I took the afternoon off yesterday, and went to Walschwitz. All they had left was four 30′ rolls of edging, so I bought them all (and also some Bloom Booster for my hanging baskets). It was an utterly beautiful day; not really too hot, even right in the sun. I got the edging installed on the other side of Thug Lyfe.

Also dug up a few goldenrod where it was starting to spread in Sarah-Flah’s Giant No-Mow Flowerbed. I thought about Disobedient Plant, but I don’t think there’s enough sun. I wouldn’t have thought there was for goldenrod, either, but the clump growing over by the “steps” to the wood tray feeder would beg to differ. Anyway, I cut it short because it would only have wilted anyway. I think it’ll be okay, and now the stinging nettle has a friend.

At long last, my Baptisia has bloomed! Only a few flowers, but such pretty ones!

I was mixing Bloom Booster in the watering can when I noticed something moving. A small something that I initially took for a spider, but it was no arachnid; it was a tiny Carolina mantis! I knew from his size that he was a hatchling, but it wasn’t until I’d found a few more that I realized he was literally a hatchling, as in…they were still hatching! This one says, “Hello. I am a little shit, but I am cute, so you love me.”

I scoured the back of the house over and over, picking up baby mantises and putting them in the Honeysuckle Horseshoe as I found them. In the end, I relocated 15 of them, and finally found the ootheca (actually oothecae, since there were two).

Little dudes were still hatching out, but it was getting late, and I couldn’t wait for them. That wall is Spider Nirvana, and I didn’t want them to die before they’d even lived a day, so I carefully scraped the oothecae off the concrete, and put them in the Horseshoe. Wedged into coneflowers by the already-hatched bit, leaving the unhatched bit free so they could dangle as they emerged. I wanted them near the flowers because of the small insects attracted thereto.