Since my return from New Zealand, our weather has been rainy and dull, so I haven’t spent much time in the garden. Yesterday the clouds disappeared and the sun came out. This morning I was outside first thing, ready to work and, to my surprise, I found my fuschia plant in full bloom. It’s gorgeous, as you can see in the photo above.  A few weeks ago I pruned, transplanted, then fertilized my rather neglected plant. I was so happy to see that my efforts paid off. Below you see a second surprise.

While transplanting the original plant, a small piece of that plant had broken free and I had placed it in a separate pot. When I left for New Zealand the offshoot looked as though it had died. I didn’t discard the dead plant, and I’m so glad that I didn’t because, as you see, the baby fuschia is happily growing. It will be great fun to watch it mature.

The third surprise was a Monarch butterfly caterpillar munching on the milkweed. I took a quick photo, which you see below.

Healthy looking fellow, isn’t he? In a day or two he’ll climb the wall, take shelter under the ledge, and enter the chrysalis stage. Today I watched a full grown Monarch butterfly laying eggs on one of our milkweed plants, so it looks like we’ll be seeing quite a few of these caterpillars before long. Tomorrow morning I will be out in the garden again, and I’m wondering what new surprises await me.