I love your posts, J! ItÂs such fun to "watch" all the fun youÂre having. Mixing up plants, and bugs, and unexpected discoveries are all part of the joy. I admit, tho, that IÂm not a big fan of pine pollen! Luckily the really bad wind we got here in Denver a few weeks ago blew most of mine away this year.

IÂm not sure about your iris seed, but if it were me, IÂd leave it on the plant until itÂs clearly starting to dry, and then collect the seed and start it in a pot where I could better control the conditions. I collect seed from almost anything when I find it. Found seed on a couple crocus I didnÂt get deadheaded this spring, and now have it in a pot to see if itÂll germinate or not. Even if it does, I think itÂs gonna be a few years before I get flowers on crocus from seed! And itÂs not like you canÂt buy crocus bulbs cheap! But I love the miracle of growing things from seed!

Happy gardening,
Skybird

One of my daffs decided to form a seed pod. I deadheaded most of the other spring bulb stalks, but I'm going to leave this one and see what it does.

J, you are so wonderful to share your love of the garden. How wonderful to see beyond and enjoy every moment. This year I am loving the robins finding worms and some huge yellow butterflies visiting. Something not seen before in any of my gardens. Such good things a garden offers, not only to each of us, but also to surrounding nature.

Remember that old adage: the optimist created the airplane and the pessimist invented the parachute? J you are truly our optimist. Your joy and childlike glee is quite infectious! And what an interesting way to get such great advice on how to handle a seed head.

Skybird, your commitment to planting and helping others is unparalleled in my estimation.

Volunteers are always welcome and appreciated. They teach me so much and remind me that a higher power is generally smarter than I. This years volunteers are a pole bean where the squash didnÂt germinate and last years lettuce that got let go to seed gave me the earliest greens I have ever had. I had done this with the cilantro, on purpose, because I felt I could deal with the scattered seed better (cilantro has its own little corner that I just bend the dried seed heads back down to the ground and keep a fresh supply over the whole season and very early germination each spring). But I like to rotate the beds so the lettuce was clearly a mistake of not getting things picked up last fall! Once the lettuce seedlings were going good I transplanted them to the new location but even left some right where they were.

As for the observations of nature. A snake in the treeÂ.

Bonnie

Thanks!! At the risk of posting every time something sprouts, blooms or jumps about, I have to post, in a loud sqeal, that more seedlings have hatched! Yes, now the creeping thyme has popped and more gaillardia, too. I guess it is just the mexican hat I'm waiting for.

Oh, and there was another crab spider, a dragonfly and some kind of pear shaped spider, too.

Maybe if the cherry seeds I keep throwing over the balcony ever sprout, I'll post that too!

Ya know, I left some of the daffodils so they could let their seeds wander...I just took out the ones that were driving me nuts and blocking my tiny irises.

I really wish I knew what kind of snake that is!! I know for those who don't like icky things, it may not be so special, but I used to keep snakes as pets.

Looks like a gopher snake to me. Also called bull snakes. But was that a photo you took, Bonnie? I kept a lot of gopher snakes as pets when I was a kid. And it's probably good that my mom freaked out when I showed her a rattlesnake my brother and I caught and said, "Can I keep it, Mom?" I probably owe her my life for that one!

OK, back to gardening - J, how did you sprout the creeping thyme? I got some seeds in a trade this winter, but I had no luck sprouting them in my basement. I read that they like a germination temp of 55, and it's clearly hotter than that now! How did you treat them? Because I still have some of the seeds, and I should try again. I could get some growing in pots for fall planting if I sow them soon.

I did take the photo while lounging on my chair in the front lawn last week. I believe it is a Bull snake. Garter snakes donÂt have the ring on the tail; their strips are more head to toe (hence the name because with their coloring, when laid out head touching tail, resembles a ladies garter). Plus the size, garters around here only get 2-3 feet. This one seemed like 7-8 feet long in the tree but when it dropped in the lawn it was only 5Â. It did not have rattles or a heart shaped head so it got to stay in the yard. I dislike mice worse than I dislike harmless snakes.

My husband and I grew up in Wyoming and have lived a couple decades in Colorado and neither one of us have ever seen a Bull snake in a tree!

J, Sky and Steve: you guys impress me. The only flowers I even try to grow from seed are marigolds, cosmos and my favorite, Valentine sunflowers. My front flower garden really shows it too. No photos showing off my gorgeous blooms like J or offering cutting seminars like Sky.

Bonnie

Let me see...the seeds were packets, I popped them into pony-packs (or at least that is what I call the little four or six pack things of tiny flowers that I buy at the nursery.) I used seed starter mixed with a tad of Canadian sphagnum peat moss, the kind that says it is 'alive' on the package. I watered with a tablespoon everyday and misted till someone said to soak. I keep them in the window sill, even though it might be a bit hot there. My house is all windows, and I mean one wall alone has ten windows that are each about ten feet hight by four feet wide. I think the light, humidity and warmth might have had something to do with it. It could just be luck, too, because Skybird (I think...) sent a link to germination instructions and at the same time said to try it simply first, then try the complex instructions if it doesn't work. I started with simple, and may try something else for the Mexican hat...poor hat. The only other things I bothered to grow from seeds, beside countless chia pets, were nasturtiums and sweet peas. They both were started in Altadena and just before transplanting them, they wound up in San Francisco!! The Trapoleum--I think that is the correct name for the nasturtiums, did very well but the sweet peas must have had shock. Other than that, these are my first seeds. My little babies.

Hmmm, that is pretty exciting if I am impressing a gardener!! Usually the only way I impress with gardening is calling out the scientific names, family, genus, species and other factual information about plants. I like to spout off information and chatter on while pointing at helpless plants and feeling quite like the show-off. I love it! I think my family and my boyfriend are remembering my favourites. At least the genus names.

About the snake, it being in the tree is pretty awesome, I might have run for the camera, too! Mine were a Burmese python and two African ball pythons.

I have to add that there are hummingbirds taking nectar from the raspberry blossoms! Oh, and a giant and very heavy bee came inside yesterday. Oh, oh, and a little green fairy-like bug came in then out today!!

Thanks, thanks,
J.

I thot that looked like a bull snake too, but I had no idea they could climb trees! That could be kind of spooky to think one might drop down on top of you as you were walking under a tree! Keep your eyes UP when youÂre walking under your trees, Bonnie!

Thyme shouldnÂt be that hard to germinate, Steve. HereÂs thyme info from my best germination site: >>Thymus pulegioides, serpyllum, and vulgaris, Sow at 20ºC (68ºF), germinates in about two wksIf the seed you got in the trade had been collected by somebody, itÂs possible it wasnÂt viable when you got it. Why donÂt you fold a few seeds into a small piece of moist paper towel and seal it in a zipper baggie and watch it for several weeks to see if it germinates (just unfold the paper towel every now and then to check). Then if none of the seeds germinate, you donÂt need to waste your time trying to germinate them in soil. (If they do germinate and you want to use them, you can "prick" them off of the paper towel and place them on top of or just barely buried in moist soil and let them grow.)

Was your green fairy-bug a lacewing, J? (Third one down at the link below)

If you try sweet peas again, sow them directly in the ground. IÂm not sure they like transplanting too muchÂsince theyÂre easy to plant directly, IÂve never tried starting them in pots/plugs. And they need to be planted way early when itÂs still cold out.

And donÂt give up on your Mexican hat yet! Sometimes things take longer than youÂre expectingÂfor no good reason whatsoever. Keep them moist for at least a couple more weeks yet to be sure theyÂre not just going to be late.

IÂd say youÂve got bragging rights for more than botanical names by now!

Skybird

Here is a link that might be useful: Good Garden Bugs

This week I am finally starting to see some small praying mantis, which I am very excited about. The developer of our subdivision sprayed all of the empty lots with 2-4D a couple of weeks back. This killed off everything around us, and our yard became an oasis for grasshoppers. They have almost completely devoured my red bee balm plants. Not sure whether to let them limp along to see what the blooms look like and use them as a trap crop, or just rip them out and take a chance the grasshoppers will start eating other plants in my flower bed. I've recruited both of the boys to help me catch them, but the younger one wants to keep them as pets. Personally, I prefer to squash them with my shoe ; )

I also saw my first ladybug this week, too. There are plenty of honey bees showing up as well. They loooove the gaillardia. At first I was afraid of getting stung when deadheading, but I found if I don't make any sudden movements, they don't seem bothered by me.

The other insect we have a lot of are blue dragonfly-looking things. They hang around the veggie patch alot, so I'm hoping they are "good" bugs.

Do you have something similar to this, High?

Here is a link that might be useful: Dragonflies

We not only have quite a few lady bugs but their larvae have just begun to show up. Don't be frightened . . . but you can look at a picture of one of the little monsters .

Bonnie, you may well be seeing blue dashers. "The Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis) is a dragonfly of the skimmer family. It is common and widely distributed in the United States." Wikipedia

digitS'

I'm thinking High might have damselflies. They are smaller, more delicate than dragon flies, and really common in my yard right now. They are carnivores, like dragonflies.

Here is a link that might be useful: Damselflies

Ooooooh! They're cute! Don't think I've ever seen them before!

Yours are cute too, Digit, but Cnetter's are prettier! :-)

And thanks for posting the picture of the "little dragons!" I didn't have time to look up a picture of ladybug larvae, and it's easy to want to kill them if you don't know what they are. But the ones I've seen looked more black than purple.

Skybird

Thank you guys for helping me figure out my mystery bug! After looking at all the links then going out into the garden today to get a closer look, I believe the ones here are damselflies. I'm glad to know they are not the ones eating my plants.

Another bug event today, my DH sprayed a good sized yellow jacket nest that was on the house today. The ones that got away came back after a while and did not look happy. Meanwhile I ... ah... "removed" several more grasshoppers from my front flower bed. A couple of them had to be 3 - 4" long. They are kind of pretty, until they jump towards me, then they just creap me out!

""They are kind of pretty, until they jump towards me, then they just creap me out!""

Okay, that cracks me up! I spent about three minutes yesterday shooshing out a grasshopper and trying to keep three dogs from killing it accidentally with their excitement. It was kind of fun...
My boyfriend asked why I didn't just pick him up and put him outside--he even offered to. Hah! My bug, my fun :)

I don't think I will give up on the Mexican hat...I like it so much!! Even if it does start, I think I will bring most of the seeds to the swap as it is supposed to only go up to 7000 feet. I wonder if it matters that I am at 8240? Eh, worth a try!

Yes, most definitely a lacewing. I used to get so spastic when I saw lacewing eggs and croco-lady bugs back in SF. There were so many aphids in that neighborhood that the arrival of predators made me jump for joy. I used to have (and still have if I ever find it again) a tiny hand help monocle-type magnifier and I would just stare at the little bug-eating monsters. Like aliens, they are!!

Those syrphid (sp?) flies are everywhere, too, so that must mean there is something bad for them to eat. Either that or they are just hanging around and enjoying the blooms. I like those guys a lot, something about their tiny, super-fast wings and the way they hover and buzz ever so slightly.

I did not get enough of a look at my dragon to see if it was one kind or another...I just got so excited...kind of the way my dogs do! "Oh, oh, look! A bug!"

I AM going to try sweet peas again!! I plan on starting earlier next year and on being better informed. I am also going to try something new. I am going to bring in my petunias and their cousins when winter starts to hit and pop them in a flower box in a window. Maybe they will be happy inside and then I will be able to plop them back in the flower bed next spring? The book says they won't come back with our cold temps, but that they should come back during a milder winter. Who knows, try and learn, trial and error.

Wheeeeeee!!!!!!!
Oh, and an important and fun link...well, it might not be important, but it has great and many pictures and proper labeling of the scientific names of bugs and insects. If you scroll down a ways and look on the left, there is an alpha. listing of zillions of good bug pics. Here:

Here is a link that might be useful: Whats that bug?