This is the butterfly garden, which attracts not only butterflies, but also bees and birds. The finches have the most fun in this garden. The garden is looking a bit tired in this photo, but a number of the flowers have rebloomed one more time before the fall. Behind the fence, where it's all dirt, the neighbors just had sod put down. So, it's one big stretch of green now.
This next photo was very hard to get. A monarch was flitting from flower to flower, but flew away whenever I got close with the camera. These flowers are Mexican sunflowers and they brought not only butterflies and bees to our garden, but also hummingbirds. The hummingbirds were a delight to watch. Once, we were able to see one perch on a branch of morning glory (climbing up the wall behind the sunflowers, but not visible in the photos). That was the first time I've ever seen one sitting still!
Alas, we lost most of this part of the garden in a severe thunderstorm, almost two weeks ago:
All the sunflowers, all the Mexican sunflower, all the cosmos came down in the storm. The tomatoes survived and the morning glory survived. One lonely Mexican sunflower is staked up with the tomatoes and one droopy sunflower is resting against the deck. We saw a hummingbird the day after the storm, but never again. I'm not sure if they are migrating, or if they've just given up on our garden!
The last few days have been acting more like the end of September, rather than the beginning of September. The cool weather is nice, but I hope we still get lots more tomatoes before the end of their growing season. Our tomatoes have been such a treat!
