Sunflowers and Butterflies

The front and back yards are tangles of heirloom vegetables and wildflowers of many different types, and that draws a lot of butterflies, especially the large yellow tiger swallowtails.

Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia rotundifolia) and various varieties of sunflowers dominate about half the area with full sunlight, with cosmos, coneflowers, and zinnias making up most of the rest, at least as far as annuals.

Note that all of those flowers are warm yellow, orange. and red colors, and so it’s a little dazzling on blue-sky days, especially with all the large butterflies flying around.

As for perennial wildflowers, there are passionflowers (maypops), swamp sunflowers, daylilies, jerusalem artichokes, blue mist flowers, scarlet rose mallows, swamp rose mallows, white boneset, and irises of several varieties.

20220808-kankakee-mallow
20220808-swamp rose mallow. Previously misidentified as Kankakee mallow.

These draw flying insect pollinators of every description, especially odd types of small wasps and bees -in addition to the usual honeybees and bumblebees.

20220802-sunflowers-2
20220802-sunflowers-2
20220803-butterfly-bee-crop
20220803-butterfly-bee-crop
20220803-sunflowers
20220803-sunflowers
20220802-sunflowers
20220802-sunflowers
20220801-butterfly-crop
20220801-butterfly-crop