Plant Propagation the Basics Sept 2017

Keith , it really seems to help with staying patient , However , sometimes as you said ,a lot of possibles and thought happen

Gypsi Truck tinkering , Brings a load of things to mind ,, he , he ,, he ,,

Mostly looking about seedlings , seeing what could be done , as I feel better the next few days I will get some things done ,

Nothing that exciting, door seals, valve cover gaskets if I don't chicken out, distributor cap, themostat as its seal is leaking too, and maybe a stereo. I have about 90,000 miles on this engine, the silicone seals are just due for a scrape off and renew.

Here ya go Deb. Winner of the first MG sprout to bloom, my daughter spotted it first while I was doin a small 6-12-6 fertilizer dose on other plants. Normally the go to fertilizer in our loam is 13-13-13, so I hope this one will help these beds I havent fertilized in a year.

That is pretty Kitt

I agree , Good looking MG ,

Another one this morning. Havin fits postin, chuckl, you guys are here too. So another try. Rain drizzlin here all day. Hopefully a bit more time before the cool weather sets in

rain here also , weather is kind of odd at times
The can the inside with the outer blades on ,
Mums and Aster
Anemone
sunflower today

I guess I must have had beginners luck with my sweet potatoes last year. Not so good this year. The biggest one is a foot long but all are very skinny. We only had one hot week and even then the nights were cool. Dug them about 10 days earlier but the deer have devoured all the tops. Don't know if it's a sign of a tough winter coming or what but the deer have been cleaning up with a vengeance lately. I hardly have a leaf left on a Hosta. All just naked stems. Seems pointless to put on spray now as we have already had 2 frosts

my hostas are naked from lack of rain, like one leaf each. I'm just happy they are still alive. Will dig sweet potatoes around the end of september

I have too much water and too many critters for potatoes ,

Raised bed is where I put my sweet potatoes this year. Last year I had both in ground and raised, and the in ground didn't get lifted before fall rain, they all rotted.

Gypsy, Perilla re-seeeds like crazy.
Kitt, so happy you got your mg to bloom. I thought about you every time we passed a semi so that was about all the time.. LOL we drove 9 states total for the trip up and back. it was nice except for Ohio, they had a cop at every half mile on the toll road. I bet I could have met some Gardening peeps if I had their numbers I was in so many locations. Anyway, still no rain here it has been three weeks now. Had 98 degrees with 30 mph winds yesterday so not too happy with that. Oh well.. lost a few seedlings but other than that Charlie did a great job of taking care of my gardens. Good to see you all, and Ju with the new project..

98 with those high winds here today. I'm in the AC working on the website as soon as I get my contacts in. My poor dry seedlings of echinacea and asclepius tuberosa, and a few other things. Put the soaker on even though it's hot and sunny, won't do good to wait til they are dead this evening.

No idea what this butterfly is on my frostweed, but amazing is a good word. Very few monarchs this year, I think I have seen 3 one at a time, could have seen one 3 times.

arent the black monarchs females? I will go searching, those blue dots are special

oh i love that butterfly! We have so many butterflys here and one hatched while I was gone, so happy we produced one. I love that frostweed!
I planted some but none up as yet.

I love all those photo's also Life about the Garden ,
98 degrees on the porch most of today and too , too hot , but I looked over seeds and seedlings ,
Sounds like you had a good enjoyable time Debra , Even a smile and comfy to be home ,

According to Texas Plants and Invertebrates that is a Great Purple Hairstreak. I was quite impressed. I have a lot of orange and brown butterflies around right now. from the Queen to the Gulf Fritillary, American Lady, Painted Lady, Red Admiral, Variegated Fritillary, Hackberry Emperor, and some kind of brown Skippers, probably Clouded. But that orange and blue belly, that's pretty impressive. I don't know where they get the purple part of the name from

This message was edited Sep 20, 2017 4:58 PM

Those are all nice BF's Looks like the Red Spotted Purple does here ,,some anyway I am seeing a few but not as many as usual

I didnt find it Gypsi, glad you did. I dont get too many bfs. An odd one now and then. Rain in the area, I couldnt talk myself into going out today, but did run sprinklers where it was needed. I still have blooms on these vines that arent blooming, but those 2 vines give me one or 2 blooms a day. It isnt winter enough down here to have the humidity drop, so it is almost rougher than driving up north.
Shadow, the great hunter, chuckl, had a vulture in his sight today. Vulture almost didnt get in the air agin. We have a rather large red tail hawk that visits the yard and makes all the birds and squirrels go silent. Shadow doesn't tty for the hawk- he would apt to be flown off he tried, and I was glad the vulture just wanted a drink from the pond. Stay warm Jen.

This message was edited Sep 21, 2017 12:17 AM

is Shadow a small dog or a cat?

Keith, where did you acquire your sweet potato slips? If you used some you saved from a store, they might not have been an F1 slip. That means they wouldn't have grown true to the parent stock. Also weather can be hard on plants- not every year does everything grow great.
Deb, new MG color finally! And I included our wild mg blooming at the wet weather pond.
Gypsi, Shadow is a grown cat, black as that vulture, maybe 5-6 yrs old. He seems to be missing this morning, probably asleep somewhere.
How we grow sweet taters, chuckl

awww, I hope Shadow is home soon! Pretty Scarlett oHara, a real beauty. I'm kitty sitting my Grand Cat, Oona. She is such a petite lil thing. Not an outdoor cat, and very missy prissy. We get along fine, tho, Cuz I'm her Grandma. :D

Kitt, I order some of my sweet potato slips from a heritage seed place called Sand Hill Preservation center, but for years I just planted a sweet potato from the grocery store and they produced a pretty fair crop. Not as good as Sand Hill. I'm growing deep purple ones this year from SH, and a couple of grocery store orange that took off.

Shadow is a beautiful kitty. Glad he didn't take on the vulture

Kitt, I order my sweet potato cuttings from Veseys Seeds in Prince Edward Island. They are labeled as Covington and are for short season climates. I grow them in a 100 gallon black Rubbermaid livestock water trough if you missed the picture I posted earlier in the year and last year. The black trough keeps the soil warmer and it ís filled with mostly well rotted compost. They are well pampered sweet potatoes but we had a very cool summer overall and early frost.
Keith

And sweet taters love heat. My memory was once a lot longer. Gypsi, there is a place in Tn I like, but not gonna try in ground here. Covington. No info on those.
Something keeps biting my Everlasting sage at the stem of the flowers. Havent found him yet

I have dozens of these guys in my yard right now. Have to look back, I think it is the same kind that Kira was challenging me to keep alive in the greenhouse real early this spring. By the way I failed that challenge.

Update. The butterflies I have all over the yard right now are very similar to the one I was trying to keep alive for Kira in March but not the same. It appears these are Painted Ladies and the one in March was a Tortoise shell.

Looking nice Kieth ,

Couple of Monarch at noon today

I am so happy to see any kind of flutterby at this point in my life. HOT, WINDY, and FRIED I am right now.. *phew* back to figuring out what to bring inside first. *sigh*

Beautiful monarchs and Tithonia Ju. I pulled my Tithonia today. Sad😥
Beautiful monarchs and are those Painted Ladies all over the Sedum Debra? Looks pretty close to the same scene I have going on here.

I have painted lady butterflies too, Keith. Kitt, I ordered sweet potato slips from Steele, or something like that, in Tennessee one year, and from Sand Hill same year. Sand Hill arrived later but far out performed. Harder to order. Don't take credit cards, have to mail a check, but awesome selection

I really did not grow as much this year , lots of butterflies the past few days , not many pics though , their acting nervous ,
Should have some nice blooms next year though
1 Hollyhock sprouted again ,
2 Malva
3 mallow
Narrow leaf or syrica Milkweed sprout
tuberosa milkweed sprout

1 Echinacea
2 Echinacea
3 Lamb's ear and Fleabane ?
4 A large yellow blooming ?
5 Red Echinacea
There is more ,, should be blooms next season ,

wow Ju, you are sprouting right and left! Kieth, I had to un do a tithonia, too, but not because of cold, because of heat! This continued drought and heat is killing me.

I have been light headed and a very careful today . Mid 90's and miserable for a while ,
Debra I would say don't let it get you down , but it already has me , sooo I need to work on my advice before saying anything

It's very hot here too, not getting much done in garden

All things being when it gets that way , if your not comfortable , and that is really what the garden is for being , then not to do
I still have several plants blooming ,
These are about all that focused

My red dye amaranth is still kicking out some blooms, I pulled all the seed I could yesterday, afraid I'll have a lot coming up there next year.

I had several for years Then I lost the seeds , started again this year fun plant
way too hot to do much today ,
Mostly cleaning some seeds several bags like these are done . (with more to do

Me too!
I cleaned out the big seeds and then started on the Gaura, had to stop from neck cramps LOL. I guess I can go to bed now, and sleep late. It's Sunday! My tomato, Pepper, Morning glory patch. Clematis is blooming for the third time now, with smaller faded blooms. Is this normal? This is an unknown morning glory that was given to me by a former DG member. I call it NOID BLUE .. it is an i.Nil , I love the pink ring.
Moon vine just now starting to bloom, which is bad cuz it won't give me seeds in time. Another species morning glory called i carnea. it is really really tall. I am going to have to cut it back. The dang thing is just blooming away.