“Several years ago I was in one of few natural gardens left in Missouri, a native prairie adorned with hundreds of native species. This is where, for the first time, I saw a monarch butterfly laying eggs. She was flying low over the prairie vegetation. When she was near a plant with foliage that looked like a milkweed, she would land on one of its leaves. If the plant was a milkweed, she would lay a single egg on the underneath side of the leaf. If the plant wasn’t a milkweed, she was back in the air almost instantly looking for a weed. She was making the distinction by tasting with her “feet.””
Mervin Wallace, Missouri Wildflowers Nursery
www.mowildflowers.net, Online & Jefferson City
“I’ve had some fabulous hummingbird encounters in August. By then, I’m too hot and tired to do too much gardening, so when I’m hanging out in my hammock, I just watch the hummingbirds buzz around the yard. It’s awesome!”
Kim Reiss, Manager, Sugar Creek Gardens
www.sugarcreekgardens.com, Kirkwood
“We as gardeners and growers will all have different ways of doing things. Most of us are creatures of habits and systems when it comes to our gardens or planting. I am also a creature of habits and systems but, I also do a good deal of experimenting when it comes to gardening. You have to be willing to receive more form the execution and results of your experiments to truly try things that may not work. Experimenting with different soils types and different plants and planting times and conditions is very fun and exciting. Some of my family may say it is a weird type of fun. I enjoy the work and the evaluation of the results, good or bad. Not everyone is a candidate for the ten fruitless attempts at something for the one true success, but it is sure fun when it works. This time of year is when the things you have been watching and waiting for are either working or not and it is where you will be making plans for next year.
Randy Greene at Greene’s Country Store & Feed, www.greenescountrystore.com,Lake St. Louis.