The Garden Thread that two people wanted

[LilyBLily]

That's interesting. Usually, we have both males and females at our feeder, but this year up to five females have been vying with each other to get at the nectar.

Beautiful gardenias. 

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

The cycad in our retirement village is in fruit. It has been there for many years and is in the original garden on the land that was used to build the village. Fortunately it is mostly hidden from view as they are quite valuable.

"They are also one of the most threatened groups of plants in the world. In South Africa almost 70% of our cycad species are threatened with extinction, with four species on the brink of extinction and seven species with fewer than 100 plants left in the wild."

"Do you need a permit to own a cycad in South Africa?
Because cycads are protected by the national and provincial legislation, as a buyer you must ensure that you know where your plants come from and that you have a permit for owning the plant. Various permits are needed for any activity that relates to cycads such as possession, transport, growing, buying or selling."

[Jeff Tanyard]

There's some creeping cucumber growing here and there as weeds.  I'd never tried the fruit before, so I decided it was time.  I picked a few berries and ate them.  They do indeed taste like cucumber.





Here's some of it growing up on an azalea.  I'll eventually remove it.

[LilyBLily]

That cycad looks amazing.

I think the woolly aphids are back, but only in very small quantities. I've seen some bits of fluff supposedly floating around--and then veering sharply to land on something. I haven't been close enough to investigate, but I am suspicious. 

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Never heard of creeping cucumber. Do you use it in a salad?

I've got some tiny c*cktail tomatoes growing from my compost heap. I left them to do their own thing and they started creeping up the bottle brush tree. I've sort of helped them by hanging them over the branches. Should have been nipping off the ends but left them to wander. They are now so high up I have to stretch to reach the ripe ones. Next thing it will require a ladder to reach them.   I see they are also growing in various parts of the garden where I put compost. Might have to cull a few.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Never heard of creeping cucumber. Do you use it in a salad?

Some people do, according to the internet.  I've never tried it before this week.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Picked and ate a few more creeping cucumber berries.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Picked and ate a few more creeping cucumber berries.

Make an interesting addition to a salad.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Still getting the occasional canna lily.





Here's a Joro spider munching on a grasshopper.  Notice the mass of silk strands just above her.  I think this might be a stabilimentum, though that's just a guess on my part.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stabilimentum





This Joro is a fully mature female.  You can tell by the color pattern on her back.  The juveniles have a different pattern.

Call me a weirdo, but I really do think they're handsome critters.   

The black and yellow patterns on the spider's sides and underside remind me of Ambassador Kosh's ship from Babylon 5.  None of the spiders have yet tried to communicate with me by spelling out words with their coloring, but I'm still hopeful.  If I can succeed in making contact, I'm going to change my name to Kosh and start wearing an encounter suit.

[Vijaya]

Really striking photos! Love the yellow silk.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Well, the "stabilimentum" is gone now, so I guess it wasn't a stabilimentum at all and was instead just clutter in the web that the spider decided to remove during her nightly remodeling session.  The grasshopper is also gone.

In another Joro web, the owner was munching on a stinkbug.  This is good.  Stinkbugs suck.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Some mid-October flowers for y'all's viewing pleasure:











For anyone who likes "hoary ancient forest" type imagery, here's a moss-covered dogwood:





Here's a Joro spiderweb I had to take down.  It was in my way, so it had to go.  The spider escaped to safety, so maybe she'll rebuild elsewhere.

You can see a male Joro a few inches above the female.  The males have been lurking in the webs since early September.  They're small, drab, and unremarkable, so I haven't mentioned them yet.  This is the first male Joro pic I've posted.  From what I've been able to observe so far, the female sits in the center of the orb part of the web while the males hang around on the outer "cage" part of the web. 

Also, you can see a tangled mass of silk just above the female.  A few days ago, I speculated that this sort of thing might be a stabilimentum, but then I changed my mind and decided it was just clutter.  Well, I've changed my mind again.  I'm seeing similar silk masses in several other webs, all just above the center of the orb.  Too many to be coincidental.  It's not clutter; whatever it is, it's there on purpose.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Lovely flowers. We are into Spring/Summer and also have lots of flowers coming into bloom.