Gardening Flowers & Foliage

Okay, I'll bite. What is it?

 

That is interesting

Yeah, me too. What is this?

 

A grape fern.

 

Best of times... worst of times for my Rose of Sharon. Looks nice on one side. The other side is dying off. It'll have to come down in a year or two, if not sooner.

 

That is quite the difference. Each year mine are blooming better - they just like to bloom towards the top where I can't get a decent picture of them - LOL. I haven't even give them extra water this year, and even thru the drought they are doing well. Guess the roots finally got down below the "raised" part of the bed since this place was built on top of a swampy area.

 

I am hesitant to water outdoor areas, as we are on a well.

Glad to hear your RoS' continue to grow.

 

The ficus is probably okay - as you are thinking going thru shock. When we moved from KS to NH had an angel wing begonia that dropped every single leaf over the course of a couple of weeks. Thought it was done for but decided to keep the soil watered. Several weeks later, it started pushing out new leaves. AFAIK, the ex still has it.

If truly a toad, it would be a youngster since the East Coast doesn't have any truly small toads. Although, if you are in the Atlantic south (I've forgotten where you moved to and am too lazy to go look it up - LOL) it could be an Oak Toad (according to my search - never even heard of them).

Gray Tree frogs are cool. When I have tons of pellets out in the yard, when I unwrap them they will be under the wrapping (they can crawl up into some pretty small places. They are very hard to see, change colors (almost white, tan, gray or greenish) according to their surroundings and they do somewhat resemble toads. They live in moist areas, but not necessarily in or around water - although water is where they lay their eggs.

 

The woods that I opened up behind my house are an impenetrable mess of white wood asters and goldenrod right now. Much better than looking at a forest floor covered in leaf litter anyway. The short sapling on the right is a young pawpaw tree. Japanese stiltgrass has started to creep in so I've got to work hard to get rid of it before it smothers everything. I have plans to bring in some native bunch grasses and let them run wild along the edge of the woods. That ought to keep a few undesirables out. I'm going for the backyard micro prairie habitat look.

 

Headed out today to “touch grass” as is often said in today’s online vernacular. I stumbled onto this dry hilltop Savannah habitat remnant a while ago. It’s covered in native little bluestem grass with goldenrod mixed in everywhere. Luckily it’s a nature preserve and will never be developed. The next time I’m here I’ll collect a bunch of grass seed from this patch and start getting it established at my house.


I came across this vibrant tall purple flower that I can’t easily identify. The blooms are a lot like aster but I’ve never seen one this tall. Does anyone know what it is? I’m thinking it’s either invasive or ultra rare, but err towards the former.

 

Got here in the north I keep it because butterflies like it.. bogieb is much better at identifying plants than i

 

The app says -

 

Thanks Mike. Now that I know it's native, and that I've never seen one before in my travels, I'll be collecting seed from it later this fall. I thought it reminded me of an aster and it turns out that it's in the same family.

 

From the "Picture This" app

 

I don't remember seeing Iron Weed before. My first thought was that the leaves/stems look like a type of milkweed. Since it likes growing in moist/wet conditions, I wonder if I've seen it, just assumed it was purple loosestrife (because of the color) ? Although the flowers aren't long enough, in a field of them, it could be misleading unless one got up close.

 

No wonder I've never seen this beautiful plant before. Although it's native to North America, it's not really found in my state. The closest population to me that was recorded is in southeastern New York state, and western Long Island. Maybe by sheer luck some seeds were brought in by migratory birds, or on the boots of some out of state hiker. We'll never know. I'm definitely going to try growing some though!

 

They moved to the SC area. Yes, Copes Grey tree frogs and the green tree frogs can hide well. We had them all around our pool one year. We're so dry now, they won't live long if they aren't swimming...lol

 

Even though we are in severe drought, the lantanas are doing well, especially to old-fashioned colors...
Butterflies are enjoying them, small orange and yellow ones... Our Turks Turban is another hot weather plant...
Yellow butterfly...I think these are laying the eggs on our azaleas, azalea caterpillars have been plentiful......they will decimate a bush quick...

Usually the azaleas will put back out, but we have lost a couple as well.