Red, green and gold holiday decorations are brightening Pittsburgh’s gray December days.
Nature paints with these colors all year long.
Chuck Tague photographed an orange sulphur butterfly on a cardinal flower in mid summer.
Christmas in July.
(photo by Chuck Tague)
Cardinal flowers are one of my favorite native flowers. For anyone who is interested, they are very easy to grow in your yard. They are perennials and also seed nicely. They come up from established roots only for a few seasons so the seeding is important. I like this aspect of the plant because it looks more natural in the yard when it moves around a bit. I can just about guarantee that you’ll get hummingbirds the first fall it blooms.