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“Mindfulness is not the path of chasing.
It is the path of beautification.
When flowers blossom, the fragrance spreads,
and the bees come.”
.
Amit Ray
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“We need to return to harmony with Nature
and with each other,
to become what humans were destined to be,
builders of gardens and Shires,
hobbits (if you will),
not Masters over creatures great and small.”
.
Steve Bivans
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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2016
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“Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful!’
and sitting in the shade.”
.
Rudyard Kipling
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“It is not reasonable that art should win
the place of honor over our great and powerful
mother Nature. We have so overloaded
the beauty and richness of her works
by our inventions that we have quite smothered her.”
.
Michel de Montaigne
~
Forest Garden 
Love the Kipling quote! 😉 Have you seen any monarchs this year. Nada this year so far.
We did earlier on, Eliza… but not lately. The plant I photographed had quite a few eggs laid on it, though, and so does its mate up in the ‘top 40.’ We see the most after the first of September. We’ve had a few butterflies… nothing like we’ve seen in years passed. We had a beautiful Black Swallowtail flitting about over the weekend. Not much wildlife out there to photograph these days….
I’ve noticed the same in terms of fewer butterflies. Perhaps it was the winter with little snow cover then a hard freeze or just a low point in the cycle. It is exciting that you had eggs and larva. Now is the time to see them here, so I have fingers crossed!
Yes! These next 2 months are prime time here 😉 Last year I was saying the same thing, Eliza; but then suddenly the garden was filled with butterflies. Our Lantana is in full bloom, the Hibiscus about to open, Joe Pye weed is coming into bloom, and I expect the butterfly population to simply explode any day now ❤ ❤ ❤