I have my pigeonberry in bright shade but it took forever to finally start growing. It's less than a foot tall but it's surviving. The Fall obedient plants I got this year, I had to move to a pot and put the pot where it gets a constant drop from the a.c. because I almost lost both plants. I even had them in amended soil but they needed more water than I could provide. I lost my blue flax and nearly lost my skeleton leaf golden eye. Both were in temporary pots. Your black dalea is beautiful. I was tempted to get one this year when I saw it at a nursery. The four nerve daisies and Wright's skullcap I got this year have been winners as well as some seed grown gomphrenas.

The phlox, which can usually depended upon for a lot of color, failed this year and it took me a while to figure out why the flowering stems were dying.

Below the mulch snails and pill bugs were stripping the lowest part of the stems. In all the years I've had them that's never happened before. Probably the rains in recent months contributed to the proliferation of the munchers.

A few sprinkles of bug bait is helping with recovery, but it's too late for much of anything this year.

Your phlox plants look amazing roselee! I had an issue with pill bugs eating up my plants two years ago when we received a lot of rain. I'm glad you were able to find the culprits.

Bostedo, your back Dalea looks better than mine and I have been growing it in a native setting for 15 years and the deer keep it shorn to a couple of inched to the ground. I just added another under a scrubby fragrant mimosa with lots of big rocks around it. My fingers are crossed.

We lost our Pigeonberry this year, no idea why.

PKponder, I lost one of my pigeonberries too. It was one I transplanted that was growing wild in the tree line and it did well a month or two after being transplanted, but then it didn't return this year. I found two more, one growing in another part of the tree line and one by my shed that I'm going to transplant once it starts cooling off, or I may just grow them in pots and bring them in this winter?

They should be cold hardy for Dallas.

Blackwillow, Sorry you lost the blue flax. The unusually dry September in DFW took a toll on a number of our potted plants.... and the fall ravaging squirrels have recently "disappeared" others. Glad to hear Wright's skullcap does well for you, we've tried the pink a couple times, but has not lasted. Have noticed many of the shade groundcovers we've tried do much better with a bit more light than called for in the references and wonder if it has something to do with the additional energy needed to get roots established in our heavy Blackland Prairie clay.

Roselee, Slugs and pillbugs do get pretty destructive when the conditions are favorable - sorry they did in your phlox flowers this year. We periodically get vast numbers, but are fortunate they tend to stay concentrated in the shaded side yard on the north. Sluggo Plus has worked very well for us.

Wantonamara, Yes, I consider it fortunate that the deer don't make it all the way to our small urban space after reading here of the havoc they would produce in the landscape.... and imagine on our congested roadways. The black dalea flowered, but didn't grow much the couple years we had it in a pot. It really took off its first year in the ground, but is still to be determined if it will reliably survive wet winters in our north Texas clay.

PKponder, Blackfoot daisies will randomly flame out on us; though haven't heard of it, wonder if pigeon berry can show the same ephemeral behavior. First thing I now check for are grubs after confirming they were behind some recent Katie ruellia die-offs.

I plant some of the more delectable plants like Back Dalea and Manfredas tucked in the agave leaves and under tall brambly plants. It is defensive gardening. Only time will tell if this works. Otherwise my garden would be nothing but cages. I do have a cage around the fresh agave that I planted this year for the rutting/horn season. we have a wild hog burrowing, flattening my three foot tall compost pile. As long as he stays in the compost , I am happy. He did half the job of turning the pile over, but he took out a bunch of the fresh vegetable dinner leavings. I guess , I should not gripe , one needs to pay ones help, but if he damages the garden, the guns come out.

I am thinking of making a chicken wire cage over a Black dalea out in the open, then the deer would eat down to it and the dalea would recover past the wire quickly. That is worth a try. The only Black Dale that I see in the country side is right by roads where deer do not spend a lot of time. It was pretty low also right around a fence line.

Mara, I didn't know deer liked Black dalea. That information will save me some grief as I was planning on planting it in the hell strip.

Well something is keeping it mowed short. Maybe it doesn't like my soil. They don't bother Dalea geggii .

What is the difference in Gregg's and Black dalea? I'm not sure what I've grown before since it was a pass-along plant.

Gregg's is a lower growing grey/silver leafed node-rooting plant that makes
it a nice groundcover option. Black is more of an airy/fragile branched low shrub with bluish green leaves. Both have purple/violet flowers, though (to me) seem more pronounced on Black Dalea.

Roselee, What a remarkable photo of the mantis looking at you! Too bad his diet doesn't include cactus bugs.

@wantonamara, I wonder if mine didn't return because it wasn't established enough? I think I moved it towards the end of Summer/early Fall time frame?

@bostedo September definitely took a toll on a lot my plants too. I tried to at least keep the potted plants watered but it just wasn't enough. The true test of the Wright's skullcap will be winter, but I have it planted in a raised bed amended with lots of decomposed granite and pine bark fines. Another worry is my Blackfoot daisies are spreading and crowding it out so I may have to trim those back? The daisies were so beautiful earlier in the year, but now they've grown leggy with mostly bare stems. I received some Texas Blazing Star plants but they all got top heavy and crawled along the ground, so I may have to move them to a better location?

@roselee It's sad that your phlox took a hit like that, I hate pill bugs because I think they're responsible for eating a lot of my newly planted seedlings in Summer. I've never seen or heard of frizzle top, but I think I've heard of cactus bugs? It's sad that they're attacking your dyckia. I wonder if you could use neem oil to kill them? I've used neem on several of my plants to get rid of pests, but some plants are very sensitive to neem. Your porterweeds and shrimp plants look amazing! I got a small red shrimp plant earlier in the year but it's barely grown. I have it in dappled shade so maybe I should move it to a sunnier location?

This is a great thread.

Good; RLs put on more frequent shows

Bad: crazy January freeze messed up w/all my citrus so no fruit this winter.

Slow Fail: there was no saving my Chisos Oak . It started with trauma from 2011 drought and was steady decline thereafter

Bostedo I have that yellow belacamda planted in part shade amended clay and no show. Won't try again

Bostedo, thank you. Sounds like I had Gregg's dalea. Now I wouldn't mind trying Black dalea in the back yard where the deer don't have access.

Bossy, what are RLs? I'll have no fruit from my Satsuma tree either.

Blackwillow, yes, been meaning to pick up some neem oil. As for sun all my other shrimp plant varieties will take a little morning sun, but need shade in the afternoon. 'Lemon sorbet' is the only one I know of that likes sun all day.

This is probably of no interest except to me, but pill bugs are fascinating little creatures. When I was about five years old I observed that they carried their little tiny, tiny young on their undersides and naively wondered if anybody else knew this ... :-)

"As members of the Class Crustacea, they are closely related to lobsters,
crabs and shrimp. Most crustaceans live in or near water, and as
dry-land crustaceans, pill bugs and sow bugs still require damp habitats
due to the delicate gill-like breathing organs on their undersides,
which must be kept moist to work."

Rain lilies

My big summer fail:

My big summer effort is germinating all the Z. citron that Ms. Bossyvossy sent me. I just went out and bought some soil and compost to elevate and IMPROVE the soils around the stepping stones. She sent enough seed to make a rainy day yellow brick road in a couple of years. I need more stepping stones.

Roselee I'll probably take a cutting this fall from my red one and place that one is a sunnier location. I have a flower bed that gets mid morning sun and shade mid-late afternoon.

Pill bugs remind me of tiny armadillos. I didn't know they carried their young on their undersides. I've always been afraid to pick them up because they look so otherworldly. I'm embarrassed to admit that lol. Now I'm curious about them.

Wantonamara I hope you'll post pictures of your yellow brick road when they bloom?

Mara, you will have a nice patch/path.

I feel so dumb. In my constant obsession w/ RLs, I was cruising eBay and found a listing for Japanese RL, which I immediately purchased. It wasn't until after I sowed the seeds that I start researching and can't find a thing about Japanese RL. Time to contact seller. He replied that he collected z. Citrina seeds during a visit to Japan, hence the reason for using the name. I don't know who I was more annoyed with: myself for not doing my homework in advance or with him. It was a couple of bucks, so not a very costly mistake. Who knows, I may end up with a RL path from Richmond to Japan, ha.

Thats funny/sad or sad/funny. I have done stuff like that like dig up some grass ( bluestem) on my new property and carefully planted bluestem.

You ladies are brave. If it happened to me, I would take those stories to my tomb. :D

Omar

I'm issuing the "Omar Blooper Challenge". Come on Omar -- 'fess up and see if you can beat us ladies at it.

Yeah! Fess up

Once I dug a bunch of plants to take to friends I was having lunch with, sat the pots on the driveway in back of the car until I could get the keys to open the hatch and load them. Got the keys and my purse, got in the car and backed over all the dang plants!

Omar, can you beat that?

Whoo hoo! Are we having fun yet, or what?

Haha. I've done something similar.

i was looking for a spot to start a veggie garden (back in the days when I had faith). I know it needed to be sunny so selected accordingly. Garden was a fiasco due to insufficient sun. You see, after I found the sunny spot, it never occurred to me to monitor for continued 6 hour or more sunshine. The spot I selected happened to get sun for about 1 hr a day....now top that one!

I paid good money for that Bluestem..... what is funnier is I am doing the same thing now but the Bluestem that I am replacing it with is the really Blue bluestem , not the tall green bluestem that is native to here.

I had some prairie flame leaf sumac coming up with its roots all intwined with my waist high madrone so I decided to poison it instead of pulling it out and near killed both of them. My husband was SO pissed off at me. Like they say, a miss is a mile.

Smart Mara, real smart .... lol

Bossy, my version of your veggie garden blooper is planting a shade loving plant in a beautiful shady spot in late summer only to realize to my dismay that by late spring the sun is moving across the sky in a completely different place making that same area very sunny.

Whoever said we learn best from our mistakes was right!

Mara, if you keep on trying you're gonna' get that blue stem grass right. A gardener's motto should be: Never give up!

Ain't happening...

Omar

I want those fancy really blue bluestem.

CHIC - KEN ...!!! ;-)

(Omar, not Mara :-)

Mara, like this?

Yea, like that. yea , like that. collect me some seed.

Google images won't let me in to get some ... :-(

I thought that was in your yard. That's alright TxR is on the job.