I’m happy to be able to share this photo. I love to watch hawk moths, and yet—because they usually appear at dusk and move so fast—I’ve never been able to photograph one before. Early this morning I spotted one flitting around the salvia greggii (Autumn sage), dipping its long tongue into the tubular flowers. The size of a hummingbird, wings beating so fast they were just a blur, the moth was unperturbed by my presence as I angled for several shots. I was thrilled to find this one when I downloaded them onto my computer. You can even see its needle-like tongue extended toward the flower! For a look at the larval stage of the hawk moth, see my entry from October 2004.

Here is the northwest side of the front garden. The Carefree Beauty rose is blooming vibrantly beside the cedar bench.

Out by the curb, with a due-west exposure, the damianita and Mexican feathergrass are a dynamic duo at this time of year. They do just fine out there the rest of the summer (which, for those of you in more temperate climates, begins here in late May and ends in early October, with high humidity and daily highs in the upper 90s and more-than-occasional 100s) with almost no supplemental water. These are tough, tough plants.