It is exciting and calming at the same time to see these beautiful winged visitors in our gardens each summer. The kids become hushed and focused as soon as they drop down onto a drooping blossom and start squealing happily once they take flight. A Monarch and Tiger Swallowtail have been sipping from our CentroNia butterfly bushes regularly this month, and I hope they've found safe places to lay their eggs too! Our gardens receive a few more quiet visitors, such as the ever-growing family of birds who mischieviously get caught in the grapevines while stealing fruit or a clump of slimy slugs cooling off in the dark corners of the compost piles. This year we've learned with our young gardeners to appreciate our visitors a little more, and hope that pesky ones (aphids, rats, cucumber beetles) will find another garden to bother.
