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09/24/2022 rock garden

The NPSOT plant sale rain lily has seeds!
Another friend from that plant sale, the Justicia pilosella, seems much happier here up front in the sandy soil of the rock garden than it did in the backyard.
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09/10/2022 rain lily seed pod

The rain lily seed pod has three lobes. It’s still green.
A mistflower in a pot is flowering! None of the ones in the ground are flowering yet.
The showy milkweed that died back earlier this summer is alive!!! Yay desert perennials.
The Mexican sage from Judy has started to bloom!
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09/04/2022 seeds!!!

The two leaf senna had at least two seed pods! The second plant doesn’t have any buds but is growing new leaves.
This sprouted after another surprise rain this morning and I don’t know what it is.
Cowpen daisies I bought are sprouting!
The scurf pea (Psoralea/Pediomelium latestipulata) from Mom has its first adult leaf!
Little seedlings sprouting. Could be what I planted (Scarlet globemallow), could be volunteers.
More cowpen daisies in a pot where I put them and some Rosa sp from Mom from Fannin Co TX.
Tiny seedlings in the soil from Jeanne that contains the annual Sedum nutallii!
Little seedlings sprouting. Again, could be what I planted, could be volunteers. This hope is Verbena halei.
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08/19/2022

I tried cantaloupe in my oatmeal this morning, hoping it would be magical like peaches, but I think they’re best eaten cold and alone. The melon, not the person doing the eating.
Gram is too tall to stretch under this chair.
He came out from under the chair to stretch, then went back under the chair to continue observing his Doggie.
Two new blooms on the two leaf senna!!
I think one of the juniperleaf cuttings had some nearly ripe seeds on it and they sprouted!!! I kept them in standing water in the shade for the first few days as a cutting, then moved them to a dry spot but still in the shade, where they are now. Still watering every day. This is additionally interesting because the seeds I collected from the original juniperleaf in the winter have not sprouted anywhere I put them. I was reading today in Nokes’ germination book that sometimes fresher seeds don’t have such an impermeable seed coat.
A few little grasses in the backyard where I sprinkled the native grass mix from Plants of the Southwest! The mix was blue grama and buffalograss.
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08/14/2022 fermenting slimy seeds

I did some reading and it seems like we should actually be fermenting the canteloupe seeds, so I threw out the others (which were crunchy with dried goo/slime). Here’s the seeds from today’s snack.
White currant tomato seeds looked pretty fermenty in the cupboard today so I rinsed them in the strainer and plopped them onto a paper towel. We set the paper towel by an air vent. This has worked for these seeds in the past, as this year’s plant is from harvested seeds.
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08/06/2022 tiny successes

The fall obedient plant has some tiny flowers.
One partridge pea has pods! This is important because it’s an annual. I have 2-3 individuals that were blooming at one time so hopefully the seeds make.
Did some tomato pruning and found a lot of tomatoes, one Madhu ras cantaloupe melon, and Paula got an okra.
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07/31/2022 melon debut for this year

Paula wields the knife.
Oh no! Bad spot in our canteloupe!
The bad spot carefully removed leaves us with snack size halves. They were cold and delicious.
Saving seeds from this variety, Madhur Ras melon. I put it in the hot shade on the west facing front porch. It has a lot of melon goo on them that we couldn’t rinse off, so maybe they’ll be easier to clean after drying.

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07/17/2022 straw bale sampling and other afternoon torture

We appear to have some potatoes in the straw bales.
The Granny Smith apple is having a hard time. The leaves are turning brittle and possibly sunscalded? We are on mandatory water conservation until the city pump is fixed Monday hopefully so the most I can do is hand water it. However, this apple tree is the most westward facing so maybe it’s just having problems.
Native Texas dandelion in backyard earlier.
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07/17/2022 finally dealt with identifying dayflowers

The seeds are rugose. This means rough. Commelina erecta, the native species, has mostly smooth seeds. C. diffusa and C. communis have rugose seeds.
The “spathe” is the part that enfolds the flower. In C. communis the veins are slightly darker, which I believe matches this.
The tiny third petal in front is white. Apparently it’s blue in C. diffusa.

All this to say, after keying out with the NC TX flower, I am disappointed to find my yard full of dayflowers appears to be full of the invasive, non-native version.