05/21/2023. Legume leaves in the backyard, of unknown origin. 05/27/2023. The adult leaves are more triangular than the fuzzybeans in the front yard, but it also gets less sun here.
The first of our Ohio Spiderworts from prairie moon to bloom! (That’s a dayflower leaf under it in case that’s confusing.)Turns out the mystery plant in with the Venus looking glass is a second kind of Venus looking glass! It just has narrower leaves. Both have milky sap. Last year’s plant (it might have lived two years? I’m not sure)Bigger babyTiny babiesMore babiesEven more babies The juniper leaf in the driveway. I have gotten it to sprout in small pots but it never stays alive. Cuttings ok too but I think it needs to be able to put down a long root. However, they sure love this one crack in the driveway.
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.
Briar enjoys laying in the prairie among the primroses and englemann daisies. Some of the grass in the new prairie (we’re calling it Leon’s prairie since it’s by Leon’s blackberry bushes) has turned out to be the native wild rye we seeded! Yay!Yellow Coreopsis looking bright with the tiny purple Verbena halei and the starry pink widow’s cross sedum!Shackleton had some thoughts. Briar says “walkies please??” (We did go walkies.)The showy evening primroses are looking lovely with their pale pink between the purple winecups in the back and the magenta Salvia greggii in the front. We didn’t even plant them on purpose, they were just in the soil Paula brought from the backyard berm. Coreopsis provides a nice yellow contrast at the end of the Salvia greggii row. More seedling winecups are coming up in the newer soil where we put seeds. Gram says it’s hard to use a dichotomous key for plant identification when the only numbers you know are “hello?” And “Doggie”. Shackleton somehow turned the pages and now says “I leave the identification as a trivial exercise for the reader.”We planted one Winecup in a tall skinny planter. It has bloomed now.
All the pulled invasive dayflowers and bermudagrass was piling up on the path by the mini prairie. Since we had guests coming this evening for an outdoor meal I swept everything and pulled up some of the endless maple seedlings that were sprouting too. This shows off the tepary beans starting to climb the trellis too!
I found a third Arkansas yucca in the green bed of the rainbow garden! I’m so excited that the stratification followed by lots of rain has worked. Or at least putting them out has worked. I don’t seem to have a lot of control over the rain??
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 innocentGuard 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.
I think these are the reseeding domestic ground cherries! Yay!Clumps of annual native violets going to seed and some volunteer primroses (this soil was moved from the backyard). The winecups began blooming!