The latest from our backyard garden melodrama. A squirrel just climbed up and started riding around on the new wind whirley-gigs that Mike re-painted this past week…
First she climbed this one but I didn’t have my camera ready…
Then she went up this one and started to enjoy the ride!
Next, it was up to the upper level….
For a quick run around upstairs!
Maybe she went up there for a better view.
Then she turned around, took a bow and waved byebye!
The answer to that question is just about everything I’ve ever planted! Loving the ubiquitous lavenders, yellow and pink yarrow, catmint, and volunteer sunflowers! We just deadheaded the catmint and Jupiter’s Beard this week, and had over two inches of rain so far this July on our ridge overlooking the Sangres de Cristo Range! Let’s hear it for the monsoons!
My Blue-Mist Spirea bushes on the right and left foreground are acting a little bit shy with just a few flowers so far, but all five should be full out in a week or so!
And this Magenta yarrow is in its first year, so its taking its sweet time to bloom. A couple plants got damaged by that late May snowstorm we had. The Russian Sage and Showy Four-O’Clocks are very late in blooming.
But overall, I’m quite happy with our results this summer!
This is the second time I’ve noticed a snake climbing up the wall outside of my glass door! This photo is taken from inside my bedroom!
I also noticed some bluebirds swooping down and a small bird bleeding on my patio.
I went outside to take this picture….
Here’s the dismount…. I saw him later crawling through my garden.
My father, Dr. Jack L. Carter, was a well-known botanist and strong advocate of growing native plants in the areas they are native to. We lovingly called him a “native plants nazi” because he was always commenting on how inappropriate certain plants and trees were in our yards and neighborhoods. In his honor I would like to mention a few natives that have either volunteered or been transplanted into my garden up here at 7,000 feet, west of Walsenburg Colorado.
My favorite is the Showy Four O’Clock. This one just happened to be properly placed to come up every year under my Buddha. It starts blooming in the late day in mid-July and continues for quite a while. The only year it did not bloom was in 2018 when we had a wildfire nearby.
A plant I love to see down here is what I know as the Cane Cholla Cactus. They are common along Highway I-25 from just north of Pueblo to the Colorado-New Mexico state border and they are blooming right now. I liked them so much that I started a few of them in my garden four years ago, because I know they take a long time to grow and bloom.
I just cut off the end of one cane and planted it in the ground. This is a plant two years later….
I am so excited to see that one of my four year old plants actually had a bloom this week! I didn’t know how long it took to get these to bloom. Gardeners must be AMAZINGLY PATIENT.
I have also added a nice evening primrose, which has always been one of my favorites, and of course we have much more yucca than we want!
Finally, we have had hundreds of native sunflowers here ever since we moved in. I love them. They remind me of my Kansas upbringing.
Seven years past the first time I witnessed a superbloom here in the foothills of southern Colorado, we are having an even bigger one again, right around my home. We live in the Navajo Ranch area smack dab between the towns of Walsenburg and La Veta Colorado.
This is Navajo Tea also known as greenthread, the common names given to multiple species within the genus Thelesperma. This species is a native of the Great Plains and mountain states.
Thelespermas are used by a number of the southwestern Native American peoples as herbal teas, earning the plant common names like Navajo Tea or Hopi Tea. The plant can be boiled whole until the water turns a rusty color and used as a tea. Historically it has also been used as a medicinal remedy and for yellow dyes.
Here are a few local views of our superbloom:
Here is a hillside of flowers with the Spanish Peaks as a rainy backdrop…
Fields of flowers with Mount Mestas in the distance…
And just plain fields of flowers! What a grand spring surprise for us!
This morning the Rocky Mountain Penstemons are smiling BIG TIME…
As I move from east to west this plant, that got eaten last year by I don’t know what, is raring to grow.
I love to watch the serendipity of plantings from years past. For example, I had no idea this combination of these little yellow flowers, the Penstemon pinifolius (red), the RM penstemon (purple) and lavender would look so good together this year. I’m not smart enough to plan that!
And these were all planted at different times too. At first I had too much purple and the interesting Knautia macedonica ‘Red Knight’ plant, so I added a yellow yarrow right in the middle. And in spite of high winds and a foot of snow on May 22nd, everything survived!
One thing I have learned, plants need to be quite resilient to survive the wild and windy weather up here!
Adventures of the NEW Old Farts 