Fall

I don't know why but when the surprise lilies bloom, I always think of fall.....even though it's been two months since they've bloomed and gone underground again.

I think of fall when the jack in the pulpit berries become vivid red...

...and even when they're still green because the green ones fall over too.

I think of fall when dogs get covered with seeds...

...and when the soldier beetles get busy with each other on the goldenrod flowers.

But fall happens when the leaves fall...

In just a few weeks, this...

becomes this....

And things just start looking and sounding extra crispy.

But not everything is on the ground or under ground. Those turtle chomped thimbleweeds from last month have sent up new leaves!

And that gives me hope because I have a lot of plants to still get in and knowing that it's now a little too cold for turtles to take things down...

I only have to worry about the garden helping dogs falling down on the newly planted plants. That digging part of gardening is exhausting, you know?

Thimbleweed

I was at the Anita Gorman Discovery Center earlier this summer and saw these flowers blooming in the woodland garden.

I knew immediately what they were because I recognized....the leaves (sometimes I am so good!).

It's thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana), a native wildflower named for the "fruit" which sort of resemble thimbles (big emphasis on "sort of").

I thought this plant was soooo pretty so I went to a nursery and bought four of them. And of course, after doing that, I started seeing them just about everywhere on my land in Kansas.

They were growing at the edge of the woods...

By the creek in the sun...

They were lining a path deep in the woods (in clumps!)...

They grew covered with gravel dust by the side of the gravel road...

I even found them growing near dogs.

A couple weeks ago I planted them in the area I cleared and thought that finally I had planted something that would thrive because I had seen this plant growing in every sun, moisture and dirt condition on my property.

On Sunday I returned to water what I had planted in that area (even though it rained that day) and found this:

Every single leaf stem had been cut and allowed to fall where it was going to fall.

Oh, I recognized what had happened just hours before I arrived. Michael Ray and Cathy Jean have done the exact same thing to hostas! They will walk in a circle and take a bite out of every stem so that each leaf falls to the ground ending up looking somewhat like a mandala. Eat any part of the plant? Heck no. Taking down a hosta is strictly for fun. Errrrgh.

And just like my turtles, this one learned to recognize the plant that held his/her attention for such a long time. I had planted three of the thimbleweeds together but the other one was planted near where Aussie is sitting in one of the above photos. That turtle took that one down too. It wasn't even within sight of the others. It was behind the tree (!).

Can't I have just one plant that doesn't have its life sabotaged by some hungry, clumsy or bored varmint? Just one???

Dang. I was looking forward to less gardening with turtles, not more. You know? :-/

Nom. Nom. Nom.

Today I was watering my little pink dogwood (the one thing I planted this year that is doing really well) and noticed an unusual leaf. When I looked closer...I saw this leaf had some nommage going on. Interesting how this little guy made himself a comfortable place to sprawl while eating the leaf at the same time. Such efficiency and on such chubby little legs.

When I turned the leaf around to get a better look at him, I got to see this crazy patterning on his back. My eyes just saw a brown spot which could be excellent camouflage if you're busy cutting up a leaf and want to make the leaf look like you did it days ago...

...but on a computer, that's a heck of a lot of pretty pattern going on... I wonder what those bugs flying around with compound eyes see when something like this hits their eyes? It's got to be "Eeeeee-ouch."

Meanwhile, that little garden I planted a month ago, now looks like this...

Actually, the daylilies look great, the hostas look great, but apparently the "White Swan" echinaceas looked too great to pass up because obviously, they were delicious. Those caterpillars tore through the middle of the garden nomming down all the coneflowers and then just like that, the party was over.

I found a spent chrysalis attached to one of the dead coneflower leaves and although I regret the loss of the coneflowers so soon after planting...

I hope someone did not find that fresh little butterfly nom-worthy and um, delicious.

Or maybe I do. >:-)

Last weekend...

I drove past crispy cornfields to get to my land in Kansas.

First stop was to check on my recently planted coneflowers and.....great. My garden had become a caterpillar nursery. I think these little stinkers are Silvery Checkerspot caterpillars...probably the result from the butterfly versions that looked so pretty on the coneflowers just a few weeks before. Oh well, that's why I planted them in the first place and since coneflowers are tough, hopefully they'll come back next year....

The reason I drove out was to start clearing an area that was full of bush honeysuckle and autumn olive (both plants are invasive non-natives for probably the entire U.S.). I did this for two days. And when I was done in this area up the hill and in the woods, it looked like this...

The non-natives were all removed and the natives.......well, there weren't any......maybe some cat's briar but I don't like that stuff so I took that out too (vines with spines I do decline!).

I had a spicebush (Lindera benzoin) I wanted to plant but after I started digging, Tilly immediately covered the partially dug hole and decidedly fell asleep within seconds. She, as usual, was unmovable. Whenever I try to roll her out of the way when I'm planting something, she just rolls right back.

Well, there is always something to do so I started to clear more honeysuckle and found this little guy.

Tree frogs look like little bullydogs to me.

This look...

...reminds me of this one.

And those wide spaced eyes giving you a good staredown?

Could be borrowed from one of these guys.

That tiny frog looked like so many animals, maybe he was really a chameleon. :-)

Tilly eventually woke up and got rolled away from the hole and I was finally able to get that spicebush in....but as I was covering it with dirt, I managed to uncover a couple little eggs that were next to a rotten old hickory log. For some odd reason, I just assumed they were bug eggs and put them back where I thought they came from and covered them with about an inch of dirt (they were about 3/4" long and didn't feel like the hard shell of a bird egg, more like a thick-walled balloon). When I thought about it long enough once I got home, I realized no bug was big enough to shoot out eggs that size (!!!) so I then thought perhaps the eggs were turtle eggs....but they were so lightweight and kind of small for a turtle, even a little one. Dick suggested they might be 'possum eggs (!!!!!!) but I'm just going to assume they're snake eggs, only because I don't know what else they could be (but I can confidently say they did not come out of a 'possum-hahaha!).

Spicebush in, area cleared of non-natives, eggs tucked in...and it was almost time to go home since the sun was going down...but then, this guy showed up...

A baby walkingstick.

Since it was so late in the day, my camera had a hard time getting anything in focus but it does not matter because that bug was so uncomplicated. I could not stop taking pictures of him because of his simple expression on that ridiculously simply designed and easy to draw body. One stick in the middle, add six sticks for legs and two sticks for the antennae on the top of the head, oh yeah, add two eyes. Easiest bug to draw ever. That bug just made me laugh because of that ridiculous face.

Oh dear, I think I hurt his feelers with all my laughing.

Oh well, time to leave anyway. A few lingering fireflies were out and accompanying them were the bats....more bats than fireflies actually.

All in all, a pretty couple of days with lots accomplished. But it's disheartening to have it confirmed that nothing growing on that forest floor is supposed to be there....but encouraging that a few of the native creatures that live in that area were curious about what was going on. I hope they will be happy with what's coming...a gourmet restaurant for caterpillars and their friends. Hopefully they won't be little piggies (like what happened to the coneflowers) and will leave some of the plants for me. That's what I hope. :-/