As I have previously explained, Hubby and I are still unclear when it comes to certain gardening things and it looks as if one of the orchids may have died after doing well. It  for months. It happened rather suddenly and the others are okay, so perhaps it was some sort of bug. One of the other plants (the chocolate raspberry) we thought was a goner has re-bloomed and is looking great.

That leads me to the milkweed. Last year we had a few caterpillars, chrysalis and butterflies. I mean we have different types of butterflies flitting about every day, but these were some we felt certain came from the milkweed plant. It was devoured though and seemed to be down to bare stem. We left it alone and sure enough it has also grown a great deal. We haven’t seen any caterpillars yet, but then again, we don’t know what the cycle is. There are quite a number of black “dots” on the underside of a couple of the leaves toward the back of the plant. Perhaps those are eggs although I can’t be certain. We will pay more attention this year. I know we can order chrysalis through the mail, but it would seem in this environment it makes more sense to allow nature to take over.

Oh, a related topic is the bananas haven’t ripened yet even though they are growing. I say haven’t ripen as in they haven’t turned yellow or softened very much. We’re still not certain as to that process either. Yeah, I know. You would think after being in this house as long as we have been we would understand how these things work.