Season of mists and bla bla bla

[bunn]

How I hated that poem when I was younger.  It seemed to push aside the still-perfectly-good summer and be rushing needlessly ahead, without acknowledging that a *proper* autumn wasn't about sun on hazelnuts, but about wild winds and crunchy leaves and frost and bonfires.   The poem has grown on me a bit since, but I still think 'close bosom-friend of the maturing sun' is an utterly ludicrous line. 


Suddenly, we are having a summer (or, if you are of the keatsian persuasian, an autumn) .  There are suddenly a lot of blackberries about. Nom.  There are also a lot of butterflies. Here are some enjoying the buddleia bushes that have colonised the bank in front of our house that was all bare earth a year or so ago.

They are the most common sorts we get around here and more or less the right distribution too : from left to right, a red Admiral, small Tortoiseshell, Peacock, and another Small Tortoiseshell. We must see at least twice as many Small Tortoiseshells as any other butterfly.

(Click to embiggen!) 

Sadly, the neighbour to whom this land belongs says she hates buddleias: 'so messy'  - so I suspect this will be the last year of them. Oh well. I have a big buddleia bush in the front garden; probably the sire of all these plants - and I'm not removing it, not nohow. :-p

Comments

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

That's what a Butterfly Bush should look like! Ours has been entirely free of butterflies all summer...

I suppose with a bit of research your neighbour might be able to plant a range of butterfly-attracting flowers - but buddleia is easier!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

We had no butterflies until the start of Sept, but now they are everywhere!

Sadly, I don't think neighbour will put in butterfly-attracting plants: they like things that are neat and stay neat, like gravel. The only reason the buddleias have crept onto that patch is that it's an awkward space to maintain, being sort of perched up above the road and steeply shelving, so it's mostly buddleia, californian poppies, godetia and love-in-the-mist - all the easy cottage garden seeds. I think it looks great :-D

[chainmailmaiden]

I think I've always preferred autumn to summer & that poem always makes me think of the Lakes in autumn. Possibly because we often had Mr Kipling apple pies when there & they used it in an advert :-)

I like the fact that Buddleias attract butterflies, but hate their persistent and continual growth. I swear the ones we've had grew while you looked at them & the one in the back garden had to go because of that. I replaced it with an Elder on the grounds I could eat the flowers & fruit of that unlike Buddleia.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I have gardened in places where elder was very fast-growing and invasive - faster than buddleia - and a right old pest. But in my current garden the buddleia is definitely faster!

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

Lovely pics. I only noticed the other day that there aren't any sloes this year thanks to this odd season.

[chainmailmaiden]

Oh I totally agree about elder, but the berries are lovely so I don't mind. Though I have kept mine neatly trimmed into a manageable tree :-)

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

You're knocking our butterfly count into the shade. Had another two peacock on our buddhleia today, but their population's dwindling almost every year.