Well Josephine, that's not very good news! ;) With that thought in mind now, I'll have to go out and pamper them a little bit today.
Gardening with Texas Native plants & Wildflowers. Part 6
Paige, don't pamper it too much towards the end of the season. At some point those plants (esp. annuals) that think their time is up will want to make seed so that they will live on thru their young uns.
We did not knowlingly plant any. When we first moved here there was nothing growing at ground level, just solid brush. We started selective mowing as some wildflowers started coming out, and have greatly increased their numbers as of last year. This year they are in a holding pattern waiting for rain.
Also, we are blessed with a large number of snakes, which keeps us looking down and finding new plants.
And, from getting bit. Oh, I forgot, you were bit!
Well isn't that a positive way of looking at it! "Blessed" with snakes! No offense, but I'm going to have to request to be blessed in other ways. lol
John, I'll try not to over coddle them. I just thought I might make sure the dirt is around them good and they have mulch and water. I think if I stop stepping on one of them it will do a lot better!! oops...
I'm going to make a trip today or tomorow to see that lady's yard. I'll aske her if I can take some pics. Turns out she lives just two blocks from where my son is living now.
Oh good! Do tell her we'd love to see what all she has!
Picking up trash is what got me bit. Another bad habit, I guess, with penalities.
Mary, please tell her that we are all rooting for her too.
I have been collecting wildflowers coming up in our pasture. I have 3 at this point. Maybe someone will know what they are. I dug them up and put them in pots. Hope they make it. I have had this one since May 24th and it is still surviving. No flower left on it but the stalk is still green.
This is # 1
Unknown wildflower # 2. I have had this one since June 17th. Still blooming.
Hello 1953, thank you for joining this fun thread. Your picture is a little blurry, but I beleive what you have is a Penstemon, most likely Brazos penstemon, or
( Penstemon tenuis ) I have some of those and they are lovely.
They are perennials and come back, also save the seed, and scatter it where you want them, the seed is very fine, and can not be covered with soil.
They will come up next spring.
Josephine.
Unknown wildflower # 3. Have had this one since June 30th. I dug up 5 of these. There are still a lot of blooms on one of them. The leaves look wilted in the afternoon. I water them and they perk right up. How funny....... I just noticed they are all the same color..... Cool.....
Hi Josephine,
Thanks for responding. I looked up some Penstemon.... it could be...... Thanks. My camera does not take good pictures... have to blame the camera... of course it couldn't be me..... LOL... Especially when I try to get a close up of a bloom it just looks blurry.
I have really enjoyed Dave's. Every one is so nice and helpful. I hope to have lots of seeds to share one day. Thanks again. Phyllis
Phyllis, I think thar #2 is Horsemint, ( Monarda ctriodora )
and #4 is Wild Petunia, ( Ruellia nudiflora ) both very good plants, I am surprised you were able to transplant them at this time, being so hot and dry.
Josephine,
Hi Josephine,
I think you are 100% right!!! I looked up both of them and found some good clear pictures of them! I am very excited to know what they are.
Fortunately they were all close enough to our house that I put the water hose on them real slow early in the morning then late, almost dark, when it cooled off as much as it could I dug them. I figured they would be dead the next day but as of today they are still going.
We are so dry here. We have big cracks in the ground. We put up a fence this year around our yard and made it lots bigger. When I started watering the "weeds" on one end of it I watered for a full hour before it started to puddle. Hoping for rain!!! Thanks again for the much appreciated help! Have a great day! Phyllis
Phyllis...I have tons of the white petunia but none of the purple...Will you save seed...The seed pods are easy to capture...Do you want any white....My yard is full of it...
Ruthie,
I would love some seed of the white wild petunia. Will you save some seed for me?
Phyllis, The leaves of Ruellia nudiflora are much longer than wide. However, there is a subspecies, Ruellia nudiflora var. runyonii, that looks like your third photo.
Images of Central Texas wildflowers at UT show Ruellia drumondii (first link) that looks like your plant because of the wide leaves.
http://www.sbs.utexas.edu/mbierner/bio406d/images/pics/aca/ruellia_drummondiana.htm
But it's most likely this:
http://www.wildflower2.org/NPIN/Gallery/Detail.asp?ID=2346
I feel so lucky to have 2 plants of the Purple Horsemint (aka Lemon Beebalm, Monarda citriodora, in my garden. All the ones in our pastures have white flowers with rosy purple bracts, dull by comparison.
Trois, I love your positive attitude, but I agree with knokreteblond about the snakes. I don't like being surprised in my greenhouse by snakes which is what happened 2 days ago. This year, we are down to a managable number Of Partridge Pea. Last year, with all that rain, it was crowding out and killing the Bermuda grass in one of our pastures.
We have no livestock so it doesn't matter to us. We have seen so few snakes stand their ground and so many going that a way, we just don't worry enough, I guess.
yes Bbettydee I'll be glad to save seed for you and if anyone else wants it, just let me know...
Tell me more about partridge pea killing bermuda grass!!
I know it's unbelievable, but it's true. We must have had quite a repository of Partridge Pea seed in the ground and with the heavy rain we got beginning July 2003, (We received 39" rain from July thru December 2003 and 54" last year.) the germinating seeds were so dense that by the time the Bermuda broke dormancy, the Partridge Pea was over a foot high. Bermuda doesn't do well in the shade and the Partridge Pea seed had sprouted as dense as grass seed. By the time it was warm enough to spray with Grazon, much of the Bermuda grass in that pasture had died.
I wish I had taken photos of that. It seens I have been battling Bermuda all my gardening life and here was one plant that managed to outgrow it. I hated to spray the Partridge Pea, but as my husband says, we are in the grass business or our cows starve.
Hi bettydee,
Thanks for the links... I am going to go bring my plants in so I can compare them more closely.
Ruthie, yes it I get seeds off any of the plants I will save you some.... or better yet I can bring you one of the plants. We have been cleaning up the back where we extended our yard and I found a bunch of the petunia looking plants around an oak tree. I am just leaving them where they are. They seem to like it and it is a perfect spot for a flower bed. I would like to have some of the white petunia.. that would be great!
I just noticed this morning my #1 wildflower is putting on NEW flowers!!! I guess that means it is happy!!!
May have to go around the pasture this afternoon looking for more plants... :>)
Info like that needs to be filed away for whenever I try to do in my bermuda! Hmmm, lets see, "kill" it chemically, fall seed with a annual legume then, ....mmmm.
Hello everyone,
I went to Houston yesterday afternoon and visited my son. Afterwards I went by this woman's house. She must not have been home, there was no car in the drive, and I knocked and rang the doorbell, but there was no answer. I took pictures from the street and the sidewalk -public places, with views that anyone driving or walking by could see.
This is the head-on view of her home from across the street. The frame is filled from side to side with only her yard.
An angle view, you can just see the neighbor's homes past the foliage.
This is a head-on shot of her neighbor to the right. It's a corner lot, this is the neighbor's side yard.
View from the sidewalk, looking mostly at the easment in from of the yard.
A glance into the yard, from the sidewalk. The chain link fence is the last bit of the neighbor's property, then a gap in her fence, then some elements that serve as a fence. The water fountain is empty and leaning.
Mary, thank you for the pictures, it is too bad you were not able to talk to her.
All I can say is, that is really a wildscape if I ever saw one.
I guess there are all kinds of habitats, I prefer mine a little more tame.
Josephine.
Let me add that the neighbor's yards are not highly landscaped - if they are landscaped at all. They are nothing special, they are not pristine. They are just plain yards, with a tree or two, a few shrubs, and a little grass, so I don't think "landscaping" or a pristine yard is the issue with those who have complained.
I don't sit in judgement of anyone, that 's not my place and I am not qualified to be anyone's judge. I do have an opinion though, that we all have a responsibility to be good citizens and neighbors. I believe this person could easily have all natives, still have all her certifications, and at the same time be more considerate of her neighbors. It is possible to have all natives and still maintain a neat appearance. All she has to worry about is the front yard, since that is what her neighbors can see. Who cares what her back yard looks like?
Anyway, that's my two cents worth.
Carry on. :-)
Well, I'm always happy to give my opinion, and change it if someone convinces me otherwise. But after seeing pictures of her yard, I think I might tend to agree with the neighbors. From just what I can see, it doesn't look like things were intentionally planted, but just sprang up, thus making it look like weeds. I think there is a difference to being natural and looking unkept. I can't imagine that the back would look any better than what you could see, since you'd think that you'd want the view from the front to be appealing, not appalling.
All I can say about the yard is WOW........we are entitled to our own opinion and mine is I am glad I am not her neighbor.
I live in the boonies and I expect my yard to be better kept than that...I think she is being terribly unfair to her neighnors...
Here are some pictures my wife took yesterday, The first one is a hummer feeding on a "lady in red "salvia. I think that is also called a Texas sage although I'm not sure and don't have my books with me right now. There should be three more being sent.
The next is a hummer sitting on his rear on a tomato cage that I'veused for morning glories
Thie one is a picture of a catapillar of the swallowtail I believe. It's on some dill weed I planted in my front yard. I had 3 catapillars on dill in the back yard. They got about two inches long and disappeared. I don't know if that went into the pupa stage or birds got them. I'm new at this. I had planted dill, fennel, butterfly weed, and parsley hoping for this to happen but I really expected the eggs to be laid on the fennel
The last is a picture of "big red sage" although 'be much bigger next year. the place I got it was Natives of Texas in Kerrville and their show garden had a big patach of it. Lots of butterflies and hummingbirds around it. The picture is sideways. I'm not bright enought to set it the right way.
The last is a picture of "big red sage" although 'be much bigger next year. the place I got it was Natives of Texas in Kerrville and their show garden had a big patach of it. Lots of butterflies and hummingbirds around it.
Just playing with the flash at night. First is a bloom on my Desert Willow
