Woolly Verbena was all over the Konza Prairie last weekend. Especially at the beginning of the trail. When I am outside, I feel happier. There is something about being outdoors. So I want to bring a bit of that freshness and color indoors too. I am hoping one of these natural color palates will inspire the rooms I will decorate in my new house. Yes, I am moving again; this time will be the last for us. At least for a while. Retirement is on the horizon.
Verbena Purple Color on the Kansas Prairie
So what better place to begin decorating than with the right color palette.
Purple color palettes inspired by Kansas wildflowers.
Purple was by far the most amazing color on the Kansas prairie in July. All the pictures in this post were taken just last weekend. This wild flower, Western Ironweed, was everywhere . It attracted some amazing and quite large butterflies. It was well worth the trip to the prairie just to study the butterflies. And with nature you can’t seem to study one thing without the other because it’s natural to study the wildlife and habitat together.
After a bit of research I found that all the butterflies pictured in this post are Eastern Tiger Swallowtails. Which is hard to believe because they are different colors but also easy to believe after observing them, since they were same size and had the same behavior, such as feeding off the Western Ironweed. The black butterfly is a female. And the yellow in the first image is a male, because it has little or no blue on the bottom tips of the wings.
Isn’t this image a keeper? I loved how the caterpillar is chomping away and this photo captured that in action! This caterpillar is not an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar. If you know what it is please do comment! If you would like to study wildflowers and butterflies together, you can use the butterfly notebook page below. Or, you can download…
the entire 2o page insect pack for free!!!
Watch for more Colors on the Kansas Prairie in this series:
Resources:
Kansas Wildflowers by Color | Great Palins Nature Center | Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center |Nature Gate
Linked up with other wonderful summer series on iHomeschool Network Summer Hopscotch!
