u/Federal-Boat3732

Rescued from r/weeviltime

This Woodland Phlox (P. divaricata) came up on its own and I had to look it up to learn that it was a native wildflower. It loves shade and blooms so early and so fragrantly that the pollinators flock around it as soon as they wake up in spring.

I snapped this photo of Atteva aurea, the Ailanthus Webworm Moth, in my parking lot at work. He's sitting on cedar but he's a foot and a half from the neighbor's Tree of Heaven. This pretty little North American moth adapted & has become able to eat ToH. As the noxious tree has gone nationwide, so has the moth. Don't smash these guys when you see them! Their children are chewing holes in your foe. This is an entirely new predator on the unlikable tree and we can hope it will help us win the arms race.

Random molten metal -- with kind of a coppery tint to it, definitely not pure copper, not the good stuff -- that formed itself into a hard, tiny heart of the sort that would allow rudeness to a servant of Nanni's who had just traveled through enemy territory for some badly-needed copper ingots.

Please feel free to correct me if Google Lens got the scientific monicker wrong...

This chonker buge surfaced, against my expectations, when I was watering a newly-planted buge-friendly shrub (ninebark). More than an inch long, at least half an inch across, slow-moving and so covered with detritus I could hardly make out the face. If it's not a cicada nymph I am stumped. If it is, I am stumped. I thought the cicadas were long gone by August???

This chonker emerged as I was watering a newly-planted shrub. Maybe an inch and a half long (partly curled up), 3/4" or so across the middle. Slow-moving and apparently bewildered by daylight. I assume this guy was in my flowerbed because the shrub was planted with brand-new, sterile potting mix. Shark added for scale as I could not find a banana, sorry.