Brookside Gardens Outdoors – October 2019
/There is plenty to see outdoors at Brookside Gardens during October. I started out looking for fall foliage. This had not been a good color fall here in Maryland overall because of the drought. I started seeing colors right away at Brookside; a little watering means a lot.
I found butterflies in one of the garden ‘rooms’ near the conservatory. Monarchs (Danaus plexippus) – probably migrating toward Mexico – were enjoying the nectar plants: asters and late season cone flowers.
A painted lady (Vanessa cardui) was also enjoying the asters.
A tiny skipper was there too.
It took several tries for me to get a reasonable photo of a Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice). The butterfly seemed to be in motion almost constantly.
After photographing the butterflies, I continued my walk around the gardens…looking for and finding colorful foliage – oaks and maples and dogwoods. Sometimes there seemed to be a spotlight of sun on just what I wanted to photograph!
