Creepy-Crawly August Garden
Sunday, August 26, 2018 at 6:25PM This has not been a bad summer. Hot and sticky, yes, but not unreasonable for Alabama. This past week we had a couple of cooler mornings with lower humidity. A touch of fall? Almost! I have continued developing a new area, which I am calling the pollinator garden. I will feature it in a later blog post. Meanwhile, here are some images from around the August garden, including some creepy-crawlies!
I put this colorful hanging bougainvillea behind the birdbath in front of the house. Bougainvillea is not hardy here, but it was inexpensive and I won't feel guilty treating it as an annual. The plant on the right is Tropicana Canna Lily.
During the dog days of summer the shady woodland garden is a nice retreat, and I often find myself walking there during late afternoon. The light that time of day is magical, and I love the shadow play, as seen here around the cast iron plant: 
The planting beds in the woodland garden are augmented in the warm months with potted tropical plants, which add color and texture and help fill in the area: 
Clockwise from top left: Hardy begonia (Begonia grandis) is planted in the ground, but variegated fig, Dracaena Marginata, and bromeliads are tropicals that move inside for the winter.
Lady fern (Athyrium) and Peacock Moss (Selaginella uncinata) grow well together next to one of the moss paths:
I also have some potted succulents that spend frost-free months outdoors. I bought most of these as nameless specimens, and I don't know much about them. However, I am delighted that some of them are producing offspring. The small pups may be removed from the mother plant and planted to produce more.
One more thing: It is spider season! Cobwebs are everywhere, and I have to be careful to keep myself from becoming entangled in them as I walk around the garden. One day I captured images of this large web high up in the trees:
I wonder how the tiny spider that created this web knew how to do it? Webs are often spun in the dark, and this web is quite large for such a little creature. I don't see how the spider was able to get a full picture of what it was doing! Yet the design was beautifully formed.
More spider pics: I found this big black-and-yellow argiope spider amidst my tomato plants, and she had encased an egg sack in a web on a tomato plant. By spring, up to a thousand baby spiders may come out of this sack, though only a small percentage will survive. These particular spiders are sensitive to the environment, and their presence is a sign of a healthy, well-balanced ecology. They are also good guys to have in the garden, so I will leave the spider sack alone till the babies hatch in a few months. Hopefully, the dying tomato plant will remain supportive till then. 
Speaking of tomato plants, we still have a handful of tomatoes on the vine, but soon they will be gone. I was fascinated, and a little horrified, when I discovered this creature, and several of his relatives, on my tomato plants:
Tomato hornworm
My first inclination was to kill these caterpillars, but tomato hornworms do turn into rather magnificent moths, which hover about like hummingbirds. And they make a good meal for a bird, too. I only have a few tomatoes remaining so I picked the hornworms off and tossed them behind the wood pile rather than killing them. But next year I will be on the alert, armed with insecticidal soap, which they hate. And maybe my garden spiders will help me keep them under control.
You also may enjoy this older post, Late Afternoon in the Woodland Garden, and if you want more information about spiders be sure to see My Little Orb Weaver.
Reader Comments (17)
Wow, that argiope spider is a miracle of nature. So beautiful. And eating "bad" bugs to boot. :) It it getting to be orb spider season here as well.
The dappled shade and shafts of light in your woodland garden are lovely. One of the wonderful things about a woodland.
Enjoyed all your beautiful photos...well maybe not the last one so much. Here we have a particular bird (California Towhee) that loves to eat tomato hornworm caterpillars, so I don't have to look at them too often.
I discovered some spider webs here a few weeks ago but the builders have since disappeared. It's a little early for them yet, although by late September I usually start carrying a stick with me to wave about before passing through certain areas of the garden - when the webs are covered in dew, I have fair warning but when the weather is still dry, those webs are invisible until I walk right into them. Your garden, as usual, is looking lovely. I suspect tropical plants do better for you than they do for me - our humidity levels have climbed in recent years but I doubt they have anything on yours! Your unidentified succulent is probably Byrophyllum daigremontianum, formerly classified as a Kalanchoe and commonly known as "mother of thousands".
We have lots of spiders here too. I walk into a web about every day now. It is difficult to see the web when I am usually out. I haven't see one of these large Argiope Spiders in my garden in a few years. There used to be one every year by my side gate. I always thought of her as the official greeter.
The brom is a pretty color. Sort of a surprising color for this time of year in a woodland.
September will be here before we know it.
Hello ! .. what a lovely woodland garden you have here .. I am envious because I understand what peace you must enjoy there while watching nature unfold .. beautiful ! and that little bridge ? my ideal feature for the setting .. truly a magical place to wonder. There are so many details between plants and wildlife that you can watch . I can see spending hours and hours there indeed !
I find as Autumn approaches the spiders get even busier here ... they sense the changing season and winter will be around the corner here before we know it.
A beautiful piece of your own Eden !
Your woodland garden is indeed magical, one can almost see the fairies and elves living there.
I don't mind the hornworm caterpillars I rather have the moths and buy the tomatoes since I am not lucky with growing nice tomatoes anyways ;-)
I do find the egg sacs the spiders make as fascinating as their webs. Autumn is spider time here when almost all the plants will be dressed in them I like how you use tropical tender plants in pots to augment the woodland.
Most of our succulents have been purchased at unlabeled specimens too. I've never been to bothered by names so it doesn't bother me at all (my husbands cares about names a lot more) I figure as long as I enjoy whatever plant it is, I'm all good. Thanks for sharing your beautiful garden.
I leave the garden spiders alone, but I’m not sure I could do the same for an egg sack full of thousands!
Our weather has been much the same - last week and the weekend brought a welcome glimpse of Autumn! We have webs everywhere, last minute bees of all kinds, grasshoppers with their last hurrah (one of my fave parts of late August) and cardinal families! We've been able to watch the mother feeding two fledglings on our back porch (with seed from the feeder) for several days now!
Always enjoy walking through your gardens with you! xo
Love the spider web and the spider! They are so fascinating, aren't they?! I love hummingbird moths, and I've occasionally seen them in the garden, although I've never found a hornworm on the tomatoes--so they've never done too much damage. Maybe the moths came in from someone else's garden. In any case, the adult moths are beautiful creatures! Your woodland garden is always so inspirational!
Your woodland garden looks cool and green. The ferns are wonderful, and I love those pics of the spider's web.
Your woodland garden is so beautiful! I have been thinking lately about putting some paths in my woods and some native woodland plants. I always have more ideas than time, though. That is one impressive spider! I, too, have had an infestation with hornworms. Our short tomato season is just getting bountiful here, though, so they have to go!
Magnificent photo of the spider web. I want the Tropical Canna with the orange flower but I have been able to find only the red blooming one. I want to mix it with my old-fashioned yellow/orange spotted cannas. Would like to caution you about working in the untouched area. My "Fern Bed" has been largely untouched for 2 years and I got stung by something on Thursday that caused my entire hand to swell up. I had to go get a shot at the doc to stop the swelling which is now mostly gone. But the pain from the venom still persists. Be smarter than me -- don't reach into any bushes at ground level with your hand!
That mother of thousands succulent is a daunting invasive alien here.
But your winter will prevent it being a problem in the wild.
Lovely webs and spiders and other garden visitors! I tend to stay away from my woodland this time of year because the mosquitoes are so bad here--especially with the hot, humid summer we've had and record rainfall. But I know what you mean about the cooling effect--in a "normal" summer with less rain, the woods are a nice reprieve from the heat. Believe it or not, we get very hot and humid here in July and August; it's just that we get a few more breaks (usually) than you do. Wisconsin September is like "San Diego weather"--pretty darn perfect. So, I'm enjoying lots of hikes and gardening and other outdoor activities. I know some people around here bring in Bougainvillea in pots to overwinter. Have you ever done that? I've thought about trying it sometime. :)
I have woodland envy at the moment. As for spiders, I had just been saying to Myra that there weren't many spiders in our new garden. Well, this morning they were everywhere.
Your creepy crawlies are beautiful Deb. It's pity those worms have such a destructive appetite.