August 2015 Wildflower Wednesday

I am relieved I am getting my Wildflower Wednesday post up before the day is over.  Gail, from Clay and Limestone hosts it the 4th Wednesday of the month.  Go check out other posts!  I hope to make it to all of them.  I still am spending too much time on Facebook, and not keeping up with blogging.

There sure is a lot of yellow in our yard right now.  The pollinators sure aren't complaining!  The meadow rue and cup plant are the tallest in the yard.  You probably wouldn't find them growing together in nature, though, because the meadow rue likes it more moist than the cup plant.  They do fine in the yard, where I sometimes do some spot watering.  This area does not have a sprinkler head in it, so gets less than the rest of the yard in seasons with less rain than we had this year.  We've only run the sprinkler a handful of times, during a hotter, dryer spell.

The cup plant blooms have been visited by lots of bees and a few butterflies. It's hard for me to get photos in good focus that far up.  This one was OK enough to post.  I always like it when more than one butterfly can be in a photo.

The coneflower seeds are being eaten by goldfinches.  The sweet black-eyed susans and native Helen's flower have been having lots of insect activity.

I am glad I found two small Helenium autumnale plants a couple years ago. They are now one large clump.

I believe Heather Holm has told me before that the bee on the left is a long-horned bee, and I forgot.  I asked for help again, and think I am going to remember this time.  I am so tickled that there are a whole bunch of them enjoying the blooms this year, mostly the Helen's flower and sweet black-eyed susans.  Here's a link to an article I found online that she wrote:  http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/52345294/list/look-for-long-horned-bees-on-summer-flowers

From what Heather said in her book, Pollinators of Native Plants, I can tell that this one is a male, because it has the long antennae.  The females do not.

The females have the long pollen collecting hairs that look like saddle bags full of pollen.  I have not seen many males, but have seen a lot of females.  They have solitary nests in the ground.  There is a lot of open ground across the street where my gardening attempts do not go well due to the walnut tree and rabbits.

We have two sizes of bumblebees that frequent the blooms.  This looks to be the larger size.

I am not sure what this little flying thing is, but it is less than 1/4 an inch long.  There are a lot of tiny flyers on the blooms this year, too.

It's good that there are some blooms that are not yellow.  The Liatris ligulistylus has been a favorite of the monarchs.  Other butterflies and bees also frequent it.  They feed on the other liatrises, such as aspera, and now that those are opening, they may be found on them just as often.

Here's a painted lady on the same liatris.

Here's another long-horned bee on some ironweed.  I have a couple kinds scattered around the yard.  It's a nice relief from all of the yellow.

Here's the view going into the area where the tree used to be.  We see sweet black-eyed susan, ironweed, a switchgrass cultivar, wild quinine, and Illinois bundleflower.  Wild quinine has those white blooms early in the season, and has probably the longest bloom time of any in my garden.  The insects, including monarchs, are still visiting them.

This is the plant I lost count at 12 of the long-horned bees on yesterday, and then saw at least that many more, but they got mixed up with the ones I'd already counted.

The goldenrod beetles are here.  I guess I am resigning myself to the fact that the days are getting shorter, and fall is on its way.

This photo was taken a few days ago, showing that the monarchs are also enjoying these blooms.  By the way, this plant is native to areas near my SE Nebraksa home, but not here.  It sure does well, though.

I see I should have straightened this photo before posting it.  Don't get dizzy!  Our yard was featured last week on a Pure Nebraska segment.  Here's a link to it:  http://www.1011now.com/purenebraska/headlines/Keeping-Yourself-and-the-Environment-Healthy-with-Home-Landscapes-322323981.html

I am hoping this posts OK.  I got a message from Google saying my blog storage was full, and I need to buy more or some of my photos will get deleted.  It stated I was on a free plan, but I am not.  We pay $2.00 a month.  Have any of you had problems like that?  My husband emailed them, but we have not heard back.  He checked, and the money is still being paid.

Wildflower Wednesday

We had record rainfall in the spring, and then very hot temperatures with high heat indexes, which made getting out into the garden more of a challenge this season.  The time sure has slipped by, too, and now that the days are getting shorter, I am feeling sad, and trying to get out as much as I can.  Barring that, I open the front door and look to see if there are any insect visitors on the flowers. 

Here is my post for Wildflower Wednesday, hosted by Gail, of Clay and Limestone.  I like the way she highlights flowers, giving information about them  I can't seem to find just one or two for a post, so I usually end up showing many of the native/wildflowers that are blooming.

The Illinois bundleflowers have just started blooming in the last couple of days.  I love the plants for the foliage and cool looking seedheads, which turn brown in the fall.

I think this is a bee of some kind that has found one of the blooms.

I love the native clematis pitcheri, and am thankful I have them in two spots.

The wild senna plants have been loaded with pollinators the last few days.

I trimmed back some plants, like this monarda fistula, so they would be bushier and less floppy.  This also caused a delay in blooming.  It's good to see they are now blooming.

This is Euphorbia, I think, corollata.  It is hard to photograph, but is one I wish I had more of this time of year.  I love the many little white blooms on them.

The hoary vervain given to me by a friend who has real prarie is almost finished blooming, but still looking good.

I got the prairie petunias started before I knew what they were.  There were some on the property where we built our church, and I liked them, so brought some home.  They self sow well, and I like the places they show up.

Usually, there are lots of insects feeding on plants, such as this short toothed mountain mint  There have been a few this year, but not as many as usual.

Black eyed susans and this ironweed have been blooming for a few days.  Some of the ironweeds are still in bud.

The gray headed coneflowers are not getting as many visitors as usual, but  I am glad there are some.

I've mentioned that I watch our granddaughter 4 days a week.  She turned a year the end of June.  I am thankful she loves looking at the flowers and insects.  She'll point, and say, "Pretty!"  We spent a few minutes yesterday looking at the multitudes of tiny black insects of some kind on the rattlesnake master blooms.  At least they are getting some activity, but then, not as much as usual, either.

Most of the liatris blooms are open, but the aspera and some others are still in bud.  I was glad to see a skipper today.

I was pleased to see what I think is a black swallowtail butterfly going to each clump of golden alexanders, hopefully, depositing eggs.  It was hard to get a photo, but I did manage to get a good shot of its shadow near the mountain mint that may have self sown, and be a cross between different ones here.

Gene, from a Facebook group, Gardening with Nature in Mind, told me these are gray-headed coneflowers when I posted them, thinking they were something different.  When I tried to remember what I thought they may be, I looked around on the internet, and finally figured it out, that yellow coneflowers, Ratibida pinnata are the same thing as gray headed coneflowers.  Here I already had enough to divide, but bought more, thinking they were something different.  I guess learning the scientific names is a good idea. These are in the bed across from where the others are.  I have also been adding other plants from across the sidewalk so that they look like a large planting area separated by the front sidewalk, so these will be fine here.

Since I mentioned Ruby, I thought I'd share a photo of her enjoying some dirt.

Some of the people in our Gardening with Nature in Mind are having some difficulty with one or a few neighbors due to their choice of gardening with prairie plants.  I hope people will become more in tune with nature one of these days and be thankful for neighbors who garden with native plants.  I hope none of you are experiencing problems like that.

View from the Corner

I sometimes do posts that show the view from our front porch.  As I was standing in the street, starting to take photos of the curb bed, I got the idea to take photos from that spot, and use my zoom like I do when on the porch to see what I can see.  After taking these photos, I decided to cut the liatris aspera plants that were way taller than the other plants in that part of the bed.  The purple poppy mallow plants are blooming away, and I've trimmed them to keep them from going too far out into the street.

Zooming toward the lovely fire hydrant, we see a good number of what look to be purple coneflowers.

Zooming across the sidewalk, to the west curb bed, there are more purple coneflowers, some baby's breath, and common milkweed, which is just starting to bloom.

Can you see down the sidewalk, that we have a neighbor who has no lawn at all?

I see phlox, switchgrass, I'm thinking, 'heavy metal', Mexican hats, New Jersey tea, liatris, little bluestem grass, and a common milkweed.

Zooming to the west, and into the back yard, the giant coneflower is blooming.  The baptisia is sporting seed pods, and the pale purple coneflower and yellow coneflowers are mingling.

Coming back to the east side, there are fewer purple coneflowers in this bed, because I pulled quite a few.  I have to watch for aster yellows, and so far, the pale ones have not had it.  The orange is a cultivar of sneeze weed.

Closer to the house, in the same bed, I think that's a gray headed coneflower getting ready to bloom.  I get it mixed up with another plant, that I'm not remembering the name of, but the blooms are very similar.  The orange blooms here are a daylily I've had for awhile.

Sweet black eyed susans should be blooming in a few weeks. The rattlesnake master is blooming shorter than usual.   

I backed off of the zoom to show a fuller view of the front bed, and the side of the house.

Here's a closer view of the east side of the house.  I like my zoom!  The spiderworts are getting a bit ragged.  The alliums will be soon.

False sunflower and coreopsis provide some yellow.  The huge green plant is an amsonia.  I think this is the best year the garden phlox have had.  I think all the rain we had this spring may be the reason.

The phlox are on the south side of the driveway.  The other plants are across to the north side.  I am not remembering what the huge, white blooming plant is, but we decided to take out the gas plant after I got burned from trimming this plant, even though I thought I had been careful not to touch it.  Larry was also worried the grandkids would get hurt by it.

I hope you are having a good start to your July.  Spring went by way too quickly for me.  I hope we get enough rain, but not as much as we did in the spring.  It's been hot enough, that the soil has gotten dry, though.  I saw some pretty big cracks last night, so the little bit of rain we got in the night was very appreciated.  (I wasn't consistent in providing links, because it is getting late, but the Lady Bird Johnson site is a good resource, and if you are curious about any native plant, you can do a search there.