"Gardening requires lots of water — most of it in the form of perspiration."

~Lou Erickson

-Google

Well, we needn't worry about perspiration as of late. The El Niño that climatic prognosticators have been threatening us with has finally arrived it seems. If you've visited the blog recently, you'll notice something new residing up at the top of the pages: tabs. I've been a busy little beaver creating pages populated with pertinent butterfly and butterfly garden information one can glean from. Most, if not all of the info can be found at Attracting Butterflies in So Cal, a web site that has been up for several years now. This was done with the intent of making it easier for one to access basic help with butterfly garden questions without having to leave the blog. Outside links are provided for those requiring greater depth.

As to be expected for this time of year, garden activities have slowed to a crawl, even completely shutting down. Some things to consider are hard pruning your evergreen, exotic milkweeds if you haven't already done so. There may be a bit of accumulated garden schmutz that needs cleaning around the yard. When all is in order, that's a good time to cradle a hot cup of coffee in one's hands, go outside, take a deep, deep, cleansing breath (savor it), and refamiliarize oneself with creation. Yes, there are vestiges of the spirit of Eden still about; we just have to be receptive to them.

After growing for a couple of seasons, the Cassia bicapsularis in the container garden has reached a size where it was time to perform a major lopping. C. bicapsularis can take a hard pruning, even to the ground, and it will pop right back up with the advent of warm weather.

-Andrew Kliss Photography

Monarch Joint Venture: Q&A about research related to tropical milkweed and monarch parasites [A good read. Mea culpa: I want to broach this topic one more time regarding Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassivica) and Oe, and how to nip it in the bud. Literally.]