A Garden Gallery

A continuation of last weekend's slow stroll with a macro lens

Apr 27, 2026

A plant with two purple-blue flowers, each a triangle of three triangular petals — Spiderwort (*Tradescantia* sp., probably *T. ohioensis*) in the front garden

Everything documented in this post was photographed in a twenty-four hour period (most on April 18th, a couple the next morning) in a single quarter-acre garden about ten minutes from downtown Atlanta. Forced to stay home to recover from a minor injury, I found so much in this small space that it could not fit into one post.

This weekend, I’m feeling a little under the weather, so I present the photos with their captions and alt text — no word essay or voiceover, just a photo essay. I hope you enjoy!

Hanging onto the underside of a green leaf, a black fly with a long, skinny abdomen, big dark red eyes, and a lot of fuzzy hairs — A fly whose taxonomic identity (beyond fly) is totally unknown to me

A black and white wasp the flowers of a raspberry plant. Most of the flowers have lost their white petals and are just a cluster of pale green floral parts and triangular pale green sepals — Fraternal potter wasp (*Eumenes fraternus*) feasting on raspberry pollen

Lying on a leaf, a shiny bronze beetle with a long, narrow body, patched with white on some of the wings, and huge dark bronze eyes — Common hackberry agrilus (*Agrilus lecontei*), a metallic wood-boring beetle

A brown jumping spider with a fuzzy body and large, shiny eyes — Ribbon jumping spider (*Metacyrba taeniola*) on a white wall

Overhead view of a fuzzy brown jumping spider with a wide head and with white dotted lines running down either side of the abdomen — Overhead view of the ribbon jumping spider, showing the ribbon-like lines striping the spider’s abdomen

A blue-purple flower that is a triangle made of three triangular petals in the midst of a tangle of long, strappy green leaves — Spiderwort (*Tradescantia* sp., probably *ohioensis*) in a tangle of grassy/sedge-y leaves

Close-up of a plant with corymbs (flat-topped clusters) of bright dark pink small flowers — A pink-flowering form of yarrow (*Achillea millefolia*)

Bright green vegetation with columns of pale pink bilabiate blooms fill the frame — Culinary thyme bursting with pink blossoms on the front garden hill

Close-up of a plant with white tubular flowers, with hints of pale purple-pink and yellow within the flowers, and a small bug on one of the flowers. The bug is pale brown with a red spot on either wing. — Penstemon — I’m not sure which species — with a mirid plant bug

Against a dark background, bright green leaves with serrated margins on softly fuzzed green twigs. On one leaf is a lifesaver-shaped raised bump of paler green. — Hackberry leaves with plant gall (tissue growth caused by influence of a parasite)

Close-up of the bottom of a bright green, serrate-margined leaf, and the fuzzy green twig the leaf is attached to. Two galls on on the leaf, both lifesaver-shaped and paler bright green. — Close-up view of plant galls

An upside down umbel of bright green flowers with big round ovaries - the flowers seem to be in a stage between regular bloom and fully ripe fruit. The peduncle, pedicels, and all other floral parts are all the same shade of bright light green. — Smilax flowers turning to fruit

Against a dark background, a spider in the middle of her web. She has a white abdomen with brown markings. — Unknown species of orbweaver

Resting on a wooden porch board, a close-up of a triangular moth with faintly fuzzy and shiny reddish-beige wings, with a stripe of brick red near and running parallel to the bottom edge of each wing, and a layer of darker red-brown small spots between the line and the edge of the wing. There are also pale spots in the top third or so of each wing, and another brick red line between those spots and the moth's head. — Red-lined panopoda moth (*Panopoda rufimargo*)

A planthopper on white-painted expanded metal mesh (with diamond shapes between each wire.) The hopper is faintly shimmery red-gold with brown lines and some what spots making an art deco mosaic pattern on the wings. — *Osbornellus rotundus*, a regular springtime porch light visitor

A pale green, narrow-bodied leafhopper with gigantic pale blue eyes and some shapes of the same pale blue on the head and thorax. — Potato leafhopper (*Empoasca fabae*)

I hope you enjoyed this brief gallery. What’s new in your garden? What’s showing up at your porch light? What new wildlife (or returning old friends) has spring shown you so far?

Upcoming Events and Community Science

The City Nature Challenge is almost over, but it’s not too late to join for the last day! From April 24-27, CNC is a four-day bioblitz that anyone can join for free! You can join your city’s project on iNaturalist (here is the Greater Atlanta Area), but if your region isn’t participating, you can still participate by joining the Global Project!

Georgia Botanical Society has several free field trips coming up in May!

Tuesday, April 28th, is Save the Frogs Day.

Find community science events at the SciStarter calendar. To suggest an event or initiative for me to include in future posts — wherever you are, not limited to the Southeastern US — reply to this post in your inbox, send me a Substack message, or

Falling in a Bog

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