Garden Delights Gala – new arts & crafts!

My yearly gala – Garden Delights Holiday Gift Sale & Art Show, is the first 2 weekends of December this year! The Show is at my art studio on December 7-8 and 14-15, 2019, from 11 am to 5 pm – or by appointment at your convenience.

I’m proud to show my photos and mixed-media artwork & crafts, and also upcycled creations, where I bring fresh life to paper and fabric. Also hand-knits and fabulous felted creations! Fashionable fingerless mitts keep your hands cozy during mild winter weather … …

… NEW! Upcycled bags from sweaters and such …

Fancy knitted washcloths …

… pair with George’s soaps for a great gift …

Please stop by to relax during the holiday rush, enjoy snacks, and chat. Never any pressure to buy, but if you’ve got a list I’ve got a wide range of handmade and original-designed gifts, for yourself and for friends and family – including pets!

More new this year – George’s exquisite handmade 100% natural beeswax candles, including two sizes of tapers, from our honeybees’ wax. Read all about them at my article.

Jewelry, wearable art, purses, cards & prints, boxes, home decor, beeswax candles, and more! Our honeybees bless us with delicious honey, which many people swear helps their pollen allergies.

Want a postcard reminder sent to your mailbox, or would you like to drop by at a time that’s more convenient for you? Email me. Can’t make the show or want to see my artwork online? Click these links:

• Website
• Artfire Gallery
• My blog
• Zazzle shop
• Facebook

Lake Merritt Winter Bird Walk

George and I often spend Christmas afternoon strolling through the wonderful gardens at the Lake Merritt Garden Center in Oakland. We were very disappointed this year to find the fences locked, but consoled ourselves by walking over to the Lake Merritt Bird Sanctuary instead.

In 1870 the Sanctuary was designated as the country’s first official wildlife refuge, and in 1963 it became a National Historic Landmark. It’s really exciting to see so many different kinds of birds in one location. The birds that hang out at a fenced-in man-made pond near the walkway are used to people, so you can get much closer than in the wild. An adult Black-crowned Night Heron let me get a closeup of his beautiful profile:

Other herons perched in the trees.

Excitement was seeing White Pelicans at the Lake for the first time!

This pair swam and fished together in the small pond.

Western Gulls feasted on clams.

Man-made Duck Islands provide shelter and plenty of tree branches for birds’ nests.

A string of Canada geese skidded into the Lake.

How about you – any exciting winter bird sightings to report?

The Four Elements of Habitat

George and I took our “pup and pony show” to the El Cerrito Garden Club today.  He spoke, and we showed my photos on the topic of maintaining a garden to attract and nurture butterflies.

We prepared some handouts and I want to share some of the information with you, so here is George’s explanation of the elements that you need to provide habitat for wildlife.

The four critical elements are: food; water; shelter; and places to raise young. All four elements are intertwined and necessary for wild life. No one element stands alone, and without all four successes at providing for wildlife suffers.

1) Food: All wildlife enhancements absolutely require this. Animals of all species will avoid areas unless they can be guaranteed a reliable food source. A balanced ecosystem needs to sustain everything from plants for larval insects to seeds and prey species, etc.

Anise swallowtail butterfly caterpillar eating fennel

2) Water : The second partner in the pas-de-deux of life. Many animals need water to even feed, or to provide the food they need.

3) Shelter : The greatest variety of wildlife occurs at the interface of distinct habitat types. Example: an open field adjacent to a wooded area. Birds can feed in the field while having the woods to escape if necessary. And there needs to be shelter for them for waiting out inclement weather, or for night-time. Brush, trees of all types and heights, brush piles, high grasses, rock walls, and deep leaf litter and undisturbed forest “duff” all provide shelter and for the last item below:

4) Places to raise young : Success at proving habitat comes in a reward: succeeding generations of young! Tadpoles, baby birds, spawning fish, a skunk and her kits, emerging butterflies ovipositing and the emergent adults from cocoons or chrysalides is the perfect indicator of habitat success.

Monarch butterfly chrysalis

As for shelter, again provide brush, trees of all types and heights, brush piles, high grasses, rock walls, and deep leaf litter and undisturbed forest “duff”’, and gravel beds for many anadromous species of fish.

Notes: it is essential that the above provisions are consistent, removal of one or many of the elements will cause unnecessary suffering and waste of valuable energy for animals. Make all changes to the environment gradual and incremental. Many animals will flee a changed ecosystem and not come back.

ABSOLUTELY REFRAIN FROM USING HERBICIDES AND PESTICIDES. They have no part in habitat preservation. Most long-term effects are unknown and the current load already in the environment is doing irreparable harm.

Thanks, George, for this concise explanation. Dear reader, are you gardening for wildlife – butterflies, bees, birds, and other critters? What are you doing in your garden to provide the four elements of habitat?

More Hummingbird Happiness

If you saw my recent blog post, Hummingbird Happiness, you know what my favorite bird is. I’ve been sitting for hours in our garden this past week, waiting for the hummers to dive down from their tree-perches to get nectar from our flowers. One flitted around the stand of agapanthus flowers.

Hummingbird at agapanthus flower

Another preferred the buddleia (butterfly bush).

Hummingbird at buddleia

Someone just asked me how to get photos of hummingbirds, since they move so quickly. It’s definitely a challenge to get clear, in-focus photos of them. A lot of it is patience, waiting for them to come to a spot where you can get a clear shot. And focusing can be near-impossible, especially when they’re hovering. One trick is to pre-focus on something stationary where you anticipate they will be, then take the shot when they enter that area.

Hummingbird at buddleia

And of course, the first step to getting great photos of hummingbirds and other birds and critters is to plant lots of flowers and other sources of nectar and food for them.

Monarch eggs in the garden!

Did you see my post last week about the monarch butterfly in our garden? (Click here to read it.) This was one of the photos I took:

Well, guess what? George was right that she was a female – she left us some precious gifts. Yesterday I noticed many tiny yellow eggs sprinkled on our milkweed plants. Here’s an extreme closeup of one, it’s about the size of the head of a pin!

Isn’t it amazing how she tucked it up under the cap of the bud of the unopened milkweed flower? Most of the eggs that we spotted are on the Asclepias cancellata “Wild Cotton,” which we got at Annie’s Annuals & Perennials.  You can read about this beautiful milkweed plant on Annie’s website. Here’s another extreme closeup:

You can see the oval shape and tiny lines (which my poor eyes can’t even see without blowing up my photos).  This side view really shows the oval shape:

 I think this one is getting ready to emerge from the egg – the black speck appears to be the tiny larvae (caterpillar) breaking through:

Click here to see an incredible time lapse video on Youtube of a monarch caterpillar breaking out of its egg.  Pulling back a little, you can see this one tucked among the unopened flower buds:

Finally, I really hate to post an out-of-focus photograph, but I took this one last night when we first found them, and the light was fading and I had no time to set up my tripod (excuses, excuses), so sorry for the fuzziness, but it shows you the size of the egg in scale with George’s finger.

I mentioned in my prior blog post that we have hardly seen any monarchs in our garden for a couple of years. I checked, and it was Spring 2009 when we last had the good luck to find monarch eggs on our milkweed. We raised and released them, and I photographed the entire process. You can see those photos by clicking here.  The mortality rate of butterflies left outside is quite high, due to predators, weather factors and other causes, so raising them indoors greatly increases the chance that they will survive. We’re honored that this monarch trusted us with her eggs, and we will guard and nurture them until they emerge, then let them go to continue the cycle!

Monarch in the garden

A good day –a monarch butterfly is flitting around our garden! Here she is perched on the leaves of the peach tree.

It has been a couple of years since George watched a monarch lay eggs on the milkweed in our backyard. We brought some of the eggs inside to raise in safety.  Click here to see the photos I took of the whole process, from the tiny eggs, to the caterpillars, to the chrysalises, and finally to the butterflies which emerged (and which we released.)

But despite all of the milkweed George has planted to attract them, we’ve hardly seen any monarchs in the garden since that special year.  So imagine my delight when I saw this one — she (George got close enough to identify her as female) was sunning on the angel’s trumpet, and she also seemed to like the fennel plant and the dogwood tree, as well as the milkweed.   Here she is on the dried seed pods of the fennel, which is one of the anise swallowtail butterfly’s larval food sources.

She spent quite a bit of time on the milkweed, and I’m hoping she left some eggs.

I love this milkweed, it’s Asclepias physocarpa. Bees like it too – can you see the honeybee a bit to the left of the butterfly? Physocarpa is also known as “Family Jewels” because the seed pods look like … well, here’s a photo I took yesterday of one of the dried seed pods, see for yourself.

If you want to find more information about Physocarpa milkweed, check out this link to Annie’s Annuals & Perennials.

Here’s a closeup of the butterfly on the milkweed, you can see her poor tattered wing.

Did you know that one of the monarch butterfly’s protective characteristics is to poison its predators? In the larval stage it eats milkweed leaves to incorporate the milkweed toxins into its body. Perhaps a bird realized after getting a bite that it didn’t want to keep eating.

George’s winning Dracula orchid

I’m so proud of my orchid whisperer husband! George just won an Award of Merit (80 points) for this amazing orchid from the American Orchid Society at the San Francisco Orchid Society meeting.

It’s a Dracula amaliea ‘Hestia’.  This is a shot of just three of the blooms, the incredible plant has blooms nearly all the way around, I counted ten, and I’m sure there are some still hiding in the thick foliage! This same plant won a slightly lower award in 2009 – a Highly Commended Certificate, with a score of 78 points.  Click here to see the 2009 official AOS judging record and photographs.  I love the description they give: “Two flowers and two buds on four inflorescences; sepals cream overlaid maroon on reverse appearing tan interiorly, heavily tomentose with tan-tipped glandular hairs; petals minute; caudae maroon, well presented; substance firm; texture felt-like.”

This is a photo I took of the entire plant in 2009.  The Dracula likes partial shade and cool to cold conditions, perfect for the weather we’ve been having.  And click here to see another of George’s award-winning Dracula orchids, a Dracula diabola ‘Andina’ which won an HCC (79 points) in 2010.

California Native Plant Society – 2011 Native Plant Fair

Leopard lily, Mt Tam

The East Bay Chapter of the California Native Plant Society presents the 2011 Native Plant Fair on Saturday, October 1, from 10 am to 3 pm, and on Sunday, October 2 from noon to 3 pm at the Native Here Nursery, 101 Golf Course Road, Berkeley, in Tilden Park across from the entrance to the Tilden Golf Course.

20,000+ plants, including bulbs and ferns, will be offered for sale.  Come for  a wonderful selection of local native plants, seeds and bulbs, lectures, books, posters and gifts — as well as to see local photographers and craftspeople with their native and nature-related arts and crafts.  Free admission!

I will be there both days — please stop by my table to say hello.  I’ll bring a great selection of my original nature-based arts and crafts works, including many prints of native plants, butterflies and insects, my fabric art, tile boxes, cards, silk scarves, and much more!

Bay leaf mandala

This event is a major source of funding for the East Bay CNPS.   Over twenty people volunteer regularly at the Native Here Nursery, open year round to benefit the chapter through sales of local native plants.  Click here for more information about the Fair, including a catalog of plants that will be for sale.

The Great Bee Count of 2011

Honeybee on lavender flower

The day has arrived – so go out to your yards and gardens and begin …. counting bees!  The Great Sunflower Project  was launched in 2008 to get information about urban, suburban and rural bee populations.  The Project also wanted to educate people about what was happening with the bees in their back yards, and to remind us of how important bees are — their motto is: “Bees: Responsible for Every Third Bite of Food.”   So they got people all over the world to observe their bees on Lemon Queen sunflowers, because sunflowers are relatively easy to grow and a great resource for bees. They expanded the list of plants, including bee balm, cosmos, rosemary, tickseed, goldenrod and purple coneflower.  But even if you don’t have any of those plants in your garden (yet — lots of time to prepare for next year!) you can still count.  The bees that come to our garden love the lavender, and I had a blast earlier this week taking photos of them.

Bumble bee on soap plant flower

The bumble bees also love the soap plant flowers (Chlorogalum pomeridianum), tiny, spiky flowers that bloom only in the evening. The flowers are only about an inch around, so watching the relatively large bumble bees (compared to honeybees) grab onto the delicate flowers, making them bounce and wave, is very entertaining.

The steps to participate in the Project are listed on their site, with links.  All you have to do:  sign up and plant your sunflower (or other plant); describe your garden; watch the plant for 15 minutes and enter the data online. With colony collapse disorder, pesticides, and other threats to the hardest-working pollinators, every little bit helps —

Even if you don’t have any of the listed plants yet, why not go outside and do the count anyway? It would be a good baseline to compare with the number you get next year, when you’ve filled your garden with plants to help the bees.  And let me know what you find!

Anise swallowtail butterfly from 2006!

I think I’ve mentioned here before that anise swallowtail butterflies don’t emerge from their chrysalises on a set timetable, like monarch butterflies do. George thinks that it’s probably to ensure better survival, so some of the adult butterflies will emerge pretty quickly – in a couple of weeks, but others hang out for much longer.  You can tell that they’re still alive by touching them gently – they move.

This photo collage I did for the butterfly exhibit in the El Cerrito Library shows the caterpillar getting ready to become a chrysalis (pupate) – that’s the top left. The bottom left and top right show how different the chrysalises can look, some bright green, and some drab brown. The bottom right one shows what the empty chrysalis looks like after the adult butterfly emerges. Anyway, we were so excited to see that the beautiful female that emerged today became a chrysalis way back in 2006!

She must have come out sometime during the night, because she was ready to go this morning. Since the weather is so nice, we put her outside on a yampah plant, that’s the native larval food source for anise swallowtails. While she was resting happily in the sun, I got this photo of her from the side, showing her head, including her eyes, proboscis (that’s what they sip liquid food through), and antennae.

We always hope that the females we raise and release will remember the plant and come back to lay eggs, so we can continue the cycle.