A beautiful little wasp on fleabane. I just ordered a field guide to social wasps of North America so I hope I can identify it soon!Blister or soldier beetle on annual coreopsis (I think).A tiny crab spider offering free hugs.A little beetle. I have seen a lot of these in my backyard too.Need to look this legume up.Rudbeckia amplexicaulis!Milkweed bug!The green milkweed was everywhere in the park!! We saw an adult monarch butterfly too.A legume.Bumblebee!!Flying viewI still need to look up the species.More of this purple legume.A blurry assassin bug on yarrow.Another milkweed bug – maybe a different or smaller kind?Legume. Edit: Mom suggests non-native Trifolium species, which looks about right. Thank you Mom!The park’s picnic pavilion has lightning bug lights!!
It’s a great little prairie. I heard singing Dickcissel, Field Sparrow, and Painted Bunting, and an Eastern Meadowlark calling. Nice!!
The Chef took very good care of the garden while I was on vacation and we got very, very, very, very lucky to get rain and no hail in our part of town. I’m poking at my potted plants right now. I’ll do another post later with the ground plants and raised beds and permanent planters.
Echineacea pallida left out all winter sprouted well (seeds from prairie moon nursery) a while back. I put some of the seedlings in the ground when I left and I’ll plant these last ones soon.The Chimayó peppers from Judy grew almost all these adult leaves. When I left each had one small adult leaf.Hungarian heart tomatoes to replace the one that got killed by the late frost. The seedlings emerged in the plant window so I put them outside yesterday when I got back.I repotted this eggplant right before I left. It has grown a lot. The other one I repotted hasn’t grown as much.Finally the culinary sage is starting to sprout! The only one that was up before now has an adult leaf.These passionvines are the ones where I just smooshed the fruit into a pot and left them out all winter.Liatris mucronata has a hilarious long leaf. I had another one in a bigger pot but it seems to be dying.This yucca now has three leaves! I also planted one in the ground when I left, because it was in the relatively shallow sprouting tray, and it is still alive in the ground.Planted the other tray of green milkweed (Asclepias virida) before I left and will plant these ones soon.Volunteer redbud dug from front raised beds. Eventually I’ll put it in the ground here in backyard. I don’t think it grew any taller, so hopefully it’s working on roots.I now have at least three baby columbines in the sprouting tray and one out in the yard. The package said direct seeding in fall was best, even over stratifying manually, so that’s what I did even for the trays. These babies look a lot like clover, especially when smaller, so I’ve had to be careful.
The purple lady bok choy grows quite nicely when earwigs are not swarming it.
It grows bigger, too!
The wildflower seeds are doing better than I had hoped!
The green milkweeds are starting to have adult leaves. There are actually pale coneflowers (Echinacea pallida) growing! A single adult leaf is emerging on the Liatris mucronata. I have a second one in a smaller pot too. I mistook the leaf of this seedling for a clover and pulled it yesterday, but quickly realized my mistake. I put it back in the dirt and watered it and it seems okay so far?? I hope so as it’s the only columbine seedling I’ve found so far in the sprouting trays or on the ground where I put seeds in the fall. The package said best sown outdoors in the fall.
Parnsips up in a few clumps. Based on location I believe a few moss curled parsley seedlings are up. Cilantro was up too in other spots. Green milkweed opening the seed leaves. Previously they were mostly rooting only. Top soil for Rudbeckia fulgida washed away. Top soil for evening primrose also washed away. Both this and Rudbeckia were under rain barrel stands so I think that doesn’t provide enough shelter in a big rain like last night. I think the blue flax seedlings all washed away sadly. Hopefully the ones I put in ground will make it. Hard to find those though once i planted them. The green milkweed were under the patio table and still got lots of good rain water.
Several seeds I pulled out of the fridge recently are sprouting in their humid containers so we planted them today!
Liatris mucronata from Mom! Yay! The yucca has a really long root! Mom, is this Arkansas yucca? It’s the one from your house. The green milkweed (Asclepias viridis) had tons of seeds sprouting and a very brushy or fluffy root for each seedling. We put them root down, I just wanted to show the fluffy root here. Dad got these seeds for me!
