Author: Brenda Clements Jones

Brenda is a certified Virginia Master Naturalist, a Habitat Defender for Shenandoah National Park, and a devoted fan of Mother Nature. She lives in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah National Park, and hikes up to the higher elevations of her mountain often to see what nature is up to. Her constant hiking companion is a camera that captures nature as it unfolds through the seasons. It’s her goal to share the natural world around her through her photographs.

Sentimentality

My aim is to have nearly all native Virginia plants surrounding my cabin. I stick with that quite strictly but I have a stumbling block to that goal, sentimentality. Each year, at the end of May into the beginning of June I’m reminded of that part of my personality as the Rose Campions (Lychnis coronaria) begin to bloom. NOT native to this continent. They bloom with such a radiant magenta color that I always find it a challenge for my sophisticated camera to capture the perfect image of the flower. The fuzzy stems and leaves, a different story, being a muted gray-green. Easy to capture. I must send this picture to Mom. Thinking of you and your Maryland gardens Mom! Too bad Florida weather can’t host these beautiful flowers.

Fourleaf Milkweed

Fourleaf Milkweed (Asclepias quadrifolia). Blooming in the palest of pink, along the trails up here in the mountains, May to July. Providing nectar for bumble bees and other bees, flies, ants, wasps, butterflies and moths. One of the larval host plants of Monarch Butterflies.

A perennial herb with a single stem emerging from a rhizome. Not a giant in the world of milkweeds, growing most often to 12-18 inches. Leaves, egg-shaped to lanceolate, are opposite or whorled. Unlike other milkweeds, this one enjoys living in the woods.

Woolly Dutchman’s Pipe

Woolly Dutchman’s Pipe (Aristolochia tomentosa). A vine that grows vigorously with a mind of its own. A vine with a funny looking flower. It’s native to southeastern Canada and the eastern United States. This is a plant in the genus Aristolochia. Plants in this genus are larval host plants of the Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly.

I love to grow plants that I know will help insects live in this environment. To watch. To wait. To see if I can see any benefit. I’ve been able to watch caterpillars grow.

To watch as a caterpillar molts into a glowing chrysalis. Inside this protective shell, the caterpillar totally alters its body, finally emerging as a beautiful Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly. All because I planted this vine that needs care to keep it in bounds. This plant with the funny looking flowers. What a marvelous reward.

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Butterfly Weed

An incredibly beautiful Zebra Swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus) on the aptly named Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) which provides nectar to many pollinators. Native to much of the United States, from Maine to South Dakota to the desert southwest to Florida.

Another pollinator that nearly matches the color of the Butterfly Weed, Great Spangled Fritilary (Speyeria cybele). Along with butterflies, bees and wasps are common pollinators.

Butterfly Weed is the larval host plant of Queen and Monarch butterflies, and Dogbane Tiger Moth, Milkweed Tussock Moth, and Unexpected Cycnia Moth.

Caution: Butterfly Weed is toxic to humans and animals.

Black Huckleberry

Huckleberries blooming, SNP by The Lodge

It’s always fun to find a different native plant out in the woods. I never even knew that Huckleberries were actually a real thing until I found this bush. Black Huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata). Along with this one, there are 3 other species of Huckleberry in this genus, Gaylussacia, which are found in eastern North America.

Another Visit By Adult Skinks

Here at my cabin I see juvenile Skinks with their brilliant blue tails quite frequently. Those tails are “detachable,” and if attacked by a predator the skink can release its tail, which will continue to wiggle, distracting that predator while the Skink vanishes from the scene. A new tail will regrow, taking perhaps 6 months, and will not be as long or as perfectly shaped as the original tail.

It was a bit more than a year ago when I saw my first adult Broad-headed Skink (Plestiodon laticeps). Yesterday my granddaughter spotted a pair of these same creatures. They’ve outgrown the coloring of their bright blue tails, outgrown the obvious stripes and grown to be 12 or 13 inches long, the largest Skink in its native range of the southeastern United States.

Perhaps the reason I seldom see adult Skinks is that they spend most of their lives in the tops of trees, coming to the ground to mate and build nests for egg-laying. They are predators of insects, other invertebrates, and some vertebrates, including rodents and other lizards.

Brown Thrasher In The Garden

Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum). A visitor during the breeding season. A visitor that I really look forward to seeing, though that doesn’t happen often. These birds love hiding in dense cover and briar tangles, coming out to search on the ground for insects and other arthropods. They’ll also search in trees for fruits, seeds, and nuts, but their favored place seems to be on the ground which is where I see them most often.

The Brown Thrasher reminds me of one of my favorite birds, the Road Runner, state bird of New Mexico. Perhaps it’s because of the very long tail each of these birds has. But the Brown Thrasher does not go, “Meep meep!” Instead, a mimic, the male is quite the vocalist, singing an impressive repertoire of musical snippets, each repeated twice as he goes on, and on, filling the air with beauty.