I don’t know what they are, but they have tiny, adorable leaves, and they’re not fucking grass seedlings! Edit 12/05/14 I think they’re Bishop’s Flower, Ammi majus.

These are the only good kind of grass seedlings in a flowerbed…the uprooted kind that are GOING TO DIE!

Yaaayyy! Portulaca sprouted (well, not the pot I planted yesterday)! Have to look with one eye, though…tiny seedlings!

Thunbergia (sp?)…anyway, black-eyed susan vine is starting to sprout, too, though I saw only two.

Hostas out front coming along nicely! Not a huge hosta fan, but they’re there and they’re pretty.

I’m pretty sure this is Royal Purple Smoke Tree. Protip: don’t GIS “smoke tree buds” without adding “royal purple” and excluding certain keywords or you will not find photos of ornamental shrubs!

I’ve got this one down to either Viburnum or hydrangea…maybe.

No clue what the other two are yet. One has leaves like lilac and flower buds like lavender.

The other has…green leaves. Search that!

Oh, and C. identified one type of seedlings. I showed her a picture, and she said it looks exactly like basil. I didn’t plant basil, but basil is in the mint family, and I did plant bee balm! I GIS’d “monarda seedlings”, and those are my guys! I stuck the rest of them in the flowerbed yesterday,  BTW. Tired of seeing the packets just sitting on the table. These ones are bee balm:

I found another little friend after the rain.

The sun came back out, so I postponed my nap and finished reseeding/weeding the milkweed. Fingers crossed!

Also, marigolds I got from C.

Now…nap!

1715h: Nap didn’t work–tired, but not sleepy–so I laid down and read for a little while, then got up and added Blazing Star and some more Scarlet Sage (I think I had it in there) to the Honeysuckle Horseshoe flowerbed. P. mowed the lawn and sprayed grass seeds all over the milkweed bed I spent all morning weeding and re-seeding. Yay.

An entire, hot fucking day is what it took to get the hole dug for the zinnia and Mexican sunflower, and since it’s pouring fucking rain today (thunder, lightning, wind), I didn’t even get the dirt in it. I was too tired to take pictures after I finished, so I did this morning before the rain. The hard part is done, though, and assuming it ever stops raining this week, I can put them in like I did joe-pye and friends…bits after work. I moved it out a little, past the gas line mark. Oh my GAWD, the soil! A little normal Parview dirt, some clay, and I think that’s where they dumped the leftover gravel and sand when they poured the concrete slab for the house. No wonder nothing but grass and dandelions would grow over there; grass is shallow and dandelions have taproots!

The sod went to make a grass puzzle on the bare spot out back. Looks a little ghetto, but it’ll settle. Hell, if it rains any harder, it’ll just flatten right out!

Old Lady’s lilac is blooming, and it’s white. I’d have preferred purple, but Dale has a big one in front of his house that I can smell as soon as I come out of the house.

I saved this weed; I forget what it is, but butterflies should like it, and flowers are scarce at this time of year. I’m going to move it, though. EDIT: It’s butterweed; Packera glabella

I’m not going to replace the vinca here. I like the violets better, and the city cant make me mow these like the ones on 544’s lawn!

Found a big, fat Bronzed Cutworm. Didn’t ID it until this morning, so I didn’t kill it. It eats grass anyway, so meh. Only one beetle grub, which I squished because it looked Japanese.

544’s Bright Lights have their second set of leaves!

Elderberry doing okay; it looks like most of them rooted and have a new little leaf or two.

Honeylocust has sunlight now, since I cut down the honeysuckle.

Spicebush is leafing out.

Yellow trumpet creeper leafing out nicely.

Orange is getting there!

I don’t know what these are, but they’re happy in the Honeysuckle Horseshoe.

Miracle Tuliptree!

Mystery Lilies are huge.

Peonies, too.

Clematis wants something to climb.

And…guess who arrived yesterday? Dale!!

Now for this morning, in between sticky heat and getting rained on. I’m reseeding the milkweed with cold-stratified Common. Darker is field-stratified, lighter was refrigerated. The eBay seller sent 200 of each, though the listing was for just 200. I sniped two auctions…hehe.

Almost done, but got rained out. If I have time later and it clears (or at least isn’t raining), I’ll finish it.

Oh, and my Sugar Baby watermelons are up. Dunno what I’ll get, if anything, but it’s worth a shot!

Itty-bitty baby kebbage! Less than a week; I planted Early Dutch Flat and Early Jersey Wakefield. I have no idea which it is, and it’s only for caterpillars anyway, but it’s growing!

Flowers are being lazy for the most part, but it rained hard last night, and it’ll be near 80F tomorrow; maybe that will inspire them.

I went out to the gradge to get the screen for the door we never use, but got distracted by some honeysuckle that was trying to resprout. I started digging, and found lots of Wormzillas, and really good dirt! The goddamned honeysuckle was growing right at the base of an Osage orange tree, and it was a big one, so I had to cut roots to get it out. Hopefully I killed it, but even if I didnt, I definitely fucked up its 2014 growing season! Fuck you, bush honeysuckle–die, die, DIE!!

I was so impressed by the soil that I bought some outrageously expensive Virginia snakeroot to put there. The stuff I brought with me didn’t make it, and there’s not enough sun there for the outrageously expensive pipevine that I’ll have next month when it ships. Besides, I like the sound of “snakeroot”. Hee!

I also bought a heat mat for my outrageously expensive hardy fuchsia seeds. I just hope it doesn’t cook them; they only need 70-75F. We’ll see. I stuck the two cups of Bird of Paradise seeds on it, too. Can’t hurt to warm a tropical!

Okay, so I lopped off a bunch of that fucking honeysuckle so joe-pye and friends would have more light, but I also planted my solid gold hardy fuchsia seeds. Fuchsia magellanica, I believe; hardy fuchsia,  anyway. I just hope they’ll be okay until their seed mat arrives on Friday; they want 70-75F to germinate. Hope the Dixie cup trick works; if it does, I can put them in the ground with no transplant shock at all. We’ll see, but for now, they’re in a plastic tent (AKA giant ziploc bag my row cover came in), in my beloved south window.

Also, I found…Dale! Okay, so it’s his twin, but now I know he was a 1994 McDonalds toy, and so was Mr. Turtle (actually a Galapagos tortoise). I’ve got snipes set for both of them, and I’ll get Dale a silver sleeper earring, just like the original Dale had.

From yesterday, since I was too tired to post about it after having done it…

The Rose of Sharon bushes are all…alive! Both Grey Sticks and the Cliffie bush.

Yaaayyy! They’re even a little early, I think. Remains to be seen whether they’ll get enough sun where I’ve put them (probably not, but not moving them this year!)

I found this growing in the “desert” on the west side of the garage. C. ID’d it as clematis, which explains why the leaves looked familiar.  I’ll move it at some point in time to a better spot.

I planted both of my yellow honeysuckle plants; one dropped all of its leaves,  but hopefully the roots are still alive; those little bastards were expensive! Here’s the one that didnt drop leaves.

I also dumped three bags of soil into the bed for joe-pye and friends. When I came home after work today, I finished it. I planted mixed joe-pye, boneset, goldenrod (showy), purple ironweed, Pacific Giant delphinium, late figwort and two kinds of hollyhock (Indian Spring and King Henry VII). Hollyhock won’t do well there if it grows at all, neither will delphinium, and everything else needs cold stratification, so it’ll probably be an expensive pile of dirt for at least a year, but I tried!

Now, I’m tired and need to find something to wear to work tomorrow!

Still haven’t got joe-pye and friends or zinnia and Mexican sunflower or sunflowers in, but I have butterfly food in, and I dug holes for yellow honeysuckle. Better than nothing, I guess, and it does kind of feel like I had a weekend.

Putting in seeds. Carrot, dill, cabbage, parsley and rosemary. Also sugar baby watermelon for me, if it grows.

Bought a couple of fuchsia ‘Dark Eyes’ for the MLBs (if they ever get here).

Found a Zelus friend in the grass I moved over to the north edge of the woods.

Still folded in half, but it’s definitely a Tuliptree leaf!

P. tilled the joe-pye bed, and we went on a dirt run so the yellow honeysuckle can go in the ground this week. It’s going to rain today, which I actually don’t mind because my seeds need it.

P. found her on the patio on his way in from the garage. She’s beautiful!

(Also gravid. Also, I need a manicure that’s not going to happen.)