I've recently volunteered to take care of a small butterfly/hummingbird garden at my daughter's preschool. I went over to take a look at it today, and was able to identify most of the plants but could use some help on a few. I'm attaching a few pictures. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Dennis
Identification help!
This plant is about 8 feet tall and was covered with more bees than I have ever seen on a single plant. It also appeared to have a fairly large number of volunteers nearby.
That is frostweed right?
I believe that this is some sort of senna. Can anyone verify?
Is this some sort of holly?
Senna occidentalis - I think fuzzy pic...
Might be a live oak seedling... holly I dont know well but send a pic to Resin and you can know for sure on that one.
Small shrub...
Flower...
zinnia, simple old one.
Shrub (hard to make out with background greenery, but it is in the center)...
You can probably see that somebody has been hacking away at these plants without any real knowledge of pruning techniques.
I'm hoping to get everything in good shape and labeled for whoever takes this over next school year.
Hibiscus?
Shrub might be a bottlebrush or a willow...
Hibiscus - looks like it, but not really watered if that is the case.
In addition to these plants, I found lantana, mint, winecup, rosemary, passion vine, a few herbs, a miniature rose, and flame acanthus.
I would also appreciate knowing if any of these plants are poisonous and not well suited to being right next to a preschool playground. In particular, I was wondering about the senna beans since my daughter brought some home to me the other day, calling them "green beans".
Thanks in advance for your help!
Dennis
Thanks for the help, Mitch! I should also state that this garden isn't covered by an automatic sprinkler, so drought tolerance would be good...
Dennis
Dennis - the Senna is not smart to have there really where kids might eat it..
The hibiscus will never really get good and big there then. There are a lot of good native plants you can use. Look here for good native butterfly plants - http://www.texasstar.org/
Dennis the Hibiscus is a Manihot, it is the Golden Hibiscus on the website Mitch gave you. Mine gets water, but looks much like that; they are in the okra family.
So even with water it stays like that one? A good hibiscus that can take the summer once they are established is the Texas Star - a great plant. When I had a school garden there in DFW I went weekly to water some, it did not get everything all the water they wanted but it did get some of the the water to keep them going untill school started again and the rains came.
A few plants I forgot to mention earlier: West Texas mistflower and black eyed susan.
Now I am not sure it is the same. The leaves look different, but here is a pic of mine. Tall slender and fraile looking! lol!
The Senna may be this one, it blooms in the fall. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/88999/
W TX Mistflower is a great one for nectar at this time of year.
Could the hibiscus be Halberd Leaved Swamp Mallow?
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1181/
(Oops, wrong link! Fixed it.)
This message was edited Oct 4, 2008 9:50 PM
Sounds like you have a project! Do you want turk's cap and rubeckia? I have lots of texas star hibiscus seeds and may have a plant. Would you rather this on the other thread? ......Lots of questions.
Dennis, if you find out about that holly thing, would you let me know? I have a patch of it that the birds planted.
That one sure looks like an oak to me. The first pic does looks kind of like a Frostweed. They're blooming now and the bees and butterflies are all over them here. Now, if they'd just bloom all summer also, they'd be the perfect nectar plant! Could that shrub after the zinnia be an oleander?
Linda, I think you might be right about the oleander. I was thinking that, too.
Anna, the turk's cap and hibiscus would be great! They already have some rubeckia, so they wouldn't need that.
Dennis
Dennis I think picture #6 is a Desert Willow.
if it is Oleander it is very toxic.
Noticed that I have pink rock rose and yellow butterfly weed(plant and seeds)How many do you need altogether?
Neat project. I will gladly share Echinacea seeds ~ purple coneflower if you need some. The butterflies like them and for me they bloom in early summer.
I'll definitely try to clarify whether the one shrub is a desert willow or oleander. I guess it shouldn't be too hard if I bring a few leaves home for a closer look.
I really don't need a large number of plants. I'm guessing that the garden area is really only about a 12x14 area or so. I need to pull out the senna due to the poison beans, and there is a decent amount of space around the frostweed (if that is what it is). Anna has volunteered some turk's cap and hibiscus, which should be all I need for larger plants. Butterfly weed and coneflower would be great, since it is supposed to be a butterfly and hummingbird garden. Does rock rose attract anything?
Thanks for all the help so far! I'm really hoping to get this into good shape by the end of the school year. :)
Dennis
Dennis, the Frostweed suspect is really frostweed, when you cut it back be sure to leave about 8 inches of stem fo you can see the ice if it does freeze.
The Rock rose is a nectar plant and so pretty it is very much worth having.
It looks like the love of butterflies and native plants is spreading far and wide, such a good thing to see.
Josephine.