We have a new inhabitant in our backyard that lives on the daylily Butter Pecan. She is an "Argiope Aurantia" (pronounced ahr-JY-oh-pee aw-RAN-shee-uh) or as she is more commonly known -- black and yellow garden spider. She measures about 1 inch and seems to be growing larger as each day passes. This is probably due to the fact that Ange has been feeding her daily with grasshoppers and Japanese beetles that he catches and places in her web. Her bite paralyzes the prey when they are caught in her web. The venom also digests the prey's body contents in order for the spider to ingest. Once the insects are in her web she usually has them wrapped up in a cocoon within minutes! It has been fascinating to watch her in action.

This type of spider is commonly found in gardens, orchards, forest edges, old fields, and farms. An annual species, males die not too long after mating and females usually die off towards the end of the fall, or early winter. Females typically lay 3 or 4 egg sacs, roughly 7-15 days apart. Each sac can contain 400 to 1,200 yellowish eggs, sometimes even more. Spiderlings hatch within the egg sac in late autumn and overwinter inside the protective, insulated sac, emerging the following spring.

These spiders are beneficial to our environment because they eat so many insects. They are generally harmless to humans, but will bite if provoked. Supposedly their bite is much like a bee sting. But...after learning that *one* of spidey's egg sacs may contain up to 1,200 baby spider eggs, I'm not too keen on that thought! We may need to explore relocation.

This photo was taken only minutes after Ange placed a grasshopper in the spider's web.
Spider into from: http://www.spiders.us/species/filter/wisconsin/

Just about all of my daylilies are winding down for the season, but not Final Destination. This plant is one of the latest blooming daylilies that I currently grow. It was in full bloom on August 18th when this photo was taken. It is salmon-pink in color, but depending on the weather some days it looks very salmon, and other days it leans toward pink. Either version is quite pretty.

Final Destination was hybridized by Karol Emmerich and registered in 2005. Her Springwood Gardens website explained that this daylily earned its name "since it's one of the last to start and stop blooming in my garden." Being hybridized in Minnesota, Final Destination thrives in my Wisconsin garden. It grows almost 30" inches tall and the blooms measure between 5.5"-6" in size.

It's so nice to see a daylily still blooming in mid-to-late August!

Earlier last week, Ange and I ended up driving very slowly down a dead-end country road because we were engulfed in a dragonfly swarm! Hundreds of them were in the swarm, and there were numerous swarms. They were flying up-close, right alongside us, next to the car windshield and windows! We have never experienced anything quite like that before and it was amazing.

A few days later, look what landed on our driveway! This got me thinking about dragonflies.

Here's what I learned:

1. Dragonflies were some of the first winged insects to evolve, some 300 million years ago. Modern dragonflies have wingspans of only two to five inches, but fossil dragonflies have been found with wingspans of up to two feet.
2. There are more than 5,000 known species of dragonflies.
3. In their larval stage, which can last up to two years, dragonflies are aquatic and eat just about anything—tadpoles, mosquitoes, fish, other insect larvae and even each other.
4. At the end of its larval stage, the dragonfly crawls out of the water, then its exoskeleton cracks open and releases the insect. Its four wings come out, and they dry and harden over the next several hours to days.
5. Dragonflies are expert fliers. If they can’t fly, they’ll starve because they only eat prey they catch while flying. They catch insects by grabbing them with their feet.
6. Dragonflies are a great control on the mosquito population. A single dragonfly can eat 30 to hundreds of mosquitoes per day.
7. Some adult dragonflies live for only a few weeks while others live up to a year.
8. Nearly all of the dragonfly’s head is eye, so they have incredible vision that encompasses almost every angle except right behind them.
9. A dragonfly called the Globe Skinner has the longest migration of any insect—11,000 miles back and forth across the Indian Ocean.
   
10. Hundreds of dragonflies of different species will gather in swarms, either for feeding or migration. Little is known about this behavior, but the Dragonfly Swarm Project is collecting reports on swarms to better understand the behavior. According to the Scientific American swarms are very difficult to study because they are incredibly brief events. You have to be in the right place at the right time to see one and many people will go their entire lives without ever witnessing a swarm.

Facts about dragonflies from smithsonianmag.com and Scientific American

Usually when I visit Roger and Carol (Eastbrook Gardens) I'm all about their daylilies. But last time, when I stopped over on my way home from work, I was completely bowled over by this insane hosta Roger grows named Jurassic Park. What a grand specimen plant! When I took this photo, I placed an oak leaf on the hosta to give you a sense of its size.

Roger planted this hosta in a flower bed and over time has had to move most of what was growing in the near vicinity to make more room for this bruiser. He joked that the entire flower bed may one day belong to Jurassic Park. The leaf substance is so thick that slugs are nonexistent. Mature leaves can measure up to 14" x 16" wide, and the plant itself can grow up to 4 feet tall by 6 feet wide. With abundant watering, this hosta can grow even larger! So, if you happen to have a L.A.R.G.E. space that is screaming 'hosta!' Jurassic Park is the way to go.

Well, okay - yeah, I did manage to look at some daylilies...

Pictured are: 'Entwined in the Vine,' 'Highland Pinched Fingers,' 'Concrete Blonde,' 'Free Wheelin', and 'Fear Not.'