Is it Dichondra carolinensis, Carolina ponysfoot?

Ha ha, Skip. You tell me :) This just showed up under an oak in the dog fence. Whatever it is, it must be pretty hardy since I didn’t get any rain. The hickory horned devils buried themselves today. And it looks like there will be more Monarchs on the way. Now that they have grown some, I am seeing a lot of caterpillars.

I saw a Monarch and a Buckeye in the garden today. The first Buckeye I've seen all year. I think there are at least 3 garden spiders now, and there are many grasshoppers this year. I was on the waiting list the longest at Missouri Wildflowers for Lonicera flava, so they contacted me and I have 1 vine being shipped and I ordered 2 more packets of Blue Eyed Mary, Collinsia verna. Once I girdle and kill the mulberry and Chinese elm in back of the fence I'll be able to plant a few vines along it.

Aralia racemosa, Spikenard

Maianthemum sp., Eurybia macrophylla, Large Leaf Woid Aster, Actaea racemosa, Black Cohosh, Phlox divaricata, Woodland Phlox and withering Campulastrum americana, Tall Bellflower

Sorghastrum nutans, Indian Grass

A vollunteer Helianthus anuus, Wild form, growing in the patio bricks. The goldfinches and squirrels will have a feast.

Frostweed, Verbesina virginica, and Wingstem, Verbesina alternifolia. The Frostweed is about 3 feet taller than the Wingstem which is tall also. And I let the Garlic Chives bloom for the pollinators, but they will be deadheaded and maybe removed. It's getting dark by 7:30 now. Any trips will have to be earlier in the day.

Croton capitatus.

Vernonia fasciculata

Nabalus albus, White Rattlesnake Root, White Wild Lettuce.

Sacred Datura, Datura Wrightii, emerged late, but has sprawled several feet. Some Asclepias subverticillata and Solidago juncea. Eryngium yuccifolium, and Bidens cernua, and Symphyotrichum ericoides.

The woods last night. I had some Agrimonia burs st

uck on my pants from this area. This is an area supposedly being restored, but there are huge thickets of Multiflora Rose and Autumn Olive a little bit further up the path. I'll have to mention this to Floyd who's in charge.

Actaea racemosa forming seeds. I'm going to kill the mulberry in the background which will bring in more sun, but it will still be shady from the large old Oaks looming overhead. I want to drastically thin the Wild Ginger so the Ginseng and Spikenard seeds will have bare soil to germinate in.

I think ordering the Blue Eyed Mary seeds made me think of my facebook friend Steve Stahl, because he really wanted to grow them and when I found out Missouri Wildflowers had seeds I messaged him and told him. Steve lived in New Jersey and rescued native plants from sites being developed and I think grew them and sold them. I realized I haven't seen any posts from him in a while. I was shocked when I looked at his page and found out he passed away on August 22 from ALS. I knew he was diagnosed with ALS some time ago, but I had no idea he was in such bad shape. He was a milkweed and pollinator enthusiast and made several videos about it. RIP Steve, you will be sorely missed! ❤😥

https://youtu.be/74ZZ5Y1PjXc

Steve was a great promoter of native plants. You could tell his gardens were his happy place. I saw him posting in a lot of the groups about his worsening ALS but didn't realize he had passed, RIP.

Jay, you've done a great job of growing and keeping a huge diversity of native plants!

Thanks Skip. My front yard is a slope. Maybe purple milkweed will do better there. I think some Monarch caterpillar totally defoliated a few of my purple milkweed, but they should return.

https://woodsandprairie.blogspot.com/2022/09/revis-hill-prairie-opportunity-not-to.html?m=1

Jay, you have really a lot going on. Amazing how you can keep track of it all. My bluecurls are starting to bloom. The milkweed vine and aquatic milkweed are too. Seems really late for them.

It’s starting to really feel like fall in the mornings. At least for this week. Hibiscus has a bloom the deer missed. It’s not as pale as in the picture. All sorts of asters are blooming.

My wooly Pipevine is really trying to come back. But notice the new eggs already? Plus some tiny little caterpillars.

Iris, do you have any shady spots where you can grow Asarum canadense? The caterpillars would probably eat that too. I'd be happy just to find 1 caterpillar. My big ironweed had a few Monarchs on it today.

I'm not sure what species my Lespedeza violacea is now. Violacea has been changed to Lespedeza intermedia, but Lespedeza frutescens was also called L. violacea.

The Lespedeza violacea seed was from Roundstone seed so it is from Kentucky I believe, although nursery propagated/field grown. I guess we'd have to get a key to figure it out. Mine is fried and not flowering, although a couple of them are still a little green.

Some signs of life here

Something ate almost all the leaves off my little persimmon tree and left leaves full of holes

Jay, I have one little wild ginger plant. So far, it would just be a snack for the caterpillars, but they didn’t touch it. I do have some potted wooly Pipevine I had as emergency food. Hopefully they will survive being eaten again so I can put them in the ground when it gets cooler. Unless the chipmunk messes them up first. These critters are in all of my pots. Your plants are still looking great. Think you have more room to even think about winter sowing again?

Skip, do you really rely on just the rain for your plants, or you do you water special ones? There is so much time and money invested to get some of them started. Or to even find them in the first place. I have been loosing some even though I thought I watered enough.

There is a crab spider on the Zinnias that is way too successful. I have seen it have 2 Tiger Swallowtails in 3 days. Have a saddleback caterpillar on one of my houseplants on the porch. Need to look up if they bury themselves to pupate. Don’t want something to emerge in the middle of Winter after I bring the plants in.

I'm not planning on winter sowing anything this year. I still have about 30 pots of double dormancy seeds. I definitely have enough plants to fill 2 yards. I want to focus more on arranging everything in a way that looks natural. I'm clearing the area behind the fence, and there's a lot of room back there to plant more things. I'm cutting and killing a huge white mulberry, a buckthorn, and 2 Chinese elm. I want to plant my Buttonbushes and Prickly Ash back there near the ditch where it stays more moist. I don't know what else I'm going to put back there, but it will be fun creating something. My Lonicera flava and Blue Eyed Mary seeds came today. It seems like every year they are offering more unusual species at the native plant sales, so I might just buy plants next year rather then try to grow a bunch of them from seed.

Chrysopsis villosa

Helianthus grosseserratus, Rudbeckia triloba

Bidens polylepis, Chrysopsis villosa, Sambucus canadensis

Erechtites hieraciifolius in bloom.

Verbesina virginica

Symphyotrichum sp. Maybe a frost aster, S. pillosum?

Symphyotrichum lateriflorum, Rudbeckia triloba

Lespedeza violacea. The plant formerly called Lespedeza violacea is now Lespedeza frutescens, and the plant traditionally known as Lespedeza intermedia is now called Lespedeza violacea. I'm not sure which species I have. I'll have to find out.

I noticed all the leaves missing from the common milkweed, something has eaten them, hopefully monarchs or tussock moths.
Your asters are starting to go off too Jay.
Iris, Yes I am relying almost totally on rain. Most of the plants I have are still alive, just some newly seeded stuff took a hit but a lot were biennial and annuals that went to seed last year and this year. I haven't purchased that many perennials mostly seed, and most all the trees and shrubs are alive and the perennials are just stunted. The silky dogwood seedlings even grew like 6" but they were mulched well. I really don't want the landscape to be reliant on me beyond occasionally removing invasives and poorly located tree saplings. I'm okay with the species coming and going, my whole thing is trying to get the native plants to take over control over the plant community and soil seed bank.

Pawpaws

Monarchs on Liatris scariosa

Doellingeria umbellata

New England aster and heart leaved

That doesn't look like Doellingeria Skip. Too many petals and wrong color. Some kind of aster? Can you get pics of the leaves and phyllaries?

Doellingeria umbellata

I think I have the possibilities narrowed down to 10 species, x amethystinum, boreale, dumosum, laeve, lanceolatum, novi-belgii, patens, praealtum, prenanthoides, puniceum. Do you recall trying to grow any of them? I've done this many times. For years I thought I was growing Verbena stricta and then I realized it was actually Verbena simplex. I have some asters that I need to ID.

Hmm I wintersowed seeds labeled Doellingeria umbellata 2 different years and the plants that resulted look the same. I do grow laeve and novi-belgii. I don't think it's novi-belgii, the leaves and stems are wrong, but it could be laeve. The leaves connect to the stems in a very unique way on this plant, I'll get a picture later.

I still want to wintersow a ton of seeds in plug trays so I have plants to donate next year. I will perfect my row tunnel setup hopefully.

Skip, your aster matches my Symphyotrichum laeve.

Eupatorium serotinum, Collinsonia canadensis

Lespedeza violacea, formerly Lespedeza intermedia

Symphyotrichum novae-angliae, Rudbeckia triloba

I'm hoping this is the Aromatic Aster, Symphyotrichum oblongifolia. It was little last year, but is large now. I'll try to ID it tomorrow, but it looks like the real thing so far

Jay, all your stuff is doing amazing. Not much going on here. Still hot without rain, but the weekend should be colder. Still can’t tell goldenrods apart. There is a lot of this kind, but at least it’s not too tall or flopping over.

Looks like Solidago puberula. Are the stems covered in very fine down?,(puberulant)

Solidago puberula is a really nice one, probably would be growing on that exposed rocky area you have Iris.

Jay, do you remember the name of the guy who does native plant landscapes, you posted a link to a presentation he gave to the Wild Ones in Wisconsin or maybe Illinois? He had a whole bunch of differently landscaped areas around his house, I remember one of them being full of Erigeron pulchellus and Antennaria and some other smaller things. It wasn't Ben Vogt, someone

I'm not sure who that is Skip. Frank Larry Lawrence aka Frank P. Lawrence has a native landscaping business, but I don't recall him having the gardens you are referring to. Alan Branhagen has a lot of natives and wrote a book on native plants, and is involved with the wild ones Kelly Norris does native garden designs. Steven Packard? The Erigeron and Antennaria doesn't ring any bells.

Jay, I guess there is some very fine fuzz on the stems. Hard to focus.

Other things blooming

Symphyotrichum lateriflorum, Clinopodium georgianum. The Goldenrod stems are puberulant.

Jay, are there any plants you don’t know? Amazing knowledge. Still have a bunch of Monarch caterpillars. A lot of them are being eaten though and it seems they are not even safe in the chrysalis. These little parasitic wasps are still getting to them. Still, some of first of the adults are emerging. Moved a male and female to a sunny spot since it was getting late in the afternoon and colder. Keeping my eye on Ian. Need rain, but a lot in a short amount of time probably wouldn’t be good. The ground is so hard and dry, the water was just running off when I went to water my little trees.

Thanks for the leads, Jay. I remember watching that Steven Packard video but he wasn't the guy with the landscaping company. The guy Im thinking of had a wooded/savanna area on the side or back of his property. I dunno, no big deal, I'll look closer at the other two you mentioned. I collected some seed off a local roadside population of steeplebush and coastal plain joe pye. I didn't think I would find it here since it's shown native to the counties south of me but it was growing only 3.5 miles away from my house. I planted 2 Baptisia tinctoria I grew from seed today too, at the front edge of the meadow.

This thread has been running for 8 months. Maybe if you scroll back, you will find the pictures. Are those Gentiana in the 1st pic? The 2nd pic, is that S. laeve? What's the white aster in front? The 3rd pic is nice, it looks like the preserves that are restored. I think I want to mix a few native tallgrass plants in between my taller perennials. It will look more prairie. Some red Panicum virgatum and similar species. I could probably take pieces of the ones at the prairies. They are all huge clumps. I haven't been able to get P. virgatum to germinate the couple times I tried. I cut back my trumpet honeysuckle and pulled out a lot of wild beans and morning glories. I want to dig out the sterile Apios tubers and plant the Lonicera flava there with a tiny fertile Apios americana that I grew from a seed from Mountain Gardens. I'm removing all the seedheads from the Verbesina alternifolia and virginica. Their vollunteers come up everywhere and they are time consuming to remove. I feel bad I can't leave the seeds for the birds, but there are plenty of other plants with big seeds. I need to get a better Joe Pye Weed. My plant didn't do well this year either. I think I'll try growing fistulosa next. I still haven't got any flowering gentians. I think my one gentian plant is struggling. Maybe they do better when they are surrounded by grasses or other natives? The New England Aster and Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium look good Skip.

I have to ID this aster. I think it's a vollunteer. I'll have to disect the petals to count them.

Another white aster. The only white aster I've grown from seed is the Heath Aster S. ericoides.

The Heterotheca villosa looks better growing in part shade. The plants look lush, and not ratty like in full sun. Might be Calico Aster behind it,

This might be S. laeve, I'm not sure what yellow flowers these are. Maybe Coreopsis tripteris?

A Lactuca species I think, or maybe Sonchus? The flowers look like hawkweed.

I had good luck with Panicum virgatum, it's warm season and germinates when the soil temp gets warmer, but it grows kind of slow so it's probably a lot faster to get a plant in a pot or a division. Its slow at first but can spread very aggressively over time, it's taking over a big part of the garden I helped plant at the park. Some of the cultivars like thundercloud get like 7ft tall too so choose carefully.
Have you tried purple Joe Pye? It seems like it would do the best with average soil and doesn't get as tall as fistulosum but I haven't had much success with it.
The white asters are volunteers that were growing wild here when I moved in, late boneset and the other is probably frost aster it's super weedy, like weedier than Canada goldenrod and white snakeroot. The blue one is blue wood aster (S. cordifolium) which is also weedy. There is some soapwort gentian in that bed that is about to bloom, I should trim away the asters to give it more light.
The forbs in the first pic are mostly Zizia.

This is my Joe Pye Weed. What species do you think it is? It turned brown and shriveled right after blooming, and didn't produce seeds. The stem is purple where the leaf petioles are. This may be purpureum? I think it's purpureum. I like the flowers on maculatum better than fistulosa. It would be nice to have a maculatum with dark, purple stems.

9-27-2022

I'm proud to announce, I finally got Ilex verticillata started (MN native). It'll be the second season for one female (on the right) and one Male (picture below). Both those had a few flowers this season, but the male was several days ahead of the female so didn't see any berries (Maybe next year when they're more established). :-)

Females below. Two on the left were just started this spring (replacements) and almost caught up with the first two.

All Ilex were seedlings from Reeseville Ridge Nursery.

One male:

Added this spring, one Cornus Alternifolia (pagoda dogwood) (MN native), out front (it was so tiny this spring). This too was a seedling from Reeseville Ridge Nursery

Taxus canadensis (MN native), started last year (Picture from last August). Rooted cuttings from Reeseville ridge also.

Can't forget Juniperus horizontalis (MN native) started last year and spent the winter under 4 ft. of hard compacted snow (my fault). :-) They rebounded nicely.

Oh and not a new addition but worthy of mention:

Juniperus communis (MN native), woods dug several years ago.

Also have, all of the ten, coniferous trees (not pictured), that are native to Minnesota, growing in my yard (my fault) lol. Most are not new additions.

8^)

Those are all nice trees and shrubs Bill. I have 1 surviving Ilex verticillata. I forgot that you need male and female plants to have berries. I might put in an order to Reeseville Ridge. The 2 Hypericum kalmianum plants I received from them aren't kalmianum. I haven't id'd them yet, but botanists and restoration vollunteers who know kalmianum have told me it's not. I like whatever species it is. I'm still trying to find the native fly honeysuckle, Lonicera canadensis. I had 2 ordered from Reeseville, but they were having problems with that species. I wish I'd known about the native Taxus years ago before I'd bought 3 Asian plants. I had no idea Minnesota had 2 native junipers. I have my 2 Bald Cypress as my evergreens. They are about 30 years old. They are getting tall. The best trees in the whole neighborhood. They are producing another bumper crop of cones this year. I cut the 3 Japanese Taxus down last year. I'm growing Sambucus canadensis in their place.

Thanks Jay.

When I first planted my Ilex v. the buds started to come on all but then two fizzled out. I let Darrell know and he told me they had trouble with that batch, not growing on, and he replaced them. Stellar service, with that guy.

I've known about Taxus c. for a while but after several trips attempting to find them in the wild, I decided to buy. :-)

Minnesota actually has 3 native junipers if you count j. virginiana.

J. horizontalis is generally restricted along the far northern border, so those would be hard to find unless you took some long trips. So, mine are bought from rrn also.

J. communis is everywhere.

As an aside: While exploring Roosevelt Park in ND last year I actually came across J. h. growing high on rock formations, with hardly any soil apparently, just cracks and depressions in the rocks. It grew really low and flat, looked really 'creeping'.

Bald cypress wouldn't work for my area, but I did get a Larix laricina growing good here.

I'm a little apprehensive about planting all these moisture loving plants because of the sandiness of my soil and the last 3 seasons have been drought or near drought.

Hoping 3 is a charm and we'll start getting those 3-day rains that used to be so common.

My latest planting: Rosa Blanda. Dug from my son's land. There may be a couple of blueberry plants in there, that came with the dig. ;^)

Looking good Bill! I have a few little trees and shrubs I started from seed that I need to plant out soon. A blue beech, a black gum, a button bush, and a northern bayberry.

I feel you about being apprehensive to plant moisture loving plants, this year's heat wave and drought was hard on a lot of plants, I think even a couple of my sweet ferns died, and they are usually in very dry places around here.

I got a tree service to drop off a truckload of wood chips today so I can actually mulch things with more than just leaves this year. I've added at least a dozen tree and shrub species since 2015 when I moved in.

I was reading about Juniperus communis and it has the largest range worldwide all over the northern hemisphere. There are several subspecies and varieties, and the Juniper you have Bill is a nice form. The J. h. should fill in nicely on the side of your house. I'm tempted to get a few myself. I see that RRN sells the Swamp Fly Honeysuckle, Lonicera oblongifolia. It's native to Wisconsin and further north, Maybe Minnesota. I could try growing it in a bog. I wonder if I can squeeze it in with the Water Willow, Buttonbush, and Wild Rice I want to grow? Probably not. I could block off the ditch in the easement, to make it more boggy, and put the Buttonbushs in there? It might violate a city ordinance? Reeseville has a great variety of cool plants. I wish I had more land to put them in. Skip, what are you planning to do with your meadow/prairie? Will you mow it at some point? You can't burn it right? I have a couple Solidago caesia blooming. They are a nice goldenrod.

I've always thought about highbush cranberry, Viburnum opulus var. americanum. I see them from on my land in the country. The soil on parts of it is ideal for most wetland plants and has a wide variety of what's native to Minnesota growing there.

Lonicera o. is native to my area btw. I don't know if I have any.

It finally froze last night with 31dF for a few hours, hard frost everywhere. :-)

Jay, I'm probably going to mow down the meadow in the spring, although I might mow a couple paths soon so I can weed out some of the trees that are coming up. Yeah, messing with the drainage in the easement might be disastrous for your house and neighborhood if there is a flooding rain event.

Bill, highbush cranberry is nice, I see it recommended for home landscaping somewhat often. I planted one a few years ago but some animal girdled it at the root collar, or some rot set in, within 3 months of planting. I didn't replant the spot with another shrub because I realized if I ever need to get a tree truck or service the house on that size I'd have to cut the shrubs all the way down, I just have some switch grass and cutleaf coneflower there now.

I started covering the lawn in another area today, to finally, completely encircle the remaining lawn with native plants.
I mowed the grass on the lowest height, used a string trimmer to get down to bare soil at the edge, put down paper I had saved from packaging, and started dumping the fresh wood chips on top. I might try a little experiment and overseed it with a meadow mix or just something simple like fox sedge, and see if any of it sprouts on top of the wood chips. Or I might just plant some clonal shrubs to keep it simple, I haven't decided yet. The soil is pretty much clay with tree roots, and it's pretty shady, so I'll have to work to find something .

American persimmon foreground (freebie seedling from NJ state), Red bud from seed on right, red mulberry on left (freebie from Bowman Hill rescue-a-plant table), Sweet birch on right at back.

Solidago caesia .

I was looking up Viburnum opulus var. americanum and it's now called Viburnum trilobum. Viburnum opulus now refers to the European species only. 1 have 1 shrub, but it's been in too much shade and hasn't put on much growth in the 3 years it's been in that spot, so I'm going to move it to a sunnier spot. I have other shrubs I'm going to move also, Elderberry, Gooseberries, Currants, Diervilla lonicera, Symphoricarpos orbiculatus, Symphoricarpos albus, Spicebush, Gillenia, Winterberry. I like the Solidago caesia. It doesn't get huge My Solidago speciosa and Cliff Goldenrod, which might be S. drumondii.

Solidago caesia, Chelone obliqua, Monarda fistulosa, Physostegia. I pulled up all the Prunella with seed pods and scattered them over areas with a lot of Creeping Charlie. I pulled up all the Nepeta cataria. I have more Physostegia I can plant here. I should move it before it thugs out my Iris versicolor shrevii again. I wish I has room for a Red Mulberry. If I order from Reeseville Ridge I'll get the Lonicera oblongifolia, Castanea pumila, and a couple more Linnaea borealis. If I has room for American Chestnut and Morus rubra, I'd order them too. Red Elderberry would be nice too. I tried growing Sambucus racemosa from seed with no germination. Are you getting hurricane rain Iris?

It's cool you have one species of Castanea already, one that is unusual to have in your landscape too. Im not completely sold on the red mulberry, there are so many white mulberries around here already that I'm probably going to get the hybrid offspring coming up all over the place, but maybe I can harvest a lot of the fruits before the squirrels and birds.

Gentiana saponaria started blooming today, NY aster peaking up next to it.

Chamaecrista nicitans going to seed. This plant is a really prolific seeder and very adaptable. Not very showy flower but it's got interesting texture and foliage when you see it closer up

I will need to catch up. So many nice pictures to look at, and plants I will need to research if they would work here.

Jay, with Ian’s shifting to the East, I had not even half an inch of rain. Lots of wind though. Need to do some cleanup this weekend. Everything looks awfully dry. With at least 3 inches of rain expected, I didn’t water for a few days. Hope I will not regret it.

Most of my plants stayed upright with the winds, so this is something. On the other hand, some of my trees and shrubs look like they have been sprayed with roundup. After some reading, I guess it’s windburn. Not seeing a problem with trees like wild black cherry since they are about to drop the leaves. But what about evergreens like the Florida anise? Leave it alone or prune some?

That last picture looks beautiful! I don't know what happened with your trees, hopefully it's wind burn and nothing serious. The remnants of Ian have been hanging around here since Friday night, we've gotten 3-4" of rain since then and it will continue raining until Wednesday.

Ian didn’t help me out at all with the drought. Had a beautyberry uprooted today. After lifting it up, it was clearly a deer rubbing it’s antlers being the one doing so. The soil was dusty dry when I replanted. No rain in the 10 day forecast, but the nights are really getting cold. I am seeing a 41 coming up this weekend. Still have a bunch of Monarch, Pipevine swallowtail, and Gulf Fritilary caterpillars around. Hope they make it before it freezes. Summer went by way too quickly. Didn’t see a single Zebra swallowtail this year. And the numbers of all hairstreaks were down, too. With the cooler temperatures, I would like to get the potted stuff I have in the ground. Going to wait for some rain though.

It hasn't rained here in awhile either. I've been watering everything that needs it. I have some plants still in pots that need to get planted too. I dug out a couple Frostweed plants today. They and the Wingstem are very weedy, so I need to remove the spent flowers before they drop seeds. I feel bad that I can't leave the seeds for the birds, but it's already a nightmare with all the vollunteers coming up everywhere. I wish the Cowpen Daisies were as agressive. What are the tall plants that look like tall Verbena? I know they are closely related to Liatris, maybe they are Carphophorus? Are those Georgia Asters? I did order some seeds from Prairie Moon. I was on the waiting list for Anemone quinquefolia, though I have no memory of wanting it that bad. So once I decided to go ahead and order them, I looked at all the seeds and picked out a few others. I sounds like the deer population is out of control in your area Iris. I did notice my Elderberry was grazed a little. They come out of hiding in the middle of the night and walk the sidewalks looking for plants to eat. There's not much for them to eat in my subdivision because it's mostly just manicured lawns with no native plants. I looked out the door one night and wondered which of my neighbors had a large greyhound, and then I realized it was a deer. They are having a native tree and shrub sale this weekend. I'm debating with myself if I should get a paw paw and a couple Winterberries now, or wait until spring.

I don't have any Poke Milkweed. I've grown several from seed, but none have lasted. I may get plants too. This will be my 3rd attempt growing Polygala senega from seed. This is a new item at PM, I bought the other seeds from Strictly Medicinal in the UK. Maybe I'll have better luck with the PM seeds. I planted about 15 Oxalis violacea tubers a couple years ago, and they have dwindled down to 2 plants. I need more. The Wood Anemone is smaller and will look great growing with the spring ephemerals. The Silky Aster is probably the most beautiful aster up here, and I want to grow it. They gave me Purple Prairie Clover seeds as the bonus again. My original PPC all died, and there haven't been any vollunteers, even after scattering several PPC seeds. The endangered Dalea foliosa, Leafy Prairie Clover is doing well and self sowing, which is good, I still have that prairie Clover. I tried growing Silky Prairie Clover, Dalea villosa, but no luck with them. I can be happy just having the other 2 species.

Iris, is your plant Carphephorus corymbosus, Florida Paintbrush? It's beautiful, but I'm sure it's a species for the deep south. From a distance it looks like Verbena bonariensis.

Jay, the purple fluffy looking ones are mistflower. Talk about weedy. So far I don’t mind them popping up everywhere. I haven’t seen a single cowpen Daisy coming up this year. There are really way too many deer around. Can’t blame them with all these subdivisions popping up around me. They started clearing another lot 3 miles from me to stick 122 houses there. I was looking into planting Simsia calva. I know, it’s another Texas one. But seems very drought tolerant. Hardy to my Zone, and might keep the deer from some other plants. Also looks to be healthy for them :) Came across this one while browsing the Native American Seed catalog. Didn’t really plan to start much from seed next year. Still not very good at it. And I still have lots of plants in pots and to divide. Plus the Toadshade gift certificate I didn’t use yet. I would really love to cut down my common milkweed at this time. It looks terrible. Still have some Monarch cats on there though. They better hurry up. The nights are getting pretty cold. Already had a 41.