Over the weekend, the boys and I were at our favorite old climbing tree near the observation tower at Palmetto Island County Park. That day we were joined by this little red mushroom, who was pretty happy to see us. Anyone know the species?

We love our resident banana spiders, and each summer we chart their progress as they move around in search of the perfect spot. Back in July, a giant female setup shop in a vast expanse of empty space near the marsh. She built her web about five meters above the ground and is still there as I write this. She attracted 2 males and a female, who together patrolled a giant swatch of our backyard airspace  for the better part of 2 months. I’ll miss her when she runs from the cool temperatures to come, so today I made sure to take a photo of our banana spider of the year.

We always seem to have praying mantises in the yard, which makes me happy. Last night while I was fixing the Sirius antenna, this friendly guy kept checking me out. Eventually, he jumped onto my shirt. I gently set him down, got my camera, and came back out. He then crawled right onto my hand for a few pics – what a trooper.

Previous blog posts about praying mantises living in my yard:

• A Mantis Among Us
• Mister Mantis

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We often bring home pieces of bamboo from the large, wild stand near the Sullivan’s Island playground. I recently was able to get a large, fresh, green piece that looked rather interesting next to a dried piece that had split down the middle. Original resolution on Flickr.

There was a cool, low-hanging sun hitting these grasses at Palmetto Islands County Park, so we stopped to check them out. I know my son enjoyed the tall crunchy plants as much as I did…you gotta love Fall in the Lowcountry.

These Oak Leaf Hydrangeas have been a great addition to the yard, and produce leaves that are amazing all year. I’ve blogged about the blooms before, but there’s even something cool about these leaves as they fall off. The fact that the leaves are bigger than my head make it all the better.

I bent down into one of the beds the other day, and came up with a spattering of chigger bits. I also ended up with this weird shot, where the wide open 1.2 aperature delivered some unexpected goodies. This is a like some kind of bizarro bokeh.

I love these hardy, succulent perennials a neighbor have us years ago. I just keep dividing, and they just keep blooming. If you know what they are, lemme know in the comments.

Have you walked around lately? Flowers are everywhere this time of year, and my yard is blooming like it’s going out of style. On Sunday morning, I took a short walk around the homestead. Below are 16 of the flowers I saw, all shot within 16 minutes of each other. I saw dianthus, coreopsis, guara, hydrangea, oleander, verbena, lantana, society garlic, and a few veggies. Enjoy!

I had a moment of food chain serendipity while playing with my boys in the front yard, which was followed by a sight both creepy and presumably moderately rare (vague enough?)

My youngest son was fussing after the cats, who were attentively stalking the mockingbirds, who were feasting on the hundreds of insects wafting up from the street garden. We naturally moved closer, and saw a light fuzzy area near the mailbox. It was moving…moving a lot.

It turns out that it was a swarm of reproductive termites flowing out of the mulch, then fluttering into the stiff breeze. Once we stepped back, we could see the termites in the air like snow. Hundreds of them, haphazardly being swept down the street in the wind (thank god!).

In the end, I think these guys were getting out because the garden became inhospitable. Let’s hope so…at least for the termites.

After reading Dr. Seuss’s “Oh Say Can You Seed” all summer long, we welcomed Fall as a great opportunity to do some collecting. Over a two-week period, my oldest son and I meticulously sought out all the best seed caches for our collection. In the end, it looked pretty cool:

Here are the details (from top left to bottom right):

1. Unidentified Weed – This bean-like seed came from a head-high weed that produced dozens of pods, each with two seeds in it. They kind of smelled.
2. Crape Myrtle Tree – We collected these seeds by swatting at our crape myrtle with a plastic baseball bat. The seeds floated down like mini-helicopters and landed on a Frisbee. They are now known as the Frisbee seeds.
3. Wild Blue Aster – I love this wildflower, and it grows under the power lines near our house. These seeds came from a wildflower bouquet we picked for Jen.
4. Live Oak Tree – These acorns are abundant in the Lowcountry this time of year. The big surprise was the larvae that crawled out of each of them. One by one, I picked them out of the container and took them outside, where I assume they wanted to burrow into the ground.
5. Pumpkin – These are the only non-wild seeds we included in our collection. They were so plentiful and unique…we just had to have them.
6. Unidentified Berry – I should know the name of this shrub, as they are everywhere in Charleston. They have thin,  yellowing this time of year, and are covered with red berries.
7. Palmetto Tree – These seeds are everywhere right now too. It’s so cool thinking that each one of them can grow a giant Palmetto tree.
8. Unidentified Weed – This weed produces long, slender pods that contain about 25 seeds each. The seeds remind us of the food we feed our Beta fish.
9. Unidentified Weed – These seeds came from a weed that has 3-inch pods with 8 seeds in each. I like them because they look like tiny Chinese throwing stars.
10. Redbud Tree – I love redbud trees, so I planted one in our front yard – they remind me of Indiana. Similar to the live oak seeds, each redbud seed had a very small insect larvae living in it. They had all hatched before we started the collection, but we saw them this summer.
11. Ornamental Grass – Not sure what species this is, but it’s variegated and is about 4 feet tall.
12. Jelly Palm – These seeds appear on the ground after the fermenting orange fruit decomposes. We like to crack these shells open to get at the three beans inside.

When I read that pruning Oakleaf Hydrangeas was wrong, I didn’t really know what to think. I had always cut back common hydrangeas, so natch I did the same thing when I got these Oakleafs a couple years ago. And besides, I didn’t really mind – the foliage was beautiful in both summer and fall.

Then I read that you aren’t supposed to prune them, so I didn’t.

Then I waited…

And this spring, something remarkable happened. These puppies bloomed like nobody’s business! It’s been a slow bloom too, so it looks like I’ll have flowers for a couple months. Needless to say, I’m stoked about this. This is a hardy plant that does well in climates like ours, and is anything but high-maintenance.

Anyhoo, enjoy the pics.