Besides, it's about 70 deg F.
I trust you're familiar with the general state of chaos...
Let's focus on close-ups.
Here are three of the six anise swallowtail caterpillars (Papilio zelicaon) whose progress I monitor daily.
I don't know how much longer it will be before they pupate, but I moved a few of them on to other fennel plants today.
They've almost eaten this one down to the nubbins. I hope spreading them out a little bit will help increase their chances of survival too.
Catepillars absorb chemicals through their skin so I never touch them. I snipped off the leaves each was on and set the whole thing in another plant.
Fennel is nice in the garden, but it only exacerbates my fine texture problem.
In my next garden, I'll plant fennel en masse instead of here-and-there. I thought adding a dozen or so dill plants would help tie everything together, but the dill isn't growing very well this year. (I don't know if that would have worked anyway, but I like the wild vigor of dill and fennel.)
Pale pink Clarkia bottae.
Leaning leeks
Verbena bonariensis and Psoralea pinnata.
As far as I know, this has nothing to do with the garden, I just feel like mentioning it: I've been sneezing and congested almost continuously since March! I've gone through crates of Kleenex and Claritin. I thought perhaps I had a sinus infection. My doctor agreed and put me a course of antibiotics (moxifloxacin) but nothing has changed. She also directed me to irrigate my sinuses, and that hasn't changed anything either. I'm not sure whether I should follow up with her again, or continue live with it for awhile longer. Mostly I was concerned about what might happen with an uncontrolled sinus infection, but after 10 days on antibiotics, I doubt I have an infection. I don't especially want to take a steroid (e.g., fluticasone, Flonase). I doubt there's anything else she can do.
So, yeah.
It occurred to me today this very pale sage-green Lepechinia could be used in a white garden, and there are quite a few California native plants you could do that with.
I grew this plant from seed, but I don't remember the species. I had seed of two species. One grew a plant and the other did not, but I didn't keep records. Tsk, tsk.
Oookaaay. I've got other stuff I should be doing today, as always. The blog post comes up an abrupt stop under the back steps.
