Flowers and a Monarch!

Finally, I've seen another Monarch in the garden, and there are some interesting flowers still blooming though the season is definitely winding down now.  Many flowers are fading fast and seed heads are showing up, though there's a fair bit of colour yet.

The Monarch today was fluttering around on the Ligularia, Elephant Ears.  It was moving around a lot, and I was lucky to get a shot with the wings open.

Most of the time it was methodically sampling every floret on the flowers, steadily working its way around each blossom.  I was glad to see it.

The Buddleia or Butterfly Bush is also in bloom; in the past I've seen the Monarch on these flowers.

These light pink fall Anenomes are just coming into bloom.  I like the combination of the flowers with the still unopened buds.

We have several Sedums that bloom at this time of year, and I took about 20 pictures of Bumblebees visiting these flowers - not a single shot clear, the bees were moving so fast.

My horticultural consultant said this one is a Bush Clematis, and the blooms do look like Clematis flowers.  But the overall plant, a shrubby 2 foot high clump, doesn't look the least like any of the other Clematis in our gardens, all of which are vines.

But we're still working on this one - the bloom is about 1/2 an inch wide and 2 inches high, with only a few leaves on the stems. ... a week later, we've figured it out, it's a Persicaria, one of the Smartweeds.

The flowers of the very tall Cut-leaved Coneflowers are setting seeds.  I'm going to gather more yellow Coneflower seeds this year and scatter them in the meadow, along with some Milkweed seeds.

I always find this tiny Sea Holly blossom interesting.  There has to be really no breeze to catch a clear shot.

And two of our earlier-blooming Clematis vines are now going to seed, forming this beautiful seedhead.

Linking to:

and Through My Lens, No.6