High Summer has arrived: the first ripe tomatoes, the cicadas are starting to sing and the big orange lilies are just about finished. I'm struggling to keep stuff alive-mainly the shrubs. More Japanese willows are dying, I've probably lost 60% of the fence line. Four straight years of Summer drought and small snow packs during the Winter has been too much for them.
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| Tom Potterfield |
The butterfly weeds (asclepias) have ended their blooming and are creating their distinctive milkweed seed pods. The leaves of the asclepias are crucial food for the developing larvae of the monarch butterfly and that is why I grow this plant. Sadly, I have only seen a single specimen this Summer and now, it was announced in the NYT, monarchs have been classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world’s most comprehensive scientific authority on the status of species. The population has collapsed here significantly since just last year, which we dubbed "The Summer of Dancing Butterflies" because they would visit us while we were in the pool.
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