Goldfinch on zinnia

 

Amphibian - 2

 

Amphibian

 The little fifty gallon pond is now in its third season.  This is the earliest in the year that I've spotted an amphibian.

White Snakeroot

White snakeroot (Ageratina altissimo, formerly Eupatorium rugosum) is a native plant that good for bees.  It is not so good for humans, we are told Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died of milk sickness, which is caused by drinking the milk of cows that have eaten white snakeroot.

She was thirty-four and he was nine. History tells us that milk sickness was not eliminated until the 1920s, because what do natives and women know?

Eventually, a frontier doctor in Illinois named Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby learned of the cause of the sickness from a Shawnee medicine woman. Bixby helped control the disease locally by instructing settlers to remove white snakeroot from their fields, but she too was largely ignored by the medical community, and research confirming the connection between snakeroot and milk was only published much later. Today, for better or worse, industrial agriculture has all but eradicated milk sickness.

My puzzle is that various sources have different takes on how much sunlight white snakeroot needs. The plant is said to be easy to grow from seeds, so I'll try for myself.

https://wildseedproject.net/2016/03/in-the-shade-gardening-with-native-plants-from-the-woodland-understory/ Recommends White Snake Root Ageratina altissimo for deep shade.

Donald J. Leopold, Native Plants of the Northeast: A Guide for Gardening & Conservation, Tenth Printing, 2020, Timber Press, Inc.; ISBN-13: 978-0-88192-673-6 (Eupatorium rugosum) says - sun to partial shade. 

https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=agal5 says Ageratina altissima used to be placed in the genus Eupatorium and says - prefers full sun. 

https://www.mortonarb.org/trees-plants/tree-plant-descriptions/white-snakeroot says "best in part shade to full shade". 

https://www.toadshade.com/Ageratina-altissima.html says "its native habit is often woodland or woods-edge."

Black-capped Chickadee

Cropped detail

Garden 2020

 iPhone photos of flowers in my garden, starting with the crocus in the spring.

ETA - captions beneath the pix.

Crocus

Cherry Parfait - May 26 - June 2

Creeping Phlox - May 2

Tulips - April 6

Tulips - April 4

Crocus - March 10

Almost 300 tulips

This spring.

In Memoriam: Summer 2017

Grey Catbird

New to my yard, as far as I can remember. I believe it is a grey catbird.

Fall

Hummingbird moth

The wild bergamot brought in hummingbird moths, which I've never seen before in my garden.  Not a great shot, but proof positive. :)

Wild Bergamot Flower

A close-up of the wild bergamot flower.

Butterfly bush

A moth perches on a butterfly bush flower.  With the wild bergamot nearby, anything visiting the butterfly bush is a rarity.

Trumpet vine flower

The trumpet vine flower is supposed to attract hummingbirds, and I've had one in the backyard for years now, from an earlier half-hearted attempt to be hummingbird-friendly.  This year it is flowering quite profusely, relative to previous years (though still not very impressive).

Cardinal flower

I have a new stand of cardinal flower in the backyard.  It is for hummingbirds, or apparently, the few species of butterflies with sufficiently long proboscis.