Hummingbird and Butterfly Gardening: DAILY BUTTERFLIES Page 61, 1 by mellielong

mellielong wrote:
Despite my mandate for my brother to keep out of my flower beds, he weedwhacked my Spanish Needles. I was going to pull them today since they were going to seed but apparently my idiot brother got in some kind of hurry. He can't tell weeds from flowers and cut one of my Gerbera Daisies, arrrgh! i had some Tampa Verbena mixed in there too so I'm sure he cut that as well.

There are still a few of the Spanish Needles up front but the butterflies are now expanding their palate. Porterweed is still popular and one of my blue sages started blooming and attracting notice. My anise hyssop is seeing lots of action. But the one everyone loves (including Melanie) is Veronica spicata. I think the cultivar is "Sunny Border Blue". It was the first thing to recover from the frost and hasn't stopped blooming since, it's planted in full Florida sun next to our driveway, it's blue, and the insects love it! I've had those giant bumblebees on it lately and they're so heavy they bend the flower spikes right over!

The veronica was popular with the Buckeye today although in this picture he's on the plumbago because he's trying to escape the lunatic girl with the camera.