Garden Exotica

Pantala Flavescens is the most widely distributed dragonfly on the planet; they live and breed everywhere except Europe where winds out of Africa create a barrier to their travels. Commonly known as Globe Skimmers or Wandering Gliders, they fly almost continuously, only stopping briefly to lay eggs or grab a quick meal….except for this one who slept away the ENTIRE afternoon in the Penthouse Suite at the Canna Hotel:

The Himalayas will still be there…….after my nap! 😉

I let the little bugger be, but kept an eye on him while I went about my business. I wasn’t particularly quiet, either: the door banged shut a few times from the wind and I was repotting  peace lilies, dropping tools etc…not a hint of movement from 1:45pm when I took the picture until just after 430pm when I watched him lift off and zigzag away!

Bye-Bye!!!  Have a nice flight!  🙂

After dinner, I got another unexpected surprise:

First open Brassia of the season, Aug 17, 2012

There are four other blooms on this spike that should open over the next week or so. 🙂  It’s easy to see why these are called Spider Orchids, yeah?

The Bird of Paradise flower (mentioned a few days ago) opened last night. I’ve uploaded it as Flower of the Month for August, so check out the sidebar on the homepage.  And if you STILL haven’t seen enough, click on the recently finished May photo gallery for a retrospective on some of my prettiest tropical plants!

Have a great weekend!

Until next time:

🙂

Related articles

• Did you know there are 450 types of dragonflies? (hamptonroads.com)
• Dragonflies… (a-painting-mom.blogspot.com)
• Dragonflies creating a buzz in Sask. (cbc.ca)

Weekly Photo Challenge: Ready

As gardeners, we spend considerable time planning the best use of our available land.. Where should I place the vegetables? What spot is best for sun exposure?  Is that the best sight line for a small tree?  As you tick off the answers, patterns of land use emerge. Soon you have your garden’s perimeter and ask, “should I edge it with pavers or river rock? Does it matter either way?”

Yes, it does, and this little creature is why:

Ready for Liftoff!!

Who knew dragonflies are attracted to light colored river rocks?   I had no idea!

In its previous incarnation, the Ranchero was a Koi pond surrounded by river rocks.   When I moved to small house, I threw out the plastic pond insert and enlarged the area by half, meaning I was short on river rocks to edge my new garden space.  Rather than buy additional ones (waaayyyyy expensive) I intended to use cement curbing I’d gotten for free but, you guessed it….not enough of that either…

….so I finished the project with a few feet of river rocks and set about “hiding” the evidence with Kalanchoe diagremontiana like you see in the picture.

Who knew dragonflies are attracted to “mother of thousands” kalanchoe?  Again, I had no idea!

Unexpectedly the stars had aligned, bringing  life to my yard and adding quite nicely to my land use plan!  🙂

Until next time….