Garden Tuesday

Two little garden miracles!  I told you last week about the moon vine bud and I watched and waited.  It eventually looked like this

and I got really excited, every night coming out to see if it had opened yet. And one night it DID!

It was brilliant!  And silky and the smell was so light and perfume-y I just couldn't stop sniffing it.  I wasn't expecting it to have such a strong and lovely smell.  Our neighbors came over and shared it with us.

We've also had this not-so-little lady (easily 5+ inches) living in our Sedum.  So many flies, bees, etc are attracted to the plant I guess it makes the ideal hunting spot.

And then one morning I came out to find her upside down on one of the sedum stems more toward the center of the plant laying her egg case!

According to the University of Kentucky, there are between 12-400 eggs in each case.  They live through the winter and the warmer temperatures of the spring cause them to hatch.  You can bet there will be a blog post if 400 tiny praying manti (?) mantids (?) hatch onto our deck!!!