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 – February 2024

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On a warmer day in early February, I walked around the yard – still in winter lock down. The pavers provide a little color with splotches of moss…framed by grass I should pull before new shoots emerge in the spring.

Under the pine tree there is standing debris of last season’s pokeweeds. I am thinking about trimming off the lowest branches of the tree and planting wildflowers under the pine needles. They should get enough sun to create a little garden under the tree.

The forsythia buds already seem to be getting larger. The mulch/compost I put under the bush last season seems to be holding up well. Trimming the branches away from the fence after they bloom might provide room to add some space for additional plantings. I hope the pawpaw seeds I planted slightly under the bush come up and are protected by it until they get a good start.

I love the rich color of fresh pine cones in the needles….but I need to pick them up before I start mowing again….they can be hard for the mower to handle.

The rhododendron buds look healthier…and there are more of them…this year. Last year, they got damaged by severe cold at some point during the winter. I will be thrilled to have more of the flowers to enjoy this coming spring!

Overall – our winter yard is still full of photographic subjects…and holds wonderful potential for the coming season.

Fall Foliage in our Yard

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The change in foliage started back in early October with the leaves of our red maple showing patches of red.

When I mowed our yard in late October, I noticed one of the bushes had red leaves, the red maple was beginning to shed its leaves, and the Virginia creeper in the flower bed had turned red. One side of our back yard had a dusting of river birch leaves from a neighbor’s tree.

The pokeweed berries were ripe – being eaten by birds!

While I was away in Texas, our Missouri neighborhood experienced a hard freeze.  I took a panorama image from my backyard toward the tennis courts and pond. The trees were very colorful.

The next day I walked around the yard for a closer look. The dogwood leaves looked brown….although they looked interesting enough backlit. The forsythia (in the foreground looking toward the tennis court) looked like the frost had surprised it – the leaves curled and limp.

Tender plants like pokeweed (lower right corner of the first image and the taller pants in the second) and hostas had wilted/collapsed with the cold. I’ve cut down the pokeweed in the most visible areas of the yard but left it in out-of-the-way places…will see if the birds continue to eat the berries.

At this point, the river birches have lost all their leaves. The maples are thinning fast; the ones in my front yard have lost more than half their leaves. The oaks are just beginning to shed their leaves. I think the early frost got all my crepe myrtles…hopefully not killing them back to the roots – which is what happened last winter. One of my pines shed old needles (already brown) after the cold snap and enlarged the circle of needles around it (must mean the tree is getting bigger).

I am enjoying my fall yard!

Zooming – October 2023

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The optics of my camera allow me to capture images that are better than I can see with my eyes – flowers, insects, birds, cave formations and seed pods that fill the frame…driftwood isolated from the noise of other things around it….sculpture, glass, and fall gourds specially arranged….sunrises and a sunset….the beauty of a fall morning. Every picture is a memory moment – a visual that also serves as a reminder of a place and mood and relationship with the people that experienced it with me. The places were mostly close to home in southwest Missouri (art museum, meadow, caverns) but also St. Louis and along the route between home and Carrollton TX.

Daughter’s Yard

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My daughter’s house was built in the 1950s and has some very large mature trees. Even the plants that are not of that vintage, are robust. By the fall – the summer growth has often become overwhelming, so I offer to help with the grand cleanup before winter. On the day we chose – it was cloudy…warm rather than hot. The yard had been mowed the previous day so we could focus on other everything else rather than leaves. It was a good day for the project.

I noticed the holly berries on her two trees had almost all turned orange (or their way to red); those trees didn’t need any maintenance!

There was pokeweed in several places that needed to be pulled (she is still battling it…no truce or peace yet in her yard!). It was growing in the woodpile, between bricks of the patio….and other places too.

The path to the side of the house overhung by a mature redbud shading the hostas and ferns on both side of the flagstones yielded several armloads of sticks to supplement the wood pile. Hopefully they will have a cookout using their firepit (and burn a lot of the pile) when they have their annual pumpkin carving event.

There was a mimosa that had come up in one corner of the fenced area. We didn’t have a saw, so we cut the top out with big pruners and girded the trunk further down. I’ll brink my saw next time we work.

It didn’t take us long to fill a dumpster with vines and weeds (including pokeweed) that we pulled.

What I thought was a cherry tree turned out to be a crabapple (when I cut open one of the fruits). I learn something new in her yard every time I work there!

The other plant I hadn’t recognized before was (I think) a silverbell. I’ll look next spring for its flowers. It’s a small tree growing under her big oak.

Other beauties in the flower beds that I couldn’t resist: cedar, wood hydrangea, Asian hydrangea, lichen, shelf fungus, southern magnolia seed pods (another huge tree).

I took home 3 magnolia seed pods - hope to watch how the seeds pop out as the pods dry.

We had some productive hours….and we felt good about what we had accomplished!

Pokeweed Truce

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Pokeweed is a native plant…but it grows too readily and easily becomes a nuisance. In previous years, I have pulled it, cut it, and dug out its roots. This year was a truce year and I anticipate that next year there will be peace! My strategy this year was to let is grow if it came up in my backyard…and was not in the way. It came up in lots of places – probably planted by birds (they eat the purple berries and then poop out the seeds):

Near a rose bush. The plant is growing at the edge of a flower bed that has landscaping cloth with rock on top; it roots probably found the edge of the cloth and have gone deeper into the soil. It’s better than having something with thorns (like the rose bush) hanging over the patio.

At the edge of my wildflower garden. The plants shaded some of the garden when it is very hot….made it easier to keep the soil from completely drying out. The pokeweed never got very high but produced a lot of berries.

Under my largest pine. I didn’t realize that pokeweed leaves turn red in the fall. The stems are a beautiful magenta all summer long. The pine tree had the lower branches trimmed earlier in the year and the pokeweed grew up through the bed of pine needles and filled in the space underneath but not growing up into the pine branches, preserving the privacy of the yard. Lots of berries for the birds this fall.

Towering over/leaning on a bush (very tall and gangly). Half of the plant was blown over in July. I probaby should have cut the rest down but I wanted to see what it would do. It stayed mostly upright although some branches are draped over the bush. I liked the green, magenta, and purple colors with the duller reddish color of the bush in the background.

In the mound where a pine had to be removed. Hopefully the other native plants that I’ve added to the mound will take over next year. For this year, the pokeweed is protecting the young plants…a good thing. Maybe the birds have already started eating the purple berries.

Under the smaller pine with branches lower to the ground. I am encouraged enough about how the pokeweed fills in that I will probably trim off the lower branches of the tree next spring.

In a flower bed at the corner of the house. There was a pokeweed growing in the same place last year between the hosta and violets.  It is a ‘late bloomer’ and probably won’t have as many mature berries for the birds.

In a flower bed near our rhododendron. No berries at all because I tried to pull this one but must not have gotten all the roots….it looks very lush at this point but immature. It will be interesting to see if the leaves turn red at some point.

My strategy for next year will be to actively encourage the pokeweed under the 2 pines, cut or pull any that is getting tall enough to blow over easily (or comes up in the wrong place…which might include the mound where a pine tree was removed). I’ll probably have pokeweed in my yard going forward and consider it as a positive element of the landscaping.

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!

Lake Springfield Boathouse/Meadow – August 2023 (1)

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A mid-morning walk around the Lake Springfield (Missouri) boat house and meadow was pleasant…also our last outdoor activity for the day that rapidly became a hot one. There was a volunteer gardener working on the plantings around the boathouse.

I learned from her that the plant I thought of as a sunflower…was a relative called Cup Plant because its leaves fuse to the stem in a way to form a cup that holds water!

It was a cloudy morning after a recent storm. There were some branches that had broken but were still attached to trees along with trees holding mature seed pods on the lake side of the path.

The meadow was a jumble of plants of various maturities.

Some of the zoomed images showed remnants of spider webs visible because of water droplets. The milkweed pods are still green…far from splitting open and releasing seeds.

The stream that is often dry was still wet and burbling from the recent rain. Marsh mallows and pokeweed grew along the bank.

Looking more closely at the beds around the boathouse before we left, I noticed several areas where beautyberry was thriving.

There were also other natives. Some have been planted on a slope…a good strategy to avoid mowing!

Plant of the Month: Pokeweed

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A little history…about Pokeweed becoming my ‘plant of the month.’

In Maryland, I battled pokeweed that emerged in my flowerbeds – pulling them and digging up their roots. Here in my Missouri yard – the plant’s exuberant growth has won me over; the large, bright green leaves look good against brick/wood or against other vegetation that is a different shape/texture/color. Its become an appreciated plant in my landscape.

The small blooms are not all that obvious…but are interest at close range. The plants will produce dark purple berries that songbirds will eat in the fall! We have mourning doves, robins, northern mockingbirds and cardinals that are among the birds species known to eat pokeweed berries.

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!

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 – November 2022

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When I arrived home from my late October trip to Carrollton, TX, one of the red maples in our front yard had already dropped its leaves and the wind had blown them away. The other tree still held a few leaves but most of them were on the grass. The arrangements of the leaves on the grass were more interesting than the scraggly ones still on the tree!

I took pictures of the pokeweed fruits (the plants were in inconspicuous places in my back yard so I had let them grow). The fruits that were ripe before the frost (purple, rounded, and plump) are probably still edible by the birds but the immature fruits probably will not be eaten; I am leaving the plants with their wilted leaves standing…to see if that is what happens.

The roses that were blooming before the frost still had some color…although the draped petals are fading and brittle. The new leaves are red before they turn green, and they seem to have survived the frost just fine.

I’m looking forward to the changes coming as the days shorten and the weather is colder!

Our Missouri Yard – October 2022

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We had two mornings with temperatures in the 20s last week after I took some pictures of the yard. The frost didn’t seem to impact the oak or river birch in our neighbor’s yard very much.

The rose petals are all limp now, but the leaves are unchanged. Some of the buds might still open now that we are going to have at least 10 days of temperatures well above freezing.

The pokeweed flowers and berries survived very well but the leaves or limp. The berries that are already ripened will probably be eaten by birds, but the immature fruits are probably not going to develop further.

The oxalis triangularis that is growing on the east side of our house survived the frost unscathed! Maybe it benefited from being close to the brick wall of the house and getting sun first thing in the morning when the temperature was the coldest.

Now that is it warmed up again – I am planting bulbs: daffodils, hyacinths, allium, and crocus. The previous owner put landscaping fabric then rocks in the flower beds, so the task is very difficult. I removed a small cedar that had died and planted bulbs in the space – filling in the bigger hole I made in the black fabric with cedar mulch and rocks. Over time, there might be more and more of that…until there is not as much of the black fabric in the beds.  I am probably going to plant the rest of the crocus in the lawn since they will come up and bloom before the grass would need to be mowed!

Ten Little Celebrations – September 2022

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The 10 celebrations I am featuring in the September 2022 of this monthly post are about foods and health and getting things done. There is also a lot to celebrate about the outdoors this time of year.

Frito pie. I have discovered Dickey’s Frito Pie with brisket, beans, and cheese. It is packed with the Fritos in their own bag for takeout….and I like it without the Fritos! It’s a good thing for me to get when my husband is hungry for a barbeque sandwich…celebrating that the barbeque places where we live now are much better than the ones convenient to us in Maryland.

A birthday. We celebrated by daughter’s birthday. I was chagrined that ice cream cakes are harder to find these days, but she said she wanted ice cream sandwiches…and those were easy to purchase!

Getting the flu and COVID vaccine. I celebrated that the shots were available in time for me to get the shots early enough for them to protect me during my upcoming travel.  

Legal updates completed. My sister and I collaborated to get my parents legal documents updated according to their wishes….and celebrated the completed milestone.

Rings of Power series. I don’t watch much television but I am enjoying the Rings of Power….celebrating the quality of the production and seeing more of Tolkien’s world.

Our large wind chimes. My office is situated where I can hear the wind chimes on breezy days…I celebrate their sound and the memory of when we bought them too.

Poke weeds. Yes – they are weeds…but they are native, and they do produce berries that birds eat. I celebrate that I have several plants that out of the way in my landscaping so I can leave them rather than battling them all through the season.

Springfield Botanical Garden. I find something to celebrate every time I go! This time there were lots of insects to photograph.

Spider Lilies. I don’t know how I missed the orange spider lilies in my parents’ garden in previous years…but I was there at the right time this year to see them!

Great weather for being outdoors. There were still some hot days but as the month progressed, I celebrated some cooler temperatures….the ease of getting outdoors without being concerned of high heat or poor air quality.

Foggy Morning

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I am up before sunrise these days…in my office before it is light outside. I noticed the fog advisory in the forecast and waited until it was light enough to go out to the patio for some pictures. Fog takes away familiar landmarks…making everything look different. It changes the perception of place considerably. I like the image with the holly and pine around the edge best.

At closer range everything just looks wet. Spider webs stand out because every strand is coated with tiny water droplets.

The leaf texture makes a difference in whether water beads or makes a film. The poke weed (picture on the right) had regrown very quickly from the cut stump of a few weeks ago.

A few minutes…and I went back indoors to continue my morning routine: dark chocolate and some reading.

Springfield Yard and Xeriscape Garden

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Last time I was in Springfield, the priority was getting my daughter moved into a new house – exhausting work. This time I am savoring the yard. I walked around several times….marveling at how beautiful it is, noting a few things that need to be done but nothing critical. It is relatively low maintenance. I am starting to think about the various areas as mini gardens.

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The Driveway Garden has two hollies flanking the extra parking area – a male and female. The female tree is full of green berries which will be red by winter…pretty and food for birds as well.

The Back Garden has a dogwood that may be problematic (some dead branches and overall not looking healthy) but underneath the Queen Anne’s Lace is blooming and some other plants (that will also provide food for birds. I’ve been watching a small rabbit nibbling on the plants around the brick patio every morning when I nibble my dark chocolate in the garden room. The hosta plants have already finished blooming. There are some legume type plants that are blooming behind some evergreens and a stand of poke weed that will have purple berries in the fall. There is a wood hydrangea that still has dried flowers from last year along with light grene flower clusters on the ends of this year’s growth. Overall – a lot of shrubs, trees and perennials…very little grass.

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The Side Garden has evergreens on one side of the stone walk and ferns on the other. I might move one of the yard chairs to this always shady area.

The Magnolia Garden is under a huge magnolia tree. There was some damage to the leaves from the extreme cold from last winter that I noticed last time I was here but those leaves were dropped and the tree looks wonderfully lush at this point - full of shining green leaves, developing seed pods and waning flowers. There are a few ferns and hosta under the tree. My daughter cleared away the thick layer of magnolia leaves and is planning to encourage (or plant) more of those types of plants under the tree.

The Front Garden is dominated by some big trees. The river birch and oak are the largest. The oak was probably planted when the house was built in the 1950s. Many other houses in the neighborhood have a large oak in the front.

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There is also an oak leaf hydrangea between the house and the big trees that is blooming; it’s a great shade loving plant!

We took a walk in the neighborhood to a city park that includes a Xeriscape Garden maintained by volunteers. Kudos to the people that do the work there! It is a mini-botanical garden. The arum seed clusters are attention getting! The variety of plants there would make it worth visiting any time except (maybe) the winter. I was pleased to see that goldenrod was included. There was also some sculpture among the plantings.

Overall – the gardens of the yard and the nearby Xeriscape Garden are something to look forward to see during future visits.

Fall Yard Work – Part I

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Yesterday I got a head start on fall yard work. My first target was the front flowerbed with common milkweed (no caterpillars left) and lots of day lily leaves. I took a before and after picture. It’s not entirely cleared yet but the bird bath near the porch is more visible. I tried to leave the black eyed susans to finish seed production for next year. I pulled tulip poplar sprouts and a largish poke weed that has grown low enough that it wasn’t obvious how big it was until I started looking for its main stalk.

I took some rocks and shells out of the flower bed and put them on the corners of the porch to get cleaned by rains.

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My second target was the day lily foliage around the oak tree. I took a before and after picture again. That filled up the trash can with greens for the compost bin.

I stripped the larger stems of leaves since I’ve learned that the stems don’t decompose very rapidly…better for them to go in a brush pile than in the compost bin where the leaves were going.

I carried the arm load of stems (some of them milky with milkweed sap) to put just outside the the compost bin with the pitch fork in the other hand. The compost bin has been decomposing. I turned it – stirred it. Decided a lot had decomposed but I could still just add more on top since there is still plenty of room in the bin.

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I put the kitchen scraps on top and carried it around to the compost bin located the back of the back yard. It was a little heavier than I expected…but I managed.

I put the ‘greens’ in to the bin followed by some brown sycamore leaves cleaned from the stairs up to the deck (reducing the hazard on the stairs) and the paper shreds from house.

I didn’t water the compost pile yet since everything was so wet from recent big rains. The paper and leaves were dry, but I used the pitch fork to some holes through the layers and reduce the height of the additions to the pile. If it doesn’t rain again in the next few days I might check to make sure it is moist enough to ‘cook.’ There is still a lot of fall yard work to do…but I felt good about the progress I made in two hours.

Paper Wasp

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In one of my forays into my front flowerbed to check Monarch butterfly chrysalises, I noticed a wasp on a poke weed flower stalk. It was moving all over the stalk, investigating each open flower. I had my camera…and took a series of pictures. The pictures were easy enough to identify it as a Common Paper Wasp Polistes exclamans using the Maryland Biodiversity Project website. I learned from their database that it is a species of the southeastern US that appears to be expanding northward. I looked around for the nest but didn’t see one. We still have some time for the larvae to develop but as the nectar plants die back, only the young queens will remain – in a protected spot to over winter.

Enjoy the paper wasp acrobatics on the poke weed flowers slide show!

Morning Walk at Mt. Pleasant (part 2)

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Today I’m focusing on the plants I photographed during my morning walk earlier this week at Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant. The seed pods on the sweet bay magnolia are in all stages of development: from green to

Seeds bursting from the pod (I always think they look like red M&Ms) and then pods that are mostly empty and dry.

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There are always chicory flowers after each rain. I liked the blurs of yellow and green behind this macro image.

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Goldenrod is beginning to bloom. Goldenrod is one of the nectar plants for butterflies into the fall. People thought it caused their terrible fall allergies but now ragweed is said to be the primary culprit.

There was Queen Ann’s Lace in the meadow as well. It’s always interesting to me how different a plant appears in the macro view.

As I hiked along the narrow path near the stream there was a young sycamore that had leaves that were beginning to lose their chlorophyll for fall. The leaves were backlit so I took some macro images to show the changes.

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There are still new leaves being unfurled on the tree too; this one was about the size of a dime.

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Thistles are not very friendly looking! Too many prickles.

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Bind weed is an occasional plant in the meadow. The flowers always look like they have little pleats.

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This mint flower – taken from above with the macro lens – was coated with morning dew.

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Dandelions are always attention getters. They look a bit like bursts of fireworks…or yellow streamers.

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Even the clovers that are usually not noticed have a unique beauty seen through the macro lens.

Do you recognize mile-a-minute? It’s an invasive plant that grows very quickly and has wicked thorns.

And now for the Pokeweed. The ones I photographed were still blooming and the fruits that were formed were still green. They’ll turn purple later…and the stem will be bright pink. I’ll remember to photograph the plants through the fall to track their development.

By the end of the walk – I was hot…ready to cool off in the air-conditioned car as I drove home and to drink a lot of water.