Backyard – The Inspired Parent

Butterfly Season at Brookfield Zoo

We just started seeing a few butterflies in our yard over the last week or so. Once our purple coneflower (Echinacea) starts blooming, the fun seems to begin & we’ll most definitely start capturing images of these lovely little creatures as they start hanging around our garden.

In the meantime, we popped over to Brookfield Zoo this week — we have an annual membership — and one of our favorite things to do in the summer is to visit their butterfly exhibit (Butterflies!). The enclosed, screened-in outdoor exhibit is near the North Entrance to the zoo. Inside, you’ll find regional plants and flowers — both annuals and perennials — and have the opportunity to observe a couple hundred butterflies up close & personal during your encounter. Each season, they have over 40 different species of butterflies in the habitat, and you’ll typically see approximately a dozen different species (or more) during any given visit.

They have signs up in the exhibit showing which butterflies you’ll see that particular day and it truly is a wonderfully relaxing experience and fun for all! Just be very careful as you’re walking around — some of the butterflies like to take a flying break on the warm, paved floor. Many people think those are injured or deceased, only to see them “wake up” and fly off once again.

And if you’re lucky, you’ll have a butterfly or two land on you! It’s well-worth the extra $3 fee (non-members) or $1.50 (members).

Here are a few photos of the pretty little ones we saw this week. We’ll head back and check out the Butterflies! exhibit every couple of weeks and will share more of our photos as the season progresses — hopefully we’ll find a few new species we haven’t seen before!

Happy Summer Fun!

This one is a White Peacock (Anartia jatrophae). Some were more blue than others and some had brighter edges.

Not 100% certain, but I think this is a Polydamas Swallowtail.

Love watching the Swallowtails. We get different varieties in our yard, too. Can't wait to see which ones appear this year! — Love watching the Swallowtails. We get different varieties in our yard, too. Can’t wait to see which ones appear this year!

This little one had a unique flying pattern - was happy to capture a photo when he finally took a break from flying! — This little one had a unique flying pattern – was happy to capture a photo when he finally took a break from flying!

We could watch these all day. Swallowtails come in many different varieties & it's a lot of fun to see the differences when you can see them in one location. — We could watch these all day. Swallowtails come in many different varieties & it’s a lot of fun to see the differences when you can see them in one location.

Another lovely little Swallowtail. :) — Another lovely little Swallowtail. 🙂

Great Plants for Spring Color

Lilacs getting ready to bloom at a local park and Lady's Mantle in our yard after the morning rain. — Lilacs getting ready to bloom at a local park and Lady’s Mantle in our yard after the morning rain.

Ah, spring has officially sprung and all of the lovely plants are blooming and the buds on the trees are popping open. I love seeing all of the new growth this time of year (even if it makes my allergies kick in a bit). Seeing those pale greens and yellows at first…then all of a sudden some happy little daffodils & tulips start popping up and it’s so nice to get outside and start exploring.

Late last week we had two mornings of overcast skies & a light drizzle — perfect for capturing some of these early spring plants — so I threw on my rain jacket & went on a couple of rainy morning strolls with my camera.

Love the different colors when planted in a large group.

We live near a pretty park that is known for growing many varieties of lilacs. A few lilacs like the ones in the cover photo were just starting to show signs of deep purple blossoms getting ready to pop. Masses of daffodils were blooming and some of the tulips were just starting to say hi. 🙂 I will definitely head back there over the next couple of weeks as more tulips & lilacs begin to bloom.

Found these little treasures at the park - so pretty! — Found these little treasures at the park – so pretty!

Last fall we planted some daffodil bulbs in our backyard — two pretty varieties to add some cheerful color to the areas where our purple coneflower and shasta daisies will bloom later this summer. We’ve really enjoyed having the early-season color from the daffodils in that bed this year.

One of the varieties that we planted in our backyard. It's a long wait when you plant the bulbs in autumn, but such an exciting treat once they bloom in spring! — One of the varieties that we planted in our backyard. It’s a long wait when you plant the bulbs in autumn, but such an exciting treat once they bloom in spring!

A little early for the wonderful lilac scent, but that will be happening very soon by the looks of these!

Lady's Mantle - one of my favorites! | theinspiredparent.com — Lady’s Mantle – one of my favorites!

The photo above is of one of my favorite perennials — Lady’s Mantle. I shot this image last week during our morning rainstorm. I first noticed this little gem many years ago in Toronto at Casa Loma where they have a huge bed of it — the sprinklers had just gone off and I was intrigued by the water droplets on the leaves. When we moved into our house, Lady’s Mantle was at the top of my list of plants I wanted to add to our yard. I still love the way the leaves look after it rains — especially on the baby leaves that are just starting to sprout.

These are just a few of the happy plants I saw the other day. I also adore magnolias, but the timing wasn’t quite right to capture those the other morning since it was quite windy. Hoping to get some new shots of those very soon and will definitely keep shooting more of our plants as they start to bloom so I can post more of those throughout the season.

What are some of your favorite spring plants?

First Signs of Spring in Our Yard

The lovely flowers our daughter found in our yard this week.

We’ve started our annual spring clean-up in our yard — since I was home this last year, we’re ahead of the game a bit since we accomplished more during our autumn clean-up than other years. What a huge difference — it’s making things a lot easier so far.

Our backyard has a few ridiculously large silver maples & ours drop their leaves very late in the year. We’re usually losing leaves from mid-November to early-December and end up missing the last run of our neighborhood’s seasonal yard waste pick-up. (Plus, brrrrr….it’s cold raking leaves that time of year)! This last year we divided and transplanted a lot of our different varieties of hostas & several other plants. We used the late-season leaves as mulch in our larger beds to help our divided plants as they over-wintered in their new locations in our yard. So far it looks like everything survived and the broken down leaves will be great for our compost pile.

I was pleasantly surprised that a lot of our cocoa mulch that we used up toward our patio survived — we love using cocoa mulch. It’s pretty, it smells great and it really seems to work well to keep our weeds under control. Plus it’s nice that it’s a project I can tackle myself since the bags are a lot lighter than traditional bark mulch. We will need to buy more this year to top things off, but we won’t need as much as last year.

We had a few nice days this last week & our daughter has been really excited to check the yard each day to see which plants are emerging. Several of our perennials are starting to show signs of life and the early-season bulbs she helped us plant last fall are starting to sprout. We’ll update our progress as the gardening year unfolds, but for now, here are the first signs of spring we’ve seen in our yard. 🙂

Cornelian Cherry Dogwood - Cornus mas — Cornelian Cherry Dogwood – Cornus mas

A new bulb we planted this last year. The first flowers are dainty & lovely - can't wait to see what they look like in full bloom! — A new bulb we planted this last year. The first flowers that bloomed are dainty & lovely.

Our daughter found a few daffodils in our yard and liked that our Pachysandra ground cover is blooming. She picked these for me and they are a lovely combination! — Our daughter found daffodils & crocuses in our yard & also snipped off a section of our Pachysandra ground cover that is blooming. Such a pretty combination for our windowsill.

Happy Gardening!