May flowers reprise

Always thrilled to see butterfly mating rituals...

Farkleberry bloom....

This fast-growing invasive Japanese honeysuckle is busily covering my garden fences... Over-whelming the desirable native coral honeysuckle, and it really doesn't seem to matter how much of this stuff I pull... seems to stay ahead of my efforts to control...

I have poison ivy covering the ground in the newest expansion of the veggie garden....

The poison ivy is actually easier to control than the nasty Japanese honey suckle... It all comes out easily with a mattock...

Poison ivy flowers...

Also... a bit of poison oak... I'm not especially OCD about the toxicodendrons... I dug this out of the yard... but it's such an interesting plant that it's worth keeping some around for observation....

I left some background on this indigo pic to demonstrate the unlikely happenstance of a garden-worthy plant growing in a desolate patch of sand where little else grows...

Wild collected Coreopsis lanceolata... When I divided this beauty (last Spring),  and planted the divisions in the garden soil the voles got busy eating them... I rescued this one and it's been container-grown since...

Penstemons (group of 3) Also subject to vole depredation, 2 of these are in containers (after the voles ate the other divisions)...
 Hoping for crosses... I just need to figure out how to get the seeds to come up... Was not a problem in my previous garden... something about this sand...

After posting the iris damage (see previous post) at facebook... one person suggested "permatill"... But the drainage is already so extreme... and just how many bags of that stuff would be needed?   I keep hoping the cats will get a better handle on these horrible little animals...

Mulberries!
I grew this tree from a little baby I wild collected... I've got plenty of babies coming up in the garden now... which I'm moving into my yard... and plan to move into the front meadow...

I didn't get a patch of poppies sowed last autumn... But I have little groups here and there anyway... I've been weeding out colours... where I have single colours in each little group...

Interesting thing, though... The blooms seem to be lasting longer in the self-sowed patches then in the patches sowed in town... where there was a big flush, and then nothing...

I suspect that the dropped seeds are dictating timing... Whereas in town... the seeds were all collected at the same time... and sowed at the same time....

I've noticed that the columbines seem to react in a similar manner...

May 2014

Spotted this black rat snake dozing in a brush pile... Always thrilled to see my snakes...

I also watched a gopher tortoise grazing on native grasses and conyza... He totally avoided eating any blackberry leaves... Didn't have a camera in my pocket, though... Sure wanted to film it... it totally ignored me... That doesn't happen often... they usually run as fast as they can for cover...

Still trying to get seeds to come up in pots... that sand crusts, though... screens to protect the seeds didn't help much... but a bed sheet seems made to order... keeps the soil moist, keeps the birds at bay.... lets in enough light for the babies to come up...

Stachys floridana bloom. This plant can be one of the worst invasives... and still... I'm having so much difficulty growing food that it's worth a shot...

Here's the tubers... They were mighty tasty... Will see if any survive the voles now that I've planted them in the ground... these were container grown...

The voles are busily killing all of my iris...

They chewed most of the roots off this camelia... I rescued this one... but I have rootless dead stems out there in the camelia patch...

Surprisingly... the voles even chewed up this pokeweed!

The cross vine was pretty...

The mock orange seems to have peaked...

Caged hoary puccoon... This delightful native doesn't transplant...  it's growing in the veggie patch... the cage is for it's own protection...

Striped corn from Nan Ondra

April Flowers

First time I noticed this shrub... Seems to be a viburnum rufidulum.

The Helianthemums are blooming... Last year, I was calling these Helianthemum Carolinium. Now... Ima call them Helianthemum georgianum.

The buckeye shrubs are looking good.

The columbine are spectacular! I'm working on new beds inside the wire for the hybrids, and the Canadian columbines are fixing to get moved into the yard.

Hawthorn (above) and mock orange (below).

Last year the voles got my seeds as quickly as I could plant them... this year... I thought I might get the seeds to come up... These few containers worked so well that I planted 4 dozen more... only to see the birds eat all the sprouting seeds...

Spring 2014

The eastern columbine are in full glory... Spotted a hummingbird visiting, but didn't have a camera handy... really miss the camera that lived in my pocket, it recently died :(

Saw a big wild turkey walking through my yard in the rain yesterday... didn't have a camera handy for that either.... What do you do in such a situation...

Torn between wanting a photo, and wishing critter was in the oven... What's a good way to trap a wild turkey?

More reds... the coral honeysuckle is eluding my attempts to get a decent photo.

Virginia bluebells

The evening primrose is doing so well that I pulled up several plants to eat... I was disappointed... tasted a bit strong to me... I prefer the winter harvested ones... A friend liked them fine. 

Here's what's left...After eating them for dinner.

Here's the wisteria next door... Nasty invasive stuff!

Spotted this hackberry (Celtis laevigata) on the property line... while I was shooting the wisteria... has to be the nicest one I've ever seen!

Hackberry is an important wildlife tree... Host plant for a number of butterflies as well as providing fruit for the birds...

Lyre-leaf sage... Pretty, but too successful for the garden... seems like a dynamite turf alternative... I've been pulling  it from the garden... while encouraging it in the yard.

The cat catches voles using the same moves as the foxes on the nature channel... Unfortunately she doesn't immediately consume them like the fox... I feed her too much... there'd be less torture if she was hungry...

Emerging asclepias tuberosa.

Monarda punctata seedlings

eutrochium breaking dormancy

Flat woods plum (Prunus umbellata)

Read a post by Ginny Stibolt recently who complained about her inability to purchase these...
I was kind of surprised, as these produce inedible fruit... tiny bitter plums... Maybe I could stew them?