Coneflowers and critters
Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) must always have a place in my garden. It’s one of the happiest summer flowers, with cottage charm and prairie toughness.
Plus, those spiky orange coneheads are mesmerizing in close-up and offer vibrant contrast to hot-pink petals.
Butterflies adore it, and small spiders weave their webs amid the hairy stems.
Sometimes the petals dangle like ballerina skirts, but it’s never a prissy flower. Nor is it pretentious or mysterious. Purple coneflower is good-natured and straight-forward, with a measure of goofiness. A great American flower.
But where are the critters, as promised in the title of this post? Here’s the first—a blue dragonfly resting above a bright green lily pad. Dragonflies are nature’s brooches, with their brilliant coloring and translucent wings, wonderful at ornamenting ponds or bird baths.
I’d been admiring dragonflies and damselflies all weekend as they buzzed around the stock-tank pond, when my DH surprised me with a beautiful metal dragonfly for the garden. I hung it on the fence near the pond, where I can enjoy both the real thing and the artistic version.
The other critter I’ve spotted in my garden lately is a more troublesome one, but still pretty cute (in a rather prehistoric way)—the nine-banded armadillo. This one nonchalantly sauntered out from under some liriope in my back garden one afternoon as I was hand-watering some new plants.
And it promptly started digging with those impressive front claws. Oh no! I tried to shoo it back under the fence where I surmised it had dug its way in, but it found sanctuary amid a patch of aspidistra. I prodded blindly with a long pole but eventually gave up in disgust. Later my DH spotted it and gave chase with a pool noodle.
You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen someone chase an armadillo with a noodle. DH startled it, naturally, so it leaped a few times in alarm and charged him in confusion, but eventually it squeezed out the hole into the neighbor’s yard. We’ve blocked the holes with rocks but know that they’ll be testing the fence line elsewhere sooner or later. Pesky little bulldozers.
All material © 2006-2010 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Those armadillo shots make me a little nostalgic for my east Texas childhood, but maybe because they are far from my own garden:)
Purple Coneflowers are a must here in my gardens! A child hood favorite. My girls pick the Armadillos up by their tails, spins them around and then toss them in the woods in hopes of confusing them, lol. What a great gift from you DH.
Jeepers! My daughter also caught one by the tail last year. But after doing a little internet research on ‘dillos and learning that they sometimes carry leprosy (more likely in those found along the Gulf Coast), we told her not to catch anymore! —Pam
HA! We’ve seen armadillos on the road side, but not in my yard, yet. I grew up in Lubbock and we never had critters like I see around here!
Love coneflowers! Mine are blooming right now. I’m most pleased with the ones grown from seed as they are catching up quickly to the sizes purchased at nurseries.
I’m so glad that I don’t have armadillos…twin fawns were born last night behind our porch and have been entertaining us this morning!
I SO needed the mental image of an adult man shooing away an armadillo with a pool noodle this morning!!! LOL! Thanks, Pam. 🙂
I’ve been compiling a list of perennials to put in a smallish bed, and for height and beauty, coneflowers will certainly be on it! Your photos are wonderful. As for the critters, your photo of the dragonfly is exceptional and you can’t imagine how interesting it is to read about a critter (armadillo) that is so foreign in this area. He’s kind of cute…in a Neolithic way. 😉
Armadillos are so cute! Of course, I can say that because there aren’t any here. Some folks love squirrels but I am awfully tired of them digging up my potted plants AND I noticed this morning that Bambi nipped the flower buds off my Asian lily.
I think purple coneflowers are my favorite wildflowers. Yours are lovely.
I cracked up at the thought of your Iron Man chasing the armadillo with a pool noodle. Where was your camera??? ha ha ha
Pretty, Pretty!! I think I see Senorita Rosalita in the background. She is not very happy in my garden. I am going to try moving it today and see how it does. I do have another one that is doing great.
I like your dragonfly on your fence. Also, I have never seen an armadillo in person and I think it might cause me to run the other direction if I do.
You did indeed spot ‘Senorita Rosalita’ cleome in the background of the first image. She’s also visible in the bottom of the dragonfly-art picture. I’m sorry to hear one of yours isn’t doing well. I have three, and one of mine is under-performing also, though it’s still doing OK. —Pam
Oh how awful! Armadillos can create so much damage in the garden, in just a short while. I hope you don’t see it again. Love your coneflowers. I’m (impatiently) waiting for mine to start blooming.
Oh, that is hillarious! I’ve always wanted an armadillo as a pet. They’re so cute! But maybe now, not so much. Would have loved to see pictures of the pool noodle wrangling.
That metal dragonfly is beautiful.
They are quite strange looking critters~ Let’s hope the fences hold! gail
Oh, I howled at the imagined sight of your DH chasing an armadillo with a pool noodle, of all things!!!! LOL. What a time you must have had. The rest of your post is lovely, too, and how sweet that he brought you that pretty dragonfly. He’s a dear.
Pam, like Diana, I howled at the mental image of your gallant knight challenging the armored dragon with his trusty lance … kinda. Gotta love those Rice men!
LOL LOL You are too funny. That was an enlightening post. I loved it. We have the same problems here. My chain link fence is no problem for them. Young’un & I saw one in the middle of town the other day {he wasn’t able to walk, if you know what I mean}. Now, that is strange.
The blue dragonfly photograph is wonderful Pam! As for the Armadillo, I know they dig, but they are rather cute. We don’t get them here, but saw many of them in my time in South America. Such funny prehistoric-looking little animals.
You always have fun stuff going on in your garden Pam! That is one INCREDIBLE dragonfly photo. Wow. Now I have something to aim for this summer! Love the metal one your hubby gave you too ~ that was sweet of him.
Our coneflowers are so far behind yours but I think they’re pretty amazing as well. Not sure what I would do if I saw an armadillo!!! (having never ever seen one irl!)
Haha, yes, where’s the picture of Noodle Man vs. armadillo?
Armadillo story for you…we are up in the Texas Panhandle out in the country and don’t see them very much (although I hear they are migrating more and more north – kinda like the wild pigs). One day a couple of years ago after I had planted SO many flowers in a new bed, I walked out to water and noticed a HUGE hole under the tree, a big mound of dirt, and remnants of flowers. I immediately started to berate the dogs then I saw some movement IN the hole. I hollered at DH (who grew up in east texas and played with the darn things) and he couldn’t pull it out by it’s tail. Ole diller started diggin’ in and got his claws around the tree roots. By this time the dogs were on the attack too. Finally hubby went to the feed truck and pulled out the electric cattle prod and popped the diller. That thing tore out of there with three dogs and man with prod right behind popping him and finally had to pop the dogs so the diller wouldn’t dig in under the house. The whole crew was hollering and barking and jumping and running – I laughed until I cried. That armadillo headed for the pasture and we never saw it again thank goodness. My husband calls them “possum on a half-shell”. I just found your site after googling galvanized stock tanks and I love it…my next pond project for the yard. Thanks for the inspiration. We use them at our windmills and I’ve been wanting to do one in the yard as a sunk in pond so I really appreciate the photos you have of yours!
Wow. You are knockin’ out some fabulous photos! I am impressed with your artistry. And the comic relief of that armadillo, of course.
The only good Armadillo is a DEAD ARMADILLO!!!! Nice flowers though!!!!