A visit to a native plant nursery

Native blanketflower, Gaillardia pulchella,

I'm planning a little guerrilla gardening on a tiny, tiny plot of city-owned land by my house, so over the weekend I went to Casey's Corner, a native plant nursery, near Homestead (Ground Zero in Hurricane Andrew). As would be expected, there were butterflies everywhere. It was glorious!

Susan, the owner, specializes in butterfly garden installation. (She provided the plant material for the Smithsonian's Butterfly Pavilion.) She told me that one of her clients called to say the garden was a disaster because caterpillars were eating everything! After wondering how someone could be so clueless, I moved on to wondering how it's possible that someone was never taught that caterpillars become butterflies.

Anyway, I spent more money than I intended and have decided that most of the plants are going to stay in my garden. It just goes to show how selfish I am.

Disguising itself as bird poop, the caterpillar of the giant swallowtail languishes on top of a leaf

A gulf fritillary caterpillar feeding on a corky stem vine (Passiflora suberosa)

Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)

This sunflower is remarkably similar to tickseed; I have trouble telling them apart

I think this one is the Helianthus

Butterflies, including queens and white peacocks, were all over these shrubs

One of the numerous white peacocks

I'm amazed that anyone would pay for this; I keep pulling it out of the lawn!

Rows of (mostly) native plants, with blanketflower in the forefront

Storm clouds roll in; it's time to leave