Finished mulching the Tornado Honeysuckle. Still have to tie it up. No picture because it looks the same as it did the last time I took a picture, except for the fact that I put the last two bags of pine bark mulch down (bought three, just in case). I got the wire and the brace bands (and painted the brace bands), and I’m borrowing “my” little boltcutters from work, so I’ll hopefully finish it this weekend.

Now, in exciting news…I found Monarch eggs! I planted mostly common milkweed, which is doing very well, and that’s what they’d always preferred before so of course…the butterfly laid two eggs on the single “Soulmate” swamp milkweed cultivar in the water garden flower bed, and one on a swamp milkweed in the main milkweed bed. Ungrateful little bastards; those cold-stratified common milkweed seeds were not cheap! Anyway, three eggs are better than none.

I also have a bunch of those little red spiders in the milkweed. Not sure, but I think it may be Florinda coccinea; Black-tailed Red Sheetweaver. Dear god, what a long name for such a small spider!