The Monarch (Wanderer) butterflies seem to thrive on the Milkweed bush in the back garden here at home. The bush is about six years old now -- I keep it very well pruned -- and we counted upwards of 25 caterpillars before they started to chrysalis. Around 80% of the chrysalises seem to have hatched, and so far we haven't found any of the new-hatched Wanderers dead in the vicinity, so they really do seem to thrive here. This was a genuinely beaut Christmas gift from Mother Nature, and we were lucky enough to get good pictures in a patch of sunshine between the omnipresent rain...
It's raining again, in January, and the hills are green. Still green? Green again? Very weird. By this time of the year, the state of South Australia ought to be burned brown and desiccated, but this year everything remains soooo green --
The downside to which is, I'm not going to be able to save the roses. There's rust and black spot on every single bush, and some are a disaster zone. I'm pretty disappointed with this, because I had them looking marvellous before all the rain came back. Well ... back to square one and start again! Time to cut them back to sticks and spray everything in sight.
The forecast for these coming days also includes rain, so I'll just wait and see if January gets warmer before I start with the chemicals. Argh.
No comments:
Post a Comment