Butterflies galore!

[Monika]

With the lovely late summer weather in recent days, there has been a wonderful re-emergence of butterflies (third generation this year?), particularly painted ladies, red admirals, peacock and a few small tortoiseshell feasting on sedums, michaelmas daisies, rudbeckia and scabious, quite a change from the miserable numbers we have seen in recent years!

[Johnboy]

Hi Monika,
There certainly has been the best showing of Butterflies here in the last week or so. Many more than at any other time this year. Here it has been a quite disappointing year for Butterfly but now there a many and also the Honey Bees are in evidence especially on an experimental row of Runner Beans I sowed the second week of July which if we have no frost in the next week will give quite a substantial picking. This sowing is 6 weeks later than any other sowing I have ever made and they have really grown superbly and had I decided about a couple of weeks sooner I would be having a wonderful late crop as it is I feel that before I can really capitalize on the crop Jack Frost will beat me.
JB.

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Monika, here, it certainly has been the best year for butterflies for years.

But i wonder why, we had an awful wet spell in the middle of Summer too, and this couldn't have been ideal conditions for them, very strange.

[Monika]

OH, during the wet spell the butterflies may just have been in their larval state which, therefore, would not have been too critical. I think that was the case here, too. Today again, there were lots of the above species and also a speckled wood.

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Monika, that is a very interesting thought, and could well be the reason.

Thank-you for your thoughts.

[Elle's Garden]

Here it has been a quite disappointing year for Butterfly but now there a many and also the Honey Bees are in evidence especially on an experimental row of Runner Beans I sowed the second week of July which if we have no frost in the next week will give quite a substantial picking. This sowing is 6 weeks later than any other sowing I have ever made and they have really grown superbly and had I decided about a couple of weeks sooner I would be having a wonderful late crop as it is I feel that before I can really capitalize on the crop Jack Frost will beat me.
JB.

Hi Johnboy,

I also made a late sowing during the last week of July after an article in a gardners weekly said that they would crop by the end of September. They are currently flowering well and look really healthy, but we have such a lack of polinating insects that I am not sure if I will get any beans before the frosts. Fingers crossed!