Cute Bees and Hairy Spiders

There's always been lots of bumble bees in my backyard and they seem

particularly happy with the new Carl sedum. It's one of those reliable

old plants that blooms late and looks pretty good until the first frost.

Though the older varieties can be a little on the dull side, new ones have come on

the market lately in a neon pink and I just couldn't resist adding a couple to my garden.

The rainy weather pattern continues, even when the sun is shining.

At least now that it's hot and humid it finally feels like summer.

Meanwhile, the Morning Glory occasionally tosses out a bloom or two

while continuing to weirdly transform itself into the "Jolly Green Arbor".

Hiding underneath all those leaves there are actually a few blooms.

I've been chasing after the Cabbage butterflies with my camera for weeks but they're just so fast!

They mostly end up as blurry white blobs in my pictures, this one must have been tired.

Judging by the look of the ornamental cabbage, there will be a few of them next year, too.

It's been a struggle all summer to keep my most calamitous window boxes looking

at least half-way presentable, especially the ones near the front of the house.

Last spring I made a bad choice in the front window boxes by planting calibrachoa and

petunias with ornamental cabbage and bacopa. They looked great for a couple of weeks.

Then the cabbage plants and the bacopa grew way too big and crowded out the poor flowers.

Last week I gave the bacopa a haircut, dug out the spider infested cabbage and replanted them

with purple chrysanthemums for fall. It's just too embarrassing to show the before photos.

 Of course there were spiders EVERYWHERE!!! Look at those hairy legs.  Eeeek!!!

These two showed up when I was nearly done with the replanting. I'd become sort of used to

them so I decided to stop and take some photos. What happened next was pretty creepy.

          

All of a sudden the big spider jumped on the little one,  there was some blurry movement

and well, let's say it was time to get busy and finish planting the window boxes.  I also

needed to check out how many of our neighbors noticed me standing on the ladder screaming.

Okay, and it's back to the cute bees. Sorry for being absent for so long, we entertained

out of town guests and had repairmen show up two weeks early to fix our patio. Quite an

unexpected but pleasant amount of excitement. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!