qebo's 2016 garden (2)

A rainy afternoon and evening, so I have time to catch up with photos from this holiday weekend...

In mid May I scattered milkweed seeds that I’d cold stratified in the refrigerator for several months. No evidence of activity, but meanwhile lotsa volunteers have sprouted in my plot at the community garden, so on Friday evening I dug up about 20 and transferred them to my yard.

A few weeks ago I planted three spicebushes, and a few days ago I discovered that one of them had been chomped off. So I gave the other two protective cages.

On Saturday, I began revising the strip along the south fence. I had removed patches of daylillies in mid May, and since then various weeds have appeared.

Here the weeds are removed from one section, where I’ve planted Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum), wild quinine (Parthenium integrifolium), and ice ballet milkweed (Asclepias incarnata 'Ice Ballet'). One of the wild quinine is near dead, but still has tiny green bits so I’m giving it a chance. The milk weed is flopped over, but that’s because I reoriented it; it is the lone survivor of three that I planted a month or so ago, and its stems had stretched sideways I assume to get to more sun. So I moved it further out and hope it will turn upright. The tarp is intended to kill the grass at the bottom of the yard. The branch on the tarp is a volunteer hackberry that was growing into the fence.
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Along the fence I planted three goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus). The fence is in bad shape and should be replaced, but it belongs to the neighbors and I don’t want to enter into negotiation until I’m in a better position to make decisions. Meanwhile I’m hesitant to plant anything permanent that would make fence construction difficult. The goatsbeard gets about 5’ high so it will obscure the fence but it dies back to the roots over winter.


Here are three types of goldenrod: zig-zag (Solidago flexicaulis), wreath (Solidago caesia), anise scented (Solidago odora). The ones that prefer shade are in the back where the fence blocks the sun. The ones that prefer sun are in the front which is their best chance though still may not be good enough.


Everybody in place with compost mulch from the township. The stick separates the sections, and marks a pathway for access.

On Sunday, I switched to the front yard.

I want a curve around the tree and I’ve been fiddling with its precise location for a couple weeks. The drip line of the tree is ragged, and the sun keeps moving, so any tentative decision seems wrong 15 minutes later. A decision had to be made though. There’s a swath of moss that seems to be from a combination of the water channel between the drainpipe and driveway (see previous thread), and full shade, so I marked its approximate edge and placed the curve 30” further out. Then I plopped wild geraniums (Geranium maculatum) into bits of momentary sun. They should be fine with this and the relatively bright shade at the edge of the tree. Removing the grass is labor intensive, so I removed patches and I’ll deal with the rest later. The plant in the foreground is bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) which is low and evergreen and has pink-white flowers and red berries; it is in the same family as blueberry.


The cardinal flowers (Lobelia cardinalis ‘Black Truffle’) need a place to go. An indentation between the Japanese maple and an azalea needs to be filled with something that has red or pink flowers and is no more than a few feet tall so I can still see out when I’m sitting on the porch. This isn’t necessarily a perfect match because the flowers may need more sun than they’re going to get here, but I don’t have a great alternative so this is an experiment. I have regular cardinal flowers too, and may add them here or find another spot.


This was a native sunflower that didn’t look too happy. I cleared the space, and replaced it with bee balm (Monarda didyama), which also doesn’t look too happy because it’s been sitting in pots on the deck for a month and a half; even so, it’s making an effort to bloom.



The turtleheads (Chelone lyonii ‘Hot Lips’) want some sun, and they may get enough along the driveway.


The view from the front porch. Turtleheads along the driveway. Bearberry near the short lamppost behind the tall lamppost. Geraniums around the tree. Cardinal flowers off camera to the right. The red bucket marks a possible location of the Little Free Library.

In a previous episode, I removed landscape cloth from underneath the dogwood tree and part of a rhododendron. Today I returned to the dreaded task of finishing the rhododendron, partly because I’m afraid of losing track of where I stopped, and partly because I want to plant something in front of the rhododendron. This task occupied a strenuous three hours, then I just barely managed to clean up before rain began. So this was a no-glory day; I didn’t actually plant anything. The photos are before and after: the front with a stone path to the left, and the space between the rhododendron and a tree. The landscape cloth did not extend to the tree but from the condition of the soil I'd suppose the base of the tree was heavily mulched.

Wow! Lots of work, but it's looking great!

>6 qebo: nice progress. You had more sun at the old place, as I recall.

>8 fuzzi: Yeah, the old yard was relentless sun; the only trees were across the street to the north. I resisted buying this house because of the trees, then began researching woodland gardens and got interested. Trees are, in principle, good. The world needs more of them. A lot that can be done with shade, and it's sure much more comfortable to work in, but I'm also experimenting with plants that prefer some sun. I expect failures, but hope to get a sense of what's enough so I can choose more wisely over time.

Lots accomplished, despite the rain. I just posted a lot of pictures over on my thread, including some butterflies.

>9 qebo: I was outside, working, most of the day, but nothing tired me out so much as reading about what you'd done today. It's really going to be fabulous.

Hi Katherine! Thought I'd stop by and take a peek-see at the group. I'm afraid my pictures aren't as nice as everyone else's, but maybe I'll start a thread. :)

>6 qebo: Looking good! I consider any accomplishment towards the gardening a "glory" day, since it's all one big never-ending project to me. I have so little time to work in the garden, or it's too hot and muggy on the days I do have (or like last year, the mosquitoes were so bad you couldn't get anything done), that any progress, however small, is embraced. So go ahead and feel god about what you've done--remember that you have to prepare space before planting! :)

A bit of glory mid day because, with the ground prepared, placing and planting occupied about 20 minutes. At the native plant conference a couple weeks ago, I went to a presentation about woodland plants. It was a slide show packed too full, but included a handout so I could mark plants of interest as the photos zipped past. I marked the spikenard (Aralia racemosa) because of its berries, and its name was memorable so when I happened upon one an hour or so later at the plant sale, I noticed and bought it. Here it’s filling a gap at the front of the rhododendron. The three smaller plants are meadow anemone (Anemone canadensis), which have been deteriorating in pots on the deck, but are still showing signs of making an effort, so let’s see how they fare here; they want “bright shade” which may not be quite the case, but if they decide to expand outward into the sun, that’s OK.


And a brief stint after work this evening. This was a few hostas and a bunch of weeds spreading from the yard next door. The red you can see through the fence is a chair. The neighbors are tidy, but a clump of ornamental grass obscures their view from the main yard and apparently they don’t peer behind it. So I have no qualms about planting mountain mint (pycnanthemum muticum) which will spread if it’s happy.



Where to put the turtlehead (Chelone glabra)? This one has white flowers and needs some sun, so let’s try it near others with similar qualities.

>9 qebo: I finally got around to visiting your thread. Over the year I've been in my house, I have had both sun and shade. I mostly like having trees because its lovely to have a place to sit in the shade when it is hot and sunny outside. I have decided that my yard will be whatever grows, excluding invasive plants...although the day lilies are IMPOSSIBLE to remove completely. They are so aggressive! Then they flower so early and so hugely that they make me reticent to remove them. I have basically turned my vegetable garden into an herb garden because of the increasing shade, but that's okay.

I love seeing what you're doing with your new garden. I love lobelia. Mine have completely disappeared in both places I planted them in past years. They used to attract hummingbirds. Now the humming birds only got to my hummingbird feeder.

No butterflies...I only have those cabbage white who are looking around my garden for some brassica on which to lay eggs. Be gone, you whites!

I'll try to post some pictures in my gardening thread...if I can find it!

Well, I don't like the pictures I have. I'll need to take some other, more strategic pictures before I post any! :)

Happy gardening, Katherine!

>15 SqueakyChu: I've seen only cabbage white and red admiral. I'll be interested to know what you get to grow in the shade.

I’ve been back at the community garden a few times this week to get things under control. The fenced plot with parsnips, carrots, and onions is also occupied by volunteer tomatoes (which I'd planted deliberately last year). The carrots aren’t doing so well. I see some, but most either didn’t sprout or didn’t get much further. I’m guessing that I didn’t tend them properly in the early stages. The parsnips are leafy. I don’t know how to tell when the parsnip is ready, but I want the leaves for swallowtail caterpillars, so I’ll let them be for now. No caterpillars yet. The onions seem happy.



The adjacent unfenced plot is a lost cause for this year. I planted tithonia and a few are growing nicely, but most died. However, there are several dozen volunteer milkweeds. I planted about 20 in my yard, then extended the existing patch along the fence at the community garden yesterday and today.



The returnees from previous years:


The new babies:

>17 qebo: Briefly, on the parsnips; they need a light frost or two before harvesting. I'd think that frosts are a long time from today. They are delicious, once they've had that touch of winter's breath.

>18 Lyndatrue: Oh, yay, I can remain negligent for quite some time.

>16 qebo: I'll be interested to know what you get to grow in the shade.

I haven't done well with native plants. For natives, I have a kind of aster which blooms in late summer and another plant with white flowers in the spring, but I forgot the name of that flower. Other than that my other shade natives disappeared. In the shade of my veggie garden, I plant all kinds of herbs. Now I have oregano, thyme, sage, fennel, lettuce, lemon grass, and chives. It's not total shade. It has morning sun and midday and afternoon shade. Full shade works with hostas, lily of the valley, and ferns mostly. Again, not native plants, and these plants tend to grow and spread every year. All of the native plants I've grown under my backyard trees have basically disappeared.

Natives are hit and miss here, too, but some of that is dependent on soil type, water availability, temperature, etc. There's a wide range of all this in Indiana; it always amazes me how going from my little northwest corner of the state to southern-central Indiana in the spring means seeing flowers blooming an entire month or more before ours. I'm not sure my Sullivant's milkweed did come back--the common is in bloom but until I see Sullivant's in bloom, I won't be able to tell. While they're a native, I learned this year that they take clay soil--and we have sand up our way. There may be parts of northwest Indiana that has clay soil, but it's not Marshall County (or at least not the southern part). But generally, I like to use the Field Guide to Indiana Wildflowers as my first planning resource for new natives, since it goes so far as to say what parts of the state the plant is generally native to/found. So don't feel bad about losing natives; I've lost some, too! :)

>20 SqueakyChu: I planted a single white wood aster on the north side of my old house, and few years later it was the main groundcover there and was popping up in other stray places too. It's pretty, and it's not intrusive; the stems curve so it's only 1'-2' high. When the flowers bloom in fall, it buzzes with a cloud of tiny pollinators. Is this what you have? If not, give it a try. I have fennel in a raised bed and it looks OK but it's growing slowly, so I'm glad to know that yours is fine in the shade; maybe I just need to give it time. The raised beds get patches of sun during the day, but at any given time some parts are in the shade. Maybe I'll try other herbs next year.

>21 CassieBash: Yeah, beyond sun and shade are the soil requirements, which aren't always noted and which I don't really know how to assess in my yard.

>22 qebo: My white flower is not an aster. I know that my asters are purple. Come to think of it, they might not even be native asters. I'll go now and upload a picture of the white flowers which are now finished blooming. I took this picture a few weeks ago.



Sadly, this is one of the few flowering native plants I have left. I still have one very tall Joe Pye weed plant and one swamp milkweed.

My favorite veggies this year (beside the very easy herbs) are my rhubarb plant and my cucumber plant. I LOVE the rhubarb plant. I recently harvested some and made rhubarb scones. Tomorrow I plan to make blueberry-rhubarb crisp. That plant is a delight because it takes care of itself!

My cucumber plant was a spur-of-the-moment buy when I was visiting our local shopping center with my grandson. He wanted me to buy him something so I bought two cucumber plants at an Asian grocery store and gave him one plant to take home. My plant is doing so well. Both my rhubarb and cucumber are in full sun.

Give your fennel plant a few years. Mine is HUGE and makes seeds which plant themselves elsewhere. I don't like fennel, but I love the looks of the plant.

>21 CassieBash: So don't feel bad about losing natives;

I think mine have departed due to neglect. I always plan to work in my garden much more than I do in actuality. That's why I wanted a perennial garden. I want the plants to take care of themselves!

>23 SqueakyChu: Oh, that's a meadow anemone. I planted three of them in >14 qebo:. One was already in bad shape, and today I happened upon a rabbit chomping the leaves of another.

>24 qebo: Mine seems pretty happy where it is although it's in a confined space.

>23 SqueakyChu: plants to take care of themselves!

I hear you! ;)

Today I planted the remaining yellow flowers along the south fence.

First, cleanup. In the shade at the back are a grapevine from the neighbor’s yard, and the pawpaw that I planted a few weeks ago.


A St John’swort (Hypericum prolificum) centered between the two goatsbeard from last week.


A yellow false indigo (Baptisia tinctoria).


3 golden alexander (Zizia aurea). 2 golden ragwort (Packera aurea).


Not much mulch on hand, so just marking the spots.

I increased the tarp area of the yard, and cleaned up.

In the front, two types of violet.

Along the path, Labrador violet (Viola labradorica), which wants some sun.


Behind the azaleas, sweet white violet (Viola blanda), which wants shade.

This is the spicebush that got chomped off. I put a protective cylinder around it anyway, and early this week noticed tiny green dots, which are now large enough for a photo.


The bee balm that was trying to bloom last week has succeeded.

Lots of movement and growth. Looking good!

>30 qebo: It all looks so green, and cool, and inviting. Really lovely. You need a bench, so you can sit of a morning, and sip your coffee (or tea, if you prefer).

>32 Lyndatrue: Of a morning I often sit in the sunroom, which looks out onto the yard. I've been sitting on the front patio too, where I have a wide view of the street and passers by, who often do not notice me obscured by the Japanese maple.

This is what remains on the deck, which has been a gradually shrinking jumble until I rearranged and cleaned today.

On the right are various ferns. These are obviously not in the best condition, but all still have green, so they’re next on the agenda. If I get them in the ground soon, they’ll probably be OK.

On the left, the tall plant is a witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). Next to it are three sumac (Rhus aromatica). I expect to put these all in the area that is now a sea of English ivy north of the driveway. They’re holding up pretty well, so I can wait a bit. The two grasses don’t yet have known destinations. The cardinal flowers, I don’t know why I have so many especially since I really don’t know where to put them. The allegheny pachysandra will get plopped into the space I’ve already cleared near a rhododendron. I don’t feel much attachment to it, so whenever. The tray has tithonia that I started months ago, which was supposed to go to the community garden so maybe I’ll get around to it.

Nice! You've gotten a lot accomplished in a couple of days!

I'm with >32 Lyndatrue:. The yard looks so cool and inviting!

>28 qebo: Picturesque! Inviting!

Sunday was fern day. I did not actually plant any ferns, though that was the hope. I just began clearing space.

This is the before view, with the dogwood tree on the left, and the raised beds on the right. That’s a hackberry tree behind the ferns.


In front of the ferns is something weedy, about 2’ high with blue flowers. It’s popping up all over the yard, seems easy to pull out but I don’t know what’s going on underground. I removed the patch near the driveway / raised beds, then encountered poison ivy under the ferns, so I backed off and switched to the hackberry tree working outward.


Where I encountered... more landscape cloth, entangled in the ferns. So I’m not preserving all the ferns; I’ll keep what I can and assume it’ll expand over time, which apparently is how it got into the landscape cloth.


A couple hours later...


Here the dogwood tree is on the left and the ferns are on the right. I’ve peeled back the landscape cloth from both directions, still need to deal with it in between.


These are ostrich ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris), so I’ve been told and they match photos and descriptions. The fertile fronds are emerging.

I love seeing your progress. It's been too hot at my place to do much work. I need to rearrange my schedule so I can be out when it's cooler, but I guess I'm just a creature of habit.

>38 qebo: I could be wrong, but after a little Googling, I found this web page about native wandering jew. Unfortunately, if you notice the .au after the .com, this is an Australian page, not American. I believe it to be introduced, if not invasive. Though it does spread rather easily, you're also right about the pulling it out easily enough thing, too. I don't think there's much underground and my observations are that wherever it touches the ground, it sends out shallow roots. I've been pulling it up all summer, as last year it got a good foothold in my garden area since the mosquitoes kept me inside much of the time, but hopefully this year I'll get it out.

>39 labwriter: I wouldn't get nearly as much done in the sun. As it is, a few hours of prying up landscape cloth in the shade did me in for the day.
>40 CassieBash: Aha. Not exactly, but that got me close enough to find it in the same family: Asiatic dayflower (Commelina communis). Thanks.

Monday evening...

I’ve been wondering what to do with all those cardinal flowers. The front yard is red/pink/purple things, but I’m not ready to carve another space out of the lawn. So I put the regular cardinal flowers (Lobelia cardinalis) with the cultivars (Lobelia cardinalis ‘Black Truffle’) of last week. How many can fit? Not clear; advice ranges from 6”-18” apart. So why not all five? This is the view from the porch while positioning, then the plants in place.


I got the lady ferns (Athyrium filix-femina) because of their red stalks, and there’s a hollow spot under the Japanese maple. I hadn’t quite killed them completely. So I cut off the dead parts and planted the green bits with what seem to be substantial roots.


Here’s the evening overview, cardinal flowers in the left patch, ferns in the middle patch, wild geraniums in the right patch.


In other garden news, somebody chomped off the spikenard. I’m optimistically letting it be.


The meadow anemone that was chomped by a rabbit (caught in the act) is regenerating.

This evening, a welcome rain with nuisance timing.

3.6" of rain yesterday.

>44 qebo:

Whoa! Was there any ponding?!

>45 elenchus: What you see in the photo is the worst of it, where the gutter downspout pours into the front yard; the water goes around the tree and down the driveway and down the street. Another downspout pours into the back yard, which goes downhill to the alley. There was flooding outside the city, and when I took a walk later in the evening I had to step around large pools in the streets. Some neighbors are reporting basement troubles, but my basement is dry, and 3.6" is a pretty good stress test.

Hurrah for a dry basement! Yes, a good test.

I walked past my old house a couple hours ago since it was only a slight detour from my route. The new owners haven't done anything with the back yard yet.

I'm so glad I'm not able to walk by my old house. I hear from some of the neighbors what they're doing or not doing, but I don't have to see it. I would hate to see my gardens neglected.

More to post from last weekend, but the big event of this week was...

The one non-native tree in my back yard is (was!) the Norway maple on the north side of the driveway. I’ve been considering what to do with that area, which is currently a vast sea of English ivy in dense shade, separated from the main yard by a hideous plastic fence, and visible from the street. A couple weeks ago I met with an arborist to ask about removing the tree. The cost was much less than I’d expected, so I decided to go ahead and get it out before trying to do anything else. I’ve been waiting in the queue since then. On Wednesday the arborist called to say I was on the schedule for Thursday.

The “before” view. The tree is at the middle of the fence. Next to it are a silver maple (toward the yard) and a hackberry (toward the street).


Too many surrounding branches to get a truck and bucket close enough, so they strung ropes on the hackberry. The first branch is removed, lowered, and fed into the chipper.


The top of the trunk is removed, lowered, fed into the chipper.


The remaining trunk.


Slicing the trunk into cookies.


The “after” view. That area is still shady, but it's brighter and dappled.


While the tree guy was up there, he removed a few dead branches from adjacent trees. The arborist had walked the yard to look at all the trees and had doubts about a cavity in the silver maple, so the tree guy checked and said it’s pretty extensive, the tree seems healthy enough but structurally it could be trouble. So the arborist will return and we’ll discuss options. I’d rather keep that tree if I can.

>50 qebo: Great pictures of the tree removal. Are you planning something for the "trunk cookies" that are by the fence in that photo?

You have my sympathy on the Silver Maple. I hope that they can help you keep it.

>51 Lyndatrue: The general idea for the area around the trees is woodsy planting with informal paths for access. I'd been thinking economy mulch that's slow to degrade, then a neighbor suggested I ask for cookies when the tree is cut down, to use as stepstones. I don't have a specific plan yet.

>52 qebo: You can always chip the cookies later. I prefer my chips to be chocolate, but to each their own! :))

We’ve entered heat wavery here, so progress in the yard has slowed.

Last weekend, I cleared more area around the ferns, and removed the landscape cloth between the ferns and the dogwood. I still have a bunch of ferns in pots on on my deck.

In the front, I got a couple more coral bells (Heuchera spp.), just for fun.

I’ve been removing grass on the tree side of the hose in the front yard, keeping violets and moss. It’s pleasantly shady in the evenings, so I can just sit there for a half hour picking bit by bit. I’m not sure whether the grass is competing with or sheltering the moss. I don’t want the grass and I do want the moss, so we’ll see what happens over time.


I startled this unidentified caterpillar, about 1/2”.


I added another lady fern.


I discovered two volunteer ferns among the grass and violets around the Japanese maple.


A cardinal flower is blooming.

With the maple tree gone, I’m ready to start dealing with the area on the north side of the driveway. There’s lots of gravel in this dirt, not sure how much was intentional to suppress weeds, and how much spilled down from the driveway. The first pass is simply cleanup; I don't yet have a plan. Here’s a before and after, cleared from the scrawny rhododendron to the street. I also mowed the front this evening.

Rabbits everywhere.


The meadow anemone chomped by a rabbit is returning.


The spicebush chomped by an unknown entity is returning. The other spicebushes appear to be feeding somebody.


The dogwood is developing berries.

At the community garden, I’ve been weeding my corner plot. I’d planted tithonia in May, and a few of them managed to survive despite my negligence. Lotsa volunteer milkweeds have popped up, and since I have nothing else I may as well keep them for the season. This was Monday evening, 1/4 of the corner plot, before and after. in the background is my carrot/onion (and tomato) plot, which also needs to be weeded but its condition is not quite so glaring.

Is the cardinal flower a salvia, Katherine? So much progress!

>59 qebo: Your weeds in the community plot make me happy. At least I'm not alone.

My, my, you've been so industrious. You put us all to shame.

Those are some pretty hefty looking hares, in those pictures. I'd personally be sprinkling the cayenne here and there for discouragement. Pity cayenne doesn't work on squirrels.

>61 Lyndatrue: Is that because the squirrels are digging up bulbs instead of eating foliage? I mix my sprinkled seasonings to keep my big problem garden mammal pest, deer, at bay. They don't like cayenne or garlic, but just to keep them on their toes--deer don't like change--I also use coarse grind black pepper or ground cinnamon. Haven't noticed anything else really bothering anything, except that the raccoons still cut through my garden on the way to the bird feeder station to pick up whatever the birds left for the day. Nothing seems to deter a raccoon.

>56 qebo: Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you that your fuzzy white caterpillar is probably a Virginian tiger moth. Just FYI. They eat a wide variety of plants, so if you have some weeds or a stand of plants you don't mind getting nibbled on, go ahead and move your petrified pal to a safer place. :)

>63 CassieBash: It disappeared into the miscellaneous low plants around the Japanese maple, so it continued to have access to whatever it had been eating. I'm generally perfectly happy to support nibblers.

>62 CassieBash: In my area, squirrels (all squirrels, any variety) are non-native. They were actually deliberately introduced to the area in the sixties by someone that should die a thousand deaths. He thought they'd be cute. Yes, someone brought in breeding pairs, and left them, on purpose.

They replace native species, and since they don't have good predators in the area, they reproduce nearly unchecked. Squirrels consider bird eggs to be a natural part of their diet. The normal protective behaviors of birds like quail (which *are* native) fails completely with squirrels. They carry some unwelcome diseases, including those that are merely annoying (ringworm comes to mind) and those that are deadly (such as plague).

They are a pest in almost all the areas they inhabit. Much like rabbits in Australia, they breed nearly unchecked. Squirrels don't much care for bulbs, although they will take a taste of the non-poisonous ones. I keep hoping they'll try an iris or two. Squirrels like walnuts, and acorns, and heaven knows there are enough walnut trees in the area to supply a herd of them.

>64 qebo: As a general rule, the tiger moths are grazers and don't tend to overeat if they have plenty of food, unlike say a tobacco or tomato hornworm, that can strip plants. The good news for them is that they seem to eat anything in that family; I feed mine on horse nettle, because it's a plentiful weed growing wild in our horse pasture, which doesn't get sprayed with pesticides. I've got to try them on the Jimson weed, too. Alas, so far I've not seen a sign of any on the tomatoes or peppers yet.

>65 Lyndatrue: Idiot! (The person, not the squirrels, since they hadn't had a say in their relocation and probably would have been just as happy staying put, thank you very much!) It's never a good idea to introduce any species into an area; that's why many of my beloved silkworms, including my two Cecropia, have a hard time, because of the parasitic fly introduced originally to control the gypsy moth, another non-native introduction. My caterpillar guide Caterpillars of Eastern North America suggests that up to 80% of the Cecropia populations drop can be attributed to this parasite. And sadly, a lot of peer-reviewed literature I found on the subject suggests that the flies have not been all that effective at controlling the gypsy moth to begin with. Unfortunately, introduction of a predator would, of course, land you in an even bigger mess. We do have issues with squirrels digging up our bulbs and usually taking a bite, particularly in the spring--that's why I mentioned the bulb thing. (I think part of that is that my sister planted her bulbs on the hill--right under the hickory tree. It's a crime of convenience on the part of the squirrels at our house!)

If you don't come into direct contact with a sick or dead animal or its fleas, you'll be OK. Fleas actually carry and spread the plague, if you're referring to the bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis), as I'm assuming you are. The fleas carry the plague bacteria in their guts and infect you and any other mammal they bite, so cats, dogs, and even livestock can become infected and die (and their fleas can of course end up on you). A lot of people don't know this and think that the rats and mice are the direct cause, and they can be if you handle them directly and get the germs from one of their sores in your own body, but it's usually a flea bite that does it. Interestingly, during the Black Death it was more common to blame Jews for the plague than even rats, despite the rodent bodies lying around (rats die of the plague, too--so you'd think that would have told someone something, but that's religious intolerance for you). But of course, avoiding those fleas is a lot easier if you aren't living close to a reservoir of rodents. Sorry--I'm a big reader of books on infectious diseases and I'm just finishing one now, so the plague, mentioned in a couple of chapters, is fresh in my mind....

>66 CassieBash: Briefly, since I hate to hijack the thread on @qebo's garden: The larger problem with squirrels in this area is actually rabies. Fleas don't make it here (fortunately). Too hot, too dry. While squirrels have spread into all sorts of areas that they didn't originate in, ours would never have seen them, since there's so much treeless desert, populated only by sagebrush, for most of the area (more true in the sixties than now, alas).

Yes, I know about the various unpleasantnesses that fleas carry.

A community gardener reported a monarch butterfly on my milkweed this morning. So this evening I checked there and in my yard.

At the community garden, the tithonia has bloomed.


And... a monarch egg! I found this and another in the community garden. I didn’t find any in my yard, where the milkweed hasn’t yet bloomed.


On the milkweed in my yard though, lookie! I’ve seen these in photos but never in person; milkweed tussock moth caterpillars.

>68 qebo: Congrats on the monarch egg and the tussock moth caterpillars! And your tithonia is beautiful!

Tithonia was on my list, but I didn't get around to it this year. Next year? It's very pretty.

I keep checking out my milkweed plants for "something," but I don't have anything on them--or at least not that I can see.

Yesterday I checked my mop caterpillars and found 5: 4 on one plant, 1 on another.



You can see this isn't much of a milkweed. No buds yet, so there may not be anything in my yard to attract monarchs. I don't know how close they'd have to be to detect my scrawny plants.

How did we ever manage without Google? I have these plants all over my front yard, always in moist shady spots and often accompanied by moss and violets. They’re low and growing slowly, so I’ve mostly let them be, at least until identification or trouble emerges. My garden consultant neighbor glanced at a patch a few weeks ago, asked “are those nettles?”, checked more closely and found no stinging hairs, and we moved on. That was the clue though, and this morning I googled “false nettle”, a thing I know to exist though I wouldn’t recognize it, and immediately got images of clearweed (Pilea pumila), which sure looks like what I’ve got. And it turns out to be a good guy, as weeds go. For one thing, it’s native. For another thing, it’s host to comma, question mark, Milbert’s tortoiseshell, and red admiral butterflies. Also a moth: beautiful cosmopterix.

http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/woodland/plants/clearweed.htm

Around the yard...

The bee balm is still scraggly, but it’s sprouting fresh leaves, so I bet it’ll be fine in time.


The goldenrod is hanging in there. Somebody is eating it.


The pawpaws aren’t looking so great. I hope they’re concentrating on roots.


The raised bed plants still aren’t as large as I’d wish, but they are growing. The dills are flowering.

Nice pics. Your bee balm looks like it will be fine. It grew profusely in my yard in Missouri, although it would almost always get some form of powdery mildew. When that happened, I just cut it back, and it did fine--came back every year. I really do like the Scarlet the best. That variety seems to have the hardiest plants--and blooms. I grew a white variety that was just so-so, but it loyally returned every year, so I just left it alone. I planted Lemon Herb here--grew it from seed. It is making a rather anemic attempt to bloom. Maybe it needs a sunnier spot, even though I thought it got plenty of sun where it is--6 hours or so.

Interesting re: your "false nettle."

>74 labwriter: I knew that nettle is a host for various butterflies, but not something you want in the garden, so people plant false nettle instead. I didn't know about clearweed. All are in the Urticaceae family, and I guess that's good enough for the butterflies.

>49 labwriter: whenever I've gone back to see where we lived before, the gardens I planted were gone, grassed over and turned back into lawn. :(

Not much gardening happened this weekend. Yesterday was rainy. Today I kinda puttered and ran errands then went over to the community garden in the evening to weed.

I checked the mop caterpillars in my yard this afternoon and found... none. :-(

>72 qebo: I need to set aside a patch of my garden for some clearweed. The stinging nettles available along the side of the road always end up poisoned by either farmer over-spray or are mown down by the county. There is a small batch growing in our fencerow that's "safe" for this year, since we have our field in alfalfa and you can't spray that crop like you can corn and beans. I've been using that. But some years it's rough to find good, quality weeds for host plants. Lots of caterpillars will eat things in the same family (occasionally you get "picky eaters", just like sometimes you get "general grazers" that eat just about anything). When I find hornworms on our peppers and/or tomatoes, I collect them and feed them on horse nettle, a member of the same family (nightshades).

>76 fuzzi: Crazy people! I'd turn our whole yard into gardens if I thought it would be practical.

>77 qebo: The two larger mop caterpillars (milkweed tussock moths) looked like they might have been ready to make their cocoons; they don't get big. If you find a greyish brownish fuzzy sort of egg shaped thing, either in a rolled up leaf or stuck against something (even the underside of a leaf), that might be their cocoon. Careful if you handle it; the fuzz irritates my skin a bit and causes itching (though not like stinging nettle), even though I've never had that when petting the fur of the caterpillar.

>78 CassieBash: The 2 larger ones were about 5/8". The others were maybe 3/8". Maybe I'll keep the next one I find to see the full cycle.

>79 qebo: They may require overwintering--check around to see how many generations there are in your area.

I was on the front porch when a bird landed on the Japanese maple with something dangling from its beak. I walked toward the bird, and it dropped... a caterpillar. Which did nothing for a few minutes then began trundling away.


I checked my milkweed again in hopes that I’d missed somebody and found... a milkweed tussock moth caterpillar. The other four are still missing.

With all the rain lately, mushrooms are popping up.

In the front yard...



In the raised beds...

Today's photos are brought to you by my new phone, which is what I happened to have on hand when the caterpillar dropped from the sky.

>82 qebo: love the 'rooms! Ours look similar.

I like fungi. One that I noticed over the weekend looked like yellow foam.

That's a crazy-looking caterpillar! Do you know what kind it is?

>85 norabelle414: I did not, but a google of "fuzzy white caterpillar" yields... sycamore tussock moth (Halysidota harrisii). Which makes sense, because the street is lined with sycamore trees.

>81 qebo: It rains caterpillars at your house? That's really amazing. Beautiful Cosmos, too. Now I wish I'd put some in.

>87 Lyndatrue: Arboreal caterpillars frequently get dislodged, as happened with my four horned sphinx, no doubt. Some times, that's the only way you'll ever find the caterpillars of some species until they're ready to come down to make a cocoon--that is, if they don't make cocoons up in the branches.

I went to the community garden briefly this evening to weed, and happened upon several monarch eggs by chance, so presumably there'd be more if I checked carefully. Tempting to collect some, but I'm not sure I want to get into raising caterpillars this year.

The milkweed in my yard is still scrawny without flowers or buds, but today I found a few monarch eggs.


Another mushroom in the front yard.


Anyone know what this is? Click the second image for a larger version.

ETA: Some sorta lichen: http://www.lichen.com/vocabulary.html .

I’ve been casually checking the fennel/dill/parsley in the raised beds for black swallowtail eggs, w/o success. Somehow managed to miss these guys, which I discovered today while weeding. You can see the dill isn't exactly voluminous.

>90 qebo: ooh! Monarch eggs! I am envious of you, in a good way.

That plant is interesting. I was telling my dh about how you moved from all sun to a partly shaded yard. You'll be seeing so many different plants that grow in shaded areas, like moss and lichens. I have a garden on the north side that is mostly moss, with one climbing rose and a few scattered primroses. I also get mushrooms, which I find fascinating.

I left my parsley alone so it would attract swallowtails. It went to seed, and finally died, but no caterpillars showed up. I'm hoping my carrots will attract them. The dill needs more sun than the herb planter gets, so it always dies.

I’ve taken a couple weekends off from ivy removal, but the temperature and humidity dropped so today I got back to it.

This is the “before” view, facing north from the driveway, behind the vinyl panel where the Norway maple was removed, and the hackberry and oak trees.


With enough ivy removed to free the mountain laurel.


And more ivy removed along the path.


Cleaned up, strands of grass removed from the area of moss. The mounds of dirt next to the the remaining ivy are screened out of the debris, consist of sawdust and bits of acorns, can be used as mulch.


Facing the path at the north edge of the yard. I’ll eventually remove the grass in the foreground too.


The goal of this effort is to plant the sumac (Rhus aromatica). I’d moved it into larger pots awhile ago. Today I semi-arranged the three pots.

These flagstones were at the entry to the trash/recycling shelter, where they kept catching on the trash can wheels. Meanwhile I needed something to connect the front lawn and walkway, where I always take a short cut, so today I moved them into rough draft position.

In caterpillar news, I saw the milkweed tussock moth caterpillar and one black swallowtail caterpillar today. I scouted around for the other black swallowtail caterpillar, which had been on this sorry excuse for a dill. Sadly, I found it inches away, covered with ants.

And just because I happened to see it... a red-banded hairstreak.

>94 qebo: I love pavers and stone of every size and type. They're so useful at setting things off, and at creating borders, and you don't have to fertilize them, or water them, and there's no worry about insect pests.

I'd say your rough draft ought to stay. It looks deliberate.

You made such progress today; it's coming into shape. In a few years the Sumac will seem as though they've always been there.

>93 qebo: you have a face on your tree!

Sorry about the caterpillar, but love the Hairstreak.

Good job on the ivy!

>89 qebo: I too am jealous about the monarch eggs, in a good way. Except for one baby I hatched recently from an egg, I have maybe 7 and they're all in their chrysalis. I haven't seen any eggs or caterpillars since collecting the egg a few days ago. But I have been getting a decent number (relatively) of black swallowtails.

>90 qebo: I've seen similar lichen growing on the rocks by our pond. It looks very healthy, which is a good indicator of its environment's good health.

>95 qebo: The ants may have simply been cleaning up the kill of another species. I found two black swallowtail caterpillars this week that had been sucked dry; the culprit suspected is the robber fly that I've been seeing hanging out on that Queen Anne's lace. They're territorial and so it may be hanging around the area. Usually, they pounce on flies, bees, and other flying insects, but if a caterpillar crawling around catches its eye, it probably would eat that, too. They're not picky.

Speaking of laying eggs, a Variegated Fritillary was flitting around my flowers Saturday, and when I edited the photos, I saw that she was laying eggs!

I'll post the pictures in the "Butterflies!" thread (http://www.librarything.com/topic/206718#5364374) later, maybe tonight. I don't have the photos here at work.

I checked my milkweed more carefully today and found a dozen eggs. Didn't see any caterpillars. The milkweed tussock moth and black swallowtail caterpillars are still there.

>99 CassieBash: Yeah, I figured the caterpillar probably fell off the dill dying or dead. I've seen them get attacked by other bugs in the past, e.g. wasps, so I wasn't blaming the ants.

>100 fuzzi: Lucky you. I have lots of violets in my yard but have yet to see a fritillary butterfly.

>101 qebo: you've got eggs on your Milkweed, I have eggs on my violets.

Seems fair enough? ;)

>102 fuzzi: Can't I have both? :-(

>103 qebo: greedy!!! :D

At the community garden this evening. A buncha eggs, but this is the only caterpillar I found; should be more by now but I often miss them until they’re fairly large.

Flickr seems to be having issues this morning, so no photos now. It's monarch central here. Yesterday I counted 10 caterpillars and 4 eggs on my milkweed, and that was just a quick check of the upper leaves. The caterpillars were all about 1/4" . Also 4 swallowtail eggs on my dill.

Only 5 monarch caterpillars this morning, but they're larger and they've begun migrating around so I probably missed some.

Oooh... 2! hummingbirds on the cardinal flowers a few minutes ago. I had only the phone camera, so this is a suboptimal shot of one (above the red, midway across, 2/3 up, click for enlargement).



Dunno how much gardening will get done this weekend. Temperature mid 90s, humidity about 1000%.

2 pudgy monarch caterpillars in a neighbor’s garden a few days ago.


2 small monarch caterpillars in my yard a couple days ago.


A milkweed tussock moth caterpillar in my yard, apparently molted. I didn’t see it today.


A black swallowtail egg on the dill in my yard a couple days ago.


A visitor on my car, perhaps fallen from the oak tree above, which I moved to the ground.

>108 qebo: Thank goodness for Flickr closeups. How lovely your hummingbird shot is, with him poised in mid flight! I love hummingbirds.

I stepped outside again and saw a black swallowtail and a tiger swallowtail flying over my front yard at the same time. All these critters like the heat more than I do.

It's a Monarch avalanche! :)

>108 qebo: nice picture, you got TWO hummingbirds in that one. The second one is slightly above and to the left of the obvious hummer.

This morning's monarch count: 6 caterpillars (all about 3/4") and 25 eggs. Also the milkweed tussock moth caterpillar has returned on a plant near the original.

I'm glad to hear that monarchs are doing better in other areas. In my part of Indiana, not so much. But all nine of mine have made it to their chrysalis stage, with one successful hatching, so I'm hoping now just for a good success rate.

This morning still 6 monarch caterpillars and 1 milkweed tussock moth caterpillar, and now 1 black swallowtail caterpillar too.

Around and about this morning in the yard and evening in the community garden.

1/8” swallowtail caterpillar (near the center of the photo) on the dill in the raised bed.


The milkweed tussock moth caterpillar still hanging around in my yard.


A big monarch caterpillar at the community garden.


My community garden plot with tithonia and milkweed.


The wildflower garden with mountain mint, Joe Pye, and milkweed at the other end of the community garden.

An abundance of black swallowtail caterpillars here. They showed up first on the dill, then the fennel, and yesterday I found eggs on the parsley too. Yesterday 13 caterpillars and I lost count of the eggs. Here are 2 on the dill, a few days old.


The 6 monarch caterpillars of early this week were 0 by midweek. By yesterday, a few of the eggs had hatched. At the community garden, I found 15+ monarch caterpillars alive and well, also this unfortunate soul. I’m tempted to rescue the caterpillars, but the milkweed in my yard is too sparse for foraging, and I don’t have a covered porch, so it’s not as simple as in previous years.


I keep seeing these butterflies swirling in the air but I’d been unable to identify for sure until one landed yesterday. A hackberry emperor (Asterocampa celtis).

>117 qebo: Like the composition of that last photo, with all of the browns complementing each other (including the hackberry emperor). Sorry about the monarchs--I haven't had very many and am feeling very fortunate that so far all I have raised have been healthy. But it sounds like the black swallowtails are having a good year in a lot of places!

>119 CassieBash: I'd be overwhelmed with monarch caterpillars if I saved them all.

I watched a cabbage white butterfly flitting around flowerless nasturtiums on my deck railing today, sure seemed to be egg laying behavior, and yep, here’s an egg. I had not been aware of nasturtiums as host, but the internet confirms.

>120 qebo: I just wish I had the option to be overwhelmed. Only 9 and it's almost September--I've never had a year this bad in our state!

Photos from yesterday...

Sorry I missed this in action. Found during the usual morning milkweed check.


Not my milkweed. This is along an alley about a block from my house.


A closer look at a hackberry emperor on my deck.


Otherwise yesterday I mostly did front yard weeding and cleanup, which I’d neglected during the heat wave. Continued today until the rain began. We need the rain, though I wish it had held off until tomorrow.

Nice photos. That's a Cicada in the top one, or, rather, the molt, right? I've seen several of those recently, and a couple dead specimens as well...must be a banner year for Cicadas.

>123 fuzzi: Cicada
Yeah, the shell. They're ubiquitous this time of year.

My one accomplishment of the day was to get the sumac (Rhus aromatica) into the ground. Can’t really see in this photo, but there are three plants about 1’ high and surrounded by wood chip mulch, on the near and far sides of the trees, and next to the watering can in the background.


During the rain this afternoon, with the sumac still in pots. This sorta shows the planned zigzag path down between the trees.

>125 qebo: yeah, rain!

We had some last night, the ONLY time my dh left his truck windows down...

>125 qebo: We got more rain this weekend, too...another inch and a half on Saturday. Be careful on that hill after a rain; it looks slick in that picture!

>126 fuzzi: Isn't that always the way it works?

>127 CassieBash: Yeah, the hill is steep. I want to add a path with more grip, but it's not a high priority.

>128 qebo: Nah! Just install a slide, maybe with a nice pool at the bottom.... ;)

In the raised beds, suddenly swallowtail caterpillars are appearing on my parsley. Looks like they’ve been hidden there for awhile.


At the community garden, I’ve been sporadically and casually checking the parsnip but I’ve seen nothing until today. Again, it’s been there for awhile, and probably others are hidden.


In the back yard, the largest monarch is on the smallest milkweed.


At the community garden, this doesn’t look wise.

>129 CassieBash: ::snort::

I posted some more Swallowtail caterpillar pics, two generations!

>130 qebo: It always amazes me how I overlook what later seems to be obvious caterpillars, even when I see the damage and look for the little blighters. Somehow they often elude me until they're big and fat. I am pleased how many of us have had a good year for black swallowtails; I've had several poor years in a row. I blame the farmers poisoning the fields and roadsides--kills the Queen Anne's lace.

>132 CassieBash: I look over my plants (and the "weeds", like violets) for insect life, but they do hide well.

My Japanese Maple gets Unicorn caterpillars every year, and they will strip it of leaves if I don't remove them promptly. Ick.

If you can, try bending over and looking upwards through the foliage, as that often helps me locate caterpillars.

>133 fuzzi: bending over and looking upwards That's how I find hackberry butterfly caterpillars. They tend to sit in a lightning bolt pattern.

>133 fuzzi:, >134 CassieBash: bending over and looking upwards
Yup, though this often means lying on the ground and looking upwards which I'll do if I'm beyond concern for grunginess. My hackberries don't have low branches. Maybe I should let some volunteer sprouts grow larger.

>135 qebo: Funny--our hackberry always seems to need lower branches pruned a bit, especially after a heavy rain. But then Mom loves to let trees grow low; she's not the one who mows anymore. ;)

>136 CassieBash: My hackberries probably had branches cut off years ago.

I walked over to the community garden during my lunch break today to check the monarch caterpillar on the fence. It wasn't there. So either it eventually changed its mind, or it got eaten. I looked on the ground below too. Lotsa butterflies midday, saw several monarchs, several black swallowtails, a variegated fritillary in the ten minutes or so I was there.

I glanced out my front window and saw an orange butterfly flitting around on a patch of violets. Ran for the camera but 15 seconds later the butterfly was gone. Must've been a variegated fritillary, first I've seen in my yard though it abounds with violets.

>138 qebo: Could it also have been a great spangled fritillary? They also eat violets.

>139 CassieBash: In theory, but I've never seen one around here. I see variegated (and meadow) fritillaries often enough to be unremarkable, just not in my yard until today.

I love the Swallowtail caterpillar pics. I found a Swallowtail on my marigolds on Tuesday. Will wonders never cease!

>138 qebo: isn't that always the way? I see these huge yellow butterflies in my backyard, but they must be allergic to camera: they fly up above the trees when I go outside...

O. M. G. I was sitting on my front patio when I noticed a large butterfly heading along my driveway into the yard. I thought maybe tiger swallowtail from the size and because I’ve seen quite a few around here. I walked down the driveway with phone camera in hand, saw that the butterfly had landed on the fennel, snapped photos as I approached in case I scared it away. I didn’t; it let me get within six inches. Not a tiger swallowtail. This is a first; I have never seen a zebra swallowtail around here, or anywhere in the wild.



And I’m especially happy to see the zebra swallowtail because its host plant is pawpaw. Of which I have maybe a half dozen leaves this year, but presumably this situation will improve over time.

Shortly before the zebra swallowtail sighting, I had checked the pawpaw that lost all its leaves. And it’s encouraging; at the top of the remaining stalk is a tiny dot of green.

Lucky you! I'll likely never have a chance to raise a zebra swallowtail; paw-paws don't do well in our area of Indiana (though they do well in central and southern). Too harsh a winter. Keep us posted on the zebras and the paw-paws!

>144 CassieBash: I'm at the northest extent of the range for zebra swallowtails, maybe for that reason.

Gorgeous!

>143 qebo: how exciting! So glad you were able to photograph it as well.

Yesterday afternoon, a black swallowtail butterfly laying eggs on the parsley. It swooped back and forth several times but never landed on the dill or fennel.

Can’t see unless you click through, and even then you’ll have to zoom... Yesterday I was sitting on the front patio and heard the tapping of a woodpecker, looked up into the Japanese maple and there was a downy woodpecker and also a chickadee. The woodpecker is in the center horizontally, somewhat less then 1/4 way from the top. The chickadee is slightly above and right. I’ve been hearing woodpeckers often, usually don’t see them, always when I do it’s a downy.

The Carolina allspice (Calycanthus floridus) that I planted at the front of the house in June hasn’t been looking so healthy, with leaves curling and browning and drooping. I noticed this week though that new leaves have appeared. So probably it will be OK.

Today’s achievement was completing the grass removal on the north side of the driveway, which I’ve been working on in batches for weeks. It's a productive but not too strenuous task for hot days.

Facing toward the street. I’m leaving a triangle-ish of lawn for now. Eventually I want a flower bed but I haven’t figured out what would go there.



Facing toward the yard. This was all messy grass mixed with weeds, pretty much what you see in the foreground though less dense toward the interior. I’m keeping violets and clearweed which should expand, and as much moss as possible. Also lots of acorns. Which were dropping regularly, plop, plop, plop as I was sitting there, but surprisingly nothing hit me.


I’m also keeping stray tufts of grass for the texture. There are several types of grass mixed together. This type is relatively short and thin, though I’ll see what happens when it doesn’t have competition.

>149 qebo: I see them!

It’s fall! The high temperature today was mid 70s, in contrast to the 90 +/- of recent weekends. So today was cleanup of areas that have been bugging me for awhile but I’ve been too lethargic to deal with.

The north side of the house has been collecting debris for a year. The north side of the deck is where I stashed garden stuff brought over from my old house in the spring. I removed all the grass though I’m under no illusions that it’s truly gone; the ground is densely packed and dry so roots remain. I carried the trellises to the basement and placed them neatly in a closet. I moved the violets from the pots to the north side of the house where probably they will look worse before they look better, then emptied the pots onto the ground and smoothed out the soil.

Before:


After:


The side entry is where I’ve been dumping miscellaneous stuff that isn’t meant to be out in the weather. I haven’t been able to get through there in several months. I carried the boards to the basement and placed them neatly against a wall. I’m hiring a handyman to install a 4’ x 8’ pegboard on the brick wall so I can hang tools. This’ll happen at some random moment in the near future; I’m in the queue. The handyman will also remove the hideous white vinyl panels.

Before:


After:

The tiny leaf on the pawpaw in >143 qebo: grew to about 3/4" during the week. I went to take a photo today, and it was gone! So I’ve put a mesh cylinder around the pawpaw for protection.



The other pawpaw doesn’t appear to be doing much, but it still has leaves.

>153 qebo: Oh please don't mention Fall!! There's another two months of Summer here in Texas. I may faint from jealousy!

Nice work!

The cooler weather motivates many of us. It won't show up here for a month.

This morning, a stint of ivy removal. This didn’t take terribly long, just a bit over an hour, but it pretty much did me in for the day, pulling roots out while balancing on a hill. This patch frees the Norway maple stump.

Before:


After:

This afternoon, a drive out into the county for ferns. There’s a new county-wide plant swap group on Facebook, and someone offered sensitive ferns (Onoclea sensibilis) from an overgrown patch. Well, why not give them a shot, especially now that I’m clearing the ivy without a replacement plan.

This evening, I cleaned out the containers on my deck. The intentional plants have been deteriorating for awhile, and the weeds have been proliferating.

Before:


After:

Nice progress!

What will you put in the cleaned out containers?

>161 fuzzi: Maybe nothing until next spring.

>160 qebo: Whoa. You put us all to shame. Nice work, kiddo.

>162 qebo: radishes, lettuce, chard do well in containers. Down here in NC Pansies are planted in the fall, and often bloom during warmer spells during the winter.

Hmm, now I want to go buy some...

>164 fuzzi: Hmm, maybe. Fall planting should be in August here. I saw pansies for sale yesterday. If I have to think about it too much, it won't happen.

Well I've managed to fritter away the morning doing nothing in particular, and I've promised to be at the community garden this evening, so I suspect not much will happen in the yard today. Instead I've been sitting on the front patio reading the Master Gardener manual in preparation for class tomorrow. This week's installment is soil.

>164 fuzzi: In my random puttering today, I checked the local gardening calendar for when to plant cool weather crops, and early September apparently is just fine. So I zipped out to the local garden center for seeds. And planted them right away because otherwise they’ll sit and suddenly it will be winter.









I have plenty of seeds left over for the community garden too...

I wandered the aisles at the garden center in case anything else appealed, and of course as I passed the herbs on sale I checked for caterpillars. Upshot is that I got 6 black swallowtail caterpillars for $5. I happened to have 5 empty slots in the fennel bed, so now they’re all in place.



This evening I went to the community garden for a round of weeding, and to clear space for a fall planting. I shifted a strand of tomatoes and reached under the parsnip to pull out thistle and... a monarch chrysalis, in the “wild”! I took it home to watch.

>167 qebo: yummy choices, especially the chard.

How exciting, re: the chrysalis, and the caterpillars!

Sounds like what I'll be doing in October. Were we not leaving for a couple of weeks, I'd probably be starting the prep now, but there's no sense in planting stuff when I won't be here to water it.

Nice job with the cool weather crops. We trending towards cool, but still not there yet. Yesterday was 95, for gosh sakes.

>167 qebo: Upshot is that I got 6 black swallowtail caterpillars for $5. So been there, done that! Well worth the investment, I've always thought.

We're having the return of summer after an almost entirely enjoyable fall weekend. Yesterday was the return of the heat, humidity, and breezeless day. Other than the mosquitoes, the weekend was perfect for working on pond maintenance!

The radishes and arugula are sprouting already. Somebody (suspect: squirrels) has been digging holes in the containers, so I’ll have to tidy up tomorrow.


I happened upon this interesting configuration of 3 bugs on the raised bed of fennel. A few quick photos with the phone camera; I didn’t want to get too close. Some sort of assassin bug I thought, and a few minutes on the internet yielded wheel bug (Arilus cristatus). Which eats caterpillars. So they’re in the right place...

I saw a Wheel bug once, and from what I recall, keeping your distance is wise: without looking it up on the web, I think it has a painful sting if provoked.

I admit that I kind of want one of those wheel bugs, even though I'm sure they're not indigenous to my area. I've been bit (more than once) by Praying Manti that objected to my bothering them, and trust me, that hurts. I love the predators.

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AArilus_cristatus_Kaldari_02.jpg">

>173 fuzzi:, >174 Lyndatrue: Yeah, the internet sez they're not aggressive, but they'll bite if threatened and it seriously hurts. They sure look menacing. The "wheel" is the crest w/ cog-like protrusions. Fewer swallowtail caterpillars today than yesterday; hopefully the several large ones marched off to pupate, but others may have been victims.

Hmm, wasn’t expecting a butterfly just yet. The chrysalis I found at the community garden has been hanging on a kitchen cabinet knob for observation, but I failed to notice it getting darker yesterday, and was a bit surprised this morning.


I set up a sheltered space outside, and moved it. Also put a bucket in front of the crate. An hour plus later, it’s still hanging.

A few days of heat wavery got inserted into the fall weather, highs approaching 95 but only a brief passing rain. This morning is breezy and cool. I didn't get any outdoor tasks done yesterday aside from tidying up and watering the container crops. I have mild hopes for today...

I so do not want to remove ivy... but I will be so happy when it is gone... also I need to clear space for ferns. Gearing up...

The monarch flew off when I opened the back door to check.

>176 qebo: nice picture.

I would’ve regretted a weekend of ivy avoidance, so I got to it shortly after >178 qebo:. And realized immediately that I hadn’t completely recovered from last week’s episode. At the end of this my muscles were rubber, and my FitBit registered... 0 active minutes? Sheesh. I got more active minutes pushing a cart in the grocery store afterward.

The goal: clear ivy to the end of the panel. Start with the boundary, which involves cutting all the strands that cross over and peeling back the edge.


A ball o’ ivy.


The brute force stage is done, still needs refinement.


All pretty.


All ferns planted. The ones I got last week, which are still green, and the ones that have been sitting on my deck for one or two or three months. Many of which appear dead, but maybe they’re just pretending.


The deck is clear! The two plants that remain are witch hazel, which will go where the smaller vinyl panel is now, and a grass that doesn’t yet have a known destination.

>181 qebo: great job!

What will you do to keep the ivy back, manual rip?

>182 fuzzi: So far regrowth hasn't been a problem. Every so often a small strand pops up and I remove it and whatever I can get at below ground.

You've put me to shame! I got very little garden work done. 'Course, it rained all day Saturday (a whopping 2.75 inches between Friday night's flash flood warning and an all-day on-and-off rain Saturday), and I did laundry (got to hang it on the line and everything!) on Sunday.

I’ve been meaning to take a photo of this spot for awhile because it amuses me, and I remembered when I walked past today on my way to the bank. This is a busy downscale commercial strip, with a shopping center and gas station and miscellaneous small businesses on one side and a field (contiguous with my neighborhood) on the other side. The landscaping is the standard grass and evergreen clumps surrounded by mulch, but milkweed often pops up. It’s peak monarch season here, so I paused to check…

>185 qebo: I see him!

I looped past the community garden today to check my plots. I’ve had aspirations to plant the leftover seeds from my container crops, but with so little rain recently the ground is baked solid so I was mostly making sure my weeds aren’t out of control. The last time I was there mid afternoon, I saw monarchs and swallowtails. This time I saw fritillaries everywhere. These photos don’t do justice, because many of the butterflies flit away as I approached.



On my volunteer tomatoes, four tobacco hornworm pincushions.



And also a monarch chrysalis, which I brought home.

>187 qebo: nice photos! I counted NINE Fritillary butterflies in two of your photos, and six in two others. Those are nice Tithonias, but what is the large plant with whitish blooms in the first photo, next to the one with blue/lavender blossoms?

>188 fuzzi: The first photo is part of the "flower garden", where last year I planted mountain mint (the whitish flowers), mistflower (the purple flowers), Joe Pye (the pinkish flowers) and milkweed (off camera).

We've known since last winter that the community garden might have to move, because it is on school district property and the elementary and middle schools across the street are scheduled for renovation or reconstruction. A few months ago an article in the newspaper gave a tentative time frame of next year for one school, and we saw surveyors in the field soon afterward. Today a link to the site plan was posted on a neighborhood forum, and if it's for real then we can't stay where we are but we will have a place. A lotta questions, and probably no definite answers yet. It seems possible but not certain that we could stay where we are for another year, and doubtful that we could have a new site ready for gardening next spring.

Yesterday was the monthly Master Gardener meeting, to which current students are invited. The program was The Bug Man, advertised as including real live bugs, which is why I went. Clicking through to his Facebook page, there’s the audience from his POV. I’m over by the wall. Available for handling were two scorpions, a tarantula, and several Madagascar hissing roaches. He had lotsa dead bugs in display cases which you can see on his web site; I took photos but with the crowd and the fluorescent lights they didn’t turn out so well.

I held this scorpion for a few minutes. It just sat there.


This is a whip-tail scorpion.


I guess this is the way professionals transport moths.


This insect was thought to be extinct then was discovered on an island off Australia.

Today I want to the (annual?) pawpaw festival across the river in York county. An unfamiliar location, but it turns out to be easy to get to, useful to know because it has other events of interest and is right up the road from the county agricultural extension office. A small local event but pretty lively considering. A random community gardener was there too.

There were pawpaw trees for sale, also pawpaw fruit, which all came from an orchard in Maryland. And a Master Gardener was demonstrating caterpillars. She had been unable to find any zebra swallowtail caterpillars on her pawpaw trees, but had pipevine, spicebush, and black swallowtail caterpillars. I bought two pawpaw trees. I’ll plant them near my other two, which are smaller and not looking super healthy so these are backup. Also bought an hearts-a-burstin' bush (Euonymus americana) because it was just too cool to pass up.

>192 qebo: that looks like a fun event! And the bug man needs to visit us here in NC.

>193 fuzzi: Maybe you can entice him with interesting bugs.

The goldenrods are blooming. These are three species, planted in >4 qebo: early July and completely neglected since.

Today’s exercise in ivy removal was freeing the silver maple.

Here it is midway, looking down from the driveway toward the street.


And done, looking up toward the driveway. Note the ferns around the Norway maple stump, which are mostly dead or deteriorating, but a few are looking remarkably green considering we’ve had no rain in an eternity, so that’s encouraging.

Silver maples are so lovely, and the ivy needed to die. It looks very nice, now.

You have been very productive! You shame me. ;)

>191 qebo: That's the way you safely handle moths or butterflies when you want/need to hold them still (like for tagging purposes); you grip them between your thumb and forefinger, using the main vein that runs along the outer edge of the upper wings. I've had to assist butterflies trying to get out of the bottom of a tank by holding them that way, especially the admirals and their kin, especially when they're panicking in a bottom corner. I've held hissing cockroaches but never a scorpion. Not sure if I'm jealous or not. Of course, scorpions aren't exactly wandering freely around in great numbers in northwest Indiana, so the practicalities of knowing how to hold a scorpion may not be high on the things I need to know. They are cool, though, and we do get Pseudoscorpions; saw one of these tiny guys only once in my life, but it was pretty neat, and nice to know that they are neither dangerous nor destructive. Mine looked very much like the first picture on the left in the Wikipedia link above.

>192 qebo: I'm envious of your pawpaws and pipevines, providing you with zebra swallowtails and pipevine swallowtails. Pawpaws don't do well in Indiana until you get to the central area, and trying to find pipevines for purchase has been difficult at best. We are in the northernmost zone in some range maps for pipevine swallowtails, in the "stray one possible" in others. So these two species aren't likely to be in my collection anytime soon. However, I did find a nifty site with a list of butterflies of Indiana that may come in handy. Good luck with those two species, and share pics if you can!

Wonderful posts. It looks like you're having fun and being productive.

Not much happened in the garden this week. On Wednesday, the monarch of >187 qebo: eclosed. The weather has turned fallish, and we got a (very welcome) stretch of rain, so the butterfly was hanging all day and I got kinda worried, but it flew off before dark.


Today I planted the hearts-a-burstin' of >192 qebo: in the front yard.


The parsley is doing nicely now, useful to know for next year. The fennel too is is decent shape. The dill is on its way out. All still have swallowtail caterpillars munching away.

>200 qebo: Your monarch close up is lovely (as usual). I can hardly wait for your hearts-a-burstin' to get a start. I hope it's amazing next year.

My dill never did get established, unfortunately, and died. I'm busy on garden work now that I'm back home.

The hideous vinyl panels are gone!

Before (from September and July):


After:


Also, the side entry has become a shed.

>203 qebo: The hideous vinyl panels are gone! Huzzah!

And you have tree cookies.

>203 qebo: I bet you're happy those vinyl panels are gone. It looks so much better.

>195 qebo: Love the goldenrods too.

>203 qebo: agreed, they were hideous.

I like the pegboard. There's nothing wrong with an efficient use of space. If certain tools are convenient to access, I am more likely to use them.

A few weeks have passed by since the last episode of ivy removal. Today’s goal: clear space for the witch hazel that has been sitting on my deck since… June? This was a larger patch than I’ve dealt with previously, and my muscles are protesting in proportion, so I didn’t get the witch hazel planted. It will go about where you can see a baby tree in the middle of the smaller vinyl panel of >203 qebo:, which is now a stick in the middle of the photos below.

Before:


Midway:


After:

>207 qebo: My, you have a lot of ambition. Too bad I'm such a wuss when it comes to the cold; I really need to get out there and finish cleaning up.

It looks lovely. The witch hazel will be grateful to be in such a beautiful spot.

>208 Lyndatrue: Better today than yesterday, when I did wimp out: overcast with a high in the mid 50s and wind gusts of 25mph. This follows a high in the upper 80s a few days before.

I had occasion to walk by my old house this evening. As I've been expecting, the new owners removed most of the plants. This is a view from the corner where sidewalk meets alley. The straight lines on the ground mark beds along the fence, and the circle is where I had milkweed, Joe Pye, ironweed, mountain mint, etc. I didn’t want to stand there gawking so I snapped a photo with my phone as I walked by.

>210 qebo: Barbarians!!

>210 qebo: every house we've lived at that I have been able to revisit has had this happen: the gardens and plants are gone, grassed over.

One house we'd rented is totally gone, removed, and the property has been turned into the entrance to a new school. There were hundreds of ruffled daffodils that had been growing along the property line for decades...all gone. :sad:

This is why, when I leave a place, if there are plants that would hurt me to see die, I take them with me. I left plants behind when I left California because I knew that they wouldn't survive a winter. I've also transplanted things into the gardens of others (quite a few of my plants went across the street to a neighbor that I knew would love them, and care for them).

I try to not revisit homes I've lived in just for that reason. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised, though. Roses and Iris that we planted in the nineties were still doing well (according to Google street view) last I looked.

>211 karspeak: They're really not. They have two kids and it's a small yard.
>213 Lyndatrue: I wasn't attached to the plants themselves. I'd taken excess over to the community garden (which we may lose too), and most aren't suitable for my current yard. I'm sad to see the efforts of several years gone so quickly, but I'm not surprised, and on the plus side I have a much larger space to improve now.

>214 qebo: two kids I'd hope that my kids would be pointing to the milkweed and saying, "Can we raise monarchs, Mom?" At least while they're small--before they hit those rebellious teen years where raising caterpillars with your mom is no longer cool. :)

>215 CassieBash: I did kinda suggest that possibility in the note I left for the new owners.

Today was 70 degrees and the entire neighborhood was outside raking and mowing.

I planted the two pawpaw trees that I got at the pawpaw festival last month. I put them near the previous two as reinforcement. The pawpaw in the cylinder is probably doomed; this is the one that lost its leaves, then tried to grow a new leaf and lost it too.


I planted the witch hazel about where the old vinyl panel was. The rocks around it were in the ground.

I missed your mention of the pawpaw festival! I want some trees too. My trees in the woods had no fruit on them this year. Need some sun and a cross pollinator!

>218 2wonderY: They're pollinated by flies, so apparently one trick is to place rotting meat nearby. :-)

Well, that'll just attract the raccoons and bobcats.

>210 qebo: Oh woe! I left a house last year that I'd spent 25 years living in, planting around, amending the soil of, etc. I think I'm very glad that it's in Missouri and I'm in Colorado. The new owners had good intentions, but they're evidently never home. I've told a neighbor who keeps me up on neighborhood news--please, just let me live with the fantasy that they love my gardens as much as I did.

Two! red-bellied woodpeckers landed on my Japanese maple this morning. Of course I didn't have a camera; I was just glancing out while heating water for coffee. I ran to get a camera, but the birds flew away. :-(

Aw. I have my "good" camera in its bag on a chair next to the birdfeeder window, "just in case".

>223 fuzzi: I don't have enough cameras for just in case at every possible location. I normally have my phone camera in a pocket, but this was morning pre-caffeine.

Pre-caffeine...understood!