Tag: prairie

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Path and fence plants

I got a bit of dirt from near the rosette of Spiranthes orchids to get any mycorrhizae to sprinkle in my soil at home.
Here it is.
“Mother hellloooooooo hi hi hi hi wigglessss”
Boredom between walks.
Also bored.
Several spring prairie plants I want to establish in my mini-prairie (to ensure flowers for early pollinators) are growing right by Mom and Dad’s house where they always weedeat, right along the foundation and in the driveway. This is a wild onion.
A weird and neato double stemmed and double seed head ten petal anemone!!
Hopefully these annual groundsel (which will get mowed in path) will seed in my yard.
Mom did a cross post on her blog. This is private property, so we are the only people digging any plants and are careful to take very few and from areas on the property where they will be damaged or killed, such as a path, the house foundation, or fence line. We also divided plants from the garden near the house and dug up babies from yard trees that would get mowed.
Gracie got a sticker in her paw, so Mom helped her out. Up along the fence, there was a small fragrant sumac that Mom was going to lop off (keeping the fence line clear) so we dug it up. It had a long taproot! Still not as long as a yucca though.
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Afternoon walkies

Here at Camp Arthritis we’re taking lots of slow short walks. Perfect to admire the resident plants! This is a blackberry in the old, less productive patch. These plants keep their leaves over the winter. They turn a dark purple.
The new blackberry patch is expanding rapidly. These plants lose all their leaves in the winter. This patch is where our yard ones were dug.
A trailing winecup leaf (Callirhoe involucrata). I have seeds for this in cold stratification in the fridge right now.
A true armyworm moth is having a very bad day. Its mate appears to have died and is stuck to it. I guess really both of them are having a bad day.
Tiny tiny tiny ants. Diane says probably Monomorium sp. Thanks Diane!!
Cute little new leaves on a post oak!
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Dixon Water Foundation morning

Bladderpod with small native bee
For someone who is probably growing this fellow’s relative, I sure have a hard time identifying cacti. I believe it’s Coryphantha sulcata based on having one central spine per areole. Here’s my baby.
Mom looks at photos she is taking.
Mom takes more photos.
It’s a magnificent creek!
Bubbles on moss.
Neat rocks the creek goes through.
A mournful thyris moth. We saw more in redbud flowers. I think it may have been getting water here, because if you zoom in you can see its proboscis out.
A cricket frog!
Another big view. You can see a redbud in the woods.
Englemann daisies growing above the creek! They’re much smaller than the ones in my garden. Presumably less water.
A white bush honeysuckle (a native one, Lonicera albiflora) branches over the creek.
This is probably a hawthorn shrub. Thanks to Abby for the suggestion that helped me look it up! There seem to be a lot of very similar species.
Here’s the probably-hawthorn trunk.
This seems familiar.
Ah ha!  A Missouri fluttermill primrose!  Note the red speckled and sort of square long flower bud.
An old seed pod at the base of the primrose plant. The leaves are much less red than the ones in my garden.
Ceanothus herbaceus, redroot or New Jersey tea.
Here are the leaves. I am growing its relative C. americanus (also called New Jersey tea) in my garden, from seeds bought from prairiemoon.com.
Blue flax!  It’s probably Linum pratense, which is an annual.  Apparently it does intergrade with the perennial Linum lewisii which is what I planted in my yard.
This flax hasn’t bloomed but you can see the leaves are very like the L. lewsii ones in my yard.
Another Englemann daisy demonstrates how adaptable this species is, growing up on the barrens away from the creek.
Just to the left, just below the middle of this picture is another fluttermill.
Cymopterus, a very early blooming wildflower, starts to go to seed.
I think this must be a much younger fluttermill Missouri primrose that has already bloomed.
This is prairie burnet.  I’d never noticed it before.  Thanks to Abby for the identification!
Yellow star grass (not actually a grass).
Another fluttermill primrose, this time in a big beautiful mound.
The face of abandonment.
Another dog who didn’t get to go.
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Oh well, a second move

It turns out where I put the Arkansas yuccas from home (who got trenched during solar install) was too close to the path we’re making. I dug them up again and moved them to a safer place. It is supposed to rain a lot this week and be relatively cool so hopefully they survive this move. You can see one by my wrist and one by my ring fingertip.
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Beautiful day but some people just keep having ideas

Wes said he wanted to go to Lowe’s today and somehow one of us (all three of us?) Decided we should finally get our compost pile in shape. It was hard to access for turning over, surrounded by chicken wire that kept collapsing in.
Wes helpfully volunteered his plastic recycling bricks to be a small scale model.
I’m not sure loading the car with 40.5 cinder blocks was a great idea.
Beetle larva found during clearing the edges of the pile for the concrete cinder blocks. Decomposition is happening!
The first two layers mostly laid out. I’ll take a picture of the completed structure tomorrow.
On one side, we encountered a mysterious wire on the ground surface. We thought it might be for cable TV as it wasn’t marked by the call before you dig flags. It was above ground maybe for four feet, then both ends went deep again. To be safe, we put it underground a bit, with Wes’ plastic bricks as markers to prevent cutting it later.
We moved these giant concrete corner stones (that came with the house) from compost pile corners to become the new stand for the heated bird bath.
The salvaged iron plant basket was previously being the pedestal for the heated bird bath, and now is marking and protecting the baby Mexican plum.
While resting after the compost pile was done, I checked the rock garden. The seedling next to the pebble might maybe perhaps be the desert bluebells (Phacelia) that I seeded directly in fall????
More of the mystery plants are up. I’m suspecting blue stars.
Dropped a chip in the garden accidentally and later found it covered with Tapinoma sessile (the odorous house ant, a native species). Thanks Diane for the identification.
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Home to excitement

The tiny bluets in front yard are blooming wildly!
I found this rock in the driveway.
A tiny seedling of Penstemon cobea!!!!
Two blue flax seedlings!!
This is a mystery sprout from yesterday in backyard prairie. Looks exciting. Edit 2022/04/03: this is bluestars.

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Signs of life

Cat greets morning sun, waiting for his Doggie to return inside.
Lemon balm herb reemerging.
Mystery seedlings in the prickly pear planter. EDIT: These are baby anise hyssop (Agastache)!! Compare the seedlings on the prairiemoon.com website.
A speckled mystery seedling in the prickly pear planter.
Another mystery.
Tiny mystery.
Probably mare’s tail seedlings?
Probably white avens seedling?
In the cactus planter, this Escobaria missouriensis and its smaller sibling are doing well.
I think this is a winecup rosette. Hurrah! Don’t know why it didn’t bloom last year, but I’m glad one survived from two falls ago.
Whitlow-wort transplant is going to seed. May it come back next year!
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Heavens opening

Mesonet says 2.03″ rain today for Norman.
Paula and I took 15 min or so to try to drain some of the water off the low patio area. Hopefully this will also absorb slowly into yard. Briar moved in this picture but she spent several minutes staring at us like we were nuts. Why not either go play or go back inside? Why stand and get wet toes??
I discovered a tiny bluet in the transplanted prairie parsley!
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No vampires

Paula noticed more spider mites on the indoor peppers so we did garlic spray on them. I’ve also recently added a sprinkle more fertilizer to the pots since the leaves are yellowing. Hopefully this helps.
Then we decided to garlic spray the remaining tomato plant. Its fruit still seems to be growing but all the leaves on top are just drying up, even with more consistent watering. However, it’s growing new stems from the base. Not sure what the deal is.
In the backyard, Viola bicolor have flower buds.
A ground bee or wasp has a nice burrow near the potential greeneyes seedlings.
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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.