Aren’t you in for some severe weather? More thunderstorms today. Already did get 2 inches of rain since yesterday, so it’s really muddy again.

Sunny and mild today. Rain and 20 degrees cooler tomorrow. Blue Ridge already shipped. I looked them up on garden watchdog and they had mostly good reviews. I better get nice plants. So you are in the middle of summer now Iris lol? The Gillenias, they are hardy perennials, maybe they will be ok. I can't get that stoneroot out of my head.

Yay, my latifolia is coming back! Took some time. I had to prune one of my buttonbushes a week or so ago. Stuck some little twigs in water. Look at that, already getting some roots.

Nice job Iris! You are a cutting person but not really a seed person......unless you want a plant really bad, and there's no other way......like the Ipomoea pandurata!! How is that doing by the way? It seems to me that those vines switch into overdrive once they latch onto something to climb. That should be fun transplanting in about 10 years.......with a backhoe lol!

Morning Glory Plume Moth. It uses Ipomoea pandurata as a host plant. Yes, it really is a moth. This man of the earth plant is a bigtime beetle host plant. Especially tortoise beetles.

I don’t really need more buttonbushes, I was just curious. Going to find some place for them if they grow though. As for my sweet potato vine: Eeek! Maybe you jinxed it with your pictures there. I thought it is doing well on the porch, so I went to take a picture to show you. Look at that! What is it? Some sort of sweet potato root borer or whatever? What do I do? Buy a sweet potato and put in on there? Maybe I am not meant to grow this plant.

My green milkweed is sprouting, so are the ovalifolia, viridiflora, perennis, tuberosa, stenophylla, verticillata, hallii,exaltata, pumila. I took all the bin tops off so they don't cook. Now I'll be hand watering like Skip. The majority of the bins still haven't germinated.

Gosh Iris ,you can't seem to keep cats off of anything. I'm sorry I jinxed it. I would remove it asap!

Does anyone know how to copy and paste a comment? I need evidence for a trial I'm conducting lol!

Very few things have geminated. The ones I thought were Aruncus are the Elephantopus carolinianus. I hope the daily watering moves things along!

Elephantopus is a good one! I remember when I first wanted it, and I got it. Didn't get as much done as I wanted to. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so I wanted to finish removing the landscape fabric on the side. Now I'm moving some moving a few blubells Gersniums and poppies to that area and replanting sedges and a hosta that were growing on top of fabric.

I forgot, some arenaria, asperula and Cynanchum laeve also germinated.

I didnt know Astragalus canadense spreads underground!

Well wow Jay, you have a lot germinating. Are you expecting heavy rain? Asking because of the lids being off. I am going to have to fix some of my mulching.

Don’t worry Jay, I am not blaming you for my seedling trouble. I have no idea where it went. Probably somewhere deep into the roots. They say these plants hate having their roots disturbed. Being eaten probably qualifies as being disturbed.

Skip, did you find a water hose attachment that works for these little plants?

I'm getting a hose ready to mist the bins. I hope they all germinate fairly quickly. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so I get a day off yippee! The flower buds on the oxypetalum/ tweedia.

Iris I got a Fogg-It 1/2gpm nozzle for my trays, it works pretty well.

Seedlings are looking good Jay!

Anyone know what this seedling is?

I don’t know. Sorry. I guess they are individual ones and not connected?

Skip, it looks like spiderwort seedlings. The stems should be purplish or red near the roots. Slimy sap. Unless you want more plants, the longer you leave them in, the harder they are to pull. They are like onions in that they push their roots deeper over time.

Streptopus lanceolatus.

Those seedlings kind of look like lilies too but, afaik you don't have any lilies yet. Ohio spiderwort seedling pictures have longer leaves. I saw some Streptopus leaves that emerged.

Weird, I posted a comment and it didn't take. I came back later to repost it and it was there. Your astragalus looks good Skip. I didn't know that it spread either. Iris, feed that root borer to the birds. They need to eat too you know lol!

CHOP CHOP!!!

https://youtu.be/_f7g1MZOq6w]

I looked at the wildridge plants and the 2 that I wanted, Collinsonia canadensis and Geum rivale were out of stock. They have another kind of native Ribes cynosbati that I didn't know about. They had some nice plants listed. Hopefully I'll get the Collinsonia from Mountain Gardens.

Toadshade has Collinsonia plants listed as available on their website. This must be a common or desirable plant in northwest NJ. http://www.toadshade.com/Collinsonia-canadensis.html

Im going to keep an eye on the ribes in my yard to see how the flowers and berries mature, and to see if it gets white pine blister rust. My neighbor has white pines I wouldnt want to kill his tree.

I'm going to grow a plant that harbors daylily rust. Any part I can play that will kill daylilies is s win, win situation. Thanks for the tip.

Jay, that’s just mean. We have a lot of apple cedar rust around here. These orange, gooey balls look kind of fascinating.

Thanks Iris! Anything for the cause. 2 Stoneroots, done deal! If anyone wants fresh seeds later on you are all welcome! There are other species of Collinsonia that look interesting. There are no white pines around here. I have a few shipments coming. Woodthrush, Grower's Exchange, Missouri Wildflowers, Gardens of the Blue Ridge, Prairie Moon, Crimson Sage Nursery, Toadshade and last but not least Mountain Gardens. That's besides the 42.000 plants that are growing on the patio lol. Like I said, it's just numbers. Hey Skip, right about now I'm seeing the benefit of having a sunscreen oh yeah!

Collinsonia canadensis. What a shade loving beauty. The flowers are insane!

Thanks for the temptations! They worked! It's a hostplant and it's a mint. I sure hope it spreads like that.

The weather here is going to be cloudy and overcast for the next 10 days, no mad rushing around I hope. The other Collinsonia species are all deep south.

Collinsonia anisata.

Collinsonia seritona, Blue Ridge Horsebalm.

https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=COSE11

Collinsonia punctata.

Collinsonia verticillata

Collinsonia verticillata. Magnificiant!

https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=COVE3

Collinsonia tuberosa.

Collinsonia tuberosa

Cloudy and overcast would be perfect working conditions for me. Hope all goes well, Jay -- enjoy the journey! Despite our hitting 90 yesterday, it was a dry heat; so, I just made sure to hydrate and chase the shade all day. Got my variegata, asperula, speciosa and verticillata in the ground, and so far, so good -- not a single one sulked in yesterday's heat.

All my Gomphocarpus that I repotted look great. Hope thats a good sign. They are from Africa, so they love the heat! Last year I had the tropicals and Gomphocarpus mixed up and didn't know it until they bloomed, but both kinds were eaten down to sticks. I guess my babies finally laid their eggs. I'm tearing up!

I had a New Jersey call, I was like what? It was Toadshade, I wrote my email down wrong lol. They sound like nice people. The Geum rivale is the species that is similar to the triflorum, prairie smoke. Iris, did you get that plant yet? The last time I bought one it got smothered by other plants. They need room to establish.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Redring-Milkweed-Asclepias-Variegata-Rhizome-/113682396447

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Asclepias-variegata-Redring-Milkweed-bare-root-tuber-/173671904291

Now I see what you were talking about Iris. What's with this $640.00 figure? That's the same amount someone wanted for 25 seeds a while back. Nobody has the other 2 milkweeds I'm looking for.

https://youtu.be/InktfPcQcAs

These prices are ridiculous. Wonder if there are people crazy enough to pay them. I heard from Kollar Nursery. He is going to be out of town until next week because of a family emergency. Said he will check, but wasn’t too hopeful since the plants are growing rapidly.

Is that a band thing? Guess I will see. Of course my wanting some plant is nothing compared to a family emergency.

I also got another email I am not happy about. I ordered Monarda citriodora plants on Etsy beginning of March. They were supposed to ship in 3 weeks. When they didn’t, I emailed and got the reply that they still need 2 weeks to grow. Now I got an email that they still need another 3 weeks! They probably really put the seeds in a pot after I placed my order, nothing like the plants in 4 inch pots they had in the pictures. Probably not going to order from them again. Unless the plants look fantastic when they get here.

Where is that nursery. I hope my 3 come up. That's my 2nd order from Izel. The first was for the native Astilbe biternata. It kind of looks like Aruncus. I had to buy 7 plants and not one survived the first year. I wish there were more options but they have a lot of plants that I want that nobody else carries. I'm really mad that they decided not to sell the Asclepias quadrifolia. " Is that a band thing?" I don't know? Rubber band? Rock band? A band of shady nurseries? LOL. Ask if they will ship overgrown plants. What do they have to lose?

Iris, you decided not to put the Epimedium on name that plant? That's fine. You don't have anything else you need ID'd? Anybody can do ID's . It doesn't take any special skill. I had some blue eyed grass and the cats wanted it, so I found some real grass and today was their first time getting grass this year. They aren't vegetarians but they love grass. It was too cold and wet to do much outside. Tomorrow will be a lot warmer.

I wouldn't pay $640 for a Mead's milkweed tuber!!! Unless I was to win the lotto. How nice, I could just pay people to do all the work!

The Etsy one is in Florida. So it should be no problem for them to grow the plants. I see some plant I don’t know almost every day. Currently I can’t even keep my milkweed straight though. They are popping up all over the place, but don’t look like the swamp, whorled, tropical or hairy balls I had there last year. Closest to the common, but not identical looking to the ones I have in the front. There might have been some seeds in the seed mix for pollinators I planted 3 years ago, but I haven’t seen any unknown milkweed there before. This would have been some long germination.

Last year all tear I had the tropical and swan milkweeds mixed up. I was shocked when they bloomed. I thought I had ended up with 2 tropical milkweeds that were growing faster than the one Gomphocarpus that was having a hard time. It was really 2 Gomphocarpus growing fast and a tropical having a hard time.

Collinsonia verticillata. You can't get seeds or plants anywhere. You would think that there are people wanting to grow it. So why can't we???

It’s just weird. I have been going around comparing them to the ones I know for certain. This flower bed is going to be a battle zone really soon. Might have to save some more of the innocent little plants that are not as aggressive. This is just one little patch

Edited to show top view of known common milkweed

It is a weird looking milkweed. I'm pretty sure its milkweed. Crossbreeding isn't common in milkweeds but it does happen. To me it almost looks like a cross between common and tropical milkweed if that's even possible. The pollinia sacks have to be close to the same size as those of the other species for pollination to occur.

Maybe that Collinsonia has special growing conditions? Some of these plants have special preferences. When I was first investigating ground cover options for next to my house I thought I could try bunch berry. Cornus canadensis. This is one of those plants that is near record size for a single organism where all the plants are connected by rhizomes underground. (I think the actual record, in north america at least, is a Populus tremuloides colony). But bunchberry only grows on northern slopes and north facing rock outcrops in the cool season zone of the US. It needs that cool summer climate to thrive and cant handle heat and humidity. It wouldnt work in my yard. I bet a lot of the rare and endangered species are similar. Its not so much the species are dwindling, whole habitats that gave rise to them are dwindling.

Iris I think i am going to be in a similar position regarding controling aggressive plants and favoring certain plants, Im going to try my best to just shear back the quick growers to give the smaller ones some breathing room. I planted Achillea millefolium last year and it didnt seem to do anything, no flowers and weak growth, but now it is coming back and sprouting in an area 3x the size! Rudbeckia laciniata looks poised to conquer the yard too.

That particular Collinsonia grows in the deep south so I'm thinking it likes shady heat. I've been trying to keep all the thugs at the old garden from taking over. Trying and failing! I'm going to try to clean it up and not let anymore special plants get smothered from now on. But I haven't been staying there.

https://youtu.be/NnqVm-PB5W8

It’s going to be fun looking at all of your pictures when things are taking off. I am already resigned to not have a path through this flower bed. My patch of yarrow is the size of a small bedroom by now. Going to look up your Rudbeckia. The name sounds very familiar, so I might have this.

Jay, what do you consider a thug? I absolutely love the Frostweed, swamp sunflower and several others, but they are taking over the world. I hate to rip them out, but I think I have exhausted my list of unsuspecting people to give them to.

Did you know they called Rubeckia laciniata the outhouse plant because everone planted them by their outhouses lol. I told some guy on name that plant that they were agressive, so he planted his in a big plastic pot and after a couple years he dug it up and the inside was one solid root mass, so he divided it and spread it to more places??? I did something similar with the blue flag iris. Do you have s blue flag iris, Iris? I had a double flowered laciniata once that spread like crazy.

The thugs are a weedy Erigeron, Dames rocket, and a couple Canadian wild rhy plants. The grasses get too big and shade other plants and they are seeding everywhere and I don't like that. It's messy looking. The Erigerons don't seem too bad this year. I've been trying to kill all the dame's rocket, but new ones appear every spring. The partridge peas and the morning glories are now becoming so numerous they are affecting other plants. The trumpet vine will just plow over everything too.

I don’t have that one. I do have Siberian iris that is spreading like crazy. The girl from the Department of natural resources gave me a list of approved plants they use for pond restauration (they got a lot of plants from me last year) and this is on there. I asked her if they are crazy, but she can come get as many as they want. If there was a picture in your post (looks like a big blank space) it might already not work for me.

Lol why did they plant it by outhouses, to hide them? This was all part of a half baked idea to plant a fast growing privacy screen. Looks like it will work, the rudbeckia started growing 3 weeks ago, its gaining a huge head start!

What big blank space. You saw the Rubeckias and outhouse right? Isn't Siberian iris an exotic alien? Why would they use it for restoration, or did I miss something???

Haven't seen pics for a while now.

I started a new thread. Native plants, polyculture permaculture.