Tag: tree

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12/10/2022 finally turning

The greens are doing well.
Seedlings are in the raised bed but I’m not sure what they are. Hoping for field violets?
The apple trees still are mostly green but one pear tree is turning. The three pictures below of leaves turning yellow and orange are from the one pear tree in front.
Later we walked the dog at Saxon park. Lots of rabbit’s tobacco sprouting.
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07/10/2022 purple

Paula tried one of our Purple Beauty Peppers and found it to be not very sweet, more green bell pepper taste still, and after looking online I think I picked them too early. Needs to be fully, deeply purple. I was worried about sunscald though (see the big tan area on the top one). They’ll still be good to use though.
The William’s Pride apple continues to get a flush of red. It’s hot out, me too!
I thought this grasshopper was really pretty. Not sure I’ve seen one like it before. We have lots of predator insects and birds in the yard so a few grasshoppers are no harm and lots of food for our other wild friends!
Zucchini begins.
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05/12/2022 all the not dramatic regular stuff

Walking onions from garden, assorted farm share veggies, with glass noodles and chicken.
Pulled a lot more Maximilian sunflower this evening. I put it in a tub with some potting soil to keep until they can go to new homes.
I found a baby spittlebug on one sunflower stem! I took it over to the sunflowers we’re keeping so it can keep eating.
In the front yard, a few winecup seedlings are coming up in the ground cover orchard area.
More baby winecup!
I pulled up two more native black walnut seedlings and potted them.
Hopefully this one can make it with only half its remaining food. Anyways, this makes a total of four. I have found good homes for most or all of them now. Our lot is too small for another big tree.
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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.
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A… Walnut???

I recently noticed a small tree in a raised bed. I finally pulled it today.
I was quite shocked to discover it was a native black walnut! I have put it in a pot in hopes that it will live and I can find it a home. No room on our lot, sadly.
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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!!
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Leash training

For the dog, of course. Shackleton is an expert leash walker. Briar is pretty good too, but it’s very hard when there is KITTY who might be a FRIEND nearby!! Note apples blooming near Shacks.
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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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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!