There are over 500 species in the Papilionidae family. They are found on almost every continent. We are lucky to have nine species as inhabitants of Nevada, including the Two-tailed Swallowtail, pictured here. This is a large butterfly, sometimes with a wingspan of five inches. We see them lingering often this time of year, especially in the back yard where they find more moisture.

In its caterpillar stage, the ash tree leaves are one of its favorite foods. Fully developed adults sip the nectar from many different flowers, including Milkweed, which is the Monarch Butterfly's primary source of nutrition, and other flowering perennials. Besides their beauty, they are also very beneficial, especially with pollination. In both stages of its development, the Swallowtail seems to be a favorite treat of all the backyard song birds.

If you're interested in Nevada's butterflies, check out The Butterfly Site's page on Nevada. You can also find information on how to create your own butterfly garden.

The chocolate scented daisy (Berlandiera lyrata) is a Southwest native. It's drought tolerant, loves full sun and opens fresh blooms about the size of a half-dollar, each day during its long season. The flowers grow on stems that reach about 14 inches. The dried flowers can be used for indoor floral arrangements. The plant itself matures at around two feet in diameter.

We bought plants from Dry Creek a few years back and planted them in a south facing spot close to the front porch steps. The morning fragrance is wonderful. Butterflies are attracted to the flowers, as are honey bees and other pollinating insects.

In late autumn, with the first killing frost, the plants die back completely. They disappear, so the first year we marked the spot to make sure we saved the space for their return the next spring. Sure enough, the plants returned, bigger than the year before.

Grow these great little plants along walkways, near the backyard patio or deck or in your rock garden. Just be sure to give them plenty of sun. They can reseed themselves, too, but are not invasive.

This is the second year we've grown potatoes in the Reno garden. After reading several stories on the sorry plight of the commercial potato, we decided to improve our health by organically growing some varieties. So, early this past spring, after hearing that the potatoes had arrived, we stopped by Dry Creek and picked up a couple bags of potato starts.

After talking to John Strickland about last year's harvest, he suggested that we plant the potatoes in trenches. Since they are nightshades, like tomatoes, you can bury the main stem deeper than intuition tells you, which helps grow more roots, and with the potatoes, helps grow more potatoes.

So, we dug trenches in the raised bed two feet or so apart, placed the potato starts at the bottom, covering them with a few inches of top soil. Once growing, as the stems emerged, we kept filling the trench, little by little until they were completely filled in to regular ground level. Since then the main stems have grown several feet. We added bamboo cane tripod supports to help the plants stand tall.

The flowers have been developing through June and should start to open in the next week or so. The greenery and the delicate white flowers make potatoes a nice ornamental feature for the garden, as well as a good producer of food for the table.

In the photo you might be able to pick out some collard leaves. The collards this year have been wonderful, too. There has been very little insect damage, and the leaves grew broad and tender and delicious. We've been sautéing them with turkey bacon and onions. Delicious!

This beautiful little grasshopper is in the garden this morning. I noticed it munching on this fallen grape leaf. I'm impressed that the grasshopper is scavenging a fallen leaf, rather than a leaf still on the vine.

I looked over the area and found no more than this single little green grasshopper, which was encouraging. No indication of a little green grasshopper plague, thank goodness, at least not today.

After snapping this photo, I reached down to see if it would sit on my finger, but its reaction was an amazing hop, springing up into the air completely out of sight.

I've seen many photos of wild song birds with grasshoppers caught in their beaks, so I'll consider this one as possible food for the robin family that lives in the Photinia close by. I'm certainly not going to kill it myself just because it has the audacity to take a few bites from leaves here and there. No, today I welcomed the chance to see a beautiful little green grasshopper.

For several years, we would grow basil, cilantro and dill as single plants in eight inch, herb sized pots. But they never did as well as we hoped. Almost immediately after potting the single starts, the cilantro and dill would bolt. Also as a single plant, the basil would so easily stress over the hot part of summer days. We figured the three plants just weren't cut out for our dry desert air. So we struggled along with our less than exciting herb garden.

Then one day a couple years back, we happened to be at our neighbor's house across the street where we saw basil being grown as a thick forest of crowded plants. The pot was large, a barrel type container, and flourishing. So, we tried it. We bought seeds and a good potting soil, and sowed the seeds as you can see in the photo. Each pot provides a little herb forest.

The basil, both green and purple as pictured, is growing quickly now that the weather has become consistently warm and the nights are less cool. We will soon be randomly picking the leaves off these plants. We read somewhere that the cilantro can be mowed like grass, so we tried it. This helps to keep the plants from going to seed, as they are otherwise prone to do rather quickly.

Located lower right in the purple pot is the dill. We're attempting a little dill forest in this pot. It is an experiment. Not that we need to find a solution to bolting. Dill often does perfectly well as a single plant in a pot. We're just interested in seeing what happens.

This year this herb garden also has two fennel bulbs growing in a single pot. They faint if they don't get enough water, but if watered, they are growing large and beautiful, with that deep fennel green. So delicious, too. We can't wait to eat them.

Drycreek has a great selection of seeds. Supplies are limited. You can plant several types of herb seeds anytime of the season, to keep your herb garden going.

Last year we decided we wanted to try growing more berries, but our growing space is very limited; we don't have room for a full fledged berry patch. We do have blueberries and service berries in the ground, but this time we are attempting to grow two berry types in containers. We want to keep the plants tidy and to move them around the yard, if we want.

The raspberry bush pictured was planted in its container last fall. We purchased the plant from Dry Creek late in the season and transplanted the two gallon root ball to a weather worthy ceramic pot. The plant was left outside in the pot all winter. Early spring, we pruned it severely, and soon out came several new canes.

Thee are two different types of raspberry plants. One type -- called 'ever bearing' -- produces its fruit on new canes each year; the other produces its fruit on last year's canes. If you have the ever bearing variety, you should severely cut back the plant each fall to allow new fruit bearing canes to emerge next year, and to keep the plant tidy. If you have a plant that needs two years for canes to set fruit, you'll need to be careful not to remove the canes that will be producing next season. We're unsure which type of plant this raspberry is, so will wait to see whether any fruit appears. If it does, we'll know that the plant is an ever bearing variety. If it doesn't, we'll have to wait until next year for its first crop.

You need a fairly large container for berry bush roots. A 16 or 18 inch tomato-sized pot works well. We've added a tall dried bamboo tripod to the container to give the otherwise floppy canes some support. It's been reported that horizontal support is better than vertical support, so we are trying the less popular way just to see what happens. Thus, we hope to train the canes around the bamboo stems. We will limit the raspberry canes to three -- four at the most, to keep the plant nice and tidy.

If you have limited space, like we do, you might try putting the container on rollers so it's easy to move if the need arises.

This year has been an incredible year for cactus flowers. The blooms started a couple weeks early and are still giving us a reason to tour the garden each morning. The colors are bright and rich on the cold hardy types we've collected from Dry Creek over the years. What a way to celebrate springtime in the Truckee Meadows!

We have two different types of Cholla cactus (Cactacea Opuntia) in our south facing front yard. Both have grown to be quite large and impressive in just short of a decade. Each spring the plants cover themselves in a profusion of buds that begin to bloom in mid to late June. This week one of the two plants has started showing its color.

The branches of the Cholla are cylindrical with joints that segment, allowing for many branches to grow from a single stem. The result is an eventual shrub that stays beautiful year round.

Once established, the Cholla needs very little water and very little care. Sometimes we pick off last year's fruit to start new plants for other places in the garden. They can be grown in containers, too. The relatively slow growth will allow potted specimens to last quite awhile before re-potting, sometimes several years.

Remember, the cacti sold at Dry Creek are cold hardy for our area, which means you don't have to bring them indoors during the cold winter months. They can even sit under several feet of snow for long periods. Some might look a bit rough after the snow melts, but the warm spring sun will perk them up in little time.

Next time you stop by Dry Creek Nursery, be sure to take notice of the large Cholla growing near the entrance, just off the driveway, under the sign.

The fence creates a very visible place to show off some shade loving summer plants. The deep purple Choral Bells is such a beautiful contrast to the light glaze of a twelve inch pot. This plant has been living in the space, year round for several years. We add a bit of new soil and about half an inch of organic, composted Chicken manure as a top layer. The blooms are a couple weeks later than the bright pink Choral Bells in the yard, but those plants get some sun. These flowers are soft white.

The Jacob's Ladder would like more sun. It seems that last year, the plant enjoyed this spot much more than this year. Last year the plant was more compact, more upright. This year it's more leggy, moving all over the place looking for the sun. It still looks great and is blooming.

We waited until now to plant the Coleus out side in its shade corner. Around this yard, Coleus enjoys some morning sun that quickly turns to dappled late morning shade, then deep shade for the length of the afternoon. This one gets full shade.

The purple flowers are abundant and long lasting on the Dalmatian Blue Bellflower. This easy beauty is a type of Campanula and a good choice for the semi-shade or dappled shade garden. This plant (pictured) has been moved several times, looking for its favorite spot and this spot seems to be the one. It gets some early morning sun, with long afternoon shade and flowers for several weeks this time of year. The flowers form a soothing patch of purple color.

Quick color solutions are easy. There are many different types of plants, both annual and perennial, that can be planted in June for immediate color and texture. Plants planted now can be full and in crazy bloom by July.

Annuals mixed with perennials can insure color all summer long. Annuals and perennials in containers, too, allow you to move color to different places in the garden for changing accents, adding interest, and setting the stage for every summer dinner party.

Calaveras is a California State Park dedicated to the preservation of a grove of giant sequoias that became a popular tourist destination in the 1930s. The park boasts of being the first big trees discovered by white settlers, back in the mid 19th century. Many of the trees are still standing, having endured the abuse of curiosity, greed, and a host of other exploits attached to these rare, gigantic novelties.

This park has a hiking trail (no park road for autos through the grove) that winds in, among and literally through some of the trees. It's only about one and a half miles in length, but it brings you into the intimacy of their otherwordly presence. The trees are truly fantastic, and the drive to see them over Sonora Pass is well worth living seeking it out, one of the good reasons to be close to the Sierra Crest. All this close enough from Reno to catch it in a weekend.