It wasn’t so bad this year; we actually went on Friday night and saw the glow, which is quite nice. Even nicer, though, were the butterflies that I saw right in our back yard!

Great Spangled Fritillary (which is just fun to say!)

Same guy, side view with the “spangles” that give him his common name visible.

Black Swallowtail, and I’m still going to think this is one that grew up eating the carrot, dill, and parsley that I grew for them.

Cute little Sulphur on a ‘toonya. Cloudless, I think.

Black form female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. I’ve seen a lot of black form at Parview…I wonder whether it’s because there are actual Pipevine Swallowtails in the area, which I’d never seen at 544 (except in Butterfly Lady’s yard).

Beautiful Eastern Tiger Swallowtail dude. He hung around for ages.

Just a few miscellaneous flowers. I feel kind of sorry for helenium because its common name of “sneezeweed” makes people think that: a) it’s a weed; and, b) it makes you sneeze, even though neither is true. It’s pretty, blooms late when others are starting to fade, and I don’t think it’s a weed at all.

Giant yellow hyssop doesn’t look like much, and only a few flowers open at any one time, which doesn’t help it look any better, but the bees still consider it worth growing!

I had hoped the pink salvia that did so well last year in the Bee Happy bed would return, but for all the flowers I let go to seed, only this one plant grew.

‘Husker Red’ that thinks it’s spring. Bees won’t mind!

A house plant, not a Bistro plant, but still a bloom. My philodendron ‘Prince of Orange’ flowered, but the flower looks so much like the leaves that I almost didn’t notice it, and wouldn’t have if I’d not been watering it!