The Red Monarda Is Blooming!

The original butterfly garden on the south side of the house is chock full of Jacob Cline monarda (or bee balm), and this time of year, they all bloom. Above is a photo of one of the biggest ones. They look to me like those caps that jesters wear.

The air is usually full of hummingbirds, but this year, so far, I have not seen many. We had two that were here pretty much constantly for a while, but now we are in a rainy phase again, and they seem to have disappeared. No matter, they'll be back, and these beauties will be waiting for them!

In further news from the yard, a groundhog appeared near Barb's butterfly garden earlier this week. It is a large one, not a juvenile, and so far, it hasn't made a run to build a hole under our front porch. Its working name so far is PleaseGodNotTheGroundhogsAgain.

Yet more news: I am sorry to report that the lovely (Hell-ride) salvia that I bought and planted in the new butterfly garden is pretty much a goner now. I bought two plants: a blue one (her favorite color) in honor of my sister Barb and a purple one for me. One afternoon, my husband drew my attention to damage on the blue plant: it had been neatly snipped into five pieces. I tried simply planting the individual pieces in the ground nearby.

And I thought, well, thank goodness at least it wasn't the purple one that was attacked. But then, two days later, something chomped the purple plant off, right at the bottom of the stem; the whole thing was leaning over. I tried sticking it back in the ground, but further attacks were waged.

In one instance, I actually SAW the perpetrator, which looked to be a medium sized black mouse type creature, chewing on the stems. I fenced the two plants. I put coffee grounds around them. No dice. I've tried planting bits of both blue and purple salvia in the meadow, where perhaps the black mouse (who I now think of as "Black Bart") won't find it. But the remaining plant bits are all looking pretty sorry now, and I suspect the whole thing is a lost cause. *hefty sigh*

The rainy patch we're in has involved major storms that move through with amazing lightning, loud thunder, big winds, and torrential rains. Shortly after I took this photo, such a storm moved through, the power flickered on and off for a while, and the entire bed of monarda got knocked over. I'll go out and try to stake them up, as soon as it stops raining!

The soundtrack song for this flower that looks like a jester cap is the Steve Miller Band, with The Joker.