Tag: ground cover

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05/25/2023 Thursday shenanigans and winecup looking

On the left is this year’s soil to bring the level up. To the right is last year’s winecups!
A baby two leaf senna in one of the caliche planters!
The guard flamingo is keeping a careful eye on Briar. Gotta keep her from squishing the Oklahoma penstemon.
Every night Gram wants to go past Briar in the hall. Every night she waits for her chance to slobber him. This only happens at night. It is now a ritual. She smiles. As soon as he attempts it and she slobbers him, then they saunter into the room together. Photos by Paula.

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05/16/2023 promising candidates

This seedling is not something I recognize so I’m hoping it could be Bluehearts from Mom. I left other volunteer plants in as that species is hemiparasitic and does better with a host.
Possibly a silverleaf nightshade seedling!
Another possible silverleaf! Looks a lot like its congeneric cousin tomatoes’ babies.
Another baby Arkansas yucca!!! This one is in a bigger pot so hopefully we can keep it watered enough.
Two fern acacia seedlings from last fall came up!!
The winecups are really taking off!! Super pleased.
This adorable sweat bee is the first visitor I’ve seen so far to our Penstemon grandiflorus.
New mystery in the prairie!
Briar being innocent
Guard flamingo
One of our two plastic flamingos has been retired due to its new hobby of breeding mosquitoes. The remaining one has been reassigned to guard two Oklahoma penstemon that the dog keeps laying on.
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05/04/2023 big long soaking rain

We got 2.75” in less than 24 hours!
Missouri Fluttermill primrose baby survived pouring rain even under the rain barrel!
Left seedling is Winecup and upper right seedling is Astragalus crassicarpus!
Two possible yuccas in the green section.
Not a milkweed
Not a milkweed?
Maybe a milkweed
Known milkweed (probably viridiflora)
The skinny adult leaves of known milkweed. New book The Gardener’s Guide to Prairie Plants by Diboll and Cox mentions many milkweeds first adult leaves are skinny even if the eventual adult leaves are broad. Either that or I got the species wrong.
One of two Blackfoot daisy survived earwigs and is now growing flower buds and a few new leaves!
Perennial coreopsis begins!
Briar was pretty miffed it rained HARD most of the day. So before our walk she curled up in disgust right on my big Liatris mucronata from home. Thanks.

The Mexican Sage from Judy is up!
A sedge?
Partridge pea
Oldplainsman
Mystery
Caliche planter babies
The tomatoes have gotten a bit sunburnt from past rain with sunlight after, so this time I flicked water off and put them in a less intensely sunny spot. Trying to get them hardened off for planting.
Like Briar, Shacks was disappointed by rain and not being out. Paula brought him some favorite juicy grass and he loved it.
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04/16/2023 veggie area ground covers

I’m trying to get various low growing plants to crowd out the introduced and annoying sedges around the raised veggie beds. The lyre leaf sage is great because other than its once a spring flower stalks it stays low and tough! It’s starting its spread. Paula saw the first lyre leaf sage bloom on April 9. I may have already posted that picture.
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03/25/2023 Saturday observations

Antennaria neglecta (prairie pussytoes) from Missouri Wildflower Nursery is doing well!
The second pussytoes is even putting out long shoots… maybe it will spread by runners??
Three germinating Asclepias viridiflora!!
A Datura wrightii from Wise Co TX that Mom gave me!
False garlic is blooming nicely!
These leaves are in the right place for Helianthus mollis, ashy sunflower, we planted last year as a seedling outside from seeds indoors.
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03/11/2023 annual violets blooming

I am pleased that not only are the undisturbed violets blooming, but so are the ones I transplanted last month!
The annual Viola bicolors do spread well by seed so I’m hoping they fill in more next year. They certainly are working to take over the raised beds so I’ve been spreading them more places. This is my non-grass groundcover area around the vegetable raised beds.
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12/2022 heavy duty garden cart!!

New boxes. Gram stands on the cart box while Tuqu investigates some pet toys.
Briar discovers some assembly required.
Briar lets humans assemble the cart. Humans have thumbs.
The Chef alarms Shackleton by cruising by. Zoom in on his eyes.
Shackleton actually liked his cart ride once he settled in. He got to look at things and the dog didn’t get near.
Gram was nervous about his ride and left his tail hanging out the whole time.
First test of cart! We moved this rock from the irises to the rainbow garden.
Briar says boring. But leaves are nice to sit in.
Current state of the side yard. Lots of good sticks and leafy habitat for insects.
The front door/garage nook keeps sinking in as the tree roots decay. We moved soil from the backyard mystery berms (a later post will feature this progress) to fill this in.
Needs one more load for this year probably. You can see I raked the top layer of soil that probably had most of the Euphorbia maculata and Melothria pendula vine seeds to the side so I can put that layer back over the top once we have filled it back in. anyway, an excellent test of the cart! A big success!

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06/25/2022 mysterious new friend

Abby kindly identified this new sprawling but small plant as green carpetweed (Mollugo verticillata). It reminds me of bedstraw but is not sticky.
According to Wikipedia, it is a spreading annual, but has been found in North America for at least 3,000 years. So its status is a bit mysterious as native or invasive. So, for now I think I’ll let it grow and see if it suits this patch of the garden.
Two Sachems were resting on dayflower leaves. You can just barely see the back one’s face.
Three sharpshooter plant hoppers on a giant ragweed stem at night.
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06/17/2022

I had always assumed this plant, Dichondra, was introduced but apparently it’s not! The taxonomy is confusing but it’s at least probable that this is a native species.
That’s great because it was hard to get rid of haha.
Belly rub plz
Gram is so long but he still loves to sleep on this scratcher box.
Abby was right, this is Monarda fistulosa! It finally bloomed. I put these seeds out either in 2019 or 2020.
Rainbow garden continues to do mediocre on yellow and orange. But the others are fantastic!
I like that this plant hopper has a big spot on its underside.