Watch this video in full-screen, 720p mode. The Hummingbird Moth is difficult to see at first, but it comes closer during the second minute of the clip. The first time I saw one of these, my mind briefly went into a strange Twilight Zone mode because I couldn't place...
Pictured here is the original idea — purple Liatris spicata spikes paired against orange Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) blossoms in one of our backyard flower beds. Both attract butterflies, both are easy-to-grow perennials, and both have similar tight flower...
Here's our forsythia bush this afternoon. Okay, it may not be breathtaking to you — but it is to us because we know how it looked last year, and the year before that. Last summer, we did a "renewal pruning" on this shrub. This...
These are our hoyas — Hoya obscura on the left, and Hoya obscura Major on the right. We have had them a little over ten months. Based on their comparative sizes, I'm going to venture that "Major" indicates "bigger." I am a fan of plants that serve some sort of extra...
It will yield you brambles and thistles, as you eat the produce of the land. By the sweat of your face will you earn your food, until you return to the ground. as you were taken from it. — Genesis 3:18-19, The New Jerusalem Bible We've been spending a lot of time on...
Long story short: Since the experiment below back in 2007, we have decided that starting seedlings in windows is unwise. Because they bend toward the light, you have to constantly turn them, trying to keep them upright — and even then, they become too leggy and...
The radio show I work for is in Mexico this week — and so, with luck, is the little bird at my nifty HummZinger hummingbird feeder in the photo above. The weekend after Labor Day, he was right outside my window. As I have mentioned before, Amy and I are backyard...
Kenosha, Wisconsin — Amy enjoying the fragrance of lilac flowers in my mom's backyard.