Butterfly Junction

The Button Bushes are beautiful now. They are a favorite for the bees & butterflies. Many of the blooms are not open yet, but the bushes are beautiful nonetheless.

OhioGardener wrote:The Button Bushes are beautiful now. They are a favorite for the bees & butterflies. Many of the blooms are not open yet, but the bushes are beautiful nonetheless.

  Never heard of button bushes, but those are awesome!

countrynaturals wrote:  Never heard of button bushes, but those are awesome!

The Button Bush (Cephalanthus occidentalis L.) is a native plant that grows in wet places, like along the banks of streams, rivers, and lakes. Ours are planted in a low place in our yard that is a watershed. I was introduced to it years ago, when I was a commercial beekeeper, and the plant was referred to as a "honey plant". It is a beautiful addition to our yard.

Yesterday I finished the Salad Bar irrigation system.
Today is my first ever GARDEN PLAY DAY!  

Today I'm planting seeds to fill all the holes from my neglectful spring gardening attempts. The weather is so strange (high 90s to very low 100s) that the rules just don't apply this year -- anything goes!

The Crocosmia Lucifer is in bloom now. It is a magnet for hummingbirds, and it is so fascinating watching them feed on the nectar.

countrynaturals wrote:Yesterday I finished the Salad Bar irrigation system.
Today is my first ever GARDEN PLAY DAY!  

2019 Mid-Season Update!

I just went back over this thread to chart my progress. 2019 may be as good as 2016 & 2018, but could never hold a candle to 2017. I had it all that year -- fruits, veggies, flowers, SFG, BTE, containers -- regular stuff, exotic stuff. As the old song says -- pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

I didn't have to do a complete re-boot, thank goodness, and now I'm in better shape then ever before, thanks to the new irrigation system, but my output isn't half what it should be for this time of year.

The good news is that I think I've found my "groove." I have dubbed July to be "Improv Month." The one thing I thought I could always count on, was July being hot and miserable, with nothing accomplished except to endure.  This year, July has been awesome! Everything is producing -- including the last of the peas and radishes AND REAL TOMATOES! So, I'm running around like a crazy person, shoving seeds in every hole I can make and not remembering (or caring) what I'm putting where. I still have more than 3 months of good gardening weather, so I can start a "2nd season" and maybe still catch up with 2017. I can't wait for all the surprises my improv gardening should produce.  

For those interested in Butterfly Gardens, or plants for the pollinators, I put together a short video of our flower gardens, including the Monarch Waystation. The video is about 10 minutes long.  If you have never seen an Evening Primrose flower open while you watch it, I captured a couple on the video - they open in about 30 seconds, and are fun to watch as the sun sets in the evening.

Hijacked this from another thread, cuz misery loves company.

Scorpio Rising wrote:I had zero luck growing onions from seed and honestly I have a pretty green thumb.  Got nothing, I mean one out of 16 made it?  I use onion sets now, and much much more productive!  Like potatoes....sets! 

I have the same luck with onions, but I can't use sets because Hubby only wants sweet onions and I can never find them in sets. In fact, the only sets I ever see around here are in worse shape than my seedlings, so I'll just keep "plugging along."

OhioGardener wrote:For those interested in Butterfly Gardens, or plants for the pollinators, I put together a short video of our flower gardens, including the Monarch Waystation. The video is about 10 minutes long.  If you have never seen an Evening Primrose flower open while you watch it, I captured a couple on the video - they open in about 30 seconds, and are fun to watch as the sun sets in the evening.

Beautiful, awesome video. Thank you so much for taking the time to post it.   Love the evening primrose openings.   You also picked my all-time favorite hymn as background music.    How much land do you have in gardens and landscaping?

countrynaturals wrote:

Beautiful, awesome video. Thank you so much for taking the time to post it.   Love the evening primrose openings.   You also picked my all-time favorite hymn as background music.    How much land do you have in gardens and landscaping?

Thanks, CN!  We still have 5 acres of land, and we keep about 2.5 acres of it landscaped, including the vegetable gardens.

OhioGardener wrote:

countrynaturals wrote:

Beautiful, awesome video. Thank you so much for taking the time to post it.   Love the evening primrose openings.   You also picked my all-time favorite hymn as background music.    How much land do you have in gardens and landscaping?

Thanks, CN!  We still have 5 acres of land, and we keep about 2.5 acres of it landscaped, including the vegetable gardens.

We only have about an acre that's "improved," including the fruit trees and redwoods. We're considering a "fruit & nut" garden in the island in front of the new place, created by the circular drive. We love blackberries and the deer seem to leave them alone. Hmm, I was thinking about thorn-less, but maybe the deer would figure that out.

countrynaturals wrote: I still have more than 3 months of good gardening weather, so I can start a "2nd season" and maybe still catch up with 2017. I can't wait for all the surprises my improv gardening should produce.  

2nd season seeds are sprouting.   Most years it's so hot in July I wouldn't even considering planting anything, but this year the weather is amazing!

Found some Black Swallowtail Caterpillars on the Carrots. Fortunately, they don't do enough damage to the carrots to worry about them, and soon they will turn into a beautiful butterfly.

Can you see both caterpillars in this picture?

Luckily your caterpillars are polite. Ours eat everything down to the stems.    Is the 2nd caterpillar on the far right, up high on the pic? If not, then I don't see it.

countrynaturals wrote: Is the 2nd caterpillar on the far right, up high on the pic? If not, then I don't see it.

Yes, it is.  Here it is with an arrow pointing to it.

Cool, love your little cats, OG!  I had those all over my lovage last year, hop they find my parsley....

CN, glad you are having great weather!

Scorpio Rising wrote:Cool, love your little cats, OG!  I had those all over my lovage last year, hop they find my parsley....

Thanks! I have found the Black Swallowtail cats on the parsley, fennel, Common Rue, and now the Carrots. Those ladies have been very busy this year! Ha!

Snails decimated the garden last night. Zucchini gone! Peppers gone! Major destruction in the sweet potatoes. This is a major setback. After all the failures and so few successes, I think it's time to re-evaluate the entire gardening concept. Maybe I should just watch soap operas in the a/c and give up this hopeless cause. 

Sluggo Plus is quite effective at eliminating snails, slugs, earwigs, pillbugs, and cutworms, and it's used in very small quantities.

also hoops covered with netting will help.

Thanks, Donna & Has. I spent a couple of days licking my wounds, then figured out a solution. If we put a 6' wire fence around the Rescue Garden, about 15" outside the framework, the deer won't be able to reach the plants and they won't be able to jump because there'd be nowhere to land. Then, we can put a nice ribbon of DE all the way around the inside, so the snails and slugs can't get in. We won't plant there, so we won't have to water it, so it should last a long time. We have too much invested in this garden to let it go, now.

I planted artichoke seeds 2 years ago. The sole survivor has been in a container on the balcony, limping along with never more than 3 leaves at a time. Now it's finally trying to produce something! Can you believe it?

Bob loves blackberries! We have a patch of wild ones behind the pool, that had actually been mowed down before we bought the house. Bob had been nurturing them all year, and now we're getting a nice little harvest.

I had all sorts of grandiose plans for making a special fruit/nut/berry garden in the front island, surrounded by blackberry bushes, because I didn't think the deer liked them.  

Yesterday, I hiked around behind the fence, to pick the berries that grew through to the other side. Every stem was shredded and there wasn't a berry to be found, so on to plan B.

There's about 30' of blank fence space to the left of the wild blackberries. It would be easy to cultivate more berries there, it already has irrigation, and the deer never come into that part of the yard. This fall, we'll cut back what we have, put a path through the thickest part of the patch so we can reach all the berries, and start propagating to spread out down the side. Next spring, we'll add some organic fertilizer, and -- hopefully -- have a huge harvest of succulent blackberries next year, with very little effort.