2022 Winners

The votes have been tallied and here are the winning photos!

Salmon Ranunculus on the left; “candy stripe” Cosmos with a bumblebee on the right. The competition was close, but no votes for the nymph squash bugs. (I don’t want them on my pumpkin vines, but they are kinda cute so small like that, no?? And those eggs glow like tiny polished bronze nuggets in the sunshine!)

Thank you to all who voted, posted a comment, emailed a comment, told me in-person that they had voted… or were having a difficult time deciding how to vote! The end-season bouquet winner has also been notified. (If you haven’t heard from me, it wasn’t you this time. See what I did there??)

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This week brought even more photo opportunities in the gardens. Look at this snazzy pair of “candy-striped” leafhoppers.

I found a monarch on the side of a busy sidewalk on a cold, very windy day. She climbed onto my finger, and as I tried to move her to a leafy branch in the sun, she attempted to fly off… and failed. She landed back on the ground. So, I brought her home to warm-up and refuel (lukewarm honey water served in a bottle cap). She took a long drink. A looooooooong drink. This time, after offering her a lift, she flew off my finger and straight toward the kitchen window. She was ready to go! The photo below shows her on a Calendula blossom as she oriented to the sun. A few moments later, she was gone.

And on the topic of chilly days and chilly nights, on a recent evening as the bees slowed down and settled in, I noticed these two. Everything about this moment gives me grin. There’s the ecological grin: this dahlia provides food for the bees and gives them a bit of shelter as the evening cools down. And there’s the anthropomorphic, poetic, “I’m a wishful 5-year-old” grin: fuzzy bees snuggling in swirls of French vanilla buttercream…

To a new month! To beauty! To growing, always. 😊