Posted on March 26, 2023March 26, 202303/23/2023 Thursday babies Baby Liatris #4! Baby Liatris #5! Anemone berlanderi dug from home from last year! About to bloom! Maybe Salvia azurea? Bigger view of planter with salvia azurea possibility and some possible False Gaura too.
Posted on March 22, 2023March 22, 202303/22/2023 nighttime-only cat! babies!!! And dinner! Briar helpfully alerted me to a potential friend carefully crossing the back fence today! What a magnificent neighbor. Turns out a few peach flowers survived. The ones with dropped petals are quite striking with pale tips over maroon backgrounds! I believe this is the annual (?) Cardamine sp from nearby seeded into the prickly pear planter. Abby has kindly identified this as a human-introduced species Armeria serpyllifolia, thyme-leaved sandwort. It isn’t from North American originally but doesn’t seem to dramatically disturb the landscape. This one may be an introduced chickweed. But a fuzzy one, not Stellaria media. More baby inland sea oat seedlings in a second pot!my Multiple baby native Rosa sp from Fannin Co TX. Thanks Mom! This seems big enough to be the persimmon I actually planted?? Seedlings in false gaura pot, but not sure they look right. Oklahoma penstemon given to me by a kind fellow Norman citizen! Maybe smartweed amongst the Chenopodium. We shall see. A Datura maybe?? The label fell out of this pot. Anybody recognize this seed? I am informed the mustard leaf garnish is from garden and that the soup contains poblanos from last year from the freezer.
Posted on October 11, 2022October 12, 202210/09/2022 Saxon park Schinia gaurae moth (the clouded crimson) caterpillar on false gaura! We counted nine around our 1.75 mi loop. The tall rosettes of the false gaura were nice to see since they look just like my garden one. A Schinia moth I haven’t identified feeding on aster flowers. This bumblebee loved the Salvia azurea. Back of two spotted bumblebee where you can see the spots! Funnel web spider says no pictures, please. A tree cricket hiding on Liatris. The seed pod of a Baptisia. Mom said possibly B. australis var. minor Paula found two big beautiful lynx spider mommas! Wow! This is one guarding its egg sac. A tiny caterpillar on false gaura. The first Solomon’s seal I’ve seen in the wild! We have several in the yard but no idea if they’re volunteers or planted. Probably a buckwheat, the botany consulting committee says. Abby, Mom, and Jeanne also agreed this was probably a dwarf lead plant. Paula found a magnificent sumac leaf turning yellow to red. The Sumac is really turning beautiful reds all over!
Posted on May 13, 2022May 13, 202205/13/2022 garden checkup Sweet basil seedlings. Butterfly milkweed is up in the backyard too but hasn’t flowered yet (same as front yard). Yellow flax still blooming! It’s annual, so I hope the seeds like it enough here. Whitlow-wort gone to seed. Another native annual from TX home. False gaura that I planted from potted last night is doing well. Texas verbena has bloomed! It’s a perennial. The rattlebox had adorable seed pods as promised. The Rocky mountain bee plant from the botany club plant sale is blooming! There were ants at the blooms. The Phacelia is really fun. The prairie bluet is flowering a bit. I’m worried since it’s early that this means it’s not happy. However, it’s a perennial, so hopefully it will do its thing now and be less worried next year. The twice-moved yucca is making new little leaves! This yucca is in the shade which I figure is probably okay at this age. Many plants seem to like to have nurse plants. The baby winecups are starting to get true leaves. Second year for this mystery plant with no blooms. It does have a square stem. Abby suggested Monarda, which I did seed here at one point, so fingers crossed!! Slippery silk beans and several other varieties are up!! The two leaf senna didn’t have a lot of roots when I planted it from a pot last night. So, I put two containers of water so it would gradually keep it damp for now so it can get established. It’s my only sprout from the seed and I love this plant! It’s a host for Cloudless Sulphur butterflies.
Posted on May 1, 2022May 1, 202204/30/2022 assorted Yarrow from home about to bloom. Linum rigidum (yellow flax) from home is blooming! It’s an annual, but I’m hoping it will go to seed. The mailbox irises are varied this year! Closeup of purple. Closeup of pink. This englemann daisy has lost a few petals! The two leaf senna is growing a second pair of leaves!! Two baby flax are just starting their adult leaves. The false gaura is doing fine but there was also this very nice fly on its label. Gulf coast penstemon from the NPSOT plant sale is blooming!
Posted on April 17, 2022April 17, 2022Sunday garden check up Blue flax seedlings are getting tiny new leaves. Possibly a false gaura! It looks different from the common volunteers! Two Datura wrightii seedlings! A senna hopeful. It is actually a bit rough, so maybe this is the rough leaf sunflower?? A redbud I potted up last year. The Euphorbia from Mom and Dad’s house is perking back up. Roman chamomile did well while I was gone! Lettuce and bok choy doing good. Two more fluttermill Missouri primrose seedlings up! The horse crippler cactus transplanted from Mom’s garden. I’ve put a drip on the ground plum (actually a legume) since yesterday, as it seems to be having a rough transplant. This is also into the rock garden. In the rainbow garden, a mystery seedling. Maybe two leaf senna??? Butterfly milkweed is coming up in rainbow garden. Maybe another butterfly milkweed? It’s in the right place. A single cilantro seedling. The only one in the yard. In that crack. A winecup from two years ago. Purple prairie clover from two years ago. Maybe Liatris leaves? It’s in the right spot. Another mystery seedling. Tall vervain is perking up a bit. Ten petal anemone are perking up too! Greeneyes getting bigger! My blue stars are blooming! Salvia azurea leaves.
Posted on March 27, 2022March 27, 2022The finished projects from yesterday plus seeds today Four t posts. Wires go east to west on both, holding in the blackberry canes so we can walk through and harvest. There was one new sprout in the middle that grew up and we moved it into a line with another. Close up so you can see aluminum wire. We finished the compost pile area yesterday but I forgot to take a picture. Wes did a lovely job leveling it all and put rebar through several holes to keep it in place. I connected an old hose from one of the rain barrels to make sure the pile stays suitably damp for decomposition. See that big seedling on the lower right edge? I don’t recognize it, so there is a possibility it’s the native bush honeysuckle Lonicera albiflora which is what I planted in this pot and left out all winter. A pale but bright turquoise fungus growing on the showy milkweed seeds. The seeds felt plump though so maybe some will grow. Strophostyles helvula bean seeds. One has fungus but also a little root!! All the seeds we planted out of fridge stratification today. There’s still a few more left for late April that needed more time. A little mystery seedling in the old Maximilian sunflower area. Paula and I pulled and dug a lot of Maximilian sunflower shoots out of there. Hopefully we can find them new homes!