I love the crackling sound it makes.
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My brother and I are thinking of camping in a tent sometime during the week of 4/2–I’m not sure that will work out the way we imagine it could!
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Let’s go walking around the yard!
It never ceases to amaze me what’s been growing under the snow, when it clears off (even when we used to have a mid-January thaw).
I fell in love with mosses, when I was sitting on a bright emerald green carpet of it in the Black Forest. Their size, delicacy and toughness are always amazing to me.
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Skeletons of pokeweeds. These were huge last summer, at least 7’ (c. 213cm) high.
Graceful Skeletons of Common Milkweed:
@MarkD, this is what the verbascums look like in my yard now. I had forgotten what the stakes were for, until I looked at what was on the ground. I’ll keep an eye on what’s happening in the spot. Each stake is where a plant grew.
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Beautiful textures and lines. Great photo.
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Not sure why I never noticed this until now. But I like Verbascum too.
This is the one I grow out in the planting strip between the street and sidewalk.
July 14, 2021
I grew this one a couple times but it didn’t come back from see like the yellow flowering one so I don’t grow it now. The tubular flower is a large shrub called an Iochroma.
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Actually, I hate the verbascum that grow wild here, because they look nothing like your happy, well-groomed plants. Ours are ratty looking and really ugly by the end of summer. You and I had chatted about mine (whether they come up from seed or root, at the end of last summer); I had forgotten until I saw the stakes yesterday.
Too bad the pink one is a pain to grow. It’s lovely.
Ther’s more gardening between your fence and the curb, then there is on my entire property,
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One thing to consider is also how ecology comes into play. Many native plants naturally droop in summer because of the evolutionary benefits of it. Sending more water down into roots when grows deeper and further than many plants in gardens. When it does this, it’s releasing a lot more hormones and chemicals into the soil as well helping to protect the food web systems of the soil. Not to mention native plants and their foliage for native wildlife. Native plants feed native caterpillars which makes up the bulk of the diet of native chicks which grow up into birds that helps keep the ecosystem balanced by eating “pests” and by eating native fruits and seeds which gets dispersed in flight creating new pop up growth of these native plants. Non native plants offer almost none of that. They just provide nectar and pollen for some adult pollinators.
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Thanks, must have forgotten. I replace those yellow flowering ones with volunteer seedlings every year because the foliage looks so much better that way. Bet I already told you that too. Oh well a bad memory is a bit embarrassing but likely keeps things fresh.
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There’s more than enough to remember. Certainly not important to know what grows wild in my field and how it looks in contrast to s similar plant in your beautifully cared-for masterpiece garden.
If I remember, I will keep track here of what my verbascum looks like throughout the season so you can see the wonderous difference your work makes.
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Thanks, @SkovandOfMitaze. We leave about 3/4 of 5 acres wild. What grows there grows. I know there are a few problem (invasive) plants like honeysuckle, multiflora rose (wicked! Straight out of Sleeping Beauty) and a few more. Figuring out how to control those is hard.
Milkweed propogation was easy. When my youngest was little, I wanted her to interact more with plants and nature, that she wouldn’t normally notice because of her vision. We played with ripe milkweed pods and let the wind pick up the seeds and scatter them as we enjoyed the patterns and textures inside the pods. We only did that a few falls years ago, snd that really helped increase the plants.
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PINECONE QUESTION and MossScapes:
Question: anyone using pinecones as mulch? I would like to know more, particularly what types work well (and don’t), how you prepare them to use, if at all, and how you prevent new tree growth.
PM is fine. Thanks!
@Klax, you’ve mentioned this before, I think.
MossScapes:
I ran out of energy yesterday to post these mossy photos with my hand for perspective.
Mossscapes on the flagstone path
Moss just calls for fairy stories and gnome lore.
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I’ve always been impressed by the way the people in and around the Indian subcontinent make room for such a wide array of wildlife.
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Probably second only to Africa in that regard.