Beautiful pics, Betty! Wish I could go there. I think Mike should have named it CameLep!!

Susan

Thanks, Susan. It is amazing to see so many butterflies in one place after having such a hot and dry summer. My butterfly count is so low here. I was in heaven there.

More pics coming, hopefully. Depends on how nice Flickr is to me today! lol

Betty

Just beautiful!
The pipevine swallowtail is gorgeous! You can see why they're my favorite butterfly!

Sherry

Oh, to have a pipevine someday in my yard. Beautiful shot!

Betty,

Thank you so much for sharing with us. Your photos are outstanding. Do you mind my asking what camera and lens you use? I realize it's more the person behind the camera but the detail is so fabulous, I just have to ask.

~ Mary

Sherry and Bev, The first time DH and I ever saw a Pipevine Swallowtail in person (or is that 'in butterfly'! lol) was in Camelot last year and we both fell in love.

DH will happily help me in the butterfly garden now, because he wants the Pipevine Swallowtails as badly as I do. They are so beautiful! They really love Mike's Glory Bower trees. Every time I looked at one of his GBs there were PSTs nectaring like crazy!

I am trying really hard to get pipevines established in my garden for the PSTs.

Mary, I had to laugh when I read your post about my photos. You won't believe how long I took pictures and how many were blurry to get these! For every one I kept I deleted MANY blurry ones. The butterflies were very elusive and by the time I got them focused in, they would move! I was so frustrated. I was happily surprised when I uploaded them and realized I had any that I could post.

Most of them wanted to nectar high above my head on tall Mexican Sunflowers or in the top of the butterfly bushes, so I took a great many holding the camera over my head.

It would have been more entertaining if someone had video taped me trying to get pictures of the butterflies. lol

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I have to share a pic of BC, Mike's garden companion. He escorted me through the garden and posed nicely for his photo session. I thought it was grand how he posed and purred for me to take his picture. Later Mike told me B.C. was asking for his treat because Mike had trained him to hop up on the stool and wait for his treat! Poor BC didn't get a treat. No wonder he kept meowing!

My camera is a Sony DSC-H10. I haven't learned how to manually set stuff, yet. It is very hard for me to learn by reading. I am hoping to take a class this fall, because it is easier for me to learn hands-on. If you show me, I've got it, but if I have to read how, I'm lost.

I keep the Macro lens setting on, which helps if I can sneak up close enough. Otherwise, I just zoom as best I can. The lens is the one that came on it, which has "Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 3,5-4,4/6,3-63" written on it.

'Cyber-shot Opitical zoom 10x' is written on the front of the camera body and it is a 8.1 Mega Pixels.

I bought it at Walmart in '08 and I had read somewhere that a higher mega pixel would give you a better resolution or something like that. lol

I truly am camera illiterate. The lady at Walmart was very helpful, believe it or not!

The only thing I don't like about it is, when the sun is out I can't see the monitor to see what I'm focused on. Wish it had a view-finder I could put my eye to.

Betty

Betty, thank you for sharing those photos. Pipevine Swallowtails are my husband and my favorites too. I had my first one visit my pipevine a week ago. We have a large area to redo and my husband got into the idea of incorporating pipevine. You are so right. That is the way to get them to help!
-Elisabeth

Elisabeth, They are so boldly beautiful that you can't help but love them.

We've had 2 visit our garden. I haven't found any eggs or cats, which is a good thing because I don't have enough pipevine to feed more than maybe one, yet. But, I'm working on that little problem.

Betty

Lovely pictures Betty! Do you by any chance have any long shots of the garden?

BC is very cute, too bad you didn't have a treat for him. I love cats, and favor tabbies and black cats (especially when they have little white paws and chest, like a tuxedo :).

I wish the Pipevine Swallowtail was resident here, but apparently they are occasionally sighted in New England, but it is rare. They used to be a little more common when people grew Pipevine on their porches as a sun screen.

Thank you, Betty, for the camera information and for taking time to post your photos. I have the older Sony DSC-H5 but it's photos don't compare. Your photos are lovely and please don't despair regarding the throw a ways. The wonderful thing with the digital cameras is it doesn't cost us anything to snap away and then delete those that don't turn out.

I love to see everyone's photos; it's like having a personal visit in your gardens.

~Mary

Very nice pictures, Betty! Looks like you had a great trip' Thanks for sharing with us.

Bob

Terrene, I will go back and see if I have any long shots of the garden. It is so lush in the pics I took Sat and Sun that it looks like a shot of green with dots of color. This camera isn't the best for details in long shots. Could be the person holding the camera!

My old camera that you had to develop the pictures had a setting that gave you a long/wide picture that was great for this type of thing. I think it was called 'landscape'.

I have some beautiful pictures of the beach, mountains, sunrises and sunsets.

Mary, You take great pictures, also. I love the one you shared of the white-veined pipevine. Simply gorgeous.

Betty

Bob, I didn't see your post earlier. We must have been posting at the same time.

Thanks for the compliment. Coming from you, it means a lot. I wish we lived closer. I would come 'pick your brain' in person on how to take great pictures.

I will study your tutorial again, but I don't learn from reading nearly as well as I do from hands-on instruction.

When it comes to photography, I dream of being half as good as you are some day.

I still think you should publish a book of your photographs. I've yet to see pictures with the quality of your's anywhere else.

Betty

terrene,

These are the only long shots I have and they truly do not do the garden justice. I will try to remember to get better photos next spring so you can better see the bones of the garden. Mike has put in so many hours of hard work making Camelot beautiful.

The whole garden is carved out of the side of a mountain, so he had to build terraces as he went for planting beds and walkways.

This the far left part of the garden. I was standing on their bedroom balcony when I took this. You can see part of the railing on the bottom right and part of the lower deck railing on the lower left.

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A lot of the plants there are pretty much finished blooming for the season because of the heat and drier conditions. In the bottom left of the photo you can see the top of the archway covered with Virginia Creeper that is over the entrance to that area of the garden.

You can also see the beautiful butterfly stepping stones that Mike and Karen made in the pathways. I had the pleasure of winning one that Mike had donated to the silent auction!

This next photo I took in early May when we were there. I'm standing on the graveled area just off of his patio looking down what I call the middle entrance to the garden. The sturdy trellis over the pathway is covered with wisteria now and is a wonderful place to escape the hot sun.

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It is so lush and full now that you can hardly see the pathway.

This last photo is the far right entrance to the garden.

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You can see the pathway disappearing into the shade on the far right. (as well as part of the roofline of his house!)

Because of the distance of the shot and the early morning shadows, you can't see all of the blooms on the many butterfly bushes, mexican sunflowers, blue salvis, hardy geraniums, zennias, obedient plants, cosmos, rose of sharons, glory bower trees and many others, or the many butterflies nectaring. All of the butterfly photos in this thread were taken in the area on the left of this photo on a pathway you can't see for the lush growth.

I can't wait to go back. This the most beautiful butterfly garden I've ever seen. The whole garden is designed just for the butterflies. There is such a variety of butterfly host and nectar plants as well as garden ornaments tucked in here and there for you to discover as you walk through the garden.

Another delightful surprise is that he recycled lots of objects from his home in the garden. Some will make you laugh and some will make you say, "Now, why didn't I think of that?"

Tall mature trees totally enclose the garden to protect the butterflies from the wind. There is also a wonderful view of mountains in the distance. A slice of heaven on earth.

Betty

Betty,

Thanks for posting all those pictures of Camelot and all the kindness you and Alfred have shown me and all the kind words about Karen (and Camelot). It is people like you who have helped me cope. Can't wait until your next visit.

mike

Betty, thank you for posting those! Even with the drought, it looks lush and natural. From those photos, you can see that a lot of work has gone into creating "bones". I would love to see more pics some time of the layout.

Mike I am curious, did you clear out your parcel? Are you surrounded by deep woods?

Wonderful post and wonderful pics my friend!! Just terrific. So glad that y'all got to go to visit and see Mike and his butterflies. I know it was a special day indeed. I have not yet seen a Pipevine here this season.~~Angie

Mike, We feel that we've received much more than we've given. Thanks for your hospitality. We can't wait to get back there, either. Trying to find the words to those songs so we can be ready! Give BC a kiss for me.

Terrene, You're very welcome. I need to find s swivel stool so I can sit comfortably and just turn to watch all of the action. I could disappear into Camelot for hours.

I forgot to mention that the 'mushroom toadstool' that BC is posing on is one of many throughout the garden that Mike created with a power saw from stumps left when the garden area was cleared.

Oh Angie, Not one Pipevine? Bummer. I'm sure they will come. It is such a wierd year compared to last year. I'm working hard to give them a reason to come and stay. BTW, thanks for all of the emails. I enjoy seeing all of your visitors.

Betty

Great photos! I have never heard of a glory bower tree, it must have been a sight to see. Everything looks so inviting - that hammock is calling me.

It sounds like a lovely time. I'm so sorry about his wife Karen and glad he has friends like you.

Kathy

terrene,

We had to clear a lot of trees in the woods around our house that burned in a forest fire in 1982. We were encouraged by the Forest Service to clear a wide swath around our house as a fire break and eventually the butterfly sanctuary evolved in that space. We lucked in to the sloped land which butterflies prefer, the river at the bottom of our hill for water and puddling areas, and esp. the deep woods surrounding the one-acre garden which help provide shelter, host plants and a wind break for butterflies ( as well as "posts" for my deer fence all around the garden).

mike

Kathy,

The Harlequin Glory Bower Tree is a beautiful tree. When we were in Mike's garden it was such a Pipevine Swallowtail magnet. In fact, the picture of the Pipevine Swallowtail I posted showed it on a Glory Bower leaf.

Even better, he gave us some volunteers from his trees! Yay!! I can't wait until our's flower for the Pipevine Swallowtails.

Google for more pictures of this GREAT tree.

Betty

Betty,

Thanks so much for posting the pictures of Camelot. Not only could Forum participants enjoy Camelot, I sent a link to your thread to all my e-mail list and many of them have enjoyed Camelot because of you. Aren't internet friends great?

mike

I have so enjoyed this thread. The pictures are marvelous. What the Cronins created is beyond imagination. I had something pictured from reading other posts, but it didn't compare to the real thing.

Sandy

Sandy,

Thanks so much for the compliment to both Karen and me about Camelot. Having lost her, IT MEANS EVEN MORE TO ME NOW TO REALIZE HOW MANY OF HER GOOD WORKS LIVE ON .

mike

You are so right, Mike! Internet friends are AWESOME!

Thanks Sandy. I loved sharing the pictures. Camelot is a perfect butterfly habitat and certainly needs to be shared. Every time we visit we learn so much. Mike is so gracious in opening his home and garden to us. He is the perfect butterfly host!

I've thought about starting a thread asking everyone to post photos of their gardens. We have so many close up photos of flowers and butterflies (of course), but we can only imagine about their gardens.

Since I just began planting host and nectar plants for the butterflies last summer, I would sure love to see more mature gardens and hear the stories behind them.

What made them decide to garden for the butterflies, what plants they started with, how long they've been butterfly gardening, mistakes they've made, their greatest successes, their biggest regrets, their plans for their gardens in the future, etc, etc.

That would be the ultimate thread IMHO.

Betty