Hot July Wildflower Wednesday

I have been very lax in posting and reading other blogs.  I want to at least participate in Gail's Wildflower Wednesday, even though I missed it last month.  Our yard was on our local Wachiska Audubon Society's wildlife habitat garden tour on Father's Day, and the next week, the Nebraska Herbal Society came for a tour and slide show of plants that are pollinator friendly.  While I thoroughly enjoyed doing this, I plan on being on no tours next year!  One change I made to the way I normally garden was not cutting back plants like sweet black eyed susans, and gray headed coneflower in order for them to be less floppy, because that also causes them to bloom later, and I was hoping for as many blooms as possible.  I am planning on letting plants grow closer to each other next year, too, so there is less dirt exposed.  I also want to start watering much less.  Maybe I won't need to cut back as much.


Gail highlighted Joe Pye Weed this month.  Mine are just starting to open their buds.  I am doing what I usually end up doing, and show a number of plants that are currently blooming.  I did leave some out this time, but did get a number of them.  I thought I'd include some wider views first. The coneflowers and liatris are doing well.

This is the west side of the front yard.

Here is the east side of the front.  The black eyed susans are in their full glory.

False sunflowers are the first plant that was chosen for the first flower bed that was made when Larry agreed not to plant grass back where the soil was dug to put in an egress window.  These are not in their original spot because there wasn't enough light, and they tended to flop.

It's been fun to watch the bees feed on the clematis pitcherii blooms.

The sweet black eyed susans were not blooming for the tours, but are now.

I think this may be a cross between Virginia and short toothed mountain mints. I don't remember planting it in this spot.  The wasps and such feed on this as much as the others.

I believe this is a hover fly on the black eyed susan bloom.

Whorled milkweed is one of my favorite plants, but is hard to photograph.  It is one of the last to come up in the spring, but is pretty hardy.  This one has a milkweed bug and aphids on it, but it will be fine.

The upright prairie coneflower plants are doing well.

I think I see the most diversity of bees on the gray headed coneflowers.

Wild quinine is another of my favorite plants.  It has a long bloom time, and provides for a number of different insects.

I frequently see bees on the monarda fistulosa.

What draws the most bees at a time are the wild sennas.

I am very sad not to be seeing many butterflies this year.  There are a few here and there, but normally, this time of year, there are almost always some when I go out to check.  I have heard others in different parts of the country say the same thing, so it must not be due to all the rain we had this spring, and then the very hot temperatures.  I guess that happened over much of the country as well, too, though.  I wonder what's going on, and if they will be able to recover and there will be more in the future.  Let's all do our parts and not use pesticides.  

November Wildflower Wednesday

We are enjoying a mild fall, even though we've had a number of nights that have dipped down to the 20s.  I have mostly wider views for this month's Wildflower Wednesday, hosted by Gail, of Clay and Limestone.

We'll start out with the curb beds.  I've mentioned that I do the clean up in the spring, so that birds can have the seeds to eat, and whatever native bees and such who live in the stems can live safely over the winter.

I love the puffy seed heads of the various kinds of liatris.  I'm thinking this is aspera.

The spikes of puff on the left are another kind of liatris, I think, a cultivar.  I think the dark colored seed heads are black eyed susans.

I guess I really do like liatris seed heads!  Here's another clump, with New England asters on the right.

The plant on the left is a coneflower of some kind.  The plant in the front is New England aster.

The Mexican hat plants are still green and have some color in their blooms.

This is across from where a sidewalk would be from the west curb area. The wild senna seed heads are pretty cool looking.  I'm also seeing more liatris, stiff goldenrod, riddles goldenrod and some grasses in this photo.

The false baptisia on the south side of the fence still has seed pods that look good.

Heading into the area where the tree used to be, we see meadow rue and cup plant.

This was the last clump of New England asters to bloom, and I see it still has one bloom on it.

I found a photo of wild quinine that I liked better than this one, but decided to include both, because if I delete this, I'll have a wider gap that I have to edit the post to fix.  The gold in the back is Amsonia illustris.

The gray-headed coneflowers still have a bit of color.

These are sweet black eyed susans.

I just transplanted this clump of ironweed from another part of the yard this spring.  It did very well.

Here is the other clump of wild quinine.  I have it in several spots in the yard.  It has the longest bloom time of all of the flowers, and I see pollinators on it all of its bloom time.  It looks nice afterward as well!

I am still enjoying the Illinois bundleflowers.

Since we started with a view from the street, I thought we'd end with a view from the porch.

I hope all is well with you at the holiday season.  There are so many bad things happening in the world that are out of our control.  What we do have in our control is how we treat others.  I hope we all find ways to show kindness and respect to those we come into contact with.  This time of year is also a good time to remember to forgive those in your life who have hurt or offended you.

Curb Beds

Well, it is October, and I am finally accepting the fact that it is fall, and while the gardening season is winding down, it is not totally over.  After I took these photos of the curb beds, my battery died, so I decided to do some weeding and trimming.  I am remembering that October first was the blog's 6th anniversary.  Last year, I mentioned that I have not been blogging as often, and this year, it seems to be even less.

I am working to fill this area after taking out a number of day lilies.  It is shadier than other parts of the front, so I have put some things in that don't mind shade.  Hopefully, they will grow larger next year.

There aren't a lot of plants in bloom, but this rose has a few, after blooming much of the season.  It's been here a number of years, and this is the first one where I have a few volunteers from it.  I hope to get some moved to other spots in the yard in the spring.

I like to go around taking photos so I can remember from one year to the next what is growing.  The sedges have done well, as has the red blooming plant I got from a friend a few years ago, and the name is not coming to me.  It may be a persicaria of some kind.

The side oats grama and perennial geraniums sure are holding their own against each other!  Can you see what else is blooming?

The perennial geraniums sure have done well next to the curbs.

 Facing north and west now, the bare area is where I took down the common milkweed because it was diseased and dying.  It will be back next year.

Back to the west side, facing east, the 'Fireworks' goldenrod plants here and there are doing well.

Back to the front, the reblooming irises are doing their thing.  I am in the process of thinning out the irises.  While the blooms are pretty, they seem out of place to me this time of year.

Many of the plants on the other side are also planted in this area.

After taking these photos, I removed some of these irises and planted a big old clump of Fremont's clematis that had to be dug out from a bed at my church.  It split, and I was pleased to see new growth forming, so I was able to plant both in different spots.   I didn't have big hopes of it surviving, but now, I'm optimistic.  The grassy looking plants next to the prairie dropseed on the left are sedges, but I'm not sure what kind. 

This is looking back to the west.  There used to be mostly day lilies in this area, but I removed them to put more native plants in.  I think this is the third year for these.  The perennial geranium on the end has been there longer.  It almost looks out of place.  Maybe I'll take that out, too.

This is heading to the west and facing north.  I like the liatris blooms, even when they turn to seedheads.

This is a skullcap.  I can't remember which kind.  It's either 'Smokey Hills' or 'Mongolian Skies'.

Now that the English asters have seeded themselves around the yard, I am thinking about taking the two original clumps out.  They need frequent trimming to keep them from blocking the sidewalk, and they get the disease that causes the bottom stems to turn dark.  I'll have to think of something different to plant there. They sure have had lots of insect visitors!

The blue mistflowers have done well without spreading too far this year.  I am interested in seeing how they do next year.

Can you see the blue mistflower clump behind the side oats grama and other plants?  Hopefully, these will prevent them from spreading too far.

We had a good amount of rain this season.  I hope we get enough snow to provide good insulation for the plants this year, and that spring doesn't take too long to get here.  I hope all is well with you and your gardens.

Blog's Fifth Anniversary

The other day, I was remembering that I started blogging in an October, and when I checked, saw that it was October 1, 2008.  I've been blogging for 5 years!  I've slowed down quite a bit, now that I'm spending so much time on Facebook, but at this point, have no plans to give it up.  I do hope to budget my time better so I can visit more blogs than I have been.

I went back and found some photos from August to October of 2008, and then took some from similar views today.  I didn't get them close enough to put them next to each other as before and after photos, though. 

This may have been the second season for the newest planting area at the time.  I had originally wanted it for annuals, and there were still plenty of them here at this point.

The silver maple tree was still on the west side of the front yard in 2008.  I'm thinking this part of the curb was just dug up to plant in 2007.

A number of the plants in this area are still there, but not all of them.  This bed was put in the year after the one across the sidewalk, which is pictured in the next two photos.



The New England asters, Winter savory, and Knautia are still in the area.



I've mentioned this bed was dug when the neighbors across the street had to have their water main replaced.  Larry and I had different ideas on the size of it, and he kind of won at the time.  I had wanted to go ahead and take it all the way across, or at least bigger than this.



I've mentioned that whenever I saw a butterfly on a plant tag, I would purchase those plants.  I don't remember where I first got the Verbena bonariensis plants, but they seed themselves each year, and I haven't had to plant any more of them.  Here's a Painted lady butterfly from 2008.

I've enjoyed having Monarchs around each year, too.

I was thinking I had grown Blue mist flower before, and I'm pretty sure that's what this is.  I don't remember whether I pulled it out or if it died out on its own.  A few weeks ago, I planted a clump of it in an area where there are some grasses and other plants that could keep its spread in check.  It's struggling a little, but hopefully, it will be OK.

Most of these plants are still in the area to the east of the house.  I did take out the Lamb's ears.

I included this photo, looking the other direction to show the Amsonia hubrichtii, one of my favorite native plants.  While I was looking for the butterflies on the tags, I was also choosing plants when the tag said they were native to our area.  I liked the idea of those before learning more of the benefits of growing them to the environment.

 Speaking of native plants, here is a Rigid, or Stiff goldenrod in the back yard.  It is still there and doing well.  I'm thinking I must have discovered the plant sales at the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum by 2008.  I either got this there, or at B&B Nursery, which I'm sad to hear is up for sale.

I'm still enjoying the Short toothed mountain mint.

The Virginia mountain mint spread farther than I was comfortable with, so I moved it to another spot, then found out that it calms down after the first several years.  That's OK, because it didn't stay dug, and came back a little farther back from here, where I don't mind it.

These are the photos I took today.  There have been lots of changes to these areas.



We had about 1.5 inches of rain last night, so I didn't try to garden today, like I was really hoping to.  It was good to be able to take some photos.

I took out the daylilies that were in the curb area this spring, and planted some sedges, Purple poppy mallow, Liatris, which stayed small all summer, and added another Butterfly milkweed.  The volunteer salvias of some kind came back, too.  I also kept the perennial geraniums that were there.

I added some Sideoats gamma and other grasses to the area.  I don't remember whether I planted the red salvia, or if it's a volunteer.

Herbs like Winter savory and Lavender grow near native and non native plants, including Common milkweed and Ironweed in this area.

I'm thankful Larry gave in and let me take the planting area across the curb.  I've posted about the tree coming down, and how again, I was able to expand the planting areas.  I took a number of daylilies out of the curb area, and when the ones left bloomed this year, I picked some more to take out to make more room for natives.  I've mentioned, though, that while I feel it is essential for the survival of beneficial insects for us to grow the native plants that provide nectar and food for the caterpillars, I do not have plans to replace every single non-native plant.  I'm sad that it is the cause of some strife between gardeners. 

 While I was taking photos at the curb, I noticed a Monarch on the Riddell's goldenrod.  It's not native to Southeast Nebraska, but when I went to look again to see where it is native, the USDA Plant Database was down because of the government shut down.

Here are some views from the porch of the area where the tree used to be.

I know I've posted these recently, but I sure am enjoying the area, and am tickled at all of the butterflies, bees, and such that visit.

The three peonies in the area were planted by my mother-in-law when she lived here.  I am probably going to take the Painter's palette out because the strawberries under the bench are spreading into the area.

I don't show this view often.  The area on the right is what's in front of the fence that borders the area where the tree used to be.  There is more dirt showing than I like.  Hopefully, the plants will fill out more next year.

We're back to the east side of the front yard.  I planted a number of grasses and some native plants that are also in the area across the sidewalk so it will be more like one big bed with the sidewalk to the front porch as a path. 

One of the most frequent ways people find my blog is by doing a search about whether they should trim or deadhead their butterfly bushes.  Now that they are finding that butterfly bushes are causing problems when their seeds get into the water systems and grow down the way, choking out native plants that are needed by whatever wildlife is that way, I have been trying to decide whether to keep it or not.  It has never seeded itself here.  I do deadhead it, but can't imagine I get every seed.  It is actually growing larger and larger every summer, so I had already been thinking about taking it out.  I am undecided, but Larry isn't ready to see it go.  The butterflies do like it.

Here are the latest clippings I cut off yesterday.

Like I said, the east side of the house looks a lot like it did 5 years ago.  I hadn't realized how many asters had seeded themselves, but am glad they are adding their purple to all of the yellow.  The big yellow blooms are 'Wichita Mountains' goldenrod, which the insects are enjoying about as much as the asters.  It's been fun seeing lots of the butterflies and bees on the blooms.

I didn't show photos of the back yard or the vegetable garden this time.  That's the back yard behind the fence.

The vegetable garden is across the driveway, behind the tubs and lattice.

I am thankful for all of the nice people I have met through garden blogging, many of which I met at Blotanical, which I haven't visited for awhile.  I am thankful to Stuart for starting it.  I don't know what the future holds for blogging.  Sometimes I feel like I am posting "reruns" because, even though I change things out from time to time, there aren't that many changes.  Still, it seems like new people come along who haven't seen it, and maybe they will get some ideas for their gardens, or reinforcement for something they are doing.  Also, I really miss visiting the number of blogs I used to.   I know I am missing out.

I hope fall is going well for you, and that winter doesn't come too soon.  Take care!