Plants for Mom

Mmm seeds from home!
Seeds smell like people she knows.
We’ll wait a few more days to plant the tomatoes. Mom put a few more bags of topsoil in.
An unknown seedling volunteering. We’ll leave it for now.
We seeded lacinato kale, Scotch blue curled kale, Fordham giant Swiss chard, marigolds, red rubin basil, Italian large leaf basil, green wave mustard greens, and oregano.

Pre vacation plant check (Tuesday)

Two Datura wrightii! They have thinner, slightly grayer leaves than the unknown seedlings also coming up in many containers.
Several interesting seedlings in the lowest tier of the cactus planter.
The peach flower buds opened!
Gram did a lot of work helping me pack. He and the Chef are staying home.
Briar hits the road!

Growth ideas

I think this is Carolina Snailseed, one of the volunteers that was here already.
This legume is under the yaupon Holly by the dining room window. I think it could be either a partridge pea or an Illinois bundleflower.

The red speckled seedlings are taking shape. I browsed through seedsource.com’s catalog and the leaf shape suggests it might be my prairie verbena!! I really hope so. Their pictures don’t show the red speckles, but we’ll see as they grow.
A smaller one. You can see the anise hyssop (Agastache sp) to the left and below; they have spade shaped cotyledons.
Near the Liatris I transplanted from home, there are two mystery plants. I’m thinking potentially fleabane or puccoon??
The second one of same thing.
The mystery sprouts do appear to be my bluestars. Abby mentioned they have milky sap.

This week’s events… Busy busy

Got winecup (Callirhoe involucrata) seeds in the mail from prairiemoon.com. This species gets boiling water then 30 days cold in fridge. They also kindly sent a free seed packet of Dalea purpurea which we immediately planted.
The straggler roots of Maximilian sunflower are everywhere. Paula and I lifted up this stepping stone to find more. We’re potting them up to give away. The big colony that we transferred over to edge of shade is sprouting too.
Glass gem popcorn now in the raised beds!
Judy gave me these delightful frog stepping stones for my birthday! Thanks Judy!!
The Phacelia leaf in the rock garden is very similar to the invasive geranium leaf I am holding, but isn’t as round.
In the very middle, you can see a single Datura pushing up. The other seedlings look like what I hoped was honeysuckle, but is now coming up everywhere.
This seedling is in the Two-Leaf Senna pot. We’ll see.
Human, you must rest.

The finished projects from yesterday plus seeds today

Four t posts. Wires go east to west on both, holding in the blackberry canes so we can walk through and harvest. There was one new sprout in the middle that grew up and we moved it into a line with another.
Close up so you can see aluminum wire.
We finished the compost pile area yesterday but I forgot to take a picture. Wes did a lovely job leveling it all and put rebar through several holes to keep it in place.
I connected an old hose from one of the rain barrels to make sure the pile stays suitably damp for decomposition.
See that big seedling on the lower right edge? I don’t recognize it, so there is a possibility it’s the native bush honeysuckle Lonicera albiflora which is what I planted in this pot and left out all winter.
A pale but bright turquoise fungus growing on the showy milkweed seeds. The seeds felt plump though so maybe some will grow.
Strophostyles helvula bean seeds. One has fungus but also a little root!!
All the seeds we planted out of fridge stratification today. There’s still a few more left for late April that needed more time.
A little mystery seedling in the old Maximilian sunflower area.
Paula and I pulled and dug a lot of Maximilian sunflower shoots out of there. Hopefully we can find them new homes!

Bad news, good news

The Penstemon cobea seedling appears to have damping off and so the seedling is falling over and collapsing. Dang it. I’m not sure why since it’s out in the sun and wind and the pot has drainage holes.

Very exciting good news though is that we have a Texas buckeye (Aesculus arguta) seedling!!!!!!!!! We put seeds out in September 2020, kindly provided by Jeanne. The understory forest begins.

Home to excitement

The tiny bluets in front yard are blooming wildly!
I found this rock in the driveway.
A tiny seedling of Penstemon cobea!!!!
Two blue flax seedlings!!
This is a mystery sprout from yesterday in backyard prairie. Looks exciting. Edit 2022/04/03: this is bluestars.

Signs of life

Cat greets morning sun, waiting for his Doggie to return inside.
Lemon balm herb reemerging.
Mystery seedlings in the prickly pear planter. EDIT: These are baby anise hyssop (Agastache)!! Compare the seedlings on the prairiemoon.com website.
A speckled mystery seedling in the prickly pear planter.
Another mystery.
Tiny mystery.
Probably mare’s tail seedlings?
Probably white avens seedling?
In the cactus planter, this Escobaria missouriensis and its smaller sibling are doing well.
I think this is a winecup rosette. Hurrah! Don’t know why it didn’t bloom last year, but I’m glad one survived from two falls ago.
Whitlow-wort transplant is going to seed. May it come back next year!

Seeeeeedlings

A single Phacelia has come up after all the others died.
Three (one visible here) native blue flax babies have come up from direct seeding in the rainbow garden!!!!