Spurgaceous

I used to have a tall Euphorbia characias Wulfenii in the middle of the rose bed in the back garden which was mildly popular with Andrena fulva females, and for several years I would haunt this plant through April and May, trying to capture their tawny loveliness against its vivid lime green bracts. Last summer it died, presumably worn out by the unequal struggle against our vicious clay soil, and having failed to find the same variety at any of the local garden centres I replaced it with a smaller, variegated spurge. I hoped the new plant might also attract these pretty miners, and today those hopes were more than fulfilled when I found four of them - the most I've ever seen together in one place - competing for possession of its flowers. In my ongoing war of attrition with our garden, this counts as a major victory.

Speaking of the garden, I did some more work on it this morning, pruning roses and clearing some of last year's herbaceous debris. I might even have risked planting a few things if R hadn't offered to buy me lunch, but on the mention of food I was more than happy to down tools and go off with him to Hillers. The weather at this stage was glorious, confounding the predictions of both of my weather apps, but we emerged from the café to a threatening sky, and half way home we were hit by a monsoon-like deluge. Every time I declare that the already sodden ground simply can't take any more water, more water promptly arrives, and at this rate it's unlikely that I'll be doing any work down in the wild garden - which is flood plain for the local brook - any time soon.

My second photo tonight is a pair of Oxystoma pomonae which I found on one of our photonias. Unlike the twig cutting weevils I posted a couple of weeks ago, these tiny seed weevils weren't copulating, and nor were they in the static huddle they adopt through the coldest part of the winter. The female was simply walking around on the leaf with the male clinging to her back - which makes me wonder if he was either holding pole position while waiting for her to become sexually receptive, or protecting an investment he's already made. Either way, I felt pretty sure she'd rather not have been used as a taxi.

Before I go, I must remind you that tomorrow is Tiny Tuesday; there's no theme, but the tag to get your photos of tiny things into the challenge is TT462. I'll choose my favourites on Thursday.