Lawn and Garden 2023

RTH10260 · #1

minor rename from "Lawn and Gardening 2023"
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a once in its lifetime (of the plant)

#2

Coooool!

#3

If this is the same video I saw a little while ago, it bloomed, died, and left a possible tiny new baby behind.

#4

They left off Arizona in the list of natural habitat. And they've also been imported to Australia and they're not at all uncommon.

sugar magnolia · #5

We have several century plants around town here. It's a big deal when one of them blooms.

#6

One bloomed in Phipps Conservatory a few years ago. It was in the desert room. They had to take glass panels out of the ceiling for it to keep growing.

#7

Posting in the most recent thread. I have been working on restoring my mother's native/butterfly garden. In recent years nobody had been tending it and the leaves from the oak trees choked many of the shrubs out, too many little oaks and other shrubs growing everywhere and choking out the flowering plants, etc. It was a real mess. She has several paver paths throughout the garden and not a single paver was visible, I had to rake and sweep to locate all the paths again. I still have lots of raking to do in parts of the yard, but sections of it have been somewhat restored and we are getting lots of butterflies and caterpillars again. Here are a few of the caterpillars.

Also, a photo of a large pipevine. I found pieces of her once large pipevine straggling across the ground. So, I built a six foot long and five feet high fence to lay the pipevine on, hoping it would start spreading and become the showpiece it once was. I should have built the fence larger and higher because we started to get lots of rain and that vine is all over the place as you can see from the photo. It was already spreading backward up the citrus tree, which is nice because the caterpillars keep it under control but also can hide a little better from all the critters that want to eat them. I'm having an especially hard time with yellowjackets. A neighbor across the street must have a large yellowjacket colony because they fly back and forth from across the street. I set up a trap and have been able to kill many of them, but there are still some that come over and kill mostly the monarch caterpillars. They don't get all of them, but they do get a handful of them. I have a small cage that I can put some of the monarch caterpillars in with a potted milkweed to make sure we get at least a few of them through all the life stages and into an adult butterfly.

Pipevine growing on fence: If you look really close there is a pipevine swallowtail caterpillar on the underside of one of the leaves closest to the camera at the top of the fencing. Also, a smallish, probably 18-24 inch long black snake lives under the pipevine fence. I see him now and again. He likes to eat the lizards that eat the caterpillars, so I really like that he's there. Plus he will keep mice under control.

: PipevineFence.jpg (291.98 KiB) Viewed 363 times

Tiny pipevine swallowtail caterpillars newly hatched:

: PipevineHatch.jpg (90.33 KiB) Viewed 363 times

Zebra Longwing caterpillar (the large one). If you look really close there is a tiny Gulf Fritillary caterpillar right behind the longwing caterpillar, to the left of the zebra longwing caterpillar. He's really tiny compared to the longwing cat. I didn't even notice it until I looked at the photo:

: LongwingAndFrittilary.jpg (106.54 KiB) Viewed 363 times

Gulf Fritillary caterpillar on passionvine flower bud:

: GulfFrittilaryCat.jpg (52.06 KiB) Viewed 363 times

Pipevine swallowtail caterpillar munching on pipevine flower:

: PipevineCat.jpg (108.01 KiB) Viewed 363 times

#8

Great pics!

#9

I found this growing under the bird feeder when it was small and planted it in a pot to see what it would be. It’s much bigger now but I still have no idea what it is. Anyone have any ideas?

: IMG_5070.jpeg (90.45 KiB) Viewed 284 times

#10

Sicklepod, I think.

#11

Estiveo wrote: ↑Sun Aug 20, 2023 2:40 pm Sicklepod, I think.

Oh my, and the Internet is full of how to get rid of this stuff.

Thanks Estiveo, I’m pulling that one up and any more i see like it.