"Houston, We Have Lift Off!"

"

New Butterfly Next To the Chrysalis

I went out to look at the three Monarch butterfly chrysalises today before lunch and found that the first one had just hatched out.  I couldn't believe it at first, and then ran back into the house shouting, "It's hatching, it's hatching!"  The newly hatched butterfly was clinging to the branch next to the tattered remains of the chrysalis.

Cindy came out and we watched as it began to flex and dry its wings and get used to being out of the chrysalis.  It's truly amazing that a butterfly that size can come out of a chrysalis less than an inch long and about half an inch wide.

The new butterfly's body alone is about twice the length of the chrysalis.  I'm not surprised that it takes it a couple of hours to unfold itself and get used to its new size and its new wings. We watched it unfold and flex the wings, rest for a while, then try it again.

After lunch we watched the new butterfly take its first short flight to a nearby Bush Germander (Teucrium fruiticans) where it continued the process of getting used to the new wings and started to explore the world of plants.  We watched in amazement; it's really true that if you plant a garden, it will grow on you.

Getting Used to Plants

Watching the butterfly make her first short, wobbly flights reminded me of a teenager with her learner's permit--getting there, but not quite ready for the big time, yet.  She frightened us by flying across the street to the neighbors' yard and then landing smack in the middle of the street to continue the wing stretching and resting process.

After watching this creature from caterpillar to chrysalis to new butterfly, I wasn't about to let her get run over by the first car that came along, so Cindy and I stood out in the middle of the street to encourage cars to go around.  The first lady that came by was quite understanding and enjoyed watching with us, but the next car that came along just wanted us to get the hell out of the street, but did go around us.

Ready to Fly!

Then our new Monarch flew off down the street toward other neighbors' gardens.  But we think she'll be back when she wants to lay her eggs--after all, we've got all that milkweed (Asclepia) leafing out to start the process all over.

Pollinator Partnership

Cindy found a great website, Pollinator Partnership, that promotes protection of pollinators through education and conservation.  There's a lot of good information on the website.

I've always thought of bees as pollinators, but hadn't given much thought to others such as butterflies, birds, bats, moths, ants, flies, beetles, wasps, small mammals and wind as pollinators.  That's quite a list.  One problem we've had is that some of the pollinators in our yard, such as the Scrub Jays, like to eat other pollinators, such as the Monarch butterfly larvae.  We keep hoping that the resident Red Shoulder Hawk will take out the ground squirrels, but so far the squirrels are just getting fatter and fatter on the bird seek we put out for the other birds.

The Pollinator Partnership website also has a handy pollinator friendly planting guide for each specific ecoregion.  Our ecoregion is the California Coastal Chaparral and we certainly have plenty of chaparral out in our canyon.  I noticed that various forms of Asclepia appear on their list for our region.  The Monarch butterflies will be happy about that.

Monarch Chrysalis

Cindy has planted the Asclepia plants we bought.  We decided to put them in the front yard to keep them away from the bird feeders in the back yard (Duh). The plants are recovering nicely from the havoc wrecked by the caterpillars a few weeks ago; they had stripped each plant down to the stems.  Most of the plants are starting to leaf out again and we're hoping they will have recovered by the time our three Monarch chrysalises hatch out and the new butterflies start laying eggs again.  There's been no change in the chrysalises, although I check them every day.  I continue to be amazed at how beautiful each chrysalis is; they look like jewels hanging from the fence and Bougainvillea branches.

More Progress

Cleaning It Out

Greg also cleaned up the area along the fence running from the garage to the back fence.  There was an old retaining wall about two feet from the fence, but it was only about two feet high, not really anchored into the ground, and it had begun to list badly.  We were concerned that it would eventually collapse and bring part of the neighbor's yard, and probably the old pine tree with it, into our yard.  So we asked Greg to extend the new retaining wall all the way back to the garage to help shore up that area.  I'm hoping that will make it a lot easier to keep the Trumpet Creeper in check--at least it will be easier to get to it.

Greg also added gravel and buried drainage pipes from the water holding tanks and from the clean out pipe on the back of the garage.  It improved the drainage system and makes the whole area much cleaner looking and easier to maintain.

Much Improved

We ordered the DG and the flagstone this week but won't get going on it until week after next.  It's all going to look great.

Progress Report

What We Started With

It's time to report on progress on the back yard project.  Our landscaper, Greg Eubanks of Serenity Gardens, and his helper Brian have spent the past four weeks working on it.

First they tore out the jungle of brush behind our fence, then carved out space to create a retaining wall against the hillside between our property and our neighbor's yard.  The neighbor's yard is higher than ours on the left in this picture, and the land slopes away abruptly into the canyon to the right of this picture, leaving a small, triangular space that had become overgrown with Trumpet Creeper, Jade, Pyracantha and a rather nice Plumbago with beautiful blue flowers.

Preparing to Build the Retaining Wall

The Trumpet Creeper has been the bane of my life for the past three years; it grew in a solid mass from the canyon up along our fence and garage and clear up along our drive way wall to the front of the neighbor's house.  After the canyon in the fire three years ago, the neighbor's family and Cindy and I began bring to chop it back, but it's like trying to unweave a basket from the inside.  The stems are long and thin and weave around about each other; you can cut half a dozen of them off at the ground and they'll still hang where they were because they are so intertwined with all the others.  Now it's considerably reduced, but there's still plenty of it around for the Hummingbirds.

The New Retaining Wall

Same for the Pyracantha, there's still plenty of it, too.  The Mocking Birds and Scrub Jays love it for the berries which are ripe now, but it's nasty stuff for humans to be around because of the long, sharp thorns it has all over its branches.  The Jade plant is relatively easy to deal with because it's a succulent.  In fact, it seems that if you give it a harsh look, branches will fall right off.

Another View

Greg and Brian constructed the wall using treated 2 x 6 wood planks secured with carriage bolts to  4 x 6 uprights that they sank two feet deep and cemented in.  They ran the drainage pipe behind the wall and covered it with about six inches of gravel, then covered the gravel with dirt.  The idea is to drain water away from the edge of the canyon and also provide drainage for the overflow from the rain water tanks.

Greg also created a "splash mountain" of broken concrete pieces at the base of the telephone pole. It will help with drainage, keep the vegetation down around the pole and give us a place to drain off water we don't want going into the garden.

New Planting Beds

After the wall was complete, they put a row of concrete blocks along the edge of the canyon, put weed block fabric down, built three planting areas and put down decomposed granite (DG) on the pathways and tamped it down.  This will give Cindy approximately 200 square feet of additional planting space, although because of the large trees next door it will be partially shaded most of the year.


Anyway, it looks a lot better now.

Ready To Plant!

A Prospect of Blueberries

Cindy went to the nursery Saturday and came home with three blueberry plants for the back yard.  She bought a Sharp's Blue, a Misty and a Southmoon, all Southern Highbush varieties that require fewer chill hours than varieties that do well in cooler climates.

However, when Cindy went to re-pot the bushes, she found that although the nursery had told her that the three bushes were bare-root bushes that had just been potted, she found that all three plants were actually badly root bound and waterlogged, with roots that were brown and tightly compacted.  The danger with that is that they may be starved of oxygen and less likely to thrive.  The nursery says the bushes have a lifetime guarantee and they will replace them if they die.

I hope they survive and eventually produce lots of fruit; we love blueberries.

Rose Pruning Time

Double Delight

The San Diego winter is so mild it's hard for Cindy to know when is the best time to prune our five rose bushes.  The temperature was in the low sixties for the last two weeks, then jumped up into the upper seventies yesterday and today.  So, of course, the rose bushes think it's Spring, and who can blame them for that, especially when the humans are beginning to exhibit signs of Spring Fever, too.

Moonstone

Cindy had been thinking of taking some of the bushes out this year and replacing them; the Double Delight seemed to be struggling and the Moonstone suffers badly from rust and spider mites.  However, she decided to stick with them for now and has spent the last three days pruning them back, fertilizing and mulching them and making sure the irrigation systems is working properly.  She also gathered up all the fallen leaves to try to prevent the rust from spreading.

Ole

We don't know if the katydid (see "Mystery Bug" post in September and "Where's Katy?" in October) laid any eggs on the yellow rose bush, but Cindy put some of the canes aside to see if anything hatches out later.  One of the Master Gardener sources said to just step on katydids and kill them, but we really enjoyed watching ours; she ate a few leaves, but she wasn't very destructive and she did eat aphids.

These photos are from the summer of 2010.  When we first moved here in 1997, I wanted a yard with little or no grass and mostly drought tolerant plants, but Cindy insisted on having a rose bed.   Roses are a lot of work for her, but when they're in flower, they're absolutely beautiful.

Return of the Shrubbery Police

Yea!  The fire inspector returned today and said we are now in compliance in both Zones 1 (house to 30 feet) and 2 (30 to 60 feet).  Cindy showed her all the work we had done since the first visit and was told that the property was now in compliance with the city's code, so we're happy about that.

Behind the Fence "Before"

Behind the Fence "After"

Below are some of the "before" and "after" pictures.

Eugenia Hedge "Before"

Eugenia Hedge "After"

Lemonade Berry "Before"

Lemonade Berry "After"

Pine Tree "Before"

Pine Tree "After"

Another One

The third Monarch butterfly caterpillar we were watching has also formed its chrysalis.  I saw it this morning, so we now have three to watch, although the third chrysalis is so far up on the Bougainvillea that we probably won't be able to see much.

Mr. Upside Down

Mr. Upside Down

Caterpillar Attached To Fence

About five minutes after I hit the "publish" button for the previous post, Cindy came flying downstairs and said the upside down Monarch caterpillar on the fence was forming the chrysalis.  We raced outside and sure enough, the chrysalis had started to form.

We had been worried that the caterpillar was looking pretty bad; its antennae were drooping and it seemed to be shriveling up and wasn't moving very much.  However, as the chrysalis formed, we discovered that the reason the caterpillar had been looking bad was that the whole head part of the caterpillar's skin drops off and reveals the chrysalis beneath it.  We found the shriveled up skin on the ground below the chrysalis.

Chrysalis Forming

We could even see traces of the butterfly wings beginning to form before the chrysalis shell hardened to the beautiful jade green color.  It's an amazing process. I was so interested in watching this one because it was easy to see what was happening (or not happening) because of the location the caterpillar had chosen.

So maybe in a couple of weeks we can watch this one and the two on the Bougainvillea hatch into Monarch butterflies.

Waiting Game

On Thursday we noticed that the upside-down Monarch butterfly caterpillar had attached itself to the fence, so we anticipated that it would soon form a chrysalis.  I watched it all day yesterday until it finally got too chilly to sit outside any more; there was movement during the day, but no chrysalis.

This morning the caterpillar was still attached and still in the J shape, but not moving much.  We've checked on it during the day, but nothing yet.  The temperature has been in the upper 50's today without much sun, so the cooler temperatures may be slowing things down.   We propped a couple of plexiglass panels up to keep the wind off the caterpillar, so we'll see if that helps.

We also found the caterpillar who was trucking so fast along the Bougainvillea branch; that one worked its way up and has attached itself to one of the upper branches of the Bougainvillea, and it, too, is in the J shape.  So we may eventually have three chrysalises to watch, unless it's now too chilly for them to complete the process.

Chrysalis!

Monarch Butterfly Caterpillar Attached

Cindy was pruning the Bougainvillea in the front yard yesterday when she noticed a Monarch butterfly caterpillar had attached itself to one of the Bougainvillea branches and curled up as if it was going to begin forming a chrysalis.

Monarch Chrysalis

We watched it and a couple of other caterpillars for about half an hour.  One of the other caterpillars was chugging purposefully along one of the branches and the other had curled up under one of the wrought iron curlicues on the fence beside the Bougainvillea, so we thought there was a possibility that they might also be ready to start forming a chrysalis, but they had not attached themselves to anything.

We went in to lunch for about an hour and when we came back out, the first caterpillar had already completed its chrysalis.  We were astonished at how much it resembled a leaf; I'm sure that's its best protection when it's completely immobile in the chrysalis.

Our friend Mari, who also has Asclepia plants and harbors Monarch caterpillars, says it usually takes about a week for the butterflies to hatch out, so we'll keep watching this one.

What's This One Doing?

In the meantime, we completely lost sight of the one that was heading along the branch, but the other one is still on the fence as of today.  We don't know if he's getting ready to attach, or is just confused, but we'll keep an eye on that one, too.

Grow What You Eat

Winter, even the very mild San Diego winter, is traditionally a time for all good gardeners to dream about what they're going to plant in the Spring.  The Christmas catalogue avalanche has now been succeeded by a tidal wave of gardening catalogues, each with its own set of temptations.

One thing we've been trying to do the last couple of years is to grow more of the food we eat.  We can't become complete locavores because Cindy is not prepared to go without coffee in the morning and I won't give up chocolate.  Ever.  Period.

But we can grow a lot of the vegetables we eat.  We've already been doing that, but with the two new raised beds coming into full production this year, we should be able to do even better.

Right now we're eating the beets (Detroit Reds) that are still coming out of the garden, as well as some of the endless Clarimore zucchini and tomatoes from the summer garden.

Ancestry.com quotes Mark Twain as saying, "Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."  But next week we'll still be poring over seed catalogues and Cindy will be double-digging the new raised beds.

"Daylight and Champagne...."

Champagne and pistachios for breakfast?  Well, why not?  It's a beautiful New Year's Day in San Diego, with blue skies and plenty of sun.  We had coconut pancakes topped with pistachios for breakfast and some of Wilson Creek Winery's Almond Champagne with it.  What a wonderful way to start the new year.

Our New Year's wishes for our family and friends are for health, prosperity and happiness.  May all your gardens prosper and grow bountifully and without weeds.