Love, Joy and Peas: butterfly wings

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Butterflies on Mexican Sunflowers at Brookside Gardens

Happy wild Wednesday! Since I haven't been able to get a nice picture of my own Mexican sunflowers (also called tithonia) yet this year I took some at the Brookside Gardens "Wings of Fancy" butterfly exhibit. Their tithonia had many beautiful butterflies flitting from flower to flower and even some resting on the foliage.

The first image is by my talented husband, who was kind enough to let me share it with you here. I thought his picture was the best but wanted you to see the flowers from different angles so am sharing some of mine too.

If you click to see the larger image you should be able to clearly see the butterfly's eyes. Pretty neat.

I think this might be a Monarch butterfly but it seems darker than the ones I see in my yard so maybe it's a different, but similar, kind of butterfly.

The kind mom of the adorable little girl wearing this "thrive" hat let me take this photo of the butterfly on top. She was very excited to have a butterfly land on her head and stay there a while. Thank you to them both for sharing!

I had one land on my hand, which was amazing! It even stayed a while. But it was on the same hand I was holding my camera with so I didn't get a photo. It's always touching to have a butterfly choose to land on you so I felt blessed by that. Of course, just seeing so many butterflies floating around is a huge blessing. I've enjoyed every trip to the butterfly exhibit, whether one landed on me or not.

Thank you for visiting! May God bless my husband, the family that shared their butterfly hat experience, and YOU!

Related posts:
Monarchs on tithonia flowers: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2014/10/monarch-butterflies-on-tithonia.html
Monarchs on chrysanthemums: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2014/10/monarch-butterfly-on-pretty.html
Brookside Gardens monarchs: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2015/09/monarch-butterflies-from-brookside.html

Monday, May 14, 2012

Garden Fest Photos from the Smithsonian Gardens

Smithsonian Castle Garden: Photograph by Ben Wheeler

This weekend my beloved husband Ben and I went to the Smithsonian Castle's gardens and were pleasantly surprised to find their Garden Fest happening. They had activities for all ages, live music, dramatic readings, temporary tattoo stations, garden and lawn information stations, mural painting, tomato plant potting, outdoor yoga, a fun table with giant floral hats and butterfly wings for participants to try on and much more.

Garden Fest Actors: Photograph by Phyllis Wheeler

In the above photograph you can see some of the actors performing a dramatic reading.

Garden Fest Butterfly Wing Table: Photograph by Phyllis Wheeler

If you click on the picture to enlarge it you'll see the guy in the yellow shirt removing a set of butterfly wings. Closer to the front you can see one of the giant floral hats.

Garden Fest Floral Hat: Photograph by Phyllis Wheeler

In the above photograph you can see a lady modeling one of the giant hats. You can also see some of the other butterfly and flower props on the table with the red tablecloth as well as some of the Smithsonian Castle's beautiful roses farther in the background.

Succulent Container Garden: Photograph by Phyllis Wheeler

This was both Ben's and my overall favorite entry in the container garden contest. Participants were allowed to vote on their favorites in six different categories (see photograph below).

Garden Fest Container Garden Contest: Photograph by Phyllis Wheeler

In the above picture you can see two more of the container gardens from the contest as well as the six categories in which Garden Fest participants could cast a vote.

We had a great time at the Smithsonian Castle's Garden Fest and hope they'll host it again next year.