Summer 2023 Garden Tour

I love all the seasons, but there’s just something special about summer. I love sitting on the balcony on summer evenings to watch American goldfinches eating echinacea seeds or ruby-throated hummingbirds taking their last sips of nectar from the Lonicera sempervirens for the evening. Here are a few of my favorite photos of the butterfly garden this year. I hope they bring you as much joy as they have brought me.

purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)

The echinacea has thrived this year! The flowers attract a lot of goldfinches and fritillaries, and I am already collecting seeds to start a new patch next year.

cabbage white (Pieris rapae) at dense blazing star (Liatris spicata)

Liatris, also known as blazing star and gayfeather, is another native perennial. The tall, bottlebrush spires of flowers attract all sorts of pollinators, such as this cabbage white.

Female eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) at a zinnia. Males do not have the iridescent blue coloring on the hindwings. Papilio is the Latin word for “butterfly,” and glaucus comes from the Greek word glaukos, meaning “gleaming” or “gray.” For further etymology of glaucus, click here.

The eastern tiger swallowtails have been especially plentiful this year. If you feed them, they will come!

Dark morph female eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) at zinnia

Here is another female eastern tiger swallowtail, but this one looks different because it is in dark morph. Female eastern tiger swallowtails may be confused with spicebush, pipevine, or black swallowtails. I found this article by the New Jersey Butterfly Club very helpful.

Echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower) and zinnias. The view looks southwest toward Fayetteville, Tennessee.

I used my mom’s phone camera to capture a wide angle view of the flowers and the view. The photo above was taken in the morning before many butterflies got up.

Female eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) at spotted Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum). The small orange and white insect you may have noticed to the left of the swallowtail is an ailanthus webworm (Atteva aurea). This species of ermine moth is native to the American tropics.

This year I planted three new spotted Joe Pye weeds (Eutrochium maculatum) in the upper part of the garden. Like Liatris, Eutrochium maculatum belongs to the aster family (Asteraceae). The sweet-smelling flowers attract lots of skippers, butterflies, and bees. So far, the Joe Pye weeds are loving the drier, rocky soil. I love the dusty pink color, as well as the texture they add to in garden. My graphic design mind loves playing with all the colors and compositions!