Life in the garden

I was lucky enough to be given some plants today so that made me spend a bit of time in my garden. Once the plants (gerberas) were planted and mulch spread around them to make them feel comfortable, I dashed inside to grab the camera. The camera was not for these little new plants but for some naughty creatures that were munching their way along the big fleshy leaves of a spider lily plant.

It is possible to see the devastation these long creepy caterpillars are creating. This is a long leaf and only a few of the caterpillars are shown. There are lots of leaves and lots of caterpillars. Guess who will be using a spray can of insecticide tomorrow! I couldn't do it today because I wanted a photograph and I did try to encourage a nearby butcher bird to come down and help himself but he preferred the grasshoppers! The sprays I use are bird and lizard friendly. I am very reluctant to spray insects, preferring instead to let the natural predators do the work - but when it comes to such an act of vandalism as this . . .  action has to be taken! There are too many of them to go around squashing them!
There are many beautiful things in the garden at the moment. It is a real pleasure to be out there pulling up weeds and snipping off dead heads!

This is a Gloxinia and was bought in a moment of weakness last year. I bought two of them and after giving us a few weeks of colour they died back. I thought I had seen the end of them but being lazy did not dig them up and put something else in their place - just as well because they have been reborn! The strange thing is that this one, the first to flower, has reversed its colours. Last year it was purple and white but the throat was white and the edges of the petals were white! I wait with impatience to see if the red gloxinia has altered too!
Another of the beautiful flowers in my front garden is this daylily.

I think I might have eight different coloured daylilies and they are all "stunning". The individual flowers look fantastic for only one day - hence their name - and in the morning are completely withered and hang limply from their stem. Fortunately each stem has several flower buds so there is a reasonable flowering time. Over the years my plants have multiplied and I have spread clumps all through the garden beds so there are lots of flowers through November and into December. I love 'em!
Before I stop!
When Colin was putting the clippings through the mulcher (all my garden clippings go back onto the garden!) he found this little fellow.

This spider is very small - maybe one centimeter leg tip to leg tip. It looked a little like a tiny crab!
AJ