Torch Mexican Sunflower October 23, 2016

 Every year my Mexican Sunflower grows up out of my mulch pile and in other places here and there in my Vegetable Garden.  It gets about 15 feet tall and then timber - over it goes.  Laying on the ground it blooms its heart out every fall.  I haven't figured out a way to keep it upright.  It is an unruly mess which I don't mind when it grows outside the garden, and it attracts butterflies like crazy.

Zinnias in the Orchard October 23, 2016

Weekend at the Farm October 22 - 23, 2016

This is a seed head of amaranth.

Arrived Friday evening, Bert was already here.  I left early Sunday to go to Sam's birthday party.  He is into Spiderman so I got him a Spiderman shirt and shoes.

• This is the time of year when you think the days cannot get prettier yet every weekend is prettier than the last one.  The butterflies are amazing again.
• My Torch Mexican Sunflowers are in full bloom.  They are very colorful.  The butterflies are all over them.  The Whitestriped Longtails have finally showed up.  They are mostly brown, and they have a prominent white stripe across their wings and long narrow tails.  They are very distinctive-looking.  There are some small orange butterflies all around, but they move so fast that I cannot see if they have any markings.  The orange color is brighter than the Gulf Fritillaries and they are smaller with about a one inch wingspan.
•  I worked most of the morning in the Vegetable Garden.  I pulled up all the beans - I can't believe they lasted all summer - and a lot of the Tabasco pepper plants. I mulched a few of the 4 x 4 beds and both of the 2 x 16 beds to keep the weeds down.  I probably won't plant anything in most of the beds.  I added some compost to one of the 2 x 16 beds and planted 3 cabbage plants and one collard green plant.  
• I planted a mustard green in a pot and put it in the Star Garden, and I amended the soil and planted 2 more collards and one more mustard in the Star Garden beds.  Mustard greens and collards are such pretty plants.  I think they are very decorative.
• I found some Bright Lights Swiss Chard and some Cilantro in my seed box, so I sowed it in the Vegetable Garden.
• Throughout the day I spot watered in the Rose Garden with my low-flow sprinkler.  The Rose Garden looks absolutely fantastic.  I have gotten rid of most of my Ox Eye daisies so that other perennials and annuals can make their mark.  The zinnias are attracting butterflies.  So pretty.  I stayed in the Rose Garden most of the afternoon just moving the sprinkler and enjoying the weather and the butterflies.
• I mulched several beds in the Greenhouse Gardens.  
• My Night Blooming Jasmine is in full bloom.  I sat outside Friday night and Saturday night just breathing in the night air.  What an unforgettable smell, yet it is difficult to describe.  I don't know of another smell that I can compare it to.
• Before I left Sunday morning I sprayed my roses with fungicide.

Butterflies

 This is Julia.  Her right wing is a little tattered, she is still pretty.  The underside of her wings have no markings.

 Above, I think this is a Painted Lady.

 Above, a pretty little Sulphur.

 Above, this is a little Skipper of some kind. 

Above, a couple of Gulf Frittilaries on a zinnia.  The undersides of their wings are very pretty.

Pretty Illustris Colocasia Along the Boardwalk

Weekend at the Farm October 15 - 16, 2016

We arrived about 6:30 on Friday evening.  We drove in to Round Top for dinner.

• Bert and Ray went fishing, so Bert was up and out of the house by 6 on Saturday morning.  It rained during the night and everything was wet and shiny when I took my first stroll around the place at 7.
• I cut back my Pringle Aster first thing.  It's not blooming anymore and it crowds out my Gruss an Achaan and my Butterfly roses.
• I dug up some iris and reset them.  My recollection is that the iris underneath my Almond Verbena is Galactic Gold.  It will never bloom underneath that dense canopy.  I moved about 6 to the front bed where they will get plenty of sun.  I also dug up 4 or so Clyde Redmond iris and  moved them to the bed around the old dead tree in the Rose Garden.  I already have a bunch of Clyde Redmond planted there.
• I spent a couple of hours raking out the Ehrlicheer bed, smoothing out the soil (damn armadillos) and spreading mulch.  I transplanted some Ox Eye Daisies that were too close to the edge of the bed.  It looks really good.  I spread some red corn poppies and Larkspur in an area that I didn't mulch.
• I spent the rest of the morning mulching an iris bed.  There are lots of Philippine Lily seedlings mixed in there.  Weeding and cleaning it up before I laid down the mulch was painstaking.  And putting down the mulch around the iris without covering up the rhizomes with too much mulch - they don't like their backs covered up - and mulching around the seedlings was an effort!  I re-set a lot if iris that were growing up against the edges of the bed.  Most of them I planted right back in the same bed, and some I took to the Rose Garden and planted there.
•  Next I cleaned out the bed with the Harlequin Glorybower.  There are lots of iris in there as well.  Same thing as above - I re-set some iris so they weren't growing up against the bed edges and mulched.  I spread some Foxglove seed under the Glorybower. 
• Today was a red-letter day for butterflies.  All of the Gulf Fritillaries were out - zillions of them - and the Sulphurs and the zillions and zillions of little brown skippers, but I spotted a Julia and a Zebra Longwing.  Very exciting.  This is the first Julia I've seen all year.  I recall seeing a one-time spotting of a Zebra Longwing some months ago.  The butterfly activity in the Star Garden and the Rose Garden is highly entertaining right now.
• Sunday morning, slept until 8:30!
• I did some additional mulching around Fortune's Double rose and around the edges of that corner of the Rose Garden.  Fortune's Double is a once-blooming climbing rose with copper colored flowers.  It is extremely thorny, so you don't want weeds to accumulate underneath it.  I planted it in the farthest corner of the Rose Garden where no one would have to walk near it.  I left a small bare spot and seeded it with wildflower seeds.  I also seeded the box where my Ballerina rose is planted just adjacent to Fortune's Double.
• This year I bought the following seeds:  Red Drummond Phlox, California Poppy, Rocket Larkspur, Foxglove, Red Corn Poppies, Corn Poppies, and Golden Wave Coreopsis.
• Next I made my way to the bed where I planted five or so plugs of Homestead Purple Verbena.  I mulched around the edges of the bed, loosened the soil around the verbena and sowed some wildflower seeds.  
• I sowed seeds here and there in spots where all my seeds could get water this week from the same sprinkler.  
• Next I made my way to the Long Border.  I mulched the middle section of the Long Border around the Madam Antoine Mari rose.  It's pretty shady there, so in the area I left with no mulch I seeded it with Foxglove.  In the top section of the Long Border I scraped away the mulch in rows and seeded with various wildflower seeds.  This is a new process for me.  In past years I have seeded the entire area, and it becomes so weedy that I can't keep up.  This time there are only narrow rows, where my seeds are planted, that are un-mulched.  We will see how this goes. 
• The last thing I did today was cut back my trailing purple lantana that grows along the edge of my row of La Marne roses.  I mulched the areas that I exposed after shearing them.  Then I scraped away mulch about a foot wide and about 8 feet long, loosened the soil and seeded the area with my wildflower seeds.
• Oh yes, then I sprayed herbicide on the driveway, in the Orchard, the Rose Garden, and the Star Garden.
• Headed home about 5. 

Weekend at the Farm October 8 - 9, 2016

Arrived Saturday evening.  Blake, mom, Amy, Nancy and I had high tea at the Hotel Granduca to celebrate Charlie's impending arrival.  A little mini shower of sorts.  Bert arrived at the farm earlier in the day.  Sunday morning was very cool, in fact I had a jacket on for a short time.

• I had 15 yards of mulch delivered on Tuesday, so it was waiting for me when I arrived.  Sunday morning I jumped right in hauling mulch.  I began mulching the in the Circle Drive beds.  They always look dry and malnourished.  They definitely needed mulch!  There are a lot of large beds in that area, and I soon grew tired of that and moved on to another place.  But I got two of them covered completely and several partially covered.  I grow gingers, rain lilies, Philippine lilies, African Hostas, Sweetspire, and bridal wreath in the circle beds.
• I put a couple of wheel barrows of mulch in a bed where I had planted a bunch of my Hurricane Lilies several weeks ago.  And I covered a bed located in the hinterlands of the Star Garden where I planted some Hurricane Lilies and I have a very tiny Hydrangea growing alongside some iris.  It doesn't get much water, so mulch will help out a lot.
• The butterflies are amazing today.  They are everywhere.  I sat in the Star Garden and ate my lunch so I could enjoy the insect activity.
• I mulched, mulched, mulched.  I did a lot of work in the Star Garden.  It looks good.  
• All day long I watered the Rose Garden.  I have a sprinkler that shoots up water in a very small area, so I use it to water all my roses.  The Rose Garden looks so pretty.  I don't really have very many roses blooming - lots of buds, though, getting ready for the fall spectacle.  But the Moss Verbena, the Homestead Purple Verbena, the Swamp Sunflowers, the Buttercup Turnera, and the zinnias are amazing.  The butterflies - amazing.
• I watered my Bulb Bed - the Pearlbush, Sweetshrub, and Big Daddy Hydrangea were really dry.
• Most of the day was spent walking from the Rose Garden to move the sprinkler and back to the Star Garden to mulch.  But I also gazed and gazed at the gardens and the insects and the butterflies.  What an unforgettable day.
• Bert and I took a walk around the property at dusk.  We haven't done that since Lanie died. 
• I left for work on Monday morning and drove straight in to work.

Strange Caterpillars

 

 These caterpillars covered my butterfly weed this weekend.  They are not Monarch butterfly larva.  I don't know what they are.  Very interesting looking.  The general rule is that furry caterpillars are moth larva and smooth caterpillars are butterfly larva.  But that does not always hold true.

Life and Death Struggle

What a lucky "in the right place at the right time moment".  I was looking at my zinnias in the Orchard and something didn't look quite right on one of the flowers.  Upon walking closer to investigate I saw that a praying mantis had captured a butterfly and was overpowering it and preparing to eat it.  I watched it for a long time and took these pictures.  Praying mantis are very hard to spot because they look just like a leaf or a branch.

Weekend at the Farm October 1 - 2, 2016

 This is a little cluster of Ox Blood Lilies that were blooming in the front flower bed when I arrived.

Arrived Friday evening.  Bert drove separately Friday morning to mow.  The weather is gorgeous!  No humidity, cool, perfect.

• Saturday morning I went out first thing and cut away plants leaning into the paths.
• I spent some time tying back my Climbing Pinkie and Cl. American Beauty roses on their supports.
• Went into the Rose Garden and pulled up a dead Belinda's Dream rose.  I ordered some iris from Shreiner's Iris Gardens, and I planted them in the empty spot.  I planted:
• Bollywood - yellow standard and lavender falls with yellow edges
• Fal Fiesta - pale orange standard, orange falls
• Badlands - dark purple
• Ocelot - peach standard, dark purple falls
• American Classic - standard and falls are white with dark blue edging
• Over Alaska - pale blue standard, dark blue falls
• Who Need A Prince - yellow standard, burgundy falls

• Iris are so elegant and varied in their colors and patterns. I love them. 
• I took the loppers in the Rose Garden and spent some time cutting away dead rose canes. 
• I spent some time in the Shade Garden clearing the paths.  I didn't have to work too hard because Bert took the blower in there and blew off all the paths.  It looks great in there.
• Nathan, Jess and the kids arrived about 5:00 to spend the night.  They left early in the morning to go on a train ride somewhere in Burnett, TX.
• Sunday morning I went straight out to the Rose Garden and sprayed fungicide on my roses.
• I moved a half dozen or so plugs of Homestead Purple Verbena growing in the Rose Garden paths over to various places in the Star Garden and the Rose Garden.  It is a beautiful flowering perennial ground cover, a real show stopper in the spring and fall.  I love it.
• Sunday was so beautiful.  There is something about the sunshine in the waning summer and the fall.  Maybe it is special because that same sunshine in 100 degree heat and 100% humidity a mere week ago was so relentless.  The Candida rain lilies, Schoolhouse lilies, hurricane lilies are all blooming in the Rose Garden.  So pretty!  I have several hundred zinnias that sprung up in the Orchard after I mulched.  They are all about a foot tall.  Barring any disaster I will have an amazing display in October just before the first freeze.  I'm looking forward to that.
• I found a packet of Nasturtiums and Kraus Parsley that I bought but forgot to plant.  It's late for the Nasturtiums, but I went ahead and stuck them in the ground.  I might not get flowers before a freeze, but I could get some leaves for salad greens.  The packet of parsley has 750 seeds.  I broadcast them over an area in the Vegetable Garden that I roughed up.  The packet says I should plant them after danger of frost.  I always grow mine through the winter months, and they grow just fine.
• Spent some time in The Orchard just snipping here and there with my scissors.  It's in great shape, no weeds and a lot of zinnias about to bloom.  The butterflies were floating all around me.
• I planted the Montbretia bulbs that I dug up about three weeks ago.  I planted them in between the La Marne roses in the Star Garden.  Then I dug up some more of the Montbretias that are growing in the wrong place and planted them in between the La Marne roses as well.
• I puttered in the Rose Garden.  Everything is in such good shape there is not a lot to do except admire the butterflies and bees and flowers. 
• I got a wheelbarrow full of white rock that was left over from a load we bought months ago and dumped it on a muddy spot in the Rose Garden.
• Headed home about 4:30.  Bert is staying until Tuesday because I'm having a load of mulch delivered Tuesday morning. 

Candidas and Hurricane Lilies October 1, 2016

Pringle Aster October 1, 2016

I love Pringle Aster even though it is a very floppy plant.  Fall bloomer like most asters.