Tag: container planters

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07/05/2022

Baby cushaw squash!
Recovering from removal of benign sebaceous cysts is more complicated than either of us expected.
Purple hulled pinkeye cowpea.
I really like the little signs Paula got me for Christmas. They stand out well.
A gray hairstreak on a Madhu ras canteloupe flower.
Paula’s Coryphantha sulcata is blooming!
In fact, it has two. She says it had six earlier this year too.
New tiny moth – a spotted thyris!
Bee butt in loofah gourd.
Paula made Thai green curry for dinner. It contains last year’s garden white currant tomatoes (from frozen, so that works well), garden onions, and garden walking onions.
The Texas buckeye is very angry. I put a hose out to soak there. Jeanne has let me know the wild ones do this too, so maybe it will recover.
Possibly purple prairie clover from free packet from prairiemoon.com?
A second round of standing cypress flowers on a different plant.
A volunteer Carolina snailseed in the front yard.
Will Rogers Zinnias are looking good in the rainbow garden.
Briar loves escorting Shackleton for a walk.
Shackleton doesn’t know why we have to ruin a good thing by bringing the dog.
We were about to go back inside, but she got up and scooted closer. He turned to glare while she got a treat for laying down.
Shackleton says no eye contact.
Here you can pretend there is no dog, only lush, succulent grass and corn.
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06/12/2022 yard

Maybe Phacelia?
I found at least four leaves full of my amazing tree hopper friends.
Each leaf had a different set of adults or immatures.
Adults get taken care of too.
Babies!!!
The leaf bends where the treehopper eggs were.
Lace bug
Frogfruit east of patio is doing well. Just moved a piece there this spring.
Nice true bug
Dog flower highly mobile.
Monarda future flower bud??
Baptisia and okra
Rudbeckia maxima from Abby has a new leaf.
A planthopper (Flatidae) on curly dock. First time for this family in the yard?? I used to see them regularly at home.
Rattlesnake master still lives.
Passionvine (seeds from Bartlesville) doing well in their second year.
Tiny bee on butterfly milkweed
Hedeoma in with Datura.
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06/11/2022

The Chef made no bake lemon curd/ cheesecake layered parfaits with homemade whipped cream, farm share blueberries, and homemade granola for a garden tour.
Prepared the night before in the fridge.
Perfect for the tropically humid day.
A wasp carrying a caterpillar
Spittlebug
Hello Tuqu
This young man.
Two Texas dandelions from home! White specks are elderberry petals.
Bee fly
Possibly a baby Grindelia leaf??
A second Coryphantha sulcata seedling came up!!!!!
Lace bug (Tineidae) on giant ragweed leaf.
Nobody home…
…except for this crab spider!
My keeled treehoppers have a big family!!
Soooo manyyyyyy
Shackleton and Briar disagree about social distancing.
A nice jumping spider.
It’s on a houseplant that is outside for the summer.
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06/07/2022 catching up

A Fiery Skipper on lantana on campus.
A native fleabane in the front yard.
Another Fiery Skipper on the verbena at home. I need to replace this non native moss verbena with prairie verbena but I can’t get it to germinate. 😡
A paper wasp on mealy blue sage. It looks weirdly purple here.
Using my new copy of the social wasps book, I narrowed this down to Polistes fuscatus or Polistes bellicosus, based on not much black on legs, black tipped antennae, and the yellow ring around the abdomen.
The Hedeoma is flowering!
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06/05/2022 indoor/outdoor

I learned today that spiderworts are self-incompatible, so these buds didn’t have any seeds in them. Oh well. It was worth a try! Thanks Mom for sending and prompting me to look this up! It explains why we only have the one. 🙃
I repotted the aloe vera (not shown) and added some more dirt and another succulent to this pot, which lives inside in the entryway shelf.
Milkweed beetle! It’s standing on a dayflower and moving over to a nightshade, though.
Ashy Sunflower yet lives!!
Linum rigidum from home still blooming. It’s annual so I hope it seeds!
A different jumping spider.
A lightning bug resting on a native poinsettia (Euphorbia) leaf.
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06/02/2022

New book in the mail! The Social Wasps of North America by Chris Alice Kratzer. It looks very useful.
Awards for bravery all around tonight. Shacks walked right past Briar and she stayed put.
Purple coneflower finally opening up!
Ironweed is budding, seems early??
This is one of two dill seedlings in the herb bed.
Pretty sure now that this is the Mexican sage from Judy.
Whoa, standing cypress about to bloom!
The just-planted two leaf senna doing okay.
The older two leaf senna seems to have gotten nibbled. I’ll have to consider if I should put some Vaseline around it against earwigs or a wire cage over it maybe for rabbits.
A non native moss rose (Portulaca). Dog behind.

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It lives!!! (Coryphantha sulcata)

On Thursday evening I was closing the plant window curtain when on a whim I checked the cactus tray. I have been watering the little shriveled Coryphantha sulcata seedling occasionally since there was still green, but I figured it was dead. It’s suddenly all plump and alive again!!!!!! Abby had the excellent suggestion that maybe the day length is now long enough for it to decide it’s spring and time to collect water again.
Since the cats have been in plant window a lot, I figured the baby might be safer outside in a more stable pot. So on Saturday (yesterday) I repotted it carefully into fresh cactus potting mix.
I have put it in the shade of the big planter, since my recent reading on baby cacti suggests that may best imitate a cactus seedling environment in the wild.
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2022/05/22 cool morning again

I sprinkled some grama grass seeds in this planter last winter so I am hopeful for this tiny grass sprout.
While it’s cool I decided I should go ahead and plant the showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa). Its root was all tangled at the bottom and the soil fell off. It looks like it wanted to send out a tap root anyways.
So, it’s safely in the ground now. It is supposed to continue cool for several days, with rain too, so hopefully it likes its new spot.
I tidied up the plant shelves here by removing some pots where seedlings died.
I moved the winecup tray onto the table…
…Because some critter went rooting around in it. Hmph. Very rude. I tried to re-cover the soil on the survivors of the 2-4 that were disturbed. Fortunately many were left alone.
Frogfruit has started blooming!
Someone wants me to make guest kitties appear more.
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2022/05/21 a cool afternoon, good for last plantings before summer heat

Weird fungus in front strawberry bed where sweetgum roots are rotting.
Potatoes!
Some eggs on the house.
Dayflower. Someday I’ll figure out if it’s the native or non native species.
A mystery that came along from Texas.
It turns out these tiny things are seedheads, so I completely missed it blooming.
I looked at it in the microscope to confirm they are seeds. Abby suggested a Nutallanthus sp which looks right. I can’t believe I somehow missed the flowers! Maybe while I was at home in Texas in April?
A non native rye. It’s pulled now. Thanks Jeanne!
Mystery grass, up close of seedheads. Abby has identified as Vulpia sp, but that genus contains both native and non native species.
The same Vulpia sp, outside.
Guest cat Shackleton wanted and got a leash walk today.
He loves a good dust patch.
At the end of the water hose is a small Datura wrightii that I figured I should plant while we have our probably last spell of cool weather for the spring. I left its sibling in a pot until I find out if this spot has enough sun.
A baby Dalea purpurea (purple prairie clover) in the prickly pear planter! This was from a free seed packet from prairie moon. I didn’t use any inoculum.
Abby very kindly gave me one of her two seedlings from her Rudbeckia maxima! Really excited to watch this one grow!!
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05/18/2022

A male velvet ant foraging on the widow sedum!
Milkvine are sprouting everywhere. Hope it’s a good year for milkweed tussock moths!
Yarrow from home is blooming.
The striped planthoppers are still out on ironweed today.
Greeneyes leaves are fuzzy and my watering spillage shows it off.
Rudbeckia lacinata from Abby is getting tall!
Texas buckeye has added some leaves and seems to be food for someone.
Carolina buckthorn from plant sale doing fine.
Mexican buckeye from plant sale doing fine.
Texas mallows are coming back up! At least three in the shade of the big red oak.
Thistle from home. Mom did a lovely post on these fine flowers recently. They are homes and food for many friends.
Mystery grass that came with the thistle soil. Possibly Canada wild rye. I have been asked to get better photos. Jeanne has kindly identified it as an annual native barley.
The beautyberry has perked up.
False garlic is going to seed! I took one pod across the patio to the “prairie” area and left the other here east of the patio.