Yard Work – July 2024

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The only yard work I do on a weekly basis is mow the grassy area; it is a good way for me to achieve my ‘intensity minutes’ of exercise for the week! I do some weed eating every other week. Everything else is more ad hoc…and as needed.

I ordered 25 orange daylily roots and got them planted around the base of our two red maples in the front yard. The ruff of these plants around my oak in Maryland looked good and made it easier to mow around the base of the tree without being too close to the trunk. The daylilies are better than mulch to keep the grass from growing too close to the tree trunks!

The Virginia creeper has covered the stones in the raised bed in front. I pull down any that tries to climb the brick and try to keep weeds from growing in the area (like poke weed). I do need to trim the boxwood (and remove the Virginia creeper growing into it.  

I have rounded most of the corners created by the fence by planting lambs ear…and I let low growing poke weed grow there too.

I mowed part of the area I didn’t mow in May back in June and left the thick clippings to mulch in place; much of the grass has died there and violets from the flower bed are spilling into the yard. The larger leafed plant near the metal iris is a spikenard which is in the same area. About a foot of grass has been eliminated along this section of the flower bed. Over time I will use this strategy to reduce the grassy area of our yard.

A plant came up in a bare ‘hole’ in the turf in my back yard and I have been carefully mowing around it. It appears to be a small white aster and has been blooming for more than 4 weeks. I’ll eventually mow it, but it was a fun experiment to see what kind of plant it was.

I noticed a tall something in the flowerbed on the yard side of the stairs from our deck. It is a young redbud! I’ve decided to keep it…will trim the bush that is on one side of it and the ornamental grass that is on the other side.

My spider mum metal sculpture was visible from my office window when I first stuck it in the ground…but the branches of the pine are growing and getting lower around it. I have borrowed a pole saw from my daughter and will trim the lowest ones (it is impossible to get close enough to the trunk without using a pole saw!).

I am pleased with the progress I am making on the yard. My goals are to make it easier to maintain…more native plants…less grass…all while staying within the ‘rules’ of the neighborhood HOA.

Our Missouri Yard – July 2024

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The wildest part of my yard is the wildflower garden I planted last summer.

In front of the wildflowers are some pumpkin vines, lambs ear, and fragrant sumac. Behind the wildflowers there is a rose bush that has died back to the roots during both winters we’ve lived in the house but has come back each year to form a low bush…blooming small red roses.

That area is always a good place to do some macro photography with my iPhone 15 Pro Max. I’ve noticed that the native plants tend to harbor more insects although most of them are quite small. We’re missing the big butterflies in our yard too.

When I mow the grass, I stop to photograph anything I find of interest…like the shell of a robin’s egg (was it taken by predator or did the young hatched and the parent clear the nest?) and a plant that grows reliably by our mailbox.

There are frequently mushrooms that come up on the area where a tree was cut down (and the stump ground up) before we moved to the house. This month there were at least 2 different kinds.

One of our pine trees is not old enough to produce cones…but the other one is prolific and I wince when I run over a cone with the lawn mower (they probably cause the blade to get dull faster). The cones look good with green needles – or grass – around them!

I still have a few areas of the yard that I have not mowed this year. In one area – violets have escaped from the flower bed and spilled out into the unmowed area. I mowed some of no-mow May area and the clippings are slowing/stopping grass from growing there and the violets are moving there too! I am getting other ideas on how to extend the flowerbeds in a way that results in less need to use the weed-eater…and overall less lawn….that remains compliant with the Home Owners Association of our neighborhood.

Our Missouri Yard – May 2024

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May is when our yard becomes lush with new growth --- with the warmer temperatures and plentiful rain. The plants love it.

The wildflower garden that I started last year has returned either from reseeding or coming up from last year’s roots. I cleared some more rocks/landscaping cloth around the edges and planted more seeds there but they haven’t emerged yet.

The seeds I planted on the sunny side under the pine tree are coming up! I am going to cut down the pokeweed growing around the perimeter to make sure the area doesn’t become too shady.

The fragrant sumac I planted last year is back with lots of new leaves – like the bush beside it (which I haven’t identified but I like the leaves).

The alliums are blooming in the area outside the flower bed near my office window. I am converting the area from grass/moss to other things. Right now, it is thick with alliums, daffodil leaves, violets, and some weeds/grass. The spikenard I bought last fall has returned but is still relatively small. The stainless-steel iris I bought for my mother (Mother’s day 2023) is now in that area too.

The glass birdbath I carefully packed and moved from Maryland is now out and visible from one of my office windows (where I sit to make Zentangle tiles). I haven’t noticed any birds finding it yet. The stainless-steel spider mum is under a nearby pine…also an area I am converting from grass.

There are some holes in the turf of our yard where plants have come up. Sometimes I let them grow. The most successful area is lambs ear to the side of our house by the gate to our backyard. I hope that it eventually joins with some lambs ear that is growing in the corner made by the fence and the house (it has a small pokeweed growing with it). It has many bloom stalks. I’ll let them make seeds then cut them – hope the plant continues to expand via roots too.

On the other side of the fence is some more lamb ear and showy golden rod that I bought last fall. Hopefully the goldenrod will get enough sun to bloom well in that spot.

The hens and chicks are multiplying in the front rock garden.

And the kousa dogwood is full of blooms.

We have been mulching leaves and grass into the yard…and frequently see small mushrooms. They’re decomposing all that plant debris into nutrients the roots of the plants can absorb! I love to see evidence that the yard is vibrant with life other than just grass; we are succeeding in making it less a monoculture with shallow roots (i.e. turf grass).

Irises and other Yard News – April 2024

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The irises, that were already growing in flower beds when we bought our house, are blooming profusely; the ones I transplanted last fall/winter will take another year to build up the energy to bloom. I was surprised that the most prolific bed this year grew very elongated stems that fell over as soon as they started to bloom; I didn’t remember them being so tall last year. The irised in another bed looks the same, but the stems are very short!

I ended up cutting the long stems to bring indoors and enjoyed photographing them: macro shots with my iPhone 15 Pro Max and

And Canon Powershot SX70 HX high key shots (almost white background) and

Some warm glow shots of a group.

Of course, there other plants active in the yard. Hostas are growing well – both the original clumps and the ones I started this year by dividing some older clumps.

There are lots of dandelions in various stages of development. I tend to let them alone since the bees like the flowers and the roots are deeper than the grass root which helps hold the soil – particularly on slopes.

There are more violets that ever spilling out of flower beds and into the yard. There are some places that I have stopped mowing because the violets are so thick!

The irises I transplanted into the area where the pine tree was cut down last summer are growing vigorously. Maybe one or two will bloom this year although it won’t be great until next year. The lambs ear is growing well and should fill in more around the irises over time. The beautyberry does not have leaves yet but we’re still having some cool days/nights; hopefully it will leaf out in May.

I took some ‘art’ pictures of an iris bud and new rose leaves early in the month.

A lot is growing in the wildflower garden from last year. Some might be weeds…hard to tell until the plants start blooming.

Pokeweed is coming up everywhere. I am going to cut down plants that get above a certain size. I also plan to rake pine cones that are around one of pines toward the fence so that I won’t mow over them (they are a little tough for the lawn mower to cut!).

Overall – a great month in our yard. The rhododendron is full of buds…but not blooming yet…a lot more beauty coming in May.

Our yard/yard work – March 2024

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There is a lot going on in our yard this month. The bulbs I planted last year have thrived. The crocus bloomed first followed by the hyacinths and daffodils. The hyacinths don’t seem to bloom as well here as they did years ago in Maryland.

The forsythia bush in the corner of our yard is blooming profusely. I cut some to bring inside…and took some macro pictures of the flowers there. After the bush finishes blooming, I will trim it back significantly. I planted pawpaw seeds under it and I am hoping they come up…start my grove of pawpaw trees with the forsythia’s protection from the hottest parts of the summer days.

The fragrant sumac is blooming. I bought the young plant last spring after the bloom time so this is my first season to observe the small flowers.

The lambs’ ear is returning. The clumps that get more sun did not die back like the largest clump on the north side of the house. There are two in a sunny place that might merge over the summer.

The small hens and chicks are pretty with additional color forming on the tips of their leaves over the winter. There are still two chicks. I’ll be moving more rocks away from them so it will be easier for them to spread.

The vinca under one of our cedars is blooming. It seems to be well contained. I don’t want more of it!

I’ve planted more pollinator/butterfly garden seeds in two places: enlarging the existing wildflower garden and a sunny area under a pine tree where I cleared away most of the pine needles (it is sunnier there because I cut some low branches).

I’m not sure if the bulbs I planted from my parents’ garden are going to survive. They had to be planted in the winter…not the optimal time. Hopefully they will become established over this summer although I doubt they will bloom.

The mound where a pine tree used to be (it fell and had to be removed) is going to fill out nicely with irises and I planted a tiny oak there (I cut it from my flower bed last fall and put it in a vase to enjoy the fall color….it grew a root and put out green leaves! It will take years before it gets big enough to impact the bed but could eventually dominate the back yard!). The beautyberry that is there has not leafed out yet.

The hostas are beginning to emerge…in dense clumps. I decided to divide two clumps…since I have a shady place that I’d like to convert from grass.

I planted divided clumps (roots plus a furled leave or two) at the pine needle and flower bed boundaries with grass. I covered the grass with extra pine needles (from under the tree where I planted pollinator/butterfly garden seeds) and clippings from some bushes). I was thrilled when the hosta leaves unfurled within a day or two after they were planted!

There is still a lot to do in the yard. I get a little done every day I am at home and it’s dry…over 60 degrees.

Snowy Day on our Patio

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The birds were very active at our feeders recently with the temperature in the single digits (Fahrenheit) and the wind blowing up to 16 miles per hour! Multiple perches were in use much of the time. The house finches were the most numerous but there were sparrows (white-crowned) and a woodpecker (hairy?) and a female Northern Cardinal too. It was quite a feeding frenzy!

I was taking pictures through an office window with a screen so the pictures have a softened focus. Sometimes birds were still enough for portraits (female finch, male woodpecker, white crowned sparrow, cardinal).

I attempted a picture of sparrow through vegetation….and liked the artsy veil that the automatic focus produced with the challenge.

Of course, there were other items catching snow around our patio – the chiminea, the holly trees, the gnarled vine to the side of the stairs to the deck, a paver near the almost covered lambs ear, fall leaves in the bottom of the wagon. I stepped outside to take these pictures….and all the birds flew away!

The birds returned within minutes of my exit from the patio back to the warmth of my office.

Carrollton Yard – August 2023

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Weeks of 100+ degree temperatures in Carrollton, TX were hard on the yard/garden. Frequent watering helped. Still - the hydrangea that is usually very lush green and blooming is drying out – hopefully it will come back from the roots next year.

There is still a lot of green in the garden areas of the yard. Crape Myrtles seem to thrive in the high heat if they get enough water.

The naked lady lilies are almost done for the season. My favorite picture of the morning was one of the last flowers – full of water droplets from the sprinklers.

There is a lot of seed production too. The red yuccas look as they always do but other plants seem to have more than the usual seeds…maybe a good strategy to survive to grow another year.

There was a large spider in the flower bed near the front door – a female Argiope aurantia (yellow garden spider). The first time I saw it, all was quiet on the web.

The next day, the spider was feeding on something! There were a few droplets of water from the sprinklers too. The web seemed to be very sturdy – and built in a good place.

Overall, attention to watering (sprinkler system and supplement in key areas) has sustained the yard. Many in the neighborhood look thoroughly dry…and dying. If this is what the summers will be like in the area from now on – then landscaping will need to change significantly.

Our Missouri Yard – August 2023

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The Crape Myrtles that died to the ground last winter are all out and blooming in our yard. We have 4 (plus 1 or 2 others that have come up from seeds away from the parent plant). They attract insects….and hummingbirds!

There is a stand of Virginia Creeper than I periodically pull off the brick walls…but let continue to drape across the rock of the front flowerbed between the Crape Myrtles.

The Japanese Maple in the corner near our front door is happier than it was last summer; we are a little above normal for rainfall this year whereas last summer we were painfully dry.

There are mushrooms that come up frequently in our front yard where a large tree was cut down several years before we bought the house. Based on the number of mushrooms…there must still be quite a lot of decomposition happening.

There are seed pods on our Kousa Dogwood; unlike last year when the tree struggled to maintain its leaves.

Some plants seem to be robust no matter what. I am encouraging Lamb’s Ear wherever it comes up. One place that has done well was a hole in the turf where a small lamb’s ear appeared last spring; I have been mowing around it and it appears very robust at this point. I dug up a plant that was not in acceptable place and replanted it to fill a corner between the fence and the house. It is growing…slowly.

In the back yard my small ‘meadow’ where I planted wildflower seeds last spring is doing well and the flowers are producing seeds for next year. The leafy green plant in the foreground is pokeweed; I like the way it provides a frame to the meadow.

We generally leave the wasp/hornets’ nests alone unless they are in a place where we might get stung. I found this one on our steppingstones between our patio and yard; it is probably an old nest that fell from wherever it was attached during recent storms.

There was a mushroom that was growing in some mulch that I thought was a flower at first because the cap had split to look like petals. I took a picture from above and below.

There is always something to see in our yard!

Yard Work – July 2023

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July has been a busy month yard work. The hotter weather and failure of a zone in our sprinkler system (which we didn’t notice immediately) resulted in less mowing…but other jobs more than made up for time savings.

My irises did not have a lot of blooms last spring, so I checked one of the beds and discovered that it was so clogged with rhizomes that they were no longer covered with soil. I dug up a huge mass…broke the rhizomes apart and planted them in the mound of dirt where the pine tree used to be. That meant extra watering of the mound. I also transplanted some lambs ear to the mound. The location is sunnier that the previous place the irises were and I am hoping for more blooms next spring. The downside is – I won’t see them from my office window. I also have more iris beds that I haven’t checked yet.

I also decided to round the corners of my back yard so that it would be easier to mow. I dug up lambs ear that had come up in the yard for two corners that already did not have much grass and put landscaping fabric down in a third. After the grass dies under the landscaping cloth, I’ll transplant iris rhizomes to that corner.

A local farmers market had hens and chicks (small so I guess they were chicks). I bought 2…cleared away rock and landscaping cloth in my front flowerbed and hope they will create a new texture for the bed. They might even grow on the top of the rocks!

My wildflower garden is doing well for the first year. I am watering it frequently along with the miniature pumpkin plant that I planted nearby. So far – there are 5 miniature pumpkins on the vine!

Our most robust pine has become my place for larger items I pull from other beds. The pine needles and opportunistic plants growing there add to the contrasts.

Overall – a good month for the yard. I am slowly but surely making the adjustments I want!

Our Missouri Yard – June 2023

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There are always things to photograph in our year. In June I decided to walk about with my phone (Samsung Galaxy S10e)….taking mostly macro looks at the plants.

Our lamb’s ear is blooming. It attracts pollinating insects. I have lamb’s ear plants coming up in the yard too….thinking maybe I should avoid mowing them and let them continue to spread…take over some areas where the grass is not growing so well anyway.

This time of year it is possible to find all stages of flower development on a single plant. The color sometimes is deepest just as the flowers open.

I have pokeweed coming up in some of the same places it was last fall…probably from the roots that remained. I like the green leaves and will probably let it grow. Maybe this year the fruits will mature before the first hard frost…provide early winter food for birds.

There is a native grapevine near one of my bushes. The new leaves start out folded in half. I am pulling it away from the bush and allowing it to continue to grow. Something has already been nibbling on its leaves.

I like that the yard has interesting plants…and is providing some food for wildlife. Hopefully the wildflowers I’ve planted this year will grow this season and then come back year after year…increase the yard value for pollinators!

Carrollton Yard – May 2023

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My parent’s yard was transitioning from spring to summer when I was there in late May. My sister had taken away the naked lady lily leaves that had turned brown; the bulbs have the stored energy for their bloom later in the summer. I put the stainless-steel iris I bought at the Springfield Artsfest in the hydrangea plot. It looked like it belonged there and will provide some color visible from the garden room during the winter.

The Queen Anne’s Lace is beginning to boom…and the cosmos. In the front yard the red yucca is the most colorful. The daisies are dispersing their seeds. The ferns are lush and there are still fiddleheads unfurling.

The lamb’s ear is blooming. When I got home, the ones in my yard were too!

Now I am beginning to think about whether I want to propagate some of these plants in my yard. My challenge right now is a lack of gardening space and the need to clear out plants that didn’t make it through the winter in some of the beds. On the plus side…that clearing could leave some places that I could plant some Carrollton transplants.

Our New Neighborhood – January 2023

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It was warmer than I expected when I walked around our neighborhood pond…a pleasant surprise. I photographed the Lambs ear in our flower bed on the way out…both the mother plant and ‘children’ seem to be weathering the winter.

The dying back of vegetation makes it easier to see nests in the trees and the reeds/grasses at the side of the pond. Was this one built by a red-winged blackbird last spring?

There are many leaves decaying in the pond…and bright green algae. I wondered if there might be some interesting macroinvertebrates in the water. We did see a lot of dragonflies in the summer so their larvae might be in the water. Maybe I will get a small net to see what is hiding in the decaying leaves.

I always stop to look at the weeping willow at the edge of the pond that has grown around a metal stake. The leaves are gone now…but the lichen on the trunk is colorful! I took pictures at various magnifications with my phone (Samsung Galaxy S10e). I’ll continue to check the lichen on my walks around the neighborhood pond…see how much it changes when the weather is warmer.

Our Nixa, MO Yard – January 2023

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The January yard is full of plants surviving the cold – a cedar damaged by last summer’s drought, the hollies that are very green all 12 months, and bushes with growth damaged by the abrupt frost from last November.

There are pokeweed fruits that never ripened (because of that abrupt frost) and seeds on ornamental grasses.

I was surprised by the irises already coming up in one bed that must have been planted by the previous owner and a few of the bulbs I planted in November sprouting through the stones in another location.

The rhododendron is full of buds. The first time I looked at the house was just after it bloomed last spring, so I am looking forward to seeing it thise season. The leaves are not universally green and I am wondering if it too was damaged by the November frost or if this is just the way rhododendron leaves look when they are old. This is the first time I’ve had a rhododendron at my house.

The lamb’s ear is surviving the winter. There are small plants coming up in other locations. I’ll need to decide about whether to put mulch around the ones in the yard to curtail the growth of grass around them!

Our Missouri Yard – December 2022

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I walked around my yard on a cold, windy, cloudy day….not a good day for landscape compositions; it was a good day for macro photography, though.

I had some fun with a bush with colorful leaves. One of the leaves looked (to me) like a green alien figure surrounded by a yellow and red prison!

There were seed pods and colorful leaves from last season, buds on the rhododendron for next spring, greens of pine needles and rich browns of cones, and lambs ear with water droplets in a flower bed.

The rose bush was caught by the abrupt and very cold spell in late October. It is putting on some new leaves which probably won’t last much longer. I decided to look at the thorns more closely….staying far enough away to not get caught!

I’ve also noticed that the two boxwood bushes at the front of the house have brown leaves on the ends of their branches. It took some time for the damage of that early frost to show…but it is very evident now. I guess in normal years, the bushes stop growing as the season cools down and the new grown is better prepared when the first days down in the 20s occur – unlike this year when it happened abruptly and early.