This beautiful flower is growing in my hummingbird garden, compliments of Mr. Green Thumbs. (Mr. Green Thumbs is my neighbor, and a recurring character in some of my stories.) As you can see, it is so very bright orange that it is almost fluorescent! The entire area behind his fence, running along the alley we share, is full of these gorgeous flowers. This plant is Cosmos (Cosmos sulphureus) and you guessed it, NOT native to North America. It does great here – SO great that it was declared invasive in 1996. (Wikipedia)

Great. Now I have another plant in my garden that I will have to phase out. I managed to neglect-to-death the Scabiosa that I had been growing so proudly. At least until I learned at a meeting of my local native plant society that it was “public enemy number one” because of its tendency to take over a given area. That was another story.

I wasn’t sure if this little guy was a butterfly or a moth – but I have now confirmed that it is indeed a butterfly. This is a Fiery Skipper (Hylephila phyleus), part of a group of butterflies referred to as “folded-wing skippers.” (Audubon Field Guide to North American Butterflies, 1981)

I cannot EVEN believe this, but these butterflies are sometimes considered pests! Apparently they like to eat lawn grasses while in their larval stage. (Wikipedia) Well, I don’t care – I think they are cute and at least they are native. I am planning to replace my lawn grass anyway, so I say, eat up! For every Fiery Skipper I see, I’ll bet there is one whose place in the web of life is to be bird food.

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