Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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eclecticcottage
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

Post by eclecticcottage »

Lily left the valley wrote:I'd read up on irises a bit, as we have a few evidently different varieties, based on size alone. Here's a fun shot I managed today--still haven't found our better cameras. :-(
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That there is a daylily bud. If it is larger in height and leaf size, it is likely the species version (the original plant that hybrids are bred from). Locally they are usually referred to as ditch or tiger lilies. They spread by root not seed as far as I know, the clumps will expand yearly. They flower better in sun but will grow just about anywhere. I have about 40' of them along the driveway at the cottage, they are super easy keepers and grow thick enough to keep most weeds at bay.

Someone might have thought they were Siberian iris, which have a long slender leaf which is much more flexible than a bearded iris-it is similar to a daylily at first glance.

Your where did you come from looks like devils paintbrush to me.

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Lily left the valley
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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eclecticcottage wrote:That there is a daylily bud. If it is larger in height and leaf size, it is likely the species version (the original plant that hybrids are bred from). Locally they are usually referred to as ditch or tiger lilies. They spread by root not seed as far as I know, the clumps will expand yearly. They flower better in sun but will grow just about anywhere. I have about 40' of them along the driveway at the cottage, they are super easy keepers and grow thick enough to keep most weeds at bay.

Someone might have thought they were Siberian iris, which have a long slender leaf which is much more flexible than a bearded iris-it is similar to a daylily at first glance.

Your where did you come from looks like devils paintbrush to me.
There are more buds by now. I hoping maybe in the next week or so I'll see some color. Thanks for the tip about the devils. I'll look them up. They sound familiar, so I hope they are native.

Argh. Just realized I had the camera out earlier, and forgot to take a picture of the bee balm which is just starting to show a bit of color peeking out.

The rhododendron is recovering since the transplant. The Emerald n' Gold is recovering at a much slower rate. All the transplants are sucking up water like crazy, despite the rains. Happy to have the water barrel to keep them satiated.

Our milkweed is under attack of aphids, and being aided by ants both large and small. We lost the early crop of ladybugs to that late frost, and I haven't spotted a single one since then. We do have a slew of dragon and damselflies, though. They are helping a bit in this regard. I have to start at least water spraying and leaf clipping to try to stem the aphids down a bit. I don't want to kill them all or the good bugs won't have anything to eat. Yet there are two plants that are getting a lot of them so those need tending because I'm afraid they will make the leap to others when older.

I did find out it's better in such a case to have your milkweed in a few different places. Since ours is clustered this year (prior planting/self seeding to our move in), it's easier for the ants and aphids to do their thing. Next year...they will be more spread out.

I still haven't seen any monarchs or eggs of same. Looking for them is what lead to the aphid discovery today.

I still only have the bad camera, so some images are less than good. I can't really focus on what I want, and often can't even see what's in the shot because of glare on the display. Still searching for the better cameras. I think we may be closing in on possible boxes for them.

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My favorite out of the batch that made it far enough to posting here today...
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

Post by Lily left the valley »

Ask, and ye shall receive.

The photo searching I had done earlier was badly grouped and captioned, and I'm glad I went back to double check. I have a great little book called "Good Bugs for Your Garden" by Allison Mia Starcher. I paged through it after Sean and I planted Shoobie, our blueberry bush and then wandered around to spot water where needed.

I grabbed the book because when I went to show him the aphid eggs...they were gone! I went into a panic, looking for them, thinking I was remembering them on the wrong plant, and worried even more had hatched. Then Sean said, "Hey, there's a ladybug." Sure enough, it was scurrying through the shriveled milkweed leaves on one of the worst of the infested plants.

So off to check on something I went, got the book, and looked at the images for ladybugs. Right on that page was a drawing of a cluster of eggs under a leaf that oddly looked just like the ones in my photo. So off to the web I went again, only to find that the images that had come up before when my search was "aphid eggs", it was only then that I noticed some of the captions did indeed say "aphid eggs", but others said that the ladybugs lay their eggs near aphid infested areas of plants. :doh: I would have been so upset if I had destroyed those eggs only to learn that they were ladybugs!

So now I'm glad I didn't knee jerk start removing everything I thought was aphids, including those eggs, which, apparently...hatched. Now I'll be looking for those larvae as they are cute as buttons for an alligator like larvae.

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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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A healthy ecosystem will balance itself out, and it looks like that's what's happening at your place. Nice to hear the predators have arrived. I remember, a couple of years ago, I planted bronze fennel (Foeniculum vulgare 'Purpureum') at a client's house and a few weeks later she called in a panic because caterpillars were munching it down to nothing. Of course she asked the question those of use who try to avoid chemicals hate to hear, "What do I spray?" When she described them for me (bright green with yellow and black bands) she was delighted to discover they were the caterpillars of the black swallowtail butterfly and monitored them lovingly.

This isn't to say you can't get an invasion of a pest that the predators can't handle - or worse, there are no natural predators. Slugs come to mind. I'm told toads and ducks will eat them but, if the weather's rainy, they multiply faster than the hungriest toad's appetite.

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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

Post by Lily left the valley »

Manalto wrote:A healthy ecosystem will balance itself out, and it looks like that's what's happening at your place.{snip}

This isn't to say you can't get an invasion of a pest that the predators can't handle - or worse, there are no natural predators. Slugs come to mind. I'm told toads and ducks will eat them but, if the weather's rainy, they multiply faster than the hungriest toad's appetite.
When I realized how many prior plantings that were natives abounded as I cautiously let the back yard run wild (minus snuffing dandys when they were seeding), that was my hope--that things would balance.

I had seen a few small slugs early on after the last frost, mostly on the front slope beds flanking the stairs. I have not tended to that bit as much as I should given the water barrel and transplants turning into priority. I did use the grass whip a bit yesterday to knock some of the seeding grass down, and poked about a little on those sides, and didn't spot more than one. I do hear toads at night, and some frogs too. So hopefully despite the heavier rains we had a bit ago, there's still plenty to keep them in check.

As we've slowly been figuring out what to do in the back, I'm reading about baby steps some folks have taken in regards to water features. I know a lot of the taller plants we've let grow free are part of what has attracted all the dragons and damsels, so I'm thinking of moving some of that a bit farther back towards the area I want to start with a tiny water feature, in case it goes sideways and the mosquitoes get to it with eggs.

So far, although we do have mosquitoes here, they've not been a menace. So I think between the birds, bats, frogs, toads, spiders and predatory bugs, so far---so good. :D

I haven't used a single chemical yet aside from some soil amendment mix for the celosias. Trying to keep it that way.

The compost is doing its thing, I just have to remember to turn it. Still working on the enclosure. We changed direction with our approach to inside the house, and that has eaten up time I'm typically outside. All good things, though, so no complaints from me.

Oh, and the moth I didn't have the camera to get a pic of last week (I think?), I'm pretty sure was a luna moth. Haven't seen it since. (They only live seven days though, so...there's that.)
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eclecticcottage
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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I was going to say Luna as soon as I saw the pic.

I don't think devils paintbrush is a native but I could be wrong. I just remember seeing it a lot growing up and for some reason my grandparents always pointed it out. They were both super into plants, although they didn't really have huge gardens (they had landscaping around the house but not GARDENS).

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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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eclecticcottage wrote:I was going to say Luna as soon as I saw the pic.

I don't think devils paintbrush is a native but I could be wrong. I just remember seeing it a lot growing up and for some reason my grandparents always pointed it out. They were both super into plants, although they didn't really have huge gardens (they had landscaping around the house but not GARDENS).
It isn't native anywhere in the US from what I read. I looked at a few of my invasive lists, and don't see it on any of them, but I know five states have it listed as such according to the overall US page on it. I also learned another name for it is hawkweed.

We have both the yellow and orange. What I thought was burgundy was a deep burnt orange that brightened once the blooms came out with yellow centers bleeding outwards. I tried to take some close ups, but...I am giving up on trying to take close ups with that camera. I did find some of our photo lights today, so I think I may finally be closer to the better cameras. :handgestures-fingerscrossed:

~~~
I spotted my first monarch butterfly in the backyard today! Darn thing wouldn't stay still, so it was hopeless to try to get an image before it moved on to a neighbor's yard and beyond. It was flying away from the milkweed, so hopefully there will be more. I noticed today that the aphids are much less prevalent than they were just yesterday. Not sure what this means, but I'm hopeful.

The only half way not awful shot of any of the dragons or damsels today: a common whitetail dragonfly. I'm not sure if it's an immature male or a female. Apparently only the mature male has the prominently white tail. The mottling on the wings varies between each dragonfly from what I saw in one gallery of them. When I first saw it, I thought of a box kite.
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Bee balm starting to present some color:
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These also showed up today when the very, very nice lady from PYCA stopped by to drop off a housewarming gift (more on that in my regular Beebe thread):
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Shoobie, our blueberry bush seems to be settling in well from being planted yesterday.

The rhododhendron transplant looks fantastic compared to what it looked like a week ago. That spot is definitely more in line with what it needs.

The Emerald n' Gold is still struggling, but I noticed today that the burnt pink is fading, and the lower leaves beneath the upper branches looks downright healthy. Hopefully it will recover. Oh, and we decided to call it Ozma.

The day lilies on the east are budding like crazy, but no color yet--even the ones that fought their way through the seams of the cut stone landing to the left of the bed are budding.
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

Post by Lily left the valley »

Today was a lesson learned in backyard progress photography. :lol:

Behold my glorious failure of a before and after angle for today's attack on the oriental bittersweet. (Hint...look at the garage roof peak area.)

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All my hard work, save that one small area, is below the roof line of the garage. :crying-pink: There's still a lot of work to be done...but progress is good for my soul right now.

Two other photos I took after I realized my spectacular PHAIL.
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

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Finally got over to the dollar store just in time to grab most of the remaining candle buckets, which were also on sale. :dance:
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These were the cheapest and closest to what I'd been looking for to make a rain chain for the water barrel in the front. The candle part had sort of stumped me, until I read a really neat trick on the web. Stick 'em in the freezer. Sure enough, it works. The wax shrinks, and most just pop out with a few bops on the base, but a few I had to run the bucket part under warm water to get it to expand a bit more to ease the candle release. The image above shows our "test" as successful. Very little wax left, and easily wiped out with a rag.

Thankfully, we have to go food shopping soon, so there was lots of room to fit a handful at a time in there. The pic below is when Sean only put two in, but I fixed that in the next batch when I realized how much room there was. Second to last batch is in the freezer now, so in a few hours, I'll swap those out for the last batch and then they'll all be de-candled. We have loads of other candle holders these will fit into, so I'm just storing them in a box until we use them outside. (They're the citronella variety.)
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My original plan was to get a bunch of different colors and do a sort of repeat rainbow. Well, the Floor Manager wants to paint them all like big bees. Who do you think it going to wind up doing that? Yep. Since we're still tight on budget, I'm going to try to convince him that for this year, we can just do the rainbow, and over the winter we can paint them. Hopefully he'll go with that. :handgestures-fingerscrossed:

Somewhere I think I have the chain I need..in a, you know, box that's maybe in the parlor...or maybe it made it to the craft room. Hopefully I'll find it soon. If all goes as planned, we'll have a rain chain made for less than $15 because the chain I'm hoping to find was leftover from another project long ago. Even if I don't find it, we won't need much, and it should still come under $20 before painting.

Right now, because we have no downspout, when the rain is heavy it beats like a drum on the rain barrel. That's kind of neat in its own way, but I also worry it might annoy some neighbors. It got really loud in the one storm the day I set the barrel up.

Scattered some sunflower seeds here and there in the front and side yards last eve. Tried to mulch over them a wee bit to protect them, but I have no idea how well that will work. Still need to clear the spot I want to put the rest in the back. This weekend might be a mostly in house project weekend, depending on the weather.

Sean made a discovery recently. That huge slab of cement at the bottom of the side stairs has bees under it. Yes...we have small ground bees making their home there. I watched a few of them enter at one point, and if you listen carefully, you can hear buzzing from a chip that's missing on the house side. So...now I'm in no rush to move it. I sorta feel guilty, but it will give us time to figure out what to do to least disturb them when we adjust it to not slope towards the house. :eusa-shhh:

We did not get to the Bittersweet today, much to my chagrin. The weather was finicky when we were home, and we had errands to run today, so timing with the errands and rain showers.

I am totally confused because they're saying it should be thunderstorms right now. We're under a severe watch. We do have dark clouds, but also the sun came back out and is blaring through them. :happy-sunny: So I might get back outside to do a few minor things.

Today's been long for me, though. Not enough sleep. A nap might be smarter. :sleeping-sleeping:
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Re: Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

Post by Lily left the valley »

Another fun day of threatening clouds, but no rain. We even had a boomer watch from 3pm on, and the rains didn't kick in until almost suppertime. Fortunately for whoever nearby enough we could hear them had a fireworks show, the rains had well stopped by the time it got dark. We tried to see them from upstairs, but all we could see was the occasional glow in the sky, not the actual explosions.

Have I mentioned the rain barrel has stayed near to full since we installed it? (Despite my daily watering rounds.) We're now debating if we should get the second one to tandem with the first, rather than wait until we can gutter at least part of the back. I know it's been rainy of late, but we also don't know how long that's going to last either.

After some hemming and hawing, I decided to forgo the extra chain bits for the rain chain and will stick to a simpler scheme. I will start linking them together this week and see how it goes. I have to devise or just buy a cover for the double cut hole we currently have in our gutter, as there is currently a large chance that too much of the water will not hit the center even with the leader links to the first bucket. We do have a lot of cherry coke cans sitting around waiting to be returned for the deposits, so I'm wondering if it's worth some minor metalworking to save a few bucks, or if I should just go buy a pre-made piece from the hardware store.

One troublesome bit is when I looked back up the directions for proper grading, the west side is not enough room to do a gradual slope because of the neighbor's rock wall. I could do a French drain, but I also started looking into "dry" riverbed set ups. We'd been thinking of doing the first rain garden out front anyhoo, so I could easily direct it towards that, and solve the problem of too steep a slope by filling in said dirt slope with rocks that will let the water just head downhill towards where we planned to put the rain garden.

In between laundry and doing walk arounds thinking about what to do when in the yard, I realized I'd been so focused on the oriental bittersweet that all sorts of things have been happening and I'm just catching up. We have another patch of milkweed (much smaller) towards the rockwall, and there seems to be more food available already than I'd realized.
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I'm fairly certain that's a walnut tree. The question is...Black or English? We'll find out in time for sure just from how the nuts behave, and I have more research to do on that. The raspberries in particular have some younger siblings nearby that are nearing a foot now. I'm trying to decide where to put them, as they are scattered and not in a cool way I'll keep. There's another low bush near to the rock wall that I think may be a fruit, but I don't recall flowers before, and I'm not seeing any fruit. So I have to look that one up as best I can. (Forgot to take a picture.)

I'm starting to get an idea of where to put the natural pond, now I just need to get some rope and try out a few outlines to see what seems right. I'm realizing there's a lot of digging to be done, so I'm thinking about contacting the "call before you dig" people and saying, "Look. We just bought this house. We plan to do A LOT. Do I have to flag everything, or can they just do the whole property in one visit?"

Other surprises from today:
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The first of the two I'm shaking my head over because every time I've walked down the west side of the property of late, I've had my eyes on the ground, thinking about the grading. So I completely missed that (and the 2nd bunch of milkweed I mentioned above.) The second, I was keeping an eye there since the leaves clawed their way through the overgrowth, but I've been so wrapped up on the bittersweet, Shoobie and the compost that I didn't even notice buds. The color was what caught my eye today as I did a round about the yard after hanging laundry in the morning, watching all our flying friends flitting about.

If I haven't mentioned it before, the dragons and damsels love the clothesline. Sometimes there's more than a half a dozen perched on it when there's no laundry present. Today, though, when I went out to take in the laundry, I had a big surprise--a small bee had decided it wanted to hang out in my clothespin hanger. So there I am, trying to gently encourage it out, hoping desperately to not get stung. Successful, though! So now I have to remember to keep the zipper shut so that doesn't happen again. :lol:
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