I haven’t done much this week except plant random seeds here and there, but would’ve posted these on Thursday afternoon…if the database server hadn’t been down for two days(!!)

Black ‘toonyas! I saw these and bought a whole flat because they’re so cool. They look actually black IRL; a bit purple in the photo. I also got deep pink geranium to plant with them in one pot (no blooms on the geranium yet, so no photo).

Cletus likes to lounge in the water pickerel.

T2 (at least) has been busy…very busy! There are hundreds of toad eggs attached to any surface they could find in the pond.

Speaking of eggs, Cletus’ kids hatched…Wednesday, I think. They were still clumped together, feeding on their egg sacs, but when I checked yesterday after work, they’d started breaking away from the pack.

Random Toofer that has nothing to do with the Bistro, but is really cute.

It was hot in the sun, so I certainly didn’t feel like digging grass out of the NoMo flowerbed, but it was lovely in the shade, so I comprised. I didn’t do any heavy work, but I did do a little. This morning, I pruned the Tornado Honeysuckle, and found several pieces near the ground that were rooted. I stuck them in a bucket of water, and planted some random seeds. I planted “yellow flowers” (Heliopsis helianthoides) and what I’ll assume were Rudbeckia that had been in the orange bucket on the patio all winter. Also swamp milkweed that I’d intended to put in NoMo, but they didn’t look so hot, so I just threw them in the milkweed bed. I planted agastache in several spots, including where the “fancy” blue agastache let me down. That’s the end of the fancy ones for me; from now on, only the sturdy native stuff. I also planted some mystery flowers that C had given me; she didn’t tell me what they were, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t take photos because there’s nothing to see, but the old lady’s clematis is definitely happier in the Bee Happy bed on the southwest corner of the house than it was on the northeast side, under the shade of the osage-orange and behind the garage. (WTF was she thinking!?)

Since I couldn’t stand the thought of not having pots sitting on the patio (HA!) , I potted the Tornado Honeysuckle cuttings. Most of them will go on the fence line to replace those that died. Once their roots get stronger, of course,  though they were pretty good for being rooted under only bark mulch atop weed barrier.

I marked out the NoMo flowerbed this morning, and planted two Red Heart Althea, two Royal Red and one Black Knight butterfly bushes. I hated to cut down Grey Stick, but it didn’t make it. 🙁

Purple bee balm closer to the front.

More Veronica and a few Blue Hill Salvia in the Bee Happy bed.

Peppermint in Thug Life.

Just one tomato from C this year because the Mexico Midget seeded itself. I officially have no pots of anything waiting to be planted!

Canadian columbine is so pretty.

Just before I went for a nap, I corralled the water hyacinth and frogbit, and discovered I’m going to be…froggy gramma! These are on the roots of a water hyacinth, and they’ve been in the pond only a few days. I had to check because I couldn’t remember which was a string and which was a clump, but it’s frog eggs that are deposited in clumps, and toad eggs in strings. You GO, Cletus–your lovely (um…sure) song of, “Ur-ur-ur-ur” attracted a beautiful (and obviously fertile) lady frog.

After my nap, I cut some more water pickerel out of my little water garden and put it on the other side of the pond. Again, looks like crap because it has to be tethered until it decides to grow there, but hopefully that won’t take too long.

I repotted the long-suffering spider plant and put it in the pink pot I’ve had since last winter, then hung it on the cool stand I got at ALDI last week for ten bucks.

I hung the butterfly hoce and forgot to take a photo, but I also hung the Bee hoce on the huge honey locust tree by the creek. Largely bird-free, morning sun, mud in the creek, or leaves if they’re leafcutter bees instead of mason. I just want bees to live there.

Firefly heuchera, just because it’s pretty.

I’d hoped my Luna moth would be a guy because I love their giant “antlers”. She wasn’t a guy, but she did even better by being a girl and attracting a guy! It was rainy and crappy, but I went out yesterday after work, wandering in search of a place to put my bee hoce, and noticed a blotch of pale green on the outside of the enclosure I’d built for the Luna cocoon and the two Spicebush Swallowtail chrysaliseses…es. “Outside?” I thought, “How did he get outside?” Then I realized she hadn’t.

I cut open the hardware cloth (hadn’t made a door last year because they weren’t going anywhere in a hurry), and carefully put him in with her until her wings had a chance to harden up enough that she could fly. She had eclosed recently enough that her wings had attained their shape, but were still much too soft for her to fly; he didn’t waste any time turning up in his courting clothes!

They might just be the world’s most photographed Luna moths, but they both left last night. I released them on the patio because that’s right by the sweetgum tree, which is a host plant for their caterpillars. He flew away first, but considering the incredible distances over which the males are able to detect female pheromones, I don’t think he had any trouble finding her again.

I still haven’t found a spot for the bee hoce (got very distracted by the Lunas), but I did receive the water hyacinth and the frogbit, and got it in the pond. Doesn’t look like much yet, and I haven’t yet made the “corral” for the water hyacinth (piece of old garden hose), but it will grow, and do its job of sucking excess nitrate from the pond, keeping Cletus healthy and happy. I also got mosquito dunks and put one in the pond; it’s a little early yet and not really warm enough, but if anyone will be guilty of providing breeding areas for goddamned mosquitoes in our neighbourhood, it will not be I!

The carrot still hasn’t sprouted in the Black Swallowtail “herb garden”, but I found hundreds of tiny dill seedlings.

Well, two, but the second doesn’t yet exist, so I’m calling it one flowerbed left to plant. I finished the fence line yesterday with just enough of both dwarf butterfly bushes and scarlet pumpernickel seeds. I actually had one butterfly bush left, but I put it in the rectangular bed by the house. That’s also where I put the six yarrow.

I thought I had tons of crabgrass to pull from the rectangular bed, but it’s actually liatris!

P found a toadally at work, so he brought him home; Parview is much more toad-friendly than a rail yard. I let him go near the pond, and he took a little shower to freshen up after the trip.

I had intended to buy a bee hoce on Amazon, but I’m glad I balked at the $25 price tag because I found this one at ALDI for ten bucks!

I didn’t post these yesterday, so…random flowers.

Phlox, phlox, phlox…just fun to say, and at least the deer haven’t eaten all of it.

Wild geranium. I don’t like cultivated geraniums much, but the wild ones are lovely.

Canadian columbine, first bloom. I’d have fields of this stuff if I could.

Flava honeysuckle cuttings. I hope they root; I bought two of these plants in the spring of 2014, and they were $10 each for 4″ pots. One didn’t make it through the first winter, but the other is doing well, and I took some cuttings. Honeysuckle is supposed to be easy to root, and I hope this is. I also hope the mother plant blooms this year; it hasn’t yet.

I finished tired, hot, sweaty, dirty, and scratched up, but I finished! I hate weeding and clearing dead stuff from that goddamned flowerbed, but it looks so nice when everything is in bloom that I have to do it.

I planted four more dwarf butterfly bushes, so that’s ten, and most of the way down the line.

Battle scars.

I finally identified the clump of greenery in the south flowerbed. I sort of remember planting blue flax last year, and apparently I did.

Pretty little flowers.

Crap photo because all I had was my phone, and he was on the other side of the pond, free-floating, and I didn’t want to scare him, but Cletus came out to grab some rays.

A fly landed on the Oregon suet…which is beef kidney suet, with flies. Heh.

I’m not yet ready to tackle weeding the last half of the fence line, so I’ll catch up on…stuff.

On Thursday, I asked The O to recommend a girl-sized chain saw because Tree Dude never showed up, and the other place never returned my call. He recommended that I not buy one because I’d use it so little that I’d have carb problems in no time. Then, he said he’d come and cut it out for me. He arrived after I got home from work, and cleared a spot for my baby pine trees. I went right behind him and poisoned the stumps.

There, you bastards–drink up!

I planted all but three (hedging my bets) in that spot. They’re obviously far too close together, but these are Eastern white pine, and the majority will not survive their first year. Even fewer will make it to five years. I’ll end up with one by the time it’s large enough to be useful to birds. Assuming any survive, of course.

I bought some dwarf butterfly bushes, just because.

I also noticed they had bee balm, so I got some of that for the NoMo flowerbed, and more butterfly bushes, just because…again.

I decided that dwarf butterfly bushes would work on the fence line, so on Friday after work, I got some more, and the last of the rose bee balm in case C wanted it. If she doesn’t, I’ll certainly find a place for it; hummingbirds won’t be at all upset over more bee balm! I also got a couple more Powwow White coneflower for the little flowerbed out front, and a couple of Veronica “Royal Candles” for the edge of the Bee Happy bed.

I started early yesterday, before it got too hot, and weeded half of the fence line,then planted six of the butterfly bushes. I already have some hollyhock there, and will seed scarlet pumpernickel between them. I hate weeding that bed because it’s 300 square feet and takes ages, but at least I had a Toadally Awesome assistant!

It was too hot to weed in the sun, so I went inside for a little nap. When I got up, I roamed around for a while, then decided the pond needed attention,so I got one of my Fat Max saws and hacked out some water pickerel. It has to be tied in place until it grows to fit that spot, but this is a fast grower, so it won’t look like crap for long.

I also rinsed the soil off the roots of the poor, abused sweet potato vines, and stuck them here and there in the Babbling Brook part of the pond. No pictures because they’d lost their leaves and new ones are just starting, so they’re barely visible amongst the rocks.

I planted the Veronica. Might get more…the stuff I planted in Trail of Tears died, but there’s good drainage here, so I think it’ll do better. Bees should love this.

I mowed the lawn, or at least the goddamned dandelions that sprang up when the grass was fine and didn’t need mowing, then got fidgety. I didn’t take pictures because I hate the fucking stuff, but I cut the dead ornamental grass and trimmed the vinca and the wintercreeper out front. As soon as I decide what will replace it, that stuff is going to DIE. It’s like they looked at a list of introduced invasives, and said, “Yes! We’ll plant all of that, right up against the house! We’ll also plant a fucking cedar tree so its roots can grow under the concrete slab, and eventually break it. That’s a great idea!” Anyway, I hacked the fucking stuff back.

I found this “violeconeflower” when I was wandering the yard. Violets may be considered weeds by some , but not by me. They can hang out together if they like.

It was nearly dark, but I also moved the little St. John’s wort to a nicer spot, over by the Cliffie bush.

I was rather glad to sit down after all of that. Laundry and (probably) weeding today, and hopefully planting more butterfly bushes.

Oops. Forgot the pretty Canadian columbine, almost ready to bloom.

I got the expanding foam yesterday, so I made a proto-floatie, just to see whether it would work, and how much foam I’d have to put on what size piece of leftover pond liner. Not the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, but that wasn’t the goal this time. It works just fine, and that’s all I needed to know for the time being. 🙂

Funkeh fungus I found on a piece of wood by the leaf compost pile.

Wild geranium–forgot I’d planted these.

Assuming they even survive, I’ll be dead by the time they amount to anything, but they were free, and even the biggest sequoia began as a tiny stick.

White paint: American redbud

Blue paint: Washington hawthorne

Purple paint: Sargent crabapple

Orange paint: White flowering dogwood (in the edge of Sarah-Flah’s garden)

Red (pink?) paint: Purple lilac. I planted these by the old lady’s lilac so the little dudes would have company.

A lot of the stuff I planted last year down by the creek got choked out by Indian (turban, not bourbon)  strawberry and other junk, but a few survived.

Breeches for a very small Dutchman.

Might be squirrel corn, now that I think about it. EDIT: No, they’re more bleeding heart shaped.

Larkspur that refuses to be killed by the cold.

I finally sucked it up and paid NDA shipping to get my fishes for the 55g. By the time I did, they were sold out of the glowlight tetras I’d wanted, but they had (the equally pretty and much less common) ember tetras on sale, so I got ten of those. Ten serpae, ten ember, and three more false julii to go with the three I have. Shipping to work on Tuesday. Still waiting for a response on NDA shipping from one of two eBay sellers that have bronze corys so The Ancient Mariner can have conspecific friends. As heavily planted as that tank is, I can still safely add half a dozen glowlights if I run across them somewhere; they’ll shoal with the embers, I think. Anyway I got most of the fishes for that tank, and I think the plants are doing well enough that I shouldn’t have ammonia issues. Hell, the plants need it; those few little guys can’t possibly be producing enough ammonia to feed so many fast-growing plants!