Day of the larvae

All those eggs laid on milkweed by passing monarch butterflies have hatched, giving us many striped caterpillars on every plant, each growing larger with every passing hour. The milkweed wintered over, most in pots but some in the ground. In addition to our wild firewheels (gallardia), we now have a cultivated variety in bloom, with semidouble and very large flowers. Today brought our first Iceland and shirley poppies. We are very happy to see some pink evening primroses; they were very scant last year. We counted a dozen saucer-sized clematis flowers. We have a few sweet peas and many mysterious varieties of double and split-trumpet daffodils and narcissi. We were happy to hear frogs and toads singing. Our second variety of ornamental allium is now blooming. And let's not forget our one spectacular giant passion flower!