Bug Season

This is a . . . moth? Frankly, I'm still trying to learn about plants. Bugs will have to wait. In my garden, I have seen grasshoppers, beetles, spiders, ladybugs, ants (of course!), flies, mosquitoes (every morning, every evening) and other assorted flying insects. For the most part, I leave them alone, although I did spray a Coleus this morning, when I saw a sticky white residue (white fly eggs?) on it, and also a Lemon Verbena that all of a sudden has some of its leaves turning brown (I saw some things crawling on the plant; the browning was not the result of the heat, although we do have plenty of that!). My garden is visited by numerous birds and I am going to count on them to deal for the most part with the flying insects, such as this one. If you happen to know what it is, please tell me.

Bugs on Sedum

Now that the Sedum 'Autumn Joy' is in bloom all over my garden, the presence of insects has greatly increased. A clump like this is often visited by a dozen or more at the same time. I do not know the names of any of them. Some look rather innocent, like this one, while others are much more fierce-looking. Note a stem of the Obedient Plant to the Sedum's right. It attracts insects also, and hummingbirds.

Bugs in the Garden

It was Barb Giamanco, who first encouraged me to submit articles to SelfGrowth.com and I have been doing just that for a few months now. Today, SelfGrowth accepted my submission about bugs and if you would like to read it, here is the link:

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/a_southern_garden_in_mid_summer_coexistence_with_the_bugs.html?#