mantis!

I was taking photos of the hellebores and liriope yesterday-

when I saw something small, paler green, slightly swaying on a leaf-

a preying mantis! the first adult one I've seen all year

Finding it here stalking around in the back perennial bed, where the bugs have been rampant but not quite devastating this year- made me wonder about tossing soapy water over the vegetable garden all the time. Probably I killed a few mantids and other beneficials that way. Maybe better to selectively pick the pests off again, or spray directly with purpose-made soap/oil water. I think I will still use greywater on the plants, but might just water into the ground... If I can get a good balance of having enough predators- the wasps, mantids, ladybird beetles, assassin bugs, wheel bugs, spiders and more- the pests won't seem so overwhelming that I need to apply stuff to kill them...

Speaking of assassin bugs, I caught one off the joe pye-weed and moved it to my greens patch, where whitefly and caterpillars are still a problem. The bug landed on the mulch, but when I came back later that day I caught a glimpse of orange on a hole riddled leaf:

it was the assasin bug,

already stalking through the collards.

And here's the photos of hellebores I was taking when found the mantis-

It's amazing that there were once all nine baby hellebores in this space

When I rake the dried fallen leaves out of the ceneters of liriope with my fingers, the plants just seem to glow: