After dowsing Milanville with 6.5 inches of June rain, the skies brightened for Independence Day weekend, summoning a new cast of summer visitors. Prominent among them is milkweed, one of my favorite plants.
Globes of pink milkweed flowers are peaking this week along fencerows, roadsides, and in sunny waste places. And also in our garden, where we cultivate this plant, whose nectar, and sweet perfumes attract swarms of bees and butterflies, and an occasional hummingbird.
Starting this week I’ll be giving short accounts of ephemeral summer visitors, including our noisy barn swallows, whose first brood fledged on July 4.
Officially, summer’s passing is marked by the equinox on September 22. Unofficially, I mark it in late August when our barn swallows gather and take wing, and monarch butterflies drift across Honesdale en route to Mexico.
But early July is summer’s fresh face – marked in our garden by lilies and milkweed flowers and the beautiful butterflies they attract. And by fascinating insects that survive by chewing milkweed leaves and laying eggs on them.