A Very Big Bug

My July postings seem to have a bit of a theme.  The Japanese Beetle attack continues.  As you can see I brought one in yesterday evening to see if we could negotiate some sort of truce.  Wouldn't listen, so I made an example of him. 

 Fortunately the Persicaria polymorpha is a beast of a plant.  Enormous and lots of blossoms.  These little creatures are about 3 feet or so over my head, so I pull down one of the enormous stems with one hand and shake it into the JBBOD.   I think this is probably the branch where the chief negotiator came from.

The Japanese Beetle Bucket of Death - sometimes you just don't need a really solid focus do you?

Let's take a moment to let the creeping heebee jeebees pass and look at some garden good stuff.  This is from the Chicago series of Hemerocallis.

A dinosaur exoskeleton left attached to a fennel stalk.

 An oddball mite like insect has found Banana Cream - may it settle directly on her hips.

 The come-with-the-house hostas are coming into bloom.

 A blue hosta flower.

 In order to import photos into Blogger, so many of these look as though I've been drinking.  Although I assure you it is the photo quality that has been reduced to a watery sauce, rather than the photographer being reduced by sauce.  You can just make out the Bartster in the doorway waiting for his U know what.

After roses, my favourite scent in the garden is from Phlox.

Hmm, too much time on the bugs, and not enough weeding?

Good plant alert!!!!  Below to the right is a new Monarda 'Grand Mum'.  No mildew so far.  Great ability to withstand drought.  And, it has a very pretty pink shade that would blend well with all sorts of flowering plants.

 This morning following the unsuccessful negotiations, I was on my search and destroy mission when I found this.....I cicada leaving his exoskeleton.

So I sat on the lawn for the next 30 minutes and watched as Mr. C emerged.  Just facinating.

 The little green nobs are his wings.

 Now that's one set of Spanx, I'd be willing to shell out good money for:

And, when you sit on the lawn you meet all sorts of folks.  One nice lady on the way to the hospital even took my photo with my bug.  Not included here.  And my new favourite puppy Mowbly came by to check me out.

 I find it amazing that so much insect comes out of such a small package, and that the casing stays put while it wiggles its way out.

 You can see how the back has split open here.

Almost out.

And now for a bit of a break.  More garden.  H. 'Kwanzo' and the Persicaria polymorpha.

Lovely Kale - pretty and delicious both raw and cooked.

Now back to Mr. C.

 Here's his face in case you need to recognize him in a line-up.

 And he's out!

 Nothing left to do except unfold those wings and dry them out.

 Again, just to show the scale.

 And then I squished him.  NOOOOOO I didn't.    Here he waits until his wings have hardened.  I'll be listening for his song tonight.