It's supposed to rain here today. The bins are still wet from the last rain. The forcast says it won't be sunny till next Tuesday. I'm still cleaning up my old garden. All the flagstone paths were overgrown and blocked. I'm discovering lost plants or new ones that came up from tossed seeds. I think I pulled out 2 figworts thinking they were snakeroots. Once I get rid of all the unwanted plants I'll have room for new plants. Everything needs sun. The Apios vine is starting to yellow. A few milkweed seedlings got too much light and fried.

2.18" of rain the last 3 days. More heavy rain, thundstorms and flash flood watches forecast going into tonight. Somehow the water eroded a hole in the middle of a tread on my front steps, now I get to try my first concrete repair this weekend! Thankfully its supposed to be warm and sunny Saturday and Sunday.

Looks like it is smooth sailing for Javi. Sorry about the rain troubles, Jay and Skip. My Apios is looking great despite the caterpillars, so I gave my spare one to my sister in law. Both of the prairie smoke I planted in Spring look dead. They are not supposed to be dormant in Summer, are they? Still no sign of my Indian Pinks coming back. That’s too bad. Love the flowers. Concrete work is kind of fun! Jay, I am still in awe how you know which plants are the unwanted ones. I have so many unknown ones still this year.

We'll head out of town next week for about 10 days, so the sprinklers set on timer will need to suffice -- I'm still out there with a hose every day, if even just to cool the soil temps down a bit on my most newly planted. I took a few soil temp readings all around the yard yesterday afternoon -- at a depth of 5"-6", upper 80s. :/

Wow, that’s warm. Fingers crossed your sprinklers work. I had sprinkler nightmares last Summer house sitting across the street. They had about a dozen timers hooked up to various watering methods. First, since there are not that many faucets, they used these connectors to plug several hoses into one faucet. Well. Some of the valves were in the “off” position. Next, some of the timers had soaker hoses. You are probably not supposed to hook a bunch of them together. The first plants looked great, the ones at the end of the line not so much. Two of the timers gave up. One an empty batterie, no idea about the other. And last, one of the hoses sprang a leak. It watered the driveway, not enough pressure left at the end to turn the sprinkler. I spent a lot of time checking on the plants and watering. It’s one thing to kill my own plants, but don’t want to kill the neighbor’s.

And were I your neighbor and the plants died, I certainly wouldn't blame you -- but I get it: not on MY watch! :) Ours are in-ground sprinklers DH and installed 20+ years ago. And every spring, we run all the zones to make sure everything's working OK. When we first installed, however, we received very consistent rain pretty much all year; so, the sprinklers were meant for those in-between times. Except for the odd hurricane and 12-hour deluge here and there, the past few years we've experienced longer and longer spells of zero rain: no way the sprinklers can make up for the shortage, so there's me dragging the hoses around. I just need to make sure the soil is as moist as possible before I leave. DH is offering to install cameras around the perimeter of the house so I won't miss seeing my butterflies every day. :/

Aww. How sweet!

I really do not like to water anything lol, that sounds like so much work. I am happy we've been getting so much rain for all the trees and shrubs I planted. I might go and buy the spicebushes while we're having such a wet year. Id probaby let some of my plants crisp up and let the warm season grasses take over if we had a long dryspell.

Funny, Skip, that I really haven't noted anyone else relishing hose watering like I do. Granted, I don't have the spread the Iris and others do. I think it comes from my childhood: Dad was a 9-5 engineer who loved to tend his yard/garden. I always noted how calm and happy he seemed, just standing there watering his plants. DH calls what I do therapeutic watering because I have the same sense of peace and enjoyment.

I don’t mind watering for an hour or so. After that I am getting kind of restless. Of course, the location matters. If there is a lot of fluttering and buzzing going on to keep me entertained, I am fine for longer.

Walked by my Hop tree today and found this big one. First time I have seen Tiger Swallowtail on this.

Absolutely stunning...wow, Iris. That Hop tree deserves a few extra guzzles from your hose end! ;) .

Ha ha, will do. I was just really surprised. The only ones I would expect on there are the giants. Not that I am complaining.

aka wafer ash...native to TX. :) OK, Iris: tell me all about your hop tree. As if I wasn't hooked when I saw that beautiful butterfly, I read on the TX gardening forum these blossoms give off a heavenly vanilla scent in the summer time. I NEED WAFER ASH now.

I really don’t much about them. Other than that they seem to be very resilient. The deer broke a lot of the branches and stripped the bark last Fall. (Itchy antlers?) Since mine are still so small, I thought they would not make it. They came back strong. Looking more like shrubs, but they did flower and even have seeds now. No idea how to grow them from seeds or how long it would take though. I did read somewhere that you can grow them from cuttings.

Is the hop tree ptelea trifoliata? I thought that only giant swallowtail cats ate it. I didn't know tiger swallowtail cats did. There's a bunch of baby hop trees down the street. Maybe I'm getting it confused with the bladdernut when I'm at the woods. I only water when it's nessasary which is almost 24/7. A couple Echinacea purpureas died, but surprisingly there are a few new vollunteers. The plants, mostly the mountain mint, choked out my turtlehead and there was only one stalk. I accidentally stepped on it (tight quarters). I hope it sends up new growth and also the figworts which I've been trying to grow for years and then pulled up yesterday lol. I saw a greenish blue caterpillar. I'm not sure, but it might have been on the partidge peas. I have most of the weedy grass removed. The trumpet vine is cut to the ground. I thinned out the stiff goldenrod and mountain mint. The bottlebrush grass moved from where it was and formed 2 clumps in another spot. I'm going to dig up the snakeroots, wood asters and bottlebrush grass and plant them at the new place. Those plants spread too much to have in my small garden. I still have tons of annuals that need to get in the ground and a few other things including 5 Gomphocarpus. It's my old garden, but it's kind of like the garden in that movie 'The Secret Garden' and now I'm restoring it. It seems like a battle to have a nice garden, you have to be forceful and ruthless in a good way. I should have everything in shape and all the plants planted there by Sunday night. My prairie smoke had a hard time in the summer heat too. It's probably best to plant them where they will be shaded during the hottest part of the day and keep them watered when it's hot. I noticed the spot where mine used to be. My baptisia is huge. I wish some caterpillars would start eating it. There is one bed with only a few plants so that's where I'm planting the Zinnias and all the other annuals, and at the center of that planting will be all of javi's Tithonias. It's been a few years since I had any Mexican sunflowers. There's a bed I'm leaving empty for a nursery bed once some of the plants outgrow their pots. Tomorrow I'll try to weed the whole brick patio. No 10' lambs quaters trees there this year! Everything that is not native is getting pulled, except the Sedum. I would like to be using only native Sedums, but it will take years to build up the numbers I need. And I need them for erosion control.

My gosh, Jay, you're absolutely putting me to shame with all the work you've gotten done! Yes, ptelea trifoliata. And I have the perfect spot for it, speaking of brutal: I know any day now, the esperanza I'd love to love will come down with its annual case of rust. And it'll be ugly all the way til November. That spot is screaming for a wafer ash -- I'm scoping out seeds locally. :)

It is. I didn’t know Tiger Swallowtails eat it, never seen one on it before. Double checked, and it is listed. I have to look up again how to grow it from cuttings, I would like some more. Neat little things and other than being a bit eaten, the leaves look great. A lot of other trees have spots, galls and whatnot on them. Jay, it sounds like you are getting a lot done. I guess I will have to try the prairie smoke again next Spring. Or would Fall planting be better for this? I finally found and ordered the Stenanthium gramineum. Not the best time to plant more stuff. Still didn’t hear when my replacement ipomoea seeds will be shipped. So for now the only big white flowers are on the weedy datura, or as we call it “tomato saver”. No call yet from my neighbor to pick up the hornworms from her tomatoes though.

Javi, you would be welcome to the seeds from mine. But it says to harvest them in late Summer when they turn brown. Don’t think you want to wait that long.

That datura is a beauty: love the leaves! I'm not in a hurry to get any seeds you care to harvest. :) It won't be cool enough (for me) to take down the esperanza until October anyway. Thanks!

No problem. Meanwhile I am going to experiment rooting some branches.

I took this picture of a baby Ptelea trifoliata on May 26. There were several. It was a long walk to get to it. I would look into planting the prairie smoke in the fall. It would get more established that way. Javi, 'esperanza'??? hope? Duh, I forgot the photo....5-26-19

If you look close there are actually a few baby hops trees. I dug out the last living butterfly bush today.

Thanks Jay, I will put it on the Fall planting list. Weird to think about it if it isn’t even Summer. Did you use Javi’s method to dig out the butterfly bush? I am actually happily surprised to still see the pictures here with 483 comments.

Esperanza - Tecoma stans. Pic off the internet since it's nighttime and I can't snap a pic of mine:

I won't mind losing the beautiful yellow, as my cassias will fill the void nicely.

Iris-don't give up on the Prairie Smoke so soon as it usually disappears on me after the tails fall off. But, you're probably out of the zone for it, aren't you? I'm amazed that you even try to grow prairie plants in your climate. I mean, these things need to die back in winter and start fresh every spring. Otherwise they just continue to grow without ever stopping until they fall over.

I posted some pics on name that plant but will share them here. Mostly road side plants growing wild up here.

At one time I was very interested in growing a few different vines in Bignoniaceae like crossvine and cape honeysuckle, but after trying to get rid of trumpet vines for several years, not so much. I tried the Caravillia hardy gloxinia once. It did ok. The annual south American Eccremocarpus ruber. I tried growing it from seed a few times with no luck. I'm going to build an ark for all my plants. 2 of every kind, with mega growlights!?

Ha ha. Is it raining again? There is a potential for strong storms today. Not counting on any rain.

It stopped raining this morning after raining all night. Starting tomorrow it's supposed to rain for the next 6 days and then 2 days off followed by another 5 days of rain. Not only will I probably lose all my seedlings but also some established plants that need good drainage. I was kind of thinking more about which plants were good at handling drought. Never thought about plants that can handle constant moist conditions. If we had some decent sunshine in between rains it wouldn't be so bad, but it's constantly overcast.

Fingers crossed that your forecast is as wrong as mine usually is. And that your plants prove themselves hardier than you think.

Dandy what is the ditch plant? The Potentilla I was looking for is prostrate, I cant tell from the picture if that one is too.

Skip-I'm wondering if my posting was visible to everyone. Glad you see it.

Penstemon grandiflora. The clump blooms like that every year but I keep forgetting to get seeds from it.

I can see your post and pics, dandy_line. That ditch plant is indeed spectacular!

For some reason, I didn’t get the notification for your post, Dandy. It went straight to Jay’s, so I overlooked it. I do see the pictures. I love the flowers in your first picture. They look so cheerful. As for the Prairie Smoke, it said to Zone 7. I am 7b. Since I pushed Zones planting stuff for Zone 8, I thought I would at least try. No rain/ thunderstorm for me. Moved right by to the South this time. My Tiger Swallowtail caterpillar turned UPS truck overnight.

Gorgeous!

I have something with 3 leaves and it vines and I thought it was a Potentilla, but it has strawberries on it. It's just recently appeared, but it roots along the stem very easily.

Beauties!

I just got a pair of muck boots. Now I can trudge through muck to take pictures!

They're not real unless you show a picture, Jay! I want muck boots...like Iris' chicken ones. :)

Please let me know if anybody can't see pictures.

Are there pictures with your last post?

Yes!

I'll start a new one lol. I have more pictures!

I now see two pictures. Boots and bumble bee.

I think I see them all: boots and scary tools to tweedia. Nice, Jay. I know this rain is ever frustrating, but what you're showing looks great!

Lots of activity on the hairy ballz this morning -- plus a bonus shot of a gorgeous dragonfly.

Wasp-on-bee attack

I started a new thread because Iris can't see pictures anymore.

And I appreciate it very much. Dragging the water hose around again. Hope it’s dry in your area, Jay.

So uh, what thread are you all going to use? It was dry today and supposed to rain tonight. It was sunny, but it's overcast now.

Ha ha. Hopping over to the other one later, so I can see pictures :)