It’s time to roll-out the red carpet and welcome the garden visitors to my garden. I  have never really taken time out to notice an ecosystem at work in my garden, until just recently. The garden helpers, aka the good guys, aka beneficial insects, are beginning to show up and show out. It’s a possibility that they were there all along and I just failed to take notice. I saw a few ants drilling away at the sunflower plant roots as if they intended to chop it down. They had started to make what seems like an ant nest at it’s source for survival, the roots. A spider was busy weaving away at its web on a plant nearby. My garden sanctuary has begun to evolve into this marvelous ecosystem and is unfolding before my very own eyes.

After a long hot day the plants were dying of thirst and the evident of their sustenance depended on much needed water. While providing some water to quench their thirst, I stopped to notice a garden visitor who was elegantly sitting on the leaves of my Morning Glory bush, showing off her golden shell.

I could not resist capturing a few images and quickly reached for my phone that was on the verge of dying. Most of the captured pictures were out of focus. I relentlessly tried to captured a few more when the shy visitor quickly flew away.

Was I shocked to see this little visitor or not? After careful thought I realized I had the right plants in my garden to attract this little helper. A sense of pride overpowered me as I admired the garden’s ecosystem at work, in my garden sanctuary in the making that sits outside.

As a child I have memories of when I searched plants for these silver looking beetles (Christmas Lady as I used to call them), and kept them in containers for a while before I would release them. They were so golden, beautiful and a pleasure to watch. What I recently learned about these garden visitors is that they have the adaptation to change their colors depending on their mood. The golden metallic color display depicts a good mood today.

I might have encountered a similar beetle, captured in this picture, a few days ago, sitting on the edge of this heart-shaped morning glory leaf. I had passed it off as a ladybug then. In observing closer the ladybug has more spots where this one only has two on each wing. I came to the realization that I had mistaken a Charidotta Sexpunctata for a ladybug. This Charidotta Sexpunctata was probably having a bad mood that day due to the bronze color displayed under it’s shell.

I came across this small green grasshopper as I bent over to examine a plant closely. The young critter appeared frightened as he/she frantically jumped from his/her hiding place and started to climb the wall.

Not sure if I should be concerned that this visitor is here to disturb my ecosystem. I will be keeping an eye out in the event they increase in catastrophic dimensions and start to affect my ecosystem negatively. I might have to resort to calling the birds in for Management Control.