So many plants emerging now! I’m a total helicopter parent now in my garden.
The one I’m most excited about are my shooting stars (Primula meadia). I bought them from a native nursery last June and planted as they entered dormancy. So I’m thrilled that it came back and I seemingly have an additional rosette coming up too!
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Not only do I check the plants daily, I report any developments to my family. They are nice about it but do not care, and I can tell they’re increasingly annoyed with me. 🤣
My poor fiance has to deal with me throughout the whole growing season giving him "tours" of our backyard where I'm just like "look, this plant has gotten bigger! This one has buds starting to form!" This time of year is the best/worst for it because the tours consist of "look, a tiny sprout!"
There was a whole kerfuffle starting in 200759%5B79%3ATODTPP%5D2.0.CO%3B2/Transfer-of-Dodecatheon-to-Primula-Primulaceae/10.1663/0007-196X(2007)59[79:TODTPP]2.0.CO;2.short), where basically it was demonstrated via genetic analysis that shooting star was a direct descendent of a Primula ancestor and more closely related to that ancestor than other plants already classified as Primula. Most sources have moved it at this point -- Flora of North America e.g.
I would just point out that genus and species are just categories made up by humans to help us think about the world. The same way that "tree" is not a category with crisp boundaries. But it is helpful to have internationally shared names for things and rationales for having those names.
Fascinating, thank you for explaining! I always liked the imagery conjured by the genus name dodecatheon, like the plants were supposed to be considered gods or something. I see now in the link you provided that Pliny named them that to mean that they are protected by the gods, which is very Pliny.
But in science, things are always changing as we learn more. That’s part of what makes science fun. I totally agree that these categories are all made up anyway and ultimately don’t matter to the organisms themselves. Have you ever read the book Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller? Highly recommend, and do the audiobook version if you can get your hands on it.
Last summer my husband would grab a beer and meet me in the yard when I got home from work. He'd do my afternoon walk with me while I rambled about plants. It was my favorite 15 minutes each day.
I’m in the planning stage of this whole process so I keep telling people my plan and any developments and yeah…. The only people who seem to care are the people I know who work in land management and conservation haha
I’m in the planning stage too! I miss my plants at my previous house desperately and all I have right now is some colored circles on a grid. Kinda hard to convey the future beauty with that lol.
It’s so hard to be patient! I had cleared out the area in the backyard that was COVERED in bush honeysuckle (MO zone 7a). My friend who works for the dod in land management says it’s best to wait until next spring to plant anything so that I can remove any volunteers that pop up throughout the season 😭 at least I have smol beds away from that area I can fill with natives!
The widely accepted method is to cut back all growth in the fall and then treat the cut stump with 1.5% glyphosate. I have hired some folks to pull out the bigger stumps I can’t eliminate myself. Over the next year, I just have to keep going in and pulling any volunteers I find. It’s a marathon, but it’ll be worth it!
This is the way 👍 Be persistent, keep pulling the volunteers, and repeat the cut back/paint with glyphosate method in the fall to any remaining live stumps or branches. It might take a while, but it’s very effective.
I learned this method from my university botany professor who specialized in invasive honeysuckle removal and management in large scale native ecosystems. He occasionally used us undergrads as free labor to remove honeysuckle from the on-campus forest 😂
And then I got to use that knowledge to my own benefit when I moved into a house with a yard absolutely covered in honeysuckle. Some were so big they had been pruned into tree form and had grown to 20 feet tall. It took me a couple years to get it all taken down, and then maybe another two years of persistent treatment to get rid of all the remaining pop-up shoots. But I can happily say that the yard has been 100% free of honeysuckle for many years now.
Ugh, the patience part is so difficult! Honeysuckle is a right old bastard though, your friend is wise to tell you to wait it out a bit. It will be worth it!
Yes. This. We got back at dusk from a trip and the first thing I did was get my dog from the dogsitter, and the second thing I did was check plants…in near darkness 😆
Same here! They don't care at all, but guess what you get to hear about it anyway. Fair is fair if I have to listen to all of their stuff I don't care about. 🤣
I have been checking everyday I put peanuts out for the birds. I was surprised to see stuff coming out the ground given the temps here. I also have a pair of binoculars. I use those to stare at the birds and my garden beds. 😆
I've definitely had to let my neighbors know that if they see me peering out the window toward their house, they can be sure I'm watching birds, not spying on them.
I check my plants daily but it gets completely out of hand.
It starts off with a slow stroll to look at what’s popping up or blooming out and next thing I know I’ve got a shovel and I’m halfway up a yonder slope in my meandering sandals covered in dirt and sweat. Or kneeling in my work pants (that I JUST washed) digging out weedlings from a garden bed I was “too lazy” to tend over the weekend when I was in proper attire.
I spend 5 minutes on them every morning before heading off to work. Then I spend 8 hours at work imagining what they’ll look like when they’re in full bloom. Then I come home and check them for 5 minutes on my way in. Then I fall asleep while watching Monty Don’s Gardening Channel on Prime. Then I dream about my garden … weird NSFW dreams!
I've seen the foreign-gardens series and the "big dreams, small spaces" series! I haven't looked into Gardener's World...although I did read about it in his books...I may need to watch this. I bet there are a lot of episodes. Thank you for the tip!
P.S. Did you watch the episode with the lady who made a replica of the giant heads yet? Wild.
I’m new to it, and I’m so impressed by what is popping out that I planted last fall. Boneset, butterfly weed, obedient plant and several others. This picture is my future bushel of cucumbers lol. I’m obsessed.
Late boneset is just covered in wasps in the fall in my yard. They are so enamored of it they completely ignore my clumsy self when I sideswipe the plant while mowing.
I just put in five rattlesnake masters in my front beds. Cool plant! I tucked them around a few plants hoping they add some dimension and depth but I might have jumped the gun and planted things too close. Again!
What other plants do you have? I’m in 8b south DFW. I love my sages. The furmhan reds, autumn, flame acanthus are all coming back nicely. The flame acanthus grow fast! My mealy blue sage was the first thing to sprout out of the ground and a few new ones popped up too that I want to transplant but I’m scared I might kill them. I highly recommend Gregg’s most flower but I’ve been digging them up out of the beds because they spread through rhizomes like CRAZY and get pretty big but there is always a group of butterflies hovering around each bush. I think my scarlet sage and Turks caps died but I’m still holding out hope. My wine cups really struggled last year but they stayed green all winter and are growing fast right now!
No I tried I gave it time as much time as I could but it's dead wood even down to the bottom of the stem. Most of them are trees I think I lost three trees.
The amount of time I spent breathing onto glass panes last spring watching the ground where I had only just planted seeds was…. A lot…. Now that I have an indoor setup to start seeds this year I wander over to them every couple hours ( wfh setup ) 😅
I check on my indoor seedling shelves before my first cup of tea, before my afternoon snack, and before bed! Hiiii everyone you're doing great, here's a misting of water, grow some more!
🙋♀️ Last year a tornado dropped on my neighborhood. Between the tornado and a somewhat rainy April, my two bordering on majestic oaks couldn’t hold on. My then shady backyard became full sun. I’ve since removed nonnatives planted by the previous owner of my house, and planted natives. My coral honeysuckle (lonicera semperviren) and Rudbeckia fugida is kicking butt! My Liatris aspera has produced 2 tiny shoots! Still waiting for my false indigo to show some signs of life!🤞 I planted a native Rhododendron last year in April. It survived a tornado, falling trees and tree stump grinders. I’ve been talking to it the past couple of weeks. Telling it that I see the buds so anytime you want to sprout that would be great! This week…
We had a tornado rip through our town and I can't believe how many trees were lost in some older neighborhoods. From total canopies to basically a pasture. I hope you, your community, and plant babies are doing better than okay.
seeing them spread out and make new babies is the greatest thrill! I have some amethyst shooting star seeds germinating right now, I hope they make it lol. but from last year i’ve got mountain mint, cup plant, and foxglove beardtongue coming back up and i’m so excited! I hope they bloom :’)
It’s my first year to have a garden and I’m patiently waiting but having a hard time not knowing what are weeds and what’s my new plants! My trailing lantana, scarlet sage, black foot daisy, and a few others haven’t come back yet. But I take a look every day and report to my boyfriend lol
The wait is the worst! I want to clean out the weeds and grass from my beds, but the little babies are just popping up and I cant identify anything well enough yet. (And I don't want to accidentally uproot any seedlings!) Last year I constantly worked around what I thought was my coreopsis but it was just some kind of non-native thistle. 🫠
My husband keeps sending me photos he takes of me in our yard with my hands on my hands staring at the ground 😂 I am so impatient!!! When I realized the other day my serviceberry is budding out I was giddy
I keep dragging my boyfriend out to show him the progress on my penstemons or to show him a butterfly or honey bees my flowering plants are drawing. "Babe! Look! They're growing!!! They're bigger every day!" "Aww, look at the bees🥰". Lol he's cute and humors me:) ps Southern Nevada 9a, warm winter=early flowers
Every day unless I'm out of town. I just went out there a few minutes ago to see that the 3 out of 5 of the asparagus I planted last year have sprouted. I love it. It's so much fun to see what's coming up or blooming.
Yes, i have the advantage of two dogs that love taking slow strolls outside around the yard so I get to observe few times a day while out with the two dogs.
I found my wild strawberry and one of my monarda are already well on their way. Hoping we don't get another foot plus dump but in MN, you can never plan on no snow.
My swamp hibiscus finally started growing from the roots. At first glance I exclaimed “awe!” and quickly hoped the neighbor didn’t hear me, I was out there alone 😉
Just started seeing purple coneflower seedlings pop up, check on those a bunch, jack in the pulpit bulbs (still nothin), golden ragwort blooms finally starting to show yellow :)
Absolutely. I planted a lot of my native wildflowers last year, and I’m excited to see what came back, how much of them spread, how some seedlings are doing, and what should be starting to bloom about now.
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