Buddleias and butterflies

I was sitting in the lounge, reading Mariposa a story, when I saw movement on the buddleia bush. The poor plant has been struggling to put out some flowers since that dreadful heatwave, but it managed to do so and it's managed to attract this very pretty butterfly! (Trying to catch a photo with it's wings open was a task in itself, but we did manage it in the end. :) ) It was nice to see some bees feeding there too, a couple of varieties. One was a common golden one, but there was another with a dark abdomen and stripes. I couldn't get any clear photos of these as they kept moving about too much, BUT ... I did manage to find out that it was an Australian Blue Banded Bee.

Picture from here.

Here are some more photos from a recent trip to the Royal Botanical and Children's Gardens in Melbourne:

A recently planted Wollemi Pine .. originally eaten by dinosaurs!

A fossilised River Red Gum in the Children's Gardens.

Prickly chestnuts.

Looking over the fence into the vegetable garden. They had pumpkins climbing up those trellises in the background!

A view of the tomato plants and the gardening shed in the background.

Mariposa putting dried lemon verbena into a calico bag.

And just LOOK at the size of this sunflower! Maestro had to put his hand up to get it in perspective. Larger than a dinner plate!