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.  

Changes, Heidi, and the Yard

Heidi, who appeared in many of my header photos, passed away March 1, 2016, at the age of twelve and a half.  She had some lumps for quite awhile, and in the last few months, had trouble going up steps.  She stumbled, and scared us sometimes.  In the last few weeks, it had gotten worse.  Then she started leaking urine.  The medication she went on helped, but then she started having trouble breathing.  I went with them to the vet this time, because I was afraid she wouldn't be coming back with us.  The vet said he was going to be brutally honest, and that it was time.  He said her lungs were filling with fluid.  We sat with her as she passed away. 

I went back to look at photos of her, and decided to do a post showing her over the years, along with the changes we've seen in the yard over time.  I had to start with 2008, because something went haywire with my iPhoto library, and Larry was not able to retrieve the ones I had taken up until then.  I am still sad about that.

Larry said I have too many photos, but I decided to keep them.  This has turned into a photo history of the yard as much or more than a tribute to Heidi. As soon as she saw me with my camera, she was ready to go outside with me and watch the world.

5/19/08:

5/28/08:

6/3/08:

9/21/08:

11/15/08:

6/12/09:

6/23/09:

7/7/09:

8/11/09:

8/11/09:

10/28/09:

4/17/10:

6/21/10:

4/14/10:

5/4/11:

6/18/11:  (I think.)

8/9/11:

2/4/12:

4/26/12:

8/26/12:

8/26/12:

6/6/13:

6/28/13:

7/18/13:

5/22/14:

7/17/14:

5/19/15:

6/15/15:

6/15/15:

 
10/20/15:

10/30/15:

I watch our granddaughter 4 days a week.  She has been a dog person from an early age, and loved Heidi, even though it took awhile for Heidi to get used to her.  She is still asking for Heidi.  I feel so bad for her.  I couldn't find photos of the grandsons with her, except for the one from 2011.  They come over on Saturdays.  The 8 year old loved playing with her when he got a chance, but she was usually in the basement when they were over, because the 4 year old was afraid of her. 

Larry and I have had 2 other dogs besides Heidi, and I didn't mind them, but I did bond more with Heidi, even though I got upset when she scratched on a closet door, and my Hoosier  cupboard door, trying to get to my chocolate.  She also dug some of my plants up in the back yard.  The friend we got our other yellow lab, Katie from asked us to take Heidi, shortly after Katie passed away, because the former student he gave her to couldn't keep her after all.  She and their other dog or dogs got into too much trouble.  As it turns out, she was mistreated there, and came to us with issues, some of which she outgrew, some she didn't.  I myself am not a dog person.  As a girl, I was afraid of dogs.  I used to choose the ways to walk to school that would avoid me being barked at by dogs.  I do not want to get another dog. I think I am in the minority, but they tie you down, and cost lots of money for their care.

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.