We used our trusty garden cart to bring the green section plants from the backyard as well as the verbenas. The sand lovegrass had a beautiful root system!The green milkweeds had very long root systems. These just sprouted this spring. I think I got 3-6 from this pot into the ground. Not all put up leaves again with the fall rain so it’s hard to be sure. Everyone tucked in snugly. I moved the spikemoss from here to the rock garden as the spotted euphorbia keeps almost covering it here.
I think the seed from home being fresh helped, as one came up very quickly this summer. All of these happened after we bought two plants at the native plant festival haha. This verbena seed took almost a year I think to come up, and now two little seedlings are up too. So the many of them just want to take their own time. Its leaves are different. More like I expected for Verbena halei but I had it labeled where I thought it was prairie. We shall find out!
Today we found there were eight flowers in the backyard saffron, which at three threads each gave us 24 saffron threads! Now they sit in a jar in the plant window, with a loose lid to protect from cat ideas. This lets them dry out a bit before they join the spice cabinet. Very few bulbs are blooming so far, which I suspect is because I divided them extensively this spring. Probably next year we’ll have a lot!
I got probably a total of three beds cleared (two halves and two wholes) for putting our garlic back in. I also moved some yaupon branches into the city compost bins (saving some to try making tea). I put a lot of cowpea seeds behind the yaupon holly in hopes that they’ll take over there next year. The rest of vine waste I set over south of the fourth bed to try to smother the invasive sedges and bermudagrass that keeps creeping in since we haven’t put ground covers there yet. We haven’t got the garlic in yet. But closer. Next year not letting cowpeas bury the raised beds.
A fingertip sized baby thistle!Bigger thistle baby!Another thistle rosette They apparently overwinter this way This rosette I’m not sure if it’s texanum or undulatum. I haven’t seen any undulatum seeds up yet in my pots. This is the same individual as to the left, showing the white closely hairy underside of the thistle leaves. These five thistle rosettes are probably mostly or all texanum, based on that only my texanum seeds have germinated into similar size rosettes. These are all at my parents’ house, where I got the seeds. Yay!
Before the hard freeze I cut down all the pepper plants (plus a few stray and unfortunately sized okra) and put them in the garage. The next day when I had time, I sorted and weighed them. we got a good last bunch of all our pepper varieties for this year! Paula notes of the sweet peppers, the apple peppers were sweetest when both red and green. The California wonder bell and chocolate bell were both more bitter when young/green. The Chef likes the thin and easy to cut corbaci peppers.
The original saffron patch after being divided this spring has three plants big enough to flower! A bumblebee was visiting one!I didn’t divide this patch very well oops. In the front yard, I had planted three patches the last two seasons. So far only one is up and no visible flowers. someone else here near Norman had several at this stage. I think the smaller bulbs don’t flower the first season and need to grow more. Judy reports one flower from her bulbs planted in the spring after the division! Hers are in a pot.