Category: Supervisors

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Irrigation for the container garden

The Black Vulture egg has hatched!! We were not sure what happened to the second egg.
One of the parents watched Mom take a picture through the well house door.
We checked on the chickadees and a parent is still sticking close. Very close.
Garden transplants and path rescues are actually doing pretty good in the shade and relative cool of the garage.
You can see several Mexican plums in here. That tree had a lot of seedlings!
Even more plums! And some other stuff.
Mom and Dad set up the irrigation for the tomatoes, greens, and herbs.
A tiny seedling. Also maybe oregano?? I am not sure. We’ll find out later.
The irrigation timer also drips some water for the birds!
The lyre leaf sage is really getting going!
This post sponsored by Dogs.
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Path and fence plants

I got a bit of dirt from near the rosette of Spiranthes orchids to get any mycorrhizae to sprinkle in my soil at home.
Here it is.
“Mother hellloooooooo hi hi hi hi wigglessss”
Boredom between walks.
Also bored.
Several spring prairie plants I want to establish in my mini-prairie (to ensure flowers for early pollinators) are growing right by Mom and Dad’s house where they always weedeat, right along the foundation and in the driveway. This is a wild onion.
A weird and neato double stemmed and double seed head ten petal anemone!!
Hopefully these annual groundsel (which will get mowed in path) will seed in my yard.
Mom did a cross post on her blog. This is private property, so we are the only people digging any plants and are careful to take very few and from areas on the property where they will be damaged or killed, such as a path, the house foundation, or fence line. We also divided plants from the garden near the house and dug up babies from yard trees that would get mowed.
Gracie got a sticker in her paw, so Mom helped her out. Up along the fence, there was a small fragrant sumac that Mom was going to lop off (keeping the fence line clear) so we dug it up. It had a long taproot! Still not as long as a yucca though.
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More vacation gardening and wild prairie

Lyre leaf sage blooming. Hopefully mine will be blooming soon in Oklahoma.
A Swiss Chard is coming up.
Mystery seedling… Too early for oregano??
Dogs!!
Clouds like mountains.
Native tiny bee on Callirhoe involucrata (winecup).
Chickadee wasn’t on her nest yesterday, but she was today.
More fun!!
A solider beetle yesterday. Mom has the ID.
Two of these moths in one day (yesterday).
If you look just above the moth, you can see a tiny planthopper.
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Kale and bird poop

Lacinato kale is sprouting for Mom and Dad!
Scotch blue curled kale is up too!
Two dogs, having fun.
Look at the bird poop on the coralberry leaves! How unappetizing!
It’s actually a bird dropping moth. It’s even a bit lumpy! It’s probably Antaeotricha leucilliana but there are a few similar species that can’t be distinguished for sure without looking at the genitalia. Luckily for the moth, that sounds like a lot of work.
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Marigold for Mom and Dad

A few marigolds are sprouting in Mom and Dad’s container garden.
Went for after-dinner walk and Gracie was feeling alright!
A bumblebee on Salvia greggii.
Blue stars are blooming!
These bluestars haven’t opened yet. This garden patch was transplanted from a patch up our hill a long time ago, to Mom and Dad’s garden. This is where mine in Norman are from.
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Dixon Water Foundation morning

Bladderpod with small native bee
For someone who is probably growing this fellow’s relative, I sure have a hard time identifying cacti. I believe it’s Coryphantha sulcata based on having one central spine per areole. Here’s my baby.
Mom looks at photos she is taking.
Mom takes more photos.
It’s a magnificent creek!
Bubbles on moss.
Neat rocks the creek goes through.
A mournful thyris moth. We saw more in redbud flowers. I think it may have been getting water here, because if you zoom in you can see its proboscis out.
A cricket frog!
Another big view. You can see a redbud in the woods.
Englemann daisies growing above the creek! They’re much smaller than the ones in my garden. Presumably less water.
A white bush honeysuckle (a native one, Lonicera albiflora) branches over the creek.
This is probably a hawthorn shrub. Thanks to Abby for the suggestion that helped me look it up! There seem to be a lot of very similar species.
Here’s the probably-hawthorn trunk.
This seems familiar.
Ah ha!  A Missouri fluttermill primrose!  Note the red speckled and sort of square long flower bud.
An old seed pod at the base of the primrose plant. The leaves are much less red than the ones in my garden.
Ceanothus herbaceus, redroot or New Jersey tea.
Here are the leaves. I am growing its relative C. americanus (also called New Jersey tea) in my garden, from seeds bought from prairiemoon.com.
Blue flax!  It’s probably Linum pratense, which is an annual.  Apparently it does intergrade with the perennial Linum lewisii which is what I planted in my yard.
This flax hasn’t bloomed but you can see the leaves are very like the L. lewsii ones in my yard.
Another Englemann daisy demonstrates how adaptable this species is, growing up on the barrens away from the creek.
Just to the left, just below the middle of this picture is another fluttermill.
Cymopterus, a very early blooming wildflower, starts to go to seed.
I think this must be a much younger fluttermill Missouri primrose that has already bloomed.
This is prairie burnet.  I’d never noticed it before.  Thanks to Abby for the identification!
Yellow star grass (not actually a grass).
Another fluttermill primrose, this time in a big beautiful mound.
The face of abandonment.
Another dog who didn’t get to go.
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Oops, somehow I got more plants??

Mom told me that the Native Plant Society was having their spring sale on Saturday… So of course we had to go. I got lots of understory trees and shade ground covers, plus a few other things. More on this once I get home and plant them next weekend.
On Saturday evening, we went ahead and put Mom’s tomatoes in the ground. I think our yogurt containers may be part of why the seedlings have been struggling. The knife “slices” in the bottom don’t leak well enough I think; each one was still very wet in the soil at the bottom. In the future I think we’d better drill holes.
Doggies always alert. (From today, Sunday.)
This chickadee in a nest box refuses to move. The eggs, visible in a previous check, are on Mom’s blog.
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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.
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Vacation! Days 1 and 2

Day 1: arrival

Wow!!! Gracie!!!!!
A male Black-chinned Hummingbird. Mom says they arrived recently.
Greeneyes! A nice big rosette to compare to my baby greeneyes in the garden. Mom says the crenate leaf edge is pretty distinctive.
It was over 90°F. Warm for fluffy.

Day 2: Wednesday.

This cluster of tulips is probably nearly 30 years old. Not bad for an “replant this every year” bulb.
Lots of frogs singing at night!
A fringed puccoon blooming. After looking at the veins and the curled under edge, I think my mystery plants in yard are not puccoon.