Bearded Iris Roots

A few weeks ago I ordered some bearded iris roots from eBay. I used a seller with positive reviews and I ordered more then I actually needed as they were for my aunt. She wanted a specific purple and white flower and I found it on eBay. The order was for 10 roots with trimmed fans. This is what I got. Five tiny fans and some assorted root chunks with eyes removed. As I got no response when I tried to contact the seller they will be getting annoyed feedback. A quick Google search revealed that the picture they were using as an example of the roots they sent is one of the first to come up when you search bearded iris roots. Gee they're kind of headed toward being a bad seller.

This is about two weeks later. A few of the fans are putting out new roots, but the root chunks aren't doing much. One appears to be rotting. Even better is that bearded iris should really not be divided until July at the earliest to give the new fans time to get larger. These ones look like someone took three small plants and chopped them up into a few dozen pieces. There is just about no way they will be blooming next year. I'm going to be lucky they survive at all.

Mantis' Growing

Several of the little mantis are hanging out where they are easy to find. They do prefer to face the camera.

Ravage

Hopefully at some point today I'll be seeing Transformers: Dark of the Moon. I expect the acting to be iffy, and the dialog to be painful. There should be some nice animation and explosions though. I read the movie novelization so whatever they decide to leave out the movie should still make sense. Ravage: (above) is the only transformer I keep collecting. I like the critter transformers.

Realized Plants

Those cheap roots I got a few weeks ago are now sprouting, well, all but one of them. I seem to have 3 clematis, 2 red hot poker, and 1 big peony (not pictured). The fourth clematis may sprout, but isn't looking likely. The bag for red hot poker said three plants, but I only found two.

The Grass

I'll be adding more later as I finally got out of the house and went hiking last week. For now, here's the grass I tilled for in the previous post, freshly mown. There are a few patchy sections and I should have rented a roller after I seeded, but overall I'm liking the results.

Green Damselfly

Last week during my unplanned vacation I got in two hikes. At Broadmoor where I picked up more ticks then I could believe (easily 15-20 over the course of my walk) there were a few accommodating damselflies. The dragonflies were much too flighty. Edited to Add ID: Male Eastern Forktail - Ischnura posita.

Unplanned Vacation

Obviously I was missing last week. I took a surprise vacation while watching my cousin. Here's an female or immature Common Whitetail to apologize. I'll be back to normal updates next week.

Clematis Look Alikes

I have two supposedly different clematis planted about 12 inches apart in one of the beds. Near as I can figure the ones with the 4 petals are one type and the ones with the 5 petals that are slightly larger are the other type. They look mighty similar though...

Blue Damselfly

This is the first year I've let the pond sit alone all winter and spring. I didn't move the plants to the bottom of the pond, I left them as is. I didn't try to catch the few remaining mosquito fish last year (in my defense a few had survived the winter before and I didn't know we would have an awful winter or I would have caught them) and this year have just been putting mosquito dunks in the pond. We've had noticeably less mosquitoes, and as a bonus we seem to have dragonflies hatching out. We've never had damsels of dragons hanging around like this before. I've found them in the woods, but never sitting in my garden day after day.

Dianthus of some sort

I probably have a label for this somewhere, but with my lazy gardening last year it may have disappeared. This is some type of dianthus, possibly sweet william, possibly just a random pink. I'll know more when it's main flowers open at the top.

Clematis with Hoverfly

My largest clematis decided to bloom just as it started raining for a few days. Hopefully some of the flowers will wait until after the rain. This one has a hoverfly in attendance. They mimic bees, but if you look at their heads it is obvious they are actually flies.

More Clouds

Last one.

Apocalypse Clouds

We've been having some strange weather in MA the last few weeks. It's either pouring or extremely hot. Tonight I spend a chunk of my time in the public library (free air conditioning and wifi). I decided it was time to leave when it started to get very dark early. I got outside and the clouds were unbelievable (and I cursed myself for not getting my camera before I went out), Dark gray and boiling across the sky at speed. By the time I got home the bright white line at the beginning of the clouds had almost vanished, and the lightning had arrived. This is a view across the street from my house. The only touch-up is setting the camera -2/3 of a stop to be able to see the gray details. The clouds really were that menacing. Then it poured off and on for a few hours.

New Potential Plants

When I've had luck with a plant I hve a tendency to buy more of its type. Clematis are a little weakness of mine. Every year I think I won't get more, and as soon as the Spring bulbs go on clearance there I am getting more. Each of these packages actually had two chunks of roots in them, and they were half price, so I paid $6.98 for 4 plants. As clematis in bloom can go or $8-$30 I can't help myself. I picked up two tritoma and another peony as well, even though the peonies from previous years haven't gotten large enough to bloom yet.

I did talk myself out of hostas, some ferns (only because I don't want any ore christmas ferns and that is what my last set of ostrich ferns turned into), and day lilies. All are plants you can buy in bags and have reasonable chances of survival after 6 months of no care, provided they didn't get too wet, too dry, or too cold. Hostas and day lillies should have at least sprouts in the bag, avoiding any thing with fungus. Most roots should be firm not squishy or dry. For many the cost gets down to about $1 a plant. Not bad with species that will survive.

Damselfly Daring

The dragonflies have been tempting me this year. I haven't been on any epic hikes and they're teasing me. We actually have two or three widow skimmers that have moved into the yard. A few times two of them have perched within inches of each other. I've spotted Ebony Jewelwings a few times, as well as this damselfly.

Mantis Hatching

The little guys from the egg case finally hatched. I had mostly given up on them so two months ago I'd put them in a glass jar with a screen cover. This morning they were swarming ready to go out. I hope they have enough time to get big enough to breed this year. They're almost a month later then last year's set. The egg case can be seen in an earlier post.

Fuzzy Green Caterpillar

Another unidentified worm. This was on Joe Pye Weed. judging by that black dot and the fact it didn't move at all, I expect it might have been parisitized by something. There are lots of wasps that lay eggs in caterpillars and their young hatch out of the paralyzed caterpillar.

Maple Leaf

This is from a Japanese maple near the old mill at the New York Botanical Garden. I enjoy the patterns of leaf veins. This particular tree also had many bright red seeds hanging from it, which almost made me want to buy one.

African Violet Propagaton

A few months ago my last African Violet tried to die. It rotted out from its soil and I had to do some surgery. I ended up with two small complete plants and tons of leaves. The leaves were used to make this, which I should have separated a few months ago. Now I have more then 12 plants I need to wean onto living in standard air (not a nice humid plastic bag) and keep until they look at least a little more attractive.