Last year I enlarged a bed and called it my butterfly garden. After seeing almost no butterflies last year I thought about just calling it the pollinator garden, but luckily there seem to be a few more butterflies visiting this year. I've read somewhere (why didn't I bookmark that page?) that Western Washington doesn't see the large amounts of butterflies that other parts of the country do, or even that Eastern Washington does. Today when I went out to take pictures I was happy to actually see a Tiger Swallowtail on the Butterfly Bush. It was easily chased off by bees, but then would just find another flower instead of flying off.
In our neighbors yard to the left is a Weeping Willow, how lucky that it is a host plant for Western Tiger Swallowtails! I had seen some landing on it recently and now I only wish I could see if there were eggs up there. My Butterfly Bush is just starting to bloom and it smells so good. Every year after I cut it down I wonder if it'll ever grow back, and every year it does. The Hummingbirds love the flowers too.
Western Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly. This is the first time I've been able to get pictures of one. It's amazing how much they move and how hard they are to get the camera to focus on.
It seemed to like hanging upside down on the flowers.
A little of what goes on under the Butterfly Bush. I found the Lupine seedling earlier this year and moved it to this part of the garden. I'm surprised to see blooms on it now, and really happy they are purple. Scabiosa, Agastache 'Golden Jubilee', Penstemon 'Catherine de la Mar' (lavender flowers) and Penstemon 'Red Rocks' all blooming together.
Look who decided to visit as well. I swear this dragonfly sat and patiently waited for my camera's autofocus to finally settle on him. For some reason it wanted to focus on the green stems behind it.
The Liatris 'Kobold' the dragonfly was on is just beginning to bloom.
Echinacea is also starting to bloom.
LOTS of Verbena bonariensis is blooming.
Another visitor stopped by as well. The hummingbirds chase each other away from Monarda 'Jacob Cline'. This one had just returned from chasing another one off. I could see them going way above our house.
This plant was a one gallon size 2 years ago and it has really spread and gotten tall. Anything that draws hummingbirds like this is fine to spread all it wants. I have a couple other bee balms in my yard, but this is definitely their favorite.
Here is the new Agastache 'Cocktail Peach Margarita' that I mentioned the other day. I tried to find it online, but no luck. The smell of this plant is just amazing!
On top of the butterfly, dragonfly and hummingbirds the garden was practically humming from all the different types of bees
One other visitor that I found in our house a few days ago and safely returned outside was a Lacewing. Rosie from
leaves n' bloom did a great post on them awhile ago and up until then I had no idea we even had them here or that they were so beneficial. So thanks to her the little Lacewing was moved back into the garden where it could get back to work.
Echinacea is also starting to bloom.
