Karen, yes we have sun!!!!
Best get out in it.
More later. I'm going out to see what has popped out in this wonderful spring weather. ;)
A.
Weeds or Wildflowers?
Hope you found some great things popping up in your yard. I found a new aster that moved in, even picked a good spot to put itself. You have to love when that happens. I treid to fight the bindweed battle. Have not been able to win a fight with that stuff yet.
Going to head to local farm market and see if they have any plants in yet. Hope to find some natives that I do not have. Let you know what I find.
Have a great day! Karen
I wouldn’t mind sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes, if I could come to some agreement with them on where they are going to grow. So far they refuse to grow in beds especially made for them, but grow with a vengeance in places of their choice. Oddly, most of Amargia's recipes for sunchokes came from people in the UK. Sunchokes have many fans on the other side of the pond. We use them most in place of water chestnuts in stir frys, but my favorite way to use them is as a sandwich spread. The roots are chopped fine along with some pecans and mixed with a mashed avocado. Some people have a problem digesting sunchokes when their diet is mainly refined and processed foods. Nothing dangerous. Just make sure their is some Beano in the medicine cabinet before trying them for the first time. lol. . (Jim)
#1: I'm told sunchokes rarely bloom in the UK, but they definately do in our area.
#2: Do native poppies come in other colors?
Hi Amanda. We have clumps of the evening primrose around the fence. Very pretty - loves some sun, best in the morning, and damp feet if possible. :)
I have what I think is Passiflora lutea cropping up under one of my junipers. It's slow growing, and I'd love to dig it out and move it to a better location, but it is unfortunately embedded in the limestone (maybe that's why so slow). I'm only guessing it's lutea because of the leaves. It's only just over a foot tall, but the leaves look just like these.
http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/p/wpalu2-fl940730a-2e5335.jpg
Sure, Carey. That's it. Pollinators love it and the fruits must be delicious. The birds take them so quickly once they ripen I have hardly been able to collect seed. must-have been a mocking bird that dropped that seed there for you. ;)
Jim. The chokes make the perfect cover for the baby bunnies at the back of the yard. I knew it would spread so put it where that would be okay, but man! I had no idea. I don't suppose it is any different than the asters or the solidago that way. The more I learn, the more I learn . . ...!
Had a lovely day with some fellow DGrs at fairy stone state park in Virginia today including goldhilal and FruitOfTheVine. What fun! After our group dispersed, Court and I checked out some trails and saw some beautiful greenery including the native flame azaleas, Solomon seal, bloodroot, many ferns, mostly the Christmas fern. River oats, a tall white aster bloom of some sort, loads of stuff I'd love to sample, but just took some snapshots instead. Mostly hardwoods with rhodedendron understory.
I hope every one is enjoying their weekend. Time to shut this down.
Whoops!
Jim about the poppies, this is my first year growing them after trying to grow them unsuccessfully in containers. Direct sow! Who knew?! :)
The genera Papaveraceae has many species
Eschsholzia has relatives but I can't recall much about them. I received several kinds of seed last year, and I can tell you the foliage of the Black and/ or pink peony poppies I direct sowed in different areas looks nothing at all like the CA native.
I m starting to wonder if they are poppies at all.
Perfect! Glad I got some confirmation. :) I'll throw some fertilizer on it and hope for the best! (and if it feeds the birds, they can have them!I)
And it most likely was a Mockingbird. They and the cardinals rule the yard most of the year!
Hey girl, it might be one of those plants that doesn't want fertilizer! It will cover the shrub it is on and can do some shade. It has spread underground like the other passifloras do, so I can dig one for you if you would like more.
Good luck with it! You'll love the delicate flowers. I am just peeking in to take my mind off my schoolwork for half a minute. The yard is SO glorious with stuff popping out of the ground and flowers opening. It's torture to be inside.
I was only going to use Osmocote. I'm not very good with the regular stuff - that requires a good memory. :)
My heirloom tomatoes in their patio containers are doing fantastic. I've already harvest more black cherry tomatoes this year than I did all of last year! My Chocolate Stripes is going strong too - moths are doing great with pollination. :)
Looks like a lot going on in the forum. It's exciting to see new things popping almost every day.
A week or so ago I received some very nice natives in swap at a round up event in southwest Virginia.
I now have three elderberry, penstemon 'husker red,' Aster lateriflorus 'Lady in Black', phlox 'Minnie Pearl', and piles of Aastache seedlings. Still plugging away at the weeds here, but pleased to find both A. exalta and A. purpurescens plants coming up which I started in pots before I transplanted into the garden in 2011. I'm putting a lot of protective collars around my plants! The bunnies have just begun to decimate my asters... nit the wild ones that reproduce like crazy but the cultivated weeds, Symphotrichum sp. 'Smooth aster' and a lovely cultivar I received in trade last year called 'honeysong pink.' :/
Bunnies are awfully cute, dont'cha think? :)
It's me again!
I am so excited ... my Bradbury's Monarda has all kinds of buds on it and about to pop! I thought I lost it last year. Just had to share. :D
My penstemon are setting seed right now. I'll be happy to share once they're ready to pop. :)
I'm going to sow more seed into the bed. I had two, but one was just too tasty for the deer to pass up - but now I'll be able to have plenty! http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/62770/
The Monarda seed that I had from a couple of years ago reappears in a pot every year. I don't touch the pot except to spot water on occasion - so I'll have my native Monarda blooms in a couple of weeks. My orchid tree is just about done blooming and the four nerve daisies are still going strong!
Carey I have something growing in one of my beds right below the back porch but I don't know what the heck it is. Just foliage. I will have to check the list of plants you sent to see if it's possible I dropped it right in there when you sent it.
And OH the penstemon is just gorgeous.
Someone on a different thread asked what was blooming here, so I'm reproducing the list here:
Homestead verbena
Brazilian verbena
Phlox 'Minnie Pearl'
Tradscantia ohioensis
Rudbeckia triloba
Lunaria
coreopsis 'Nana'
Gaillardia aristata
Snapdragon
CA poppy
Salvia white perennial
Asclepias tuberosa
Asclepias exalta
Bradbury's monarda
Geranium 'Sambor'
Salvia greggii 'mesa rose'
Itea viginica
oxalis woodland pink
heuchera
Daisy fleabane
Oenothera fruiticosa and O. speciosa
Darnit! I could've sent you some Oenothera triloba to join your other Oenotheras! I found a small patch the other day (they usually bloom mid-February around here) and I pulled most of the seed pods/rootlets and mailed them elsewhere. I'm hoping I can help re-introduce the species to Indiana though!
Thanks for thinking of me. I have seedlings growing from you. winecup and Tecoma stans. I thought I starts the in. paintbrush, but I can't figure out where they got to.
By the way, are you recovered from your trip? :)
Did I send you tecoma stans? And did I send you winecup seeds? I know I sent thelosperma but can't remember much else!
I'm recovered! I start school again on Tuesday. EW.
Haha yes they are from you. I can't remember from which swap, though.
:) Yay North Carolina! Article featured from Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. :)
http://carycitizen.com/2013/05/22/gardening-go-native/
Thanks Carey! Were you googling yourself? (Carey/Cary)?!
Although even the many levels of government are pushing natives now too, which I appreciate.
Maybe one of the jobs I thought would be sort of cool after I'm finished with my masters is to work with the DOT on their roadside natives program...
Phew! Summer's definitely brewing out there. VERRRYY humid, not so hot, thunderstorms boiling up around. You know the drill. Well at least here in the Piedmont.
What are you up to anyway Carey?
One time years ago I offered to volunteer with Alabama DOT wildflower program, but they just stammered and never called back.
Hmm Crystal. They were maybe afraid you'd point out that they were not planting natives.
maybe, but i doubt they knew what they were after. most of what i have seen are naive all right, just not native to here!
Well, I realize even books called "nc wildflowers" have naturalized European weeds listed too. Recently even saw the Asiatic day flower listed as one of NC's wildflowers when in fact it is a noxious weed.
I guess at some point you must give up and accept that you are never going to win. I like the ditch lilies. They are beautiful and reliable. What more can you ask.
Agreed on all points.
Well there's a first, but I agree. can't remember ever hearing someone say they love the ditch lilies! They are incredible bloomers. I enjoyed some at my old condo and remember the neighbor saying she hated them. I'd never plants them, so I knew not.
Crystal i have a bag here with your name on it! The RU next week is really coming together. Sounds like Kris is going to have quite a time. I enjoyed meeting you in VA and your smiley face has made a lasting impression. :)
xo
Good morning Carole! Looks like a gorgeous day! I may be getting ahead of the bunnies, but the milk jug collars around my seedlings are multiplying at an alarming rate!
It's cool here for this time of year. Will be a pleasant day to get a little work done in the yard. It's difficult to stay one step ahead of the bunnies. They do have voracious appetites. My nemesis lately has been our resident raccoon. I think s/he dug up all the newly planted EE tubers in the back. All gone. Or maybe I can blame that on the squirrels?
Ouch.
I'd say that was a toss up. Maybe you're not feeding the squirrels and raccoons enough. :D
Well, the little masked bandit hit the new bag of birdseed I had in the carport. I had left it there overnight in the push cart before I could get it into the garage. Yesterday morning I noticed a neat little slit in the bag and seeds spilling out into the cart. Someone had a midnight snack courtesy of me.
Oops.
Coulda been any one!!!
You mean like chickweed? Someday I'll tear up a bunch for a salad to see if they're as good as they say (along with some dandelion). We have a lot of mistaken identity here too. Tecoma stans is actually an introduced plant from central America!
Amanda, I have been celebrating the fact that my internship officially started yesterday! :) The natives program here in Texas was started by Lady Bird Johnson. If I remember, she donated the land for the Wildflower Center. We've had a lot of wild mustard (invasive) cropping up in the medians which is crowding out the bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrush and the other native flowers. The facebook page for the Wildflower Center is the one who shared that article about Cary. (although people should get in the habit of googling themselves on occasion!)
Carole, we don't have bunnies here (or moles) because the ground is too hard for them to dig. But, my birdfeeder on the back porch feeds a pretty large supply of the wildlife. :) We get armadilloes who sneak under the fence and dig up the grubs (they can go right on ahead with that!) raccoons who get into whatever they can, the squirrels who clean up after the birds (Phoebes are such a mess!I) the pair of rats who live under the porch by the pool (I don't have the heart to chase them away - they're pretty good at porch cleanup) and then the different birds that visit the feeder. :) Daggum Phoebes swarm the feeder and drop all the mealworms on the porch. Phooey. I can't leave birdseed bags outdoors so they go into big storage bins!
Crystal, maybe you should try again. Wildflower and native landscaping has been making a huge comeback.
Hi Carey -- Happy Belated Birthday! Hope it was a good one. Congrats on the internship.
I frequently see a squirrel hanging upside down grazing on sunflower seeds from the hanging birdfeeder for the clingers. They periodically try to hide their bounty in the electrical transformer at the back of the yard. Boom! ... swan dive ... fried squirrel. It has kept the squirrel population in check a bit.
Lots of wild mustard around here as well. I like to eat chickweed in the winter when it's young and tender. I usually just pick it and eat it while I'm out there doing something or the other in the yard. Also like dandelion greens (cooked) as well as the flowers. I may be the only person here who purposely has a broadleaf plantain in my hanging planter out front.
Thank you Carole, it was great! :) I wish the fox squirrels would do that around here sometimes, so they'd leave my plants alone. I did see my first rock squirrel last week (my neighbor told us she's seen it, but this was the first time I had!) - and I figure out where it nests today. I'll leave them alone - they're supposedly endangered so I'll probably throw my not-so-good tomatoes and peaches near the nests. :) http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/tmot1/spervari.htm
The state has been working overtime to combat the mustard. Since it grows much faster than most of the wildflowers, they mowed pretty early and kept a lot of them from coming to seed. Unfortunately, we didn't get much rain this spring (except the last couple of days - wow! San Antonio flooded!) so there wasn't much for a wildflower show this year. I'll have to pull some chickweed when it comes back up in January. I can get the dandelions any time as they never leave! I wish I could find something to put in my hanging planters out front that would survive my neglect!
Someone sent me morning glory seeds even though I have no more vertical climbing space. She recommended hanging baskets.
I just found an mg coming up from some seed I had direct sowed along the fence line year before last. I have no idea what variety it is. My climbing space is getting limited as well. I need to install more.
Those rock squirrels are cuties, Carey.
I have plenty of climbing space!!! I just haven't the tiniest idea what would actually survive my neglect and our terrible soil! I'm not a big fan of MGs because of their tendency to spread and take over...everything, and that they reseed so much. I do have a narrow spot next to my driveway that may work though!
Amanda, I had to go look at your trade list "wants" again - if my Standing Cypress ever gets around to blooming (the stalks are a good 6 feet high now) I'll be happy to share some seed with you.
Carole, I didn't realize how extensive your list! I saw a few things that are easy for me to get here - definitely the possum haw Holly. I could probably get you a sapling very easily.
lol. I maintain some of my list as an inventory list as well. I'm just not into disabling things over there all the time. Besides getting boxes of plants in the swaps, I did have a gardening buddy here before she moved. We used to go out to find abandoned properties with plants we could "share", visit neighbors with plants and get starts, buy plants at the Farmers' Market, go to plant sales, etc. You get the picture.
That would be great to get the Possum Haw. It's one I've really wanted. If that works out, can I send you anything in trade? If not, I'll pay postage.
I spent several hours outside today planting and pruning. I had to cut back the 'Forest Pansy' Redbud, for one. I stuck several cuttings in a rooting pot hoping they'll root. We'll see. They are pretty tough plants here so I'm thinking there is a good likelihood they will.
Better go refill the bird feeders. Ya'll have a good Memorial Day.