The Ice Man Cometh'd

Hmmm yes it's been colder than I'd prefer these past days. While surveying the carnage (er, I guess that would more properly called vegage?) caused by sub-freezing nights on my apparently tender garden, I saw this katydid nymph on a crisped salvia. Also, my wonderful red pentas--the darling of many butterflies and ladybugs, the apple of my eye in kinder weather--was showing all kinds of frost damage in this afternoon's sunshine.

We have been remarking for years about the apparent correlation of warmer, frost-free winters here in southern CA, and the spread of imported pests, as well as the general uptick in certain noxious plant pests such as scale. Let's see if this cold spell has any noticeable effect on those guys this spring and summer. And, let's consider which is worse: the bugs or the cold?

By the way, I saw a mourning cloak butterfly midday today; out of the corner of my eye I noticed that fluttering which really can't be anything else but a butterfly. I turned just in time to see it float over the neighbor's roof which, according to my husband who gets out of bed way earlier than I do, was dripping with icicles just a few hours earlier. Cool.