Guerilla Gardeners bringing beauty to Lansing

Posted on by farlane
Hello Beautiful by Lansing Area Guerilla Gardeners

Hello Beautiful by Lansing Area Guerilla Gardeners

Last week’s post about Lansing’s truck-eating bridge Big Penny was the most popular post of 2025 so far, but it may convey an overly aggressive image of our State Capital. Fortunately, I found the perfect antidote for Big Penny through Stupid Lansing, the folks who tipped me off to Big Penny: the Lansing Area Guerilla Gardeners!

WKAR explains that guerilla gardeners across the globe care for public or neglected land, often without formal permission:

(Shawn) Dyer and his friends adopted the Guerrilla Gardeners label in 2021, although they’ve been leading stealthy community cleanups and carrying out surprise acts of gardening for years. We sneak in, we garden, we make it look better and then we leave.” As Jana Nichol described it: “We sneak in, we garden, we make it look better and then we leave.”

Just love this – check out their work below & on their Facebook page!!

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Blue Skies & Butterflies

Posted on by farlane

Blue Skies and Butterflies by Jacqueline Verdun

The Ann Arbor Observer has a classic feature titled The Biggest Butterfly: Seeking Giant Swallowtails that says in part:

The aptly named giant swallowtail is the biggest butterfly in Michigan. Form your two index fingers into pointers and touch them to each other: if you take a large glove size, the butterfly’s maximum wingspan is approximately the length of both fingers put together. The field guides say around six inches.

The giant swallowtail’s coloration is as spectacular as its size. From the top, its wings look dark brown to black, with yellow dot ribboning and a yellow eye-shaped spot on the end of each wing. When the wings are raised, the bottom is revealed to be a subtle cream interrupted by wavy blue and rust bands.

This species spends its Michigan winter in the pupa stage and emerges in two broods each summer, the first in May through June, the second in July through early September.

Jacqueline took this gorgeous photo a decade ago on August 20, 2014. You can check out another shot she took of this butterfly right here & see more in her Macro Insects etc gallery.

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Perils of Michigan: The Pitcher Plant

Posted on by farlane

Pitcher Plant

Pitcher Plant, photo by Bill Dolak

With the ice now gone from the Great Lakes, Michigan was at Terror Level Burnt Orange until Bill Dolak went and took today’s photo. We’ll take the level back up to Hot Pink (at least for insects). The Michigan DNR page on the Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia purpurea) explains that:

This unusual plant, usually found in bogs, is carnivorous, feeding on insects that are trapped in its bulbous pitcher like leaves. Although this carnivorous plant is a common inhabitant of acidic bogs, it also is found in fens. The highly modified leaves are covered with downwardpointing hairs on the inside which keep insects from escaping. Insects that enter the leaf eventually drown, providing the pitcher plants with important nutrients. The tiny sundews also shown in this poster are also carnivorous and trap insects on the surface of their sticky leaves.

Read more about Michigan’s carnivorous plants from the North Oakland Headwaters Land Conservancy.

Bill took this photo in southwest Michigan’s Barry County. View it bigger on Flickr and see more in his Flowers slideshow.

More perils of Michigan on Michigan in Pictures!