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05/26/2022

A winecup from two summers ago came back.
This true bug was relatively long and thin, and is standing on greeneyes. It flew away before I got a better picture.
Bee fly at woodland edge!
I’m hoping this could be inland sea oats that I seeded two years ago.
There’s a passionvine label here but this could also be butterfly pea?? We’ll find out!!
Across the fence from mystery seedling is a known passionvine.
Showy milkweed has survived its planting.
I think these are the Mexican sage from Judy.
A small bee on coreopsis.
Mystery grass. I will note here when I hear back from the grass expert! (Then I can check here next year when I forget haha.)
Close up.
A small native legume whose name I’ve forgotten. There are quite a few growing in the rainbow beds and in the backyard at the edge of the patio.
A lightning bug on a rain barrel.
A leaf miner in the native coral honeysuckle!
I think this dark spot is the larva, visible on underside of leaf. So tiny!
Overall the coral honeysuckle is beginning to get going. This one was from Judy! Thanks Judy!
A wild grape that we dug from the front to make room for strawberries. Joke’s on us because there was root left up front and it’s now taking over the rain barrel stand too.
Another black nightshade. I think their tiny flowers are so pretty.
Elderberry just starting.
I think a mealy bug? On ironweed stem.
Liatris mucronata from home from last summer.
Dicanthelium grass that came along with Liatris.
A tiny insect on ironweed.
Purple coneflower working its way towards blooming.
A mystery leaf.
The mystery leaf above came along with the transplanted wedge leaf Euphorbia.
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Mesh weavers! And other friends

Onion flowers.
05/21/2022 a mesh weaver on an onion flower husk.
Sliiiiime mold!!!! Also from May 21.
A lightning bug spied on our dinner. (05/21/2022)
Mesh weavers on the sugar peas.
More mesh weavers!
Thanks to the diligence of the tiny mesh weaver spiders, here are 146 g of Thomas Laxton sugar peas. (05/20/2022)
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05/13/2022 garden checkup

Sweet basil seedlings.
Butterfly milkweed is up in the backyard too but hasn’t flowered yet (same as front yard).
Yellow flax still blooming! It’s annual, so I hope the seeds like it enough here.
Whitlow-wort gone to seed. Another native annual from TX home.
False gaura that I planted from potted last night is doing well.
Texas verbena has bloomed! It’s a perennial.
The rattlebox had adorable seed pods as promised.
The Rocky mountain bee plant from the botany club plant sale is blooming! There were ants at the blooms.
The Phacelia is really fun.
The prairie bluet is flowering a bit. I’m worried since it’s early that this means it’s not happy. However, it’s a perennial, so hopefully it will do its thing now and be less worried next year.
The twice-moved yucca is making new little leaves!
This yucca is in the shade which I figure is probably okay at this age.  Many plants seem to like to have nurse plants.
The baby winecups are starting to get true leaves.
Second year for this mystery plant with no blooms.
It does have a square stem. Abby suggested Monarda, which I did seed here at one point, so fingers crossed!!
Slippery silk beans and several other varieties are up!!
The two leaf senna didn’t have a lot of roots when I planted it from a pot last night. So, I put two containers of water so it would gradually keep it damp for now so it can get established. It’s my only sprout from the seed and I love this plant! It’s a host for Cloudless Sulphur butterflies.
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05/04/2022

Home from doggie daycare.
I need to look this one up again but we have a lot. It’s native. It’s Solanaceae. Edit: Mom says Solanum ptycanthum.
Yellow flax (Linum rigidum) and showy evening primrose.
The sadly too common Canis bordum
A winecup seedling!!
More winecup seedlings!!
A few leaves have stayed green on the fragrant sumac. I’ve been using the terracotta pot to dribble out more water to it.
Desert blue curls!! (Phacelia campanularia). I was really baffled about the little purple spotted seedlings but this is it. Yay!!
Cactus planter prickly pears doing well.
Asian long bean from my aunt are growing well.
Knock on not-rotting wood, the Roman chamomile hasn’t been eaten by earwigs unlike the last batch.
Pink buckwheat blooming.
Mom, is this the Liatris from home? (Also some pretty Dicanthelium grass)
Widow sedum about to bloom!
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Bare roots arrived yesterday

This is Penstemon grandiflorus which allegedly likes sand so hopefully the very dry loose dirt rock garden will keep it happy.
Ta da!
I checked my other mystery legumes and these have three leaves instead of two. So I don’t know who they are.
A second one. There are also 2-3 like this in the backyard prairie. I’ll have to see if I have any candidates on the spreadsheet. Edit: no legumes there, so it must be a volunteer. Maybe the tiny wild bean vine of some sort I saw in backyard prairie last year?
When I finished planting the obedient plant roots in the backyard (and there were two in my package!!!) along with the plant sale native flowers, I watered everything. It was getting dark, so instead of plants here is cat friend Shackleton on his leash investigating the Missouri fluttermill primrose bud smells.
He loves his leash adventures.
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OU Botanical Society annual plant sale

My coworker and I got a good haul. I was very excited they had native plants this year!! I got a Cleome since my seedlings all died and a rattlebox because it sounded cool. I also got three tomatoes (sweet william, green vernissage, and beefsteak), since all mine died except for Mom’s and a few white currant. And one basil, since there’s never enough basil.
Biked home with precious cargo in fearsome wind.
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TWO LEAF SENNA BABY

Yesssss it’s not a yaupon holly!!! They have had pretty similar cotelydons. This is very two leaved!!! I need to check the other candidates in the rainbow garden and the backyard prairie.
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Sunday garden check up

Blue flax seedlings are getting tiny new leaves.
Possibly a false gaura! It looks different from the common volunteers!
Two Datura wrightii seedlings!
A senna hopeful.
It is actually a bit rough, so maybe this is the rough leaf sunflower??
A redbud I potted up last year.
The Euphorbia from Mom and Dad’s house is perking back up.
Roman chamomile did well while I was gone!
Lettuce and bok choy doing good.
Two more fluttermill Missouri primrose seedlings up!
The horse crippler cactus transplanted from Mom’s garden.
I’ve put a drip on the ground plum (actually a legume) since yesterday, as it seems to be having a rough transplant. This is also into the rock garden.
In the rainbow garden, a mystery seedling. Maybe two leaf senna???
Butterfly milkweed is coming up in rainbow garden.
Maybe another butterfly milkweed? It’s in the right place.
A single cilantro seedling. The only one in the yard. In that crack.
A winecup from two years ago.
Purple prairie clover from two years ago.
Maybe Liatris leaves? It’s in the right spot.
Another mystery seedling.
Tall vervain is perking up a bit.
Ten petal anemone are perking up too!
Greeneyes getting bigger!
My blue stars are blooming!
Salvia azurea leaves.
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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.
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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!