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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Probably second only to Africa in that regard.
Second to Africa in terms of the surviving diversity perhaps but when you look at the density of the human population I’m amazed they don’t kick every other critter to the curb. Happy and thankful too but really pretty amazed.
Saw a crazy thing earlier. I was at a red light headed north and saw cops coming south bound chasing s red truck which did a I turn through the grass and hit a light and then he was coming up behind me at like 100mph and so I turned right into a Wendy’s parking lot and then he turned through the ditch and bounced up like 20 feet in front of me and went though another pole and over curbs and so I drove forward into a connected parking lot of a church and for 2-3 minutes watched this guy smash through small trees and bushes, go up and down ditches, into on coming traffic and back into parking lots until finally he shot down a old road that I actually grew up on. At this point I could not see it anymore. Guess the dude was in a 14 cop car chase for 20 minutes before going through a red light and smashing into a van and truck which ripped off his wheels causing him to roll. I did not see that last part. Only the first bit.
Photos or it didn’t happen. (Just kidding- sounds awful for those involved!)
I wish I would have got photos. I was on the phone with my mom and I thought about it while it was happening, but then he went onto the other side and then he came back and it happened like 6 times. But a lot of other people in the local fb group got pics and talked about it. I’m kind of surprised no one died. I watched him for like 10 seconds switching lanes in oncoming traffic and somehow no hit anyone until the very end but that was way after I got home. Found out earlier the char actually started in a town over and went on for like 35 minutes. Kept losing him because cops can’t just jump into oncoming traffic to chase him and he would go down backroads and so on.
Gotta wonder what substances were in his bloodstream and the volume. Really incredible no one was killed. Hope the photos help him become a life-long cyclist.
Really cute little mouse I found outside. They are not dead. It kept playing dead and so I looked it up and saw that they do in fact play dead.
I especially thought it was cute because it reminded me of my cat. Especially when he was a kitten. Same grayish blue color.
Also found a tiny toad hoping about.
So found this nice big snake. I think it’s a gopher snake. ( turns out it’s a gray rat snake ) Not sure. Really heavy. Probably around 5 foot something long.
Your new friend has some really beautiful markings, i love how snakes feel like they are covered with pearls or beadwork.
Looks like the rat snakes around here, but not much different than gopher snakes so you are no doubt right. OMG, Snakes! — how do you tell the difference between rat snakes...
Turns out they are not even in my state. I bought a book just on Alabama native snakes and one of the chapters is called “ Bullsnakes, Pinesnakes and Gophersnakes “ but when you get to the actual chapter it lists just the eastern pine snake and three of its subspecies. So I thought from the chapter name, Gophersnakes were in the state.
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