In summer, the only cherry tree in my yard is always surrounded by plants that last only one season. This summer those were tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers.

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In this episode, you'll see some stuff I photographed, not only around but also on, my cherry tree.

This leafhopper, Frutioidia bisignata from the Cicadellidae family, was resting on the upper surface of a fairly large cherry leaf. It was one of the leaves on the lower branches so I was able to reach it with my camera but only after stretching my arms up in the air while standing on the tips of my toes. In the following photograph ...

... I got a bit closer to the insect. While photographing, I wasn't aware of the red detail near one of the leafhopper's legs. I noticed it only today while preparing this post. The tiny red thing is a mite. With quite a few similar red mites around, can't tell you which one exactly is this.

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Here you can see a leaf that fell on the ground under the tree. Near that leaf ...

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... I found a much bigger mite. Don't get me wrong, it's still very small, but compared to the previous one, it looks like a giant.

The tiny giant was walking around the macro landscape like a creature out of the old monster movies.

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Can't tell you the name of the species, but in this case, I at least know that it belongs to the Erythraeidae family. In its larval stage, this type of mite lives as a parasite on other arachnids, while the adults like the one shown in this and the previous two photographs, live as active little predators.

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Two zucchini plants were growing very close to the cherry tree this summer. Some of their leaves dried out during the hot sunny days, forming a leaf litter around the base of the trunk. In the following photograph ...

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... you can see a lizard, partially hidden under one of those dry, shriveled leaves.

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The lizard was well-camouflaged in that environment.

In this shot, the lizard is climbing the trunk.

Here you can see the same lizard resting in a sunny spot about a meter from the ground. The name of the species is Podarcis muralis.

This is the Monosteira unicostata ...

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... a tiny bug from the Tingidae family. This one was photographed walking across the upper surface of the zucchini leaf, but most of them ...

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... were hiding and feeding above the scene shown in the previous five photographs, on the opposite side of the cherry leaves. In this tryptich, you probably noticed that the area around the bug is covered with minuscule black dots.

Here you can take a better, more up-close look at those things.

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The bugs feed by piercing the leaf and sucking the nutrient fluids from the plant's photosynthetic tissues. The dark little dots ...

... are their droppings.

Here you can see a pair of Monosteira unicostata bugs preparing to mate.

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On the large, juicy zucchini leaf, right under the tree ...

... I found a nyph.

The young, immature Monosteira unicostata was resting on the lower surface of the leaf and it looked like a minuscule pale dot when seen with the naked eye.

Only through the macro lens, I recognized an insect in that tiny pale something. The hairs on the nymph's body were covered with minuscule droplets.

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Here you can see the same nymph resting and a minuscule parasitoid wasp from the Encyrtidae family passing by.

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This adult bug was photographed on the upper side of the nearby leaf.

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On one of the zucchini flowers ...

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... I photographed a leafhopper.

The tiny green insect looked great on the vivid orange surface of the juicy petals.

Empoasca decipiens is the name of this very common Cicadellidae species that already appeared in this garden-themed series.

On one of the leaves around the flower, I found a dead leafhopper of the same kind.

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This tiny fly was photographed on the flower. Less than a minute later ...

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... I photographed this Plagiolepis pygmaea ant on the petals of the same flower.

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The fly was watching the ant pass by when this photograph was taken.

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When it comes to determining the fly's identity, I can tell you that this is the Scaptomyza pallida, a species from the Drosophilidae family.

On the ear of the Setaria pumila grass that was growing in the shade of the tree ...

... I photographed a Carpocoris fuscispinus shield bug.

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Here you can see the cat called Palchich enjoying the early morning among the zucchini and the sparse grass.

This hairy beetle from the Tenebrionidae family ...

... was resting on the edge of the zucchini leaf. The name of the species is Lagria hirta.

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I had to cut some branches of the cherry tree last winter. The resin came out of the cuts ...

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... and formed chaotic organic shapes that look great when illuminated by the morning sunlight.

Here you can see another Podarcis muralis lizard.

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This one was resting on the part of the trunk with a nice bulge made of accumulated resin. In the following photograph ...

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... part of the lizard's body is reflected on the smooth surface of the solidified resin.

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That resin in the morning light was a joy to photograph.

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At one point, a Camponotus aethiops worker found something edible on the surface of the resin.

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The resin with an insect looked even better.

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In this set of four photographs, you can take a quick break from the macro & close-up view by watching a bunch of cherry leaves for a few seconds or so. I mean, you can watch those leaves for hours if you wish, it's not forbidden.

I found these minuscule protuberances on the stalks of some leaves. They were present in groups of two or three. While photographing them, I had no idea about what they were.

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Only today, and it took me almost an hour to find the information, I learned on the Internet that these are the extra-floral nectaries. They secrete nectar to attract and form a mutualistic relationship with insects that can help the plant against the sap-sucking hemipterans. The targeted consumers of these tiny nectar sources are ants, ladybeetles, and parasitoid wasps but you can often see also some less beneficial insects feeding on the minuscule protuberances. In the above photograph, for example, a rust fly from the genus Psila of the Psilidae family is enjoying the nectar produced by the cherry tree.

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This is the Scymnus interruptus Ladybeetle, a tiny predator that likes to include a bit of nectar in its diet.

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In the center of this funny shot, especially if you enlarge the picture by clicking on it, you can see the Scymnus interruptus feeding on nectar while the fly is calmly posing on the ladybeetle's back. In the following photograph ...

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... the beetle is leaving the nectaries.

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Here you can see another tiny beetle that visits the nectaries. The name of this species is Scymnus rubromaculatus. In the following photograph ...

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... you can see a group of three lovely extra-floral nectaries.

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Due to its color, the rust fly wasn't visually well pronounced there on the nectaries and therefore it didn't look very good in the photographs. I took a much better portrait of that species a bit later ...

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... on the green surface of a tomato leaf.

Here you can take a better look at the external anatomy of this tiny insect. In the following photograph ...

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... you can take a good look at the tomatoes that were growing next to the tree.

This juvenile Gibbaranea bituberculata spider has built its webb among the leaves on the lower part of one of the tomato plants shown in the previous picture.

In this photograph taken at the end of September, you can see a parasitoid wasp, probably from the Braconidae family, posing on the decaying tomato leaf.

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Can't tell you the name of the species this time.

This is the 3rd instar nymph ...

... of the Nezara viridula shield bug, a species that appears in almost every episode of this series.

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This tiny gnat from the Sciaridae family was also photographed on the tomato leaf.

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In this photograph, you can see a Podarcis muralis lizard sunbathing on one of the biggest branches of the tree.

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Another one was resting on one of the thinner branches above it.

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In that part of the garden around the cherry tree, I sometimes feel like in some kind of terrarium. If I'm carefully avoiding any sudden movements, these lizards allow me to come very close to them. I can almost touch them sometimes.

Here you can see an adult Zelus renardii bug posing on the twig fairly low on the tree. The nymph of this invasive species appeared in Episode Two of this series. Zelus renardii is a predatory bug from the Reduviidae family native to Central and North America.

In this photograph, Lagria hirta is posing on one of the cherry leaves infested with Monosteira unicostata bugs.

Here you can see the Harmonia axyridis ladybeetle resting on the upper surface of another leaf.

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And that's it. The following links will take you to the sites with more information about some of the protagonists of this post. I found some stuff about them there.
https://truehopperswp.com/species/frutioidia-bisignata
https://tyt.lt/index/category/2526-erythraeidae
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podarcis_muralis
https://www.naturalista.mx/taxa/748481-Monosteira-unicostata/browse_photos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empoasca_decipiens
https://desinsectador.com/2018/04/15/plagiolepis-pygmaea-y-plagiolepis-xene-formicidae-hospedadora-y-parasita/comment-page-1/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpocoris_fuscispinus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagria_hirta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilidae
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/343143-Scymnus-interruptus
http://www.animalbase.uni-goettingen.de/zooweb/servlet/AnimalBase/home/species?id=10326
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelus_renardii

AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK - THE END.