I have caterpillars on my my Viburnums and nettles yipee. It won't let me post pics. Is that a swallowtail cat?

What is on your viburnums? I guess Admiral on the nettles? It is a little Swallowtail.

Yay for more cats, guys! Good news all around (except for the deer, Iris). An Eastern black swallowtail decided I'd gone enough days without a sighting, and she graced my yard for an hour, on and off, laying eggs in all five different areas where fennel and rue are planted. I was overjoyed.

There are a bunch. They are black and very tiny. It's hard to get a picture because they are hiding on the undersides of the leaves.

I just looked around for the plants still missing from my wishlist. Stenathium gramineum, Asclepias lanceolata, Amorpha glabra to name a few. I think I am finally going to give up for this year. Still looks like mid to upper 90’s and no rain until the end of next week.

I haven't found any caterpillars, other than tent Caterpillars, but I see the birds hunting and getting stuff all day so there must be some out there.

I put some grassy plant on Name that Plant and it turned out to be some kind of true sedge, thats exciting to me!

There was a boneset in the back last year, it was maybe 5 stems. This year it has expanded to like 50 stems, that is exciting too! Whether they're seedlings or rhizomes, I like that its colonizing.

I have 13 Pipevine seedlings each with their first pair of true leaves now, and I have 5 Apios sprouting and growing for sure along the back fence. In my trays the Verbesina alternifolia and virginica seem to be doing the best, as well as the Elephantopus. I have 1 Asclepias variegata sprout. There are a lot of tiny seedlings, maybe I've been watering too often, I'll check them a little more closely before watering going forward.

I haven't totally given up on any plants or seeds but I am already thinking about what to do differently next time.

Looks like things are growing well for you! I am jealous about the boneset. Mine are limping along. The deer keep them at 6 inches, this might be the big problem. They never flowered. Should probably make some cages.

Wow, that is one of the few native plants the deer dont bother with. This particular one is late boneset, Eupatorium serotinum. Wet years like last year really encourage it. There was actually deer scat right in the same area, and I saw a deer back there yesterday, it's right on their main path. There's always that one screwy deer that eats the everything though. Have you tried Liqud Fence brand repellent? I saw it at home depot last time i went, they didn't always carry it. It works pretty well for me.

Mine are the common ones. Eupatorium perfoliatum. I have not tried the liquid fence. Going to have to try something. How do you all decide your watering? Stick your fingers in the ground? In this 90 degrees plus, I water the pots daily, annuals and perennials every other day (new ones more if they look droopy) and trees/ shrubs that are in less than 3 years once a week. Just the trees and shrubs require 150 feet of water hose in the front and 200 feet in the back. It also takes hours.

The Stenanthiums I got from Izel were too young to flower and I haven't seen flowers on any of the other rare lilies I got. I don't have any plants left on my list and I've given up searching for rare milkweeds. I don't have the time for it. Next time I'll be sowing certain things like waterleaf and wood nettles in larger numbers. I wasn't thinking I'd need a lot of certain plants, but now I realize.

Noid.

Prunus

Canada geese

It was a tall milkweed

create ripples!

A brassica

Buckeye bloom.

NOID, am submitting to name that plant. Looks like a Silene but too small I think?

Angelica atropurpurea?

Big leaves. Silphium?

I've been watering a lot more than usual because I'm transplanting a lot of things. I water the bins when I think they need it. I don't run out and mist them every 2 hours like some people were telling me I needed to do lol. I'm not saving any more hostas. They are all going to the compost pile where they belong! I'm only digging holes for natives from now on.

Lol, RIP hostas. Yes I will just stick my finger an inch into the pot to see if they need water. With the trays, the top looks bone dry but just underneath the soil is still wet. The plants, trees and shrubs in the ground get watered an inch once a week, which has been provided by the rain so far, I havent watered any in-ground plants this year.

Lately I find I generally underestimate how dry the soil is -- I'm faked out thinking the layer of shredded leaf mulch is holding in more moisture than it does. Either that, or the large trees all around are sucking more water out of the soil than I realize. Aside from the several-day deluge weeks back, we've had zero rain. Add to that the soaring temps AND many days of gusty winds (avg 15 mph w/ gusts likely near 25/30!) which dry everything out faster, and I find myself dragging the hose around every couple of days. I still consider many of my transplants new, and need to coddle them so they'll make it through the long, hot summer.

Didn't realize bin misting was a thing, Jay. :)

I don't mist. It's probably better, but it takes too long and I have to bend over more to do it. It rained all night. I should enjoy the rain. Another warm day. I'm bringing all the tropicals outside, and I have to pick up my nursery order so a bunch more things to plant. Last year I kept watering and fertilizing my common milkweeds by the sunroom. The milkweeds responded by sending up new stalks every time the cats ate one down. This year it looks like they have spread a lot underground and the colony is getting bigger.

This is last year. There are more stalks growing this year. That spirea is history. Oh, I forgot. I'm supposed to have privets and spireas and a large monoculture lawn. It's the way things have always been done....(??????) I am a robot! I don't know if the little black cats on the Viburnums are first instars or what. I'm hoping to find a big fat cute sphinx cat on them.

Love to see those nibble holes!

I drove out to the native nursery and made some new friends.

How nice! So what did you get? Saw some new caterpillars today. From broom moth to a very hairy white one. So plenty of nibble holes. Eggs on my peppers, too. My only well behaved bee balm

mexican hat are floweringmy blanketflower looking funky. There are a few blooms like that. The rest is looking normaland a very fluttery visitor

Nice and bright Iris. Todays update

This looks great, Skip! Looks like you are going to run out of room there soon!

About our talk about Veronicastrum a while back. If we should stick to the white one or if it is ok to get the purple. I will probably not be the one answering the question about which the pollinators prefer. I got 2 plants each, and the deer ate both kinds equally.

I don't have a problem with the lavender Veronicastrum. I also agree with Dandy that natives shouldn't be messed with genetically to make them 'more attractive'. I can't find out the origin of the lavender coloring, so it could just be a natural mutation. Or, the lavender cultivars could have the lavender Eurasian Veronicastrum genes and none of us are the wiser. I didn't order Cupid or Fascination, but I winter sowed seeds for a lavender cultivar. I was thinking of using the lavender ones for the hell strip, but I'm not doing the hell strip. Maybe next year.

Skip, what are those tall spikes by your porch? Penstemons? It looks like you have 3 Baptisia and 1 of them has different leaves, and 1 plant has more flowers than the other. I'm thinking the other plant is Coreopsis lanceolata. Nice pictures! The swallowtail and the Mexican hat are beautiful.

I got these plants at the nursery. They were out of a few things I wanted like Symphoricarpos orbiculata, Jeffersonia diphylla, Zizzia aptera, and Lilium philadelphicum. This is the 5 gallon Aronia melanocarpa to replace the red barberry.

Aronia melanocarpa
Ribes cynosbati with flower buds.
From left Antennaria plantaginifolia, Menispermum canadense, Lupinus perennis, Agastache foeniculum (backups lol), Clematis virginiana virgin's bower.

my swiss cheese Viburnums

tiny black cats
the thorns of Ribes cynosbati
a woodland spiderwort?
my anualls
the raised bed minus the holy invasive bush honeysuckle from hell
I want to start filling this whole east side of the house with woodland plants.
Especially here where I dug out the arrow woods.
and here where I already started
creeping charley with grow in pure wood ashplease let me know if you are not seeing pictures. It's getting near that time and I'm going to do it one more time because I'm not finished yet.

I've been adding violets and other things around the ferns to make it look fuller.

This is an area in back where no grass is growing, so I just dig holes and drop plants in them lol. The buckthorns and mulberries balance it all out. I don't get away unscathed! Yeah, just a few hostas, with the deer muching them down to the ground after a while who will notice if they are even there or not.......and they won't be lol!!! I'm filling it in with a bunch of natives and I'm limbing up that oak too.

I have express permission to cut through this area and go explore the vast expanse with train tracks right by my yard. I'm hoping to find some rare and cool plants. There's a Prunus in the thicket to the right. It should be blooming, but it's not because it's surrounded by buckthorns and mulberries.
my plant with the large dark green leaves was ID'd today. It's wild quinine. I have another plant there that's still waiting.

This is all looking great! And here I had to order quinine.

From yesterday. I don't know if this is a Staphylea. It looks like acid rain kill back.

Coreopsis tripteris?

A preserve

where I found these. nobody at name that plant knows what they are.

This is the wild quinine that was ID'd today. Very nice leaves.

This was ID'd as Moehringia lateriflora.

https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/woodland/plants/gr_sandwort.html

Nice pics Jay. Check to see if you have Viburnum leaf beatle larvae. They can be a problem some years, especially with Viburnum dentatum. You might want to actually treat for them if so. I generally dont bother babying the plants and treating pests, but newly tranplanted you might get a lot of die back. The new plants look great and I cant wait to see all your wintersown plants go into those shady areas.

My veronicastrum is growing pretty well, it could have purple European genetics, who knows. I am thinking about getting anonther one or 2 since the Agastache that was between it and the Rudbeckia last year didnt come back.

I have 4 Baptisia, the 2 by the rhodies are different sizes and blooming stage, prob from the tree competition. One has oddly large and green leaves. The ones on the other side are not blooming much yet. Yes the spikes are Penstemons, theyre not in full bloom yet either.

Here's one of my lead plants that is surviving. See the 4 seedlings in the background? 1 Echinacea volunteer toward the front middle, 2 Rudbeckia fulgida left and right, and the skinny one in between them is the Hypericum prolificum.

3 Ceanothus americanus on each side, once those grow up there will be no room

It’s like a real tour of your garden! Love it!

Iris I'd love to see you take about 3 steps back and take pictures of your plants. I bet your gardens look amazing as a whole, if a little feral right now! Just the way they should be

I will take some pictures while I am out there. Do I want to go out? It’s already 89 degrees.

I hear you, Iris. You're an hour ahead of me, but I'm already pushing 85. It'll be 91 in an hour. I was able to get out and put a couple more of my A. speciosa seedlings into the ground (the ones I successfully germinated via the water method, completely skipping cold stratification). I also decided my mature A. perennis purchased last fall (for its seeds) was ready to go into the ground, too. Hoping this transition doesn't cause it to loose its current blossoms.

Skip, you might be right. Those 'cats' might be beetle larvae. I will investigate. I just planted them in the front , and I don't want them defoliated. It seems worse than regular cat activity. Your leadplant looks greener than mine. I'm surprised you tried growing it because it doesn't range that far east. Only fruticosa is native there. It's going to get close to 80 degrees. The sun's not out, and we are going to get hammered with 2 merging systems later on. I brought all the tropicals that were under the lights over here to put in pots. If I have beetle larva, I wonder if I can spray them off with the hose? BTW, there's a spittle bug on my Zizzia. I need to cut up a bunch of branches with my reciprocating saw because I'm running out of room.

I think they are beetle larva, brought here from Europe. Guess I should do something. I'll have to get pyrethrans or insecicidal soap. It doesn't look like natural predators are handling it.

I went out to take pictures stepping back. The light was too bright, but I hope you get what it looks like. Some areas can already be called feral. Keep in mind the things like Zinnia are just starting. No idea what to call it in a few weeks when things really are going. A complete mess? Ha. Stepped really far back for this one. My little trees have a lot of growing to do before being called my forest.

Elsewhereashy sunflower patch is spreading.

That looks beautiful. That hammock is getting swallowed, but I see some mulch spaces between plants in a few pictures, plently of room for more! Lol

It’s a great hide out! Smelling nice right now because of the Elderberry on one side. Later on because of the sweet shrub on the other. There wouldn’t be as much mulch visible even at this time of year if the deer would find another yard.

My husband is on his way home from China. He checked remotely on our weather station and thought something went wrong since it was still 87 at 7:30. Nope. Tied the record from 1962. Toads didn’t like it.

I wonder if you could draw the deer away somehow, maybe plant a long stip of forage far away, or drop seeds of switchgrass or indian grass right on their usual path. Its no wonder you have so many cool butterflies and moths around with your plantings though.

I was pulling more Persicaria perfoliata before, pulling this weed is my new hobby it seems, and spotted some Smilax on my brush pile.

I think the Ribes in my yard is Ribes uva-crispa, but I'll keep checking it. I pulled some japanese honeysuckle off it.

Finally, can anyone ID this Rubus? The arching canes are about 4' tall and doing fine in shade/part shade. I'm guessing Rubus pensilvanicus based on my reading

Nice pictures Iris, thanks! If I had that much space, I would just stay home and explore my yard. What are you going to do with the Smilax Skip? I don't know what Rubus it is. It' a nice looking one. Is it the kind that spreads underground or spreads by the tips rooting? Then there is the berries and whether or not they are good eating or you can leave them for the wildlife. Check out the Mountain Gardens video about Rubus. The Ribes uva-crispe isn't native. I notice big thorns but no little thorns. Missouriense has both big and small thorns. Ribes cynosbati has small thorns. This made me remember that Ribes triste is also native here. I have missouriense, cynosbati, and aureum. I still need americanum, triste, and hirtellum.

This rookery is close by. I think a plant is growing here that is unknown to science. I'm trying to find it again. The reserve was blocked off probably for the safety of the birds, but I walked in anyway. The whole area seems like it was disturbed at some point in the past. It's like a big buckthorn plantation. There are still some beautiful, natural things hanging on.

The treatment for buckthorns snd mulberries is to just chop them down without killing them.

Another wasteland and former buckthorn thicket.

A Packera, not sure which species, doesn't look like P. glabella which is most common one here.

I don't know what this is. I just put it on name that plant. I'm hoping it's something in the plantago-figwort family.EDIT shortly after submitting this I got a quick responce. It is Lithospermum incisum. A close relative of hoary pucoon, Lithospermum canescens. It was idententified by the Master macranthos!

A hieracium species. My Hieracium venosoms just started blooming too.

These look like Penstemons.

The unknown plant. Now known as Lithospermum incisum.

One of the ponds. The rookery is in another area.

I was trying to break this uglyagnus and felt something sharp. They have big thorns.

They didn't stop me. Wish there was a way to comepletely kill these unpullable invasives out in the field. Seeing those autumn olives was like adding insult to injury lol.

I bought 2 'organic, safe' products to spray on the Vibuenum beetle larvae. They've been attacking these Viburnums here for years. I never saw the culprits till a couple days ago. The Viburnums, being on the shady side of the house, have been in the background, and not very important until now. I hope I can totally get rid of this beetle infestation.

I think the native Astragalus I want to grow is Astragalus crassicarpus. It's a good butterfly host plant, and it's beans are edible.

http://www.dallasbutterflies.com/Butterfly%20Gardening/Host%20Plants%20by%20Butterfly%20Species.htm

https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/ground-plum

Hey Jay, the Smilax and Rubus are in a thicket at the back of the lot and Im just going to let them grow wild for the birds. It was hard to get that close to the Rubus to take the picture, had to step through a lot of poison ivy.

I just looked at that Astragalus, and on BONAP, none of them are native in my county but canadensis is close. I didnt really have this concept when I was ordering these plants and seeds a couple years ago. Crassicarpus looks like a good one for you to grow, and a food source.

Ribes hirtellum and triste are native to my county, but the thorns on mine dont seem to match. My property used to be farm land I wonder if somebody grew that Ribes on purpose at some point.

I just noticed a couple weeds in my front flower bed. One was a walnut tree, the other, an oak. One in the white oak by the looks of it too. Thanks squirrels!

into the pot farm:

The Gomphocarpus plants I just put outside are already taller than the one that grew last year. These are going to be monsters! The rain went north to Wisconsin instead. I sprayed the Viburnums. I'll have to keep up on that. I just planted them and those beetle larvae are voracious. The Ribes triste is very hard to find. I think 1 place sells seeds so I'll have to remember in the fall. It has cool looking flowers. I'm putting all the bins on the grass. It was hard to move around on the patio with all those bins. Still a lot of things that haven't germinated. Some things are just starting, where you see 1 or 2 seedlings and expect more to pop up. I might have to pot up the Apios they are getting tangled. The bronze fennel is about ready to be potted too.

The Mycorrhizae Effect, right? ;) Here's my gomphocarpus progress shot -- pushing beyond 4' and all dangly with flowers:

This plus another are planted in the full-day sun area of the yard. So far, I think, doing fine; but it's buddy on the left (not picture) is looking a bit droopy and wind-blown: what doesn't kill you makes you strong, I keep whispering to it. I've also planted a few in morning sun-only and morning-to-early-afternoon sun; so, we'll have to see which Texas summertime microclimate these thrive in.

Uh oh. I don’t see Javi’s picture.

Hmmm...odd. I do:

No picture here either. Must be time to vacate?

Iris, your problems with deer can be solved with this:

Very hot pepper!

Extremely hot chili powder. It seems to work for me anyway. I dispense it with an old container of McCormics red chili powder. Just squeeze it near the plant to disburse the powder. I've noticed that after using it, no more deer for awhile. But it gets washed off from rain so not long lasting. Try it on anything you prize at first to see if it is effective.

Thanks, Dandy! Their taste seems to change from year to year. Normally any hosta would be gone by now. So far not a nibble. Didn’t touch the sunflowers yet either. Favorites this year so far are Turks Cap, Wild petunia, any kind of coneflower, serviceberry, sassafras, gayfeathers, boneset, and Illinois bundleflower.

Vacate? Don't know what that means: Houzz limits the # of pics per thread? I posted a screenshot in my last reply (Hmm...odd. I do.). Did that picture post?

I'll start a new thread as soon as I come up with something fresh lol.

There's a new thread!