06/05/2022 bird nest

Bird’s nest fungi, that is!!!
The Chef noticed these this afternoon. Very excited.
A William’s pride apple!!!
I realized there are multiple kinds of horse crippler cactus. Mom helped me identify this as Echinocactus horizonthalonius (the common and widespread subspecies), based on it having eight ribs. The flower closed in the sunshine today. Apparently it needs a second individual to make fruit, ie it’s self sterile (also known as self incompatible).
Some kind friends brought us a big obsidian rock!
I put it near the baby two leaf senna. I think the black and yellow will look very nice together.
A small pokeberry growing in backyard.
A Texas dandelion accidentally brought from home! Yay!

Strong plants and strong ants

Horsetail just shoves the hard soil out of the way!!
More Stark Surecrop Pie Cherries.
Soaker hose hard at work for the winecups and chamomile.
The hose has a leak so I put the leak over a pot of Maximilian sunflowers.
The Chef spotted ants carrying away this insect. Maybe a soldier fly??
He also spotted this milkweed bug. Hi milkweed bug! All three butterfly milkweeds in the front yard rainbow garden are up, plus the wild milkvines are pushing up everywhere too.

Checking up on fall garden intervention

Faithful blog readers may recall a Garden Intervention last fall. Today we delivered a few more plants (coral honeysuckle and Mexican plum) and checked up on the previous plantings. Here’s one of the showy evening primrose!
Doesn’t have the red spots but I think this is the other showy evening primrose. It’s in the right spot.
Several patches of Maximilian sunflower are doing great.
An interesting mystery plant I haven’t seen in my yard. Please comment if you know what it might be!
Possibly a baby Rudbeckia from the seed mixes that the resident humans have tried?
We made a second visit later in the winter to plant more sunflowers, plus goldenrod and Englemann daisies from Abby. Here’s the goldenrod!
All the Englemann daisies we planted had leaves.
Thank goodness the Doggie is home again!!

Pre vacation plant check (Tuesday)

Two Datura wrightii! They have thinner, slightly grayer leaves than the unknown seedlings also coming up in many containers.
Several interesting seedlings in the lowest tier of the cactus planter.
The peach flower buds opened!
Gram did a lot of work helping me pack. He and the Chef are staying home.
Briar hits the road!

Peachy keen

Paula spotted our dwarf peach is about to bloom! The peach tree had a rough year last year when I had to redig and replant it to make way for the geothermal pipes, so I’m glad to see it sprouting.

Survival both short term and long term

The Mexican plum dug from Mom and Dad’s yard last summer is budding! (The metal across it is the flag I have to not lose it.)
The prairie parsley also from home is still alive.
Ditto for the whitlow-wort. It’s an annual, but I hope it will reseed.
The smaller whitlow-wort is growing through its mud.
This is something just sprouting. I have a label nearby that says greeneyes. Mom does this have the right leaves?? I also do have a lot of ironweed in this area.

Dwarf fruit grove additions

Quality assurance inspector
Paula found a loofah deep underground while digging one hole. How?? Why????
Four new trees all dwarf or semi dwarf: Liberty apple, Seckel pear, Kieffer Pear, and McIntosh Apple. We’re supposed to be on the edge of conditions for those apple varieties but with three other well adapted types already planted last year, I figured why not try. I really love McIntosh and they’re so rare around here.