It was too hot yesterday and I was too busy, so…

I planted the shade stuff I got earlier in the week. Two Astilbe, two “Firefly” Heuchera, and one Digitalis. I finished extending the bed to the end of the patio and edged it with the old, weathered bricks I got from T a while ago. I thought I’d need to get grey to match the concrete, but the bricks look fine with the pine bark, so I’m leaving it.

My baby hardy fuchsia arrived, stressed but alive in spite of the fact that USPS sent them from MO to TX and then here. They’re small, but cute. I planted them in the patio bed. Hope they live; those little bastards were expensive!

I had two flutter-guys yesterday; a male Spicebush Swallowtail and a probably female Monarch.

Less desirable insect friends on the rosemallow. Hibiscus sawfly larvae. I made them a date with insecticidal soap.

My canna is going to bloom, I think.

Surprise lilies again. If they’d look like this without the whole “dead leaves for weeks” thing, I’d keep them.

Mowed the lawn, showered, then time to relax!

Didn’t do much this week except water, but there are still a few things.

The rare cabbage cicada. I have no idea what it was doing there, but it was alive.

One Grey Stick blooming. If Tree Dude doesn’t soon get his ass over here, I’m asking for a refund and getting someone else.

Surprise lilies. I like the bluish pink colour, but not enough to live with the dying off thing they do.

What I thought was one of the columbine plants I’d had beside the Tornado Honeysuckle was actually…a stray bee balm seed. LOL! It can stay; I like bee balm.

I love you, Linux Mint with Mate–you are what Ubuntu was before Canonical made it suck balls! Since /home lives on a separate partition, all I had to do was back up my Samba configuration, export my list of installed software (just in case there was something I needed; haven’t used it yet), and do a custom install so it would wipe out Ubuntu and leave Win7 and /home alone. It’s BEAUTIFUL! I can add what I want to the panel, move panels, use my own themes…once again, I have control of my computer. Since all of my settings were in /home, I just need to use the same program, and it’ll pull my settings from /home. I can even use my old Gnome 3.x themes; I missed my custom themes. I can span my wallpaper across both monitors! I still haven’t figured out how to add a separate panel to the second monitor, but even if I can’t, I still love Mint. Ubuntu before Ubuntu sucked. I’m installing Pipelight right now so I can watch Netflix; netflix-desktop wasn’t bad at all, but Pipelight is supposed to be better because it doesn’t need a full browser running in wine; somehow they just get the plugin to run. We’ll see, and in the meantime, I have a new OS, but still have all my stuff and didn’t have to do jack!

It’s been ages since I could add anything to the panel, and I forgot how to put one on the second screen, so…

And, if that link dies, here is the high level:

• Right-click the panel you wish to move and select “Properties”.

• Uncheck the “Expand” option under the “General” tab.

• Grab one of the edges of the panel by clicking on the left or right end (top or bottom end for vertical panels).

• Drag the bar to the desired screen and position.

• Check the “Expand” option in the “Panel Properties” window and click “Close”.

Just a few little dudes I’ve found. Taken with Canon, not phone.

Pie crust butt. I know they’re technically pests, but they’re so goddamned cute.

Baby Tenodera. I’ve seen quite a few mantises this year, but they seem to be growing kind of slowly. Maybe it’s just faulty memory, but it seems to me that they should be bigger so close to the end of July. I dunno.

Zelus baby with one of those weird-ass treehoppers whose name escapes me at the moment. Cute.

It’s Wednesday and I haven’t done much beyond water what absolutely needed it and bitch about the lack of rain, but a few pretty things…

Plum Crazy

Kopper King

The mallow I didn’t pull out because I thought it was a weed.

The Patio Petunias. They are grateful, I think.

Surprise lilies

I pulled out the Bishops flower on Sunday (it was no longer blooming and starting to die off) and threw down som dwarf cosmos. Might not have time to bloom, but even green is better than bare ground. Sprouted in two days, I believe. Actually a few hours less. Yay, mulch!

Heliopsis (“yellow flowers”) will bloom if Charlotte doesn’t eat them.

Also found a cute Paraphidippus aurantius with a sharpshooter in her chelicerae, but that was Canon, not phone, and may upload later.

Poor little guy. I found him this afternoon, but when I came back a few hours later, in his place was a Psillopsis assassin bug. 🙁 He was on my expensive ‘Soulmate’ milkweed. I’ll add a picture of the culprit if I think of it later.

Here’s the culprit…Psillopsis barberi.

Probably the only morning glory I’ll see in my yard this year, thanks to Charlotte, and it’s not even one I planted. It’s the oak leaf morning glory that I left growing on the volunteer corn by the fence.

In good news, a beautiful male Spicebush!

Technically yesterday, but I finally cleaned out the patio flowerbed. Heliopsis in one bed, coneflower in another, and I extended the bed beside the patio so I could put the rest of the hostas in.

I just ordered some heuchera, astilbe and a foxglove to put in there as well. Going to be fucking hot; hopefully theyll arrive alive.

I think the mystery tree is just another goddamned hydrangea.  Meh.

Surprise lilies are going to bloom. Meh.

P’s phlox came out just fine!

Not that I’ve accomplished a great deal, but…

Thursday, I think.

I don’t remember whether I took any pictures Friday.  Maybe not; I was exhausted. Anyway, I think this might be today.

Kopper King.

My biggest Sugar Baby.

The beardtongue bloomed for me; it had spent blooms on it when I got it, but I clipped them.

All portulaca blooms are pretty,  but this one was super-pretty.

I watered the Honeysuckle Horseshoe and found a small friend.  I apologised for watering him.

That’s what I accomplished after work. Beyond watering my microscopic grass and making a quick tour of the back yard, I did dick-all. Too tired; didn’t sleep for shit last night. Anyway, though I did nothing, my hardy hibiscus did; the two lazy ones from Lowe’s are working toward blooming!

Kopper King.

Plum Crazy.

Ailanthus Webworm moth on milkweed.

Nasturtium enjoying the cool weather,  as I’m enjoying them.

I’d thought the only thing lazier than I am might be my purloined jewelweed, but I finally got to see a bloom. I know there have been other blooms because I’ve found several seed pods, but every time I’d go down there, I’d see nothing but green. Hopefully, my MLBs had better luck. Anyway, a flower is a flower!

I still don’t know what this is, but it’s the green mystery tree out front. I’d actually given up on ever seeing a bloom–most trees bloom in spring and early summer, not in mid-July–but if it has some kind of flower, it’ll be easier for me to ID than “green tree with leaf-shaped leaves” for sure!

This is the rosemallow, and I do think it’s going to bloom. On the 6th of June, they arrived as 5″ sections of root, so dry that I messaged the seller. I’d have been happy if they’d only grown, so if even one blooms, I’ll be ecstatic!

This is the Creme Caramel. Looks much like whatever the coreopsis in the other bed is called, but it’s pretty, so I’m not upset.

This one is Creme Brulee, and it looks like any other light yellow coreopsis, but again, it’s pretty and I love coreopsis, so I’m not going to complain.

Getting less micro-grass-y every day. Cooler weather this week should help, too. Hope it helps the seeds I planted Monday night as well.

Yesterday, D. brought over a kitten she didn’t want, and talked for a while, and then I had to clean and fill the MLB feeders,  so I was too late for pictures by the time I’d finished; it was dark. All I did was seed the rest of the bare spots anyway, but I want to document it here so I know when I did it. It’s still not level but the weather will be in the mid-to-high 70s this week, and I’m fucking tired of looking at dirt. It’ll be green and level enough to mow; that’s good enough.

My microscopic grass is less microscopic!