely to attract significant interest in the local bird community.

Earlier plans to research a laser-guided bird spanker were scrapped due to recent budget cuts.

06/20/07

I am having fun trying to grow a breed of sunflowers called Mammoth Greystripes in a nook in the back of the house. I obtained the seeds at Whole Foods, thinking that it was merely supposed to result in a sunflower of larger diameter, but evidently it is of height as well – these wonderful monsters can grow as high as 10-12 feet!

I estimate the age of this group of towering brutes to be about 43 days, and the tallest of them is about 35”. So for you math buffs out there, that averages to around roughly .813 inches/day.

I think there’s a bit of a race going on; I had named one of the flowers Grond, after a character in the Lord of the Rings, but I think another flower was a bit chuffed by that and unexpectedly shot up to be first place in the height category.