Clouds to the west before the rain arrived!The elderberry has started blooming and seems to be attracting many small pollinators, including this little beetle.
Briar enjoys laying in the prairie among the primroses and englemann daisies. Some of the grass in the new prairie (we’re calling it Leon’s prairie since it’s by Leon’s blackberry bushes) has turned out to be the native wild rye we seeded! Yay!Yellow Coreopsis looking bright with the tiny purple Verbena halei and the starry pink widow’s cross sedum!Shackleton had some thoughts. Briar says “walkies please??” (We did go walkies.)The showy evening primroses are looking lovely with their pale pink between the purple winecups in the back and the magenta Salvia greggii in the front. We didn’t even plant them on purpose, they were just in the soil Paula brought from the backyard berm. Coreopsis provides a nice yellow contrast at the end of the Salvia greggii row. More seedling winecups are coming up in the newer soil where we put seeds. Gram says it’s hard to use a dichotomous key for plant identification when the only numbers you know are “hello?” And “Doggie”. Shackleton somehow turned the pages and now says “I leave the identification as a trivial exercise for the reader.”We planted one Winecup in a tall skinny planter. It has bloomed now.
All the pulled invasive dayflowers and bermudagrass was piling up on the path by the mini prairie. Since we had guests coming this evening for an outdoor meal I swept everything and pulled up some of the endless maple seedlings that were sprouting too. This shows off the tepary beans starting to climb the trellis too!
The rainbow garden is almost there. The winecups have gotten MASSIVE. I have never seen such mammoth winecup leaves in the wild.
A typical winecup with regular sized leaves. We saw this one today on our afternoon walk, at Saxon Park.
A view panning over to see the Salvia greggii and coreopsis too. All the white flowers in the raised beds are cilantro. If you’ve been looking at our iNaturalist feed, the cilantro flowers are hopping with insect activity.
Briar grazes in the prairie. Around her you can see the bloom of a prairie parsley and many showy evening primroses. After her grazing, Briar laid down, right on top of one of the Oklahoma penstemon rosettes I’m pretty sure.
I think these are the reseeding domestic ground cherries! Yay!Clumps of annual native violets going to seed and some volunteer primroses (this soil was moved from the backyard). The winecups began blooming!
Hidden dog among englemann daisies and showy evening primroses. Englemann daisy close up. Briar was very pleased to escort Shackleton around the yard. The Solomon’s seals by the dining room window are doing well, as are their colleagues around the yard.
Red columbine one Red columbine twoThe columbine hangs down but I peeked at it!Lyre leaf sage at peak bloom. Showy evening primrose bloomingLizardtail gaura has bloomed! Berytidae bug on it. Blue flax doing well in its second year. New classic slime mold. The new weird slime mold continues to change.
A megachilid bee on Gaillardia pulchella (blanket flower or firewheel).I repotted the lemon balm into a clay pot so I could use its plastic one. In the upper left I also put one winecup in the very long tall head shaped pot. The root system was starting to escape the sprouting cells so I should probably plant its friends soon too.I needed a lot of medium to large plastic pots to put showy evening primrose (here in middle) and Maximilian sunflower (next pic) in actual soil.These are the Maximilian sunflowers I’ve been pulling from the prairie area, where the main plant we moved was last winter. I was storing them to give away in a tub of water and soil, but they were looking sad, so I figured it was time for potting. There’s so many they are crowded, but whoever takes them can separate them out. They seem very, very hardy.While I had my hands dirty I repotted the ashy sunflower (Helianthus mollis). I figure it can get much bigger in this pot, and then we can plant it in late summer to overwinter in its final location (to be decided).Someone (tail end pictured…) Kept wanting to bark at our fine feline friends in the plant window. So I made it less convenient.