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Picking Peanuts

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Recently I’ve removed the safflower and sunflower feeders, as the finch eye disease has appeared in our neighborhood in several House Finches and I don’t want to assist in its spread. Poor little finches. House Finch eye disease, a conjunctivitis which eventually causes blindness, is caused by Mycoplasma gallisepticum and is a known problem for some kinds of birds who feed at feeders, primarily types of finches. (Check out the highlighted link above for more information about this disease.) Because the House Finches rarely eat peanuts, I’m leaving my two peanut feeders up and filled for the backyard bird visitors’ eating pleasure. For what it’s worth, my garden has scads of giant sunflowers and there’s no shortage of seeds for those who partake. I’ve observed House Finches, House Sparrows, Carolina Wrens, doves–and squirrels–hanging out amongst the sunflowers, nibbling this and noshing that. I’m sorry that the disease is spreading in my neighborhood, but with the sunflowers in bloom for the pollinators and seeding out for the birds and beasts, it’s a good time to remove the feeders and let birds feed like they’re supposed to–on plants which provide nourishment.

While I’m missing the cute House Finches close-up at the feeders, other resident birds are active and worth the watching. Downy Woodpeckers like this mature female, are always ready for peanuts. They are often the first to show up most mornings.

Her back and tail feathers show a beautiful pattern.

The local male (mate of the above female?) is darling with a bit of peanut in his beak and topped by his red hat.

The Downy Woodpeckers aren’t the only woodpeckers who love peanuts. Red-bellied Woodpeckers are also fond of the legume. This female is stunning with her bright red head and her stripey black-n-white wings.

The most vocal of the neighborhood songbirds are Carolina Wrens. After singing, this one captured its treasure and dashed to a secluded spot for a quick snack.

Carolina Chickadees come and go in my garden. Right now, a male and female and their offspring are regulars at the peanut feeders.

Always, there are Blue Jays. These guys and gals enjoy all the feeder offerings, but like so many birds, snarf peanuts with glee. This juvenile got a chance at one of the feeders without any pushy adults bullying him.

I have two feeders for shelled peanuts and a ceramic pot (which was supposed to be for a plant) for unshelled peanuts. Mostly the jays and the squirrels snatch these treats, but sometimes I see a Great-tailed Grackle or a Red-bellied Woodpecker snatching a prize. I put the unshelled peanuts out first thing in the mornings; once the peanuts are gone, the birds have to wait until the next day for more of these yummies.

Like the Carolina Wrens, the Black-crested Titmice come and go at the feeders, with the summer months being a big time for feeding. This is a parent and a fledgling sharing a meal.

As summer progresses and the bird families are grown up and mostly out of the nest, eating at the feeders slows a bit. For the next six weeks or so, it’s mostly the usual suspects in the garden. By late August, there will be whispers of migratory bird activity and after flights south, the winter warblers will settle in. During those times, peanuts will remain the flavor of the months.

Left by Leafhoppers

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I’m a tolerant sort towards insects in the garden. Insects get a bad rap, but many are good guys-n-gals and fulfill important roles in the ecosystem. Other insects are meh–not necessarily anyone’s favorites, but not problematic, either. A very few insects are monsters and no gardener wants to see the beasts messing up their slice of paradise. I’ll squish aphids if they’re covering foliage but I don’t use insecticides at all. When I garden for vegetables (a rare thing these days), I’ll spray water on plants to knock off aphids or other sucking insects, but most of my veggie garden problems come from birds and squirrels; they like their veggies, too, one bite at a time.

Because I prefer native perennials and shrubs, as well as non-native plants who’ve proven their worth in the challenging conditions of Central Texas, I don’t have many malevolent insects wreaking havoc on beloved plants. That is until this spring.

Along with all the other weird things that 2021 has delivered to my garden, it’s finally also experienced damage due to some naughty bugs and the bad germs they carry and spread.

I love Purple Coneflowers, Echinacea purpurea. I don’t grow quite as many as I once did, due to shady conditions because these cheery aster plants are sun lovers! But I still have some and enjoy the beauty they bring to the garden.

Coneflowers are a favorite among the pollinators and frequently have one in attendance.

Grey Hairstreak, Strymon melinus nectaring on a Purple Coneflower

My native coneflowers bloom from April until July, turning crispy and dropping seed during the hot summer months. Once they’re tired and worn out, I prune the plants to their base foliage and await the fall bloom, which is less dramatic, but very welcome.

Recently, I was observing some pollinator action and taking photos of this charming group of coneflowers, when I noticed an oddity.

Some of my coneflower sported leafy green hats!

Other mini-leaves covered the whole of the central globe, hiding the bracts where coneflower seeds develop. Also, the lavender rays were weird, short and misshapen.

As I looked at groups of coneflowers in other parts of the garden, I found more crazy coneflowers. Some had no purple or pink to them, they were all green: green centers, green rays, and a few green, strangely shaped leaves. The diseased plants were all shorter than the healthy coneflowers.

This discovery of individual bizarre coneflowers rang a botanical bell for me, though I’d never seen this kind of growth before in my garden. I recognized (from some reading, sometime in the past) that the deformed coneflowers were victims of a disease process and recalled that it is one brought on by an insect.

As I researched the problem, I came across the term Aster Yellows, and remembered reading other gardeners who’d removed their aster plants (not necessarily coneflowers) because of this disease. Removing the diseased plant is the only recourse and those plants shouldn’t be placed in compost, but disguarded from the garden completely.

Leafhoppers are common in my garden and I would normally place them in the meh category of insects; they’re around, but don’t present much of a problem. It seems that leafhoppers survived our February snowpocalypse and in early spring, at least a few of those leafhoppers carrying a mycoplasma engaged in some munching on the emerging coneflower plants. The mycoplasma which causes the unusual growth is spread by the leafhoppers feeding on the plants. Fortunately, only a few individual plants were impacted. You can see one in this photo at the base of a gloriously healthy plant.

Coneflowers are in the Asteraceae or Aster family, but many kinds of plants are affected by this mycoplasma disease process. According to Texas A&M Agrilife Extension, Texas Plant Disease Handbook, Aster Yellows impacts 300 different species of plants, from over 40 different families of plants.

I haven’t seen any more obvious problems with my remaining coneflowers (or any other plants), but it’s likely that next spring this issue may appear again. I’ll be quicker at diagnosing and removing the sick plants now that I’m aware that my garden could be hosting the insects and their germs.

Because of the devastating February freeze, a large shade tree died in my front garden and it will be removed in late fall. As well, my Red Oak trees in the back garden have also suffered some freeze damage; less foliage means more sun in my back garden. I’m sorry about the trees–trees are life giving entities–but more sun will mean more coneflowers in the garden. I just hope they’re all healthy next year and will continue to provide for food pollinators and joy for the gardener.

Coyote Cloudywing, Achalarus toxeus, resting on the rays of a Coneflower

Metamorphosis

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More than a collection of color and collaboration of texture and form, a garden is the base for life. Providers of pollen, donators of nectar, and deliverers of foliage, plants are foundational partners for biodiverse ecosystems. Insects, as well as other wildlife, are direct beneficiaries of the botanical bounty, frequently repaying that bounty with their own pollination and reseeding gifts.

This green gathering of groundcovers all serve as fuel for others in my garden’s seasonal story.

The plant with the petite sky-blue flowers is a Leadwort plumbago, Ceratostigma plumbaginoides. It meanders through several areas of my garden, dollops of blue attracting small native sweat bees. The bright green, lobed foliage at bottom left of the photo belongs to Gregg’s mistflower, Conoclinium greggii, which is currently not blooming. Its fuzzy, lavender-blue blooms will be available for the late summer/autumn migrating monarchs, as well as for a wide variety of other butterflies and bees. The groundcover with the charming clam-shell, variegated leaves–the majority plant in this particular group–is a White-veined Dutchman’s Pipe, Aristolochia fimbriata, a common non-native host plant for the Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly, Battus philenor.

Alongside some dainty pops of blue on the plumbago, the White-veined pipevine feeds Pipevine caterpillars, like the chubby fella below. This year I have enough of the pipe vine that the cats haven’t completely denuded it as they munch their way to adulthood, but they certainly have eaten plenty of leaves to the stems.

Once the caterpillars eat their fill and morph through their various instars, they follow their chemical signals and settle in a place to metamorphize into a different form of themselves. This one strung itself to the limestone just outside the frame of my back door. It traveled far from its feeding place to get to this spot and I wonder: why here, adjacent to the door? It’s an open spot. potentially vulnerable to predators, less hidden than on a plant, like a stem or an under-leaf. Chrysalises are much better camouflaged in the garden than attached to an open wall. Nevertheless, the caterpillar was resolute in its choice, working to moor itself there on its journey to a new, winged self.

The caterpillar also chose to begin changing during a stormy 48 hours; it strung its string, but remained in the J formation through that cooler, wetter period.

In time, the chemical changes happened, the chrysalis formed, and it remained stationary–though not static–for almost two weeks. The chrysalis emitted light and color as it transitioned, sometimes golden, sometimes green, sometimes dark, but always a little different from the day before.

I missed the debut of the adult, having overslept a bit during the premier morning; butterflies emerge with the sun’s rise; gardeners, not always. At 8am, it was there, drying its wings, waiting for the right time to take flight.

The butterfly did fly later that morning, though I’m not convinced it was entirely ready. I bumbled out the door, focused on some back garden chore, and the startled insect winged its way off of the limestone and over the garden, the remaining drops of its successful chemistry experiment scattering in the sunlight.

I’ve left the shell of the transmutation in place, the remnant of caterpillar observable in form, the memory of brilliant butterfly in warm, gauzy colors.