Poinsettia recsue from white flies

Click on image to enlarge.

The poinsettia is making a full recovery after being completely denuded of leaves by white flies.  I re potted and fertilized it after spraying with bug-be-gone.  After a few days I moved it from the house to outside under the patio where it received 1/2 days sun.  The flies did not return and now it is starting to leaf out nicely.  I have been fertilizing it every 2 weeks with miracle grow and am ready to start pruning to bring it back down to size.  Click on the poinsettia label to see the other posts about this subject.

The Iris Garden at Shangri la

This is the iris garden for 2015.  I've been growing iris since 1973 and it is my favorite flower.  The garden is visited by 3 different types of large bees that work the blooms.  

View of Stone Bench

View from Rock Garden

View of Iris Bed

Iris in a Pot

Golden Muffin in Container

Yes you can grow iris in containers.  This one was planted July 2013 and does very well in a pot.  They have to be re potted every other year and 3 good sized rhizomes per container will do.  I choose a container that is close to a 5 gal bucket with good drainage. By July the iris have finished putting on new growth and enter into a semi dormant stage during the dry months.    This dormant period will last until the end of Sep when the fall rains have broke their dormancy and they put on more rhizome growth.  As soon as I planted them I kept them watered until they were well established.  The pot contains plenty of compost and a small amount of 20-10-10 fertilizer...about 1/4 cup. They are left out in the garden all year.  And when they bloom the container can be put anywhere you want.

Linda's Herb Harvest

Linda Bob's Herbs

Here is a sample of Mrs. Stickfigure's herb harvest.  Shown here, clockwise from the left, are sage, rosemary, oregano, and creeping thyme.  She dries them and stores them in plastic boxes the size of shoe boxes.  The sage I have dug up a runner that has rooted and potted it up to give to a friend.  The rosemary and thyme can also be done that way by layering a branch into the soil and weighting with a rock.  Fresh herbs sure do taste good and an herb garden is fairly easy to keep up.

Bloom Day 4/15/15

Welcome to Blogger's Bloom Day.  This is an iris I acquired about 25 years ago.  It is my wife's favorite and it is easy to see why.  What makes it a great iris is it's habit.  The blooms are spaced in such a way that they produce this little mass of color.

Golden Muffin Iris

A Poem, Winter is Excused

Winter is excused
from her dreary work.
To celebrate a gentle jew
she preps a terra firma cake.

She glazes first with frozen rain,
just an inch or two,
Then dusts a fluffy frosting on
borrowed from the dew.

The critters stitch a greeting
with hurried, scurried script.
Proud balloons apologize
and open an azure window up.

A solitary candle
suspends infinity
for brighter, gayer atmospheres
and hospitality

The brook and feathered choristers
Great guest, the mountaineers
Glad breezes teases, tickles, tingles
deciduous chandeliers.

"Happy birthday, little King"
 twinked a northern star
While the bashful moon Noctombolist
ran naked from the day.

MG Morris

Noid update

Here is a specimen I picked up at the Oxley Nature Center next to the parking lot.  I believe it is the same species as the one that fell out of my 110 year old botany book.  There are some differences that I noticed.  The first is that the seed pods are larger on the older one.  Second is the position of the pods on the plant.  In the older one there are quite a few pods near the base of the plant.  Yet there is also one near the base of the new one.  I'm pretty sure that the older specimen is a more mature plant.  I would love to look at the tissues under a microscope to see if they match but I don't know how to do that yet.

The older specimen on the left may be C. oligosperma because of the difference in seed and pod size.

Old vs New Specimens

Cardamine Hirsuta from notebook

Botanizing the Neighborhood

Illus. of Corn Gromwell from my notebook.

One one of the side streets around the neighborhood I spotted several flowering plant in this one stretch of roadside turf.  The flowers are only a few mm wide and so I had to use my new microscope and 15X loupe to be able to draw it.  Neat part about modern botanizing is that you can record it's local with GPS coordinates.  Also, you can sometimes get a bird's eye few via satillite or arial imaging.  I found that once you can narrow the plant to it's family it is much easier to ID the species using the internet.

Here is a google image of the location.
Down the street (N. Norfolk) is Shangri la

What is living in your birdbath?

Birdbath sample and 100X field microscope

Since I had my microscope out to look at white fly nymphs I decided to take a look at what lives in the birdbath.  When there is no water in it many of the creatures encyst until it either rains or I fill it up with water.  During the summer you can see a reddish deposit on the bottom and I've read that this is carried in by the birds and is rotifers. A good place to see what grows either in your birdbath or garden pond is to visit Ron's Pond Scum.  An interesting web site that gives you lots of interesting photos of micro-critters and plants.  Sure would like to have his microscope and camera setup.

I was expecting to find rotifers but haven't seen a one so far.  It was pretty lifeless when I looked at it right after collecting the sample.  But I placed it in some sunlight and have spotted some nostoc growing.  Also there are a few critters swimming around in the soup but I can't I.D. them.  I've ordered a student microscope with zoom from 50-250X in hopes of getting a better look.  There is also a lot of dead plant tissue fragments in the mix that the birds brought in.

BTW I scrub the birdbath with a stiff brush and rinse out the debris each time I refill it with fresh water.

Update on Poinsettia Rescue

3rd & 4th instar nymphs 

Well, the concoction I made up the other day is not working.  Today I saw a white fly emerge from the poinsettia plant as I tapped it.  I decided to put one of the leaves under a microscope at 100X and sure 'nuff there they were...about 6 nymphs on the leaves.  I could not find any eggs which gives me hope.
 Lady Stickfigure banished the plant from the house and my reply could only be, "Yes, your Linesse."  I promptly curtsied and left with a pitiful looking poinsettia out to the patio.  Its fate is hanging on the edge of doom.

At right is a drawing I made of the little creatures.  I compared them with some online pics and they look pretty close.

That plant sat out on the patio all summer last year and really took off.  But when I brought it into the house the flies went to work unopposed.  I figure they must have been prayed upon outside to such an extent that they could not do much damage.

I gave it another dose of the pepper/soap concoction and left the plant outside to see what happens.

Blogger's Bloom Day 3/15

I think the flower is posing. :)

Jonquils

Crocus

Hey folks, it's Blogger's Bloom Day.  Spring is here and it looks like a good one.  We had a late bout of winter weather but nothing looks damaged.  I can't wait for the iris but that is in late April around here. Click on the tag below to see the other bloom day posts of mine.  Also you might want to look up May Dreams Garden.  It's a great tradition that connects you with fellow garden bloggers.

Potting up Veggies with Sloanie Mae

Sloanie, (my grand daughter), and I potted up some veggies.
Green and Red Bell Peppers, and Petunias.

We made a special pot for her where she planted 3 beans so that she could watch them grow.  All the while she was singing Farmer in the Tail (Dale).  She is 3 and a half years old.  Hope she takes up gardening later in life.  We always say a bracha (prayer) whenever we plant or harvest something.  There is a saying, "Those closest to nature are closest to God".

Springtime

There are infinite segments of a moment in time.

There is a spring somewhere
  for a little seed.
And she awaits it's coming
  from here on winter's day.
The urge within her swells
  of wanting for the robin to come home
  and the trees to dress their naked, knotty limbs;
  for the children to laugh and sing...they too have gone.
I fear her fate.
 Should she thrust her infant spriglettes up
  to taste the sun
  too soon.
  Would the frosty night return
  beheading her, her frail existence,
  before the chance to bloom?
And if she waits another year
  her fate I still must fear.
  Could then a blizzard come
  to freeze her thoroughly to the bone;
  her Spring denied.
But then that fateful day appeared.
  She laid her trust upon the hand
  of a circumstantial god.
  Should if the frosty night return
  her effort will not have been in vain.
  Because that finite day contains
  An infinite of infinite springs.

MG Morris

The turnips are up

My turnips are up and they made a pretty good stand.  This time I'm going to make a special effort to thin them out more than ever in hopes of having healthier plants that could fight off the aphids.  The soil they are in is very good and that should also help.

Turnips and Radishes have arrived.

I've noticed the iris greening up.  A sign they have broken their winter dormancy.  Here in Oklahoma they also go dormant in the hot summer months and put on rhizome growth in the fall and early winter.  At one time I had 400 varieties but there is no way I could take care of that many now.  In fact I'll have to thin the herd even more this year.

Grape hiacynths

The grape hyacinths are blooming now.  They are quite plentiful around the neighborhood and quite beautiful when blooming in mass.

Poinsettia rescue

I'm working on the fall garden log that I made up in 2013 while we are having this cold spell.  I have it all in a spiral-bound notebook and am in the process of putting it into a book using Microsoft word.  I would like to offer it as a download to provide a snippet of our fall garden experience.  I'm hoping to have it finished by the time the garden demands my full attention.

I had problems with the poinsettia in the south window.  We bring it in each year to overwinter.  It was attacked by white flies and almost died.  I tried this that and the other but finally had success by first taking it to the garage and using the sprayer from the facet to wash the critters off.  Next I picked off the worse leaves and rubbed out the nymphs with a small artist's brush. After that I made up a concoction of jalapeno peppers, water, and dish detergent.  I didn't have a blender so I ran the peppers through an old antique meat grinder I had, then strained it using an old T-shirt.  What ever you do DON'T TOUCH YOUR EYES UNTIL YOU WASH YOUR HANDS FIRST....OKAY, WEAR GLOVES. :)  I sprayed that plant top to bottom and both sides of all leaves.  Afterwards I re-potted the poor fellow and gave it a light dose of liquid fertilizer and placed it in a north window.  It is now showing signs of recovery by little leaves sprouting out after about 4 days there.  I don't think I'll have to say Kaddish over it, thank heaven.  It's very beautiful and I've tried to shape it to look bonsai-ish.  It needs another pruning but I'm going to wait until it has fully recovered to do that.  Check out this 21 year old poinsettia bonsai.of Nigel Saunders.  Mine is only 4 years old and will probably out-live me if I can manage to keep it alive. :)

Click on image to enlarge.

The Daffies are Blooming

The daffies are blooming and they are absolutely beautiful.  I planted them in the fall of 2013 and they are still looking good.  I planted  several clumps when we moved to Shangri la back in 2001 but the last of them died last year.  I just figure I will have to plant more every so often to keep up the numbers.

A note in passing:  The clematis showed up two days ago.

Jubilations! It's plantin' time in Shangri la.

Planted lettuce, radishes, onion slips, and put compost into raised bed.  So happy to get out into the garden and plant something.  BTW the little critter perched on the row marker stake is a cabbage butterfly watching her dinner being prepared.  

The bed on the left is raised about 6 inches while the one of the right is only 3 inches.  I've tried making them higher but they dry out too quickly in 102 deg weather.  The plants in the hog wire cage are black-eyed Susans...a native plant to Oklahoma.

Mr. Woodpecker is knocking

I'm watching you.

As I was making my daily rounds through the garden I suddenly heard a woodpecker hammering away on one of the trees.  We have seen the pileated woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, and a northern flicker here at Shangri la.  Before the ice storm, the landlord who thinned out all of his properties, and the power company trimming and removing trees we had a lot of bird life here in the 'hood. Also most of the abandoned houses have been torn down which provided nesting for several species.

A Valentines Poem

Struggle two cups of dust to be
a corporeal she and he.
It takes a long Eternity
to create a finite we

And then to fall in love
baffles Probability...
two spirits intersecting paths;
traversing two in infinities.

Our We is just a blink
of a universe's eye.
But what we see in just a wink
others could never share.

MG Morris

Inland Sea Oats, Chasmanthium latifolium

Inland Sea Oats, Chasmanthium latifolium

I gathered this at Osage State Park on a botanizing trip in 2004.  It was growing in a semi shaded area on the top of a wooded hill.  The image is 8.5x11 to give you a perspective of the size.  I really don't have the facilities for a herbarium and so keep these in a large, heavy book after drying.  I thrown many of them away because I don't have room but I keep them long enough to ID them and perhaps illustrate them.  As the main spring planting time approaches I'll have to put my winter projects aside and tend the garden.  But I can't resist botanizin'.  I can no longer go wading in the river to fish but I can botanize even with my walker or wheel chair.  You'd be surprised at how much botany there is to discover in your own yard, and especially if you own a garden.

Horticultural Oddities

Amatueraceae concoctio

Asteraceae octopi

I haven't done a watercolor in 45 years.  I bought a cheap set this November and tried my hand at it.  My technique definitely needs more work.  Both these flowers are a figment of my imagination, hence the peculiar nomenclature. :)  I'm going to keep at it in hopes of producing more colorful illustrations.  I did a lot of this sort of stuff in Biology and Zoology while in college but it was strictly with pen and colored pencil while viewing through a microscope.  I also have a little antique field microscope of 100X that focuses by sliding the lens assembly up or down a tube attached to the stand.  I wish I had binocular set with 10X-50X for more macro work.  

Botanical NOIDs ID

Noid 1 Legume?

This is a specimen I discovered in and antique Grays Botany book I purchased many years ago.  I have no idea what it could be.  My guess is that it is vetch....but?  If you have any idea please leave a comment.  BTW NOID means no ID.

Noid with scale

As you can see it is very small.  The pods are only 2cm long and are attached in pairs nearly opposite on the stems.  It appears that the stems are attached to the base of the plant in a whorl.  It fell out of the book and I don't know which page it went in and could not find a ghost of where it was placed.  It could have been in there for 100 yrs or more.

A horse in Shangri la

A new species has moved in

Equus ferus caballus

Guess what my neighbor brought home?  Yes, a horse.  Now I can add Equus ferus caballus to the group of mammals that we share our neighborhood with.  To name a few: squirrel, rabbit, dog, cat, goat, deer, (yes deer from the railroad tracks through the heart of the city), and mice.  The next day it started snowing and the wife made him put up a shelter for the poor thing.  We were all wondering why they were keeping the horse in the middle of town, (something that hasn't been done since the junk man and his horse drawn wagon roamed the streets of Tulsa in the 70s.  Anyway, a few days later Ole Point was gone.  We suppose it was a rescue operation or the city gave them a call.  Our granddaughter still asks where the horsey is.  I'm waiting for the camel to arrive. :)

Knapweed vs Bachelor Button in Winter Condition

Knapweed in winter condition

Here is a plant in my garden that looks similar to my bachelor buttons.  I don't know but I suspect it is spotted knapweed (Centaurea maculosa).  It is bigger than usual and does not have the silvery look to it.  The leaves, though, look exactly the same.  I wonder if it is a different variety of Bachelor Button.  Knapweed puts out toxins that deprive other plants around it of nutrients.  Two of these plants are growing in my iris seed bed and so they must go.  The other one I may let flower and pull it before it goes to seed just to see its flower in hopes for a positive ID.

Rose in Acrylic botanical illustration

This my first floral painting and first acrylic painting.  I attended the painting session taught by Rosemary at her class here in Tulsa.  Please visit Manic Pixie Studios from the links on Stickfigures home page.  I really enjoyed the class and her paintings.  She is going to do more flowers and I hope to be able to attend at least the one with an iris....my favorite flower.

Bloom Day at Shangri la

Speedwell in Winter Condition

Today is Bloom Day and the only thing blooming now is henbit & speedwell.  I love the speedwell in the lawn next to the sidewalk but try to keep it out of the garden as best I can.  Yes, I let weeds grow in my garden but try to keep them tame.  Worst of all was the morning glories.  I made the mistake of putting the spent plants in the compost pile and for about 4 years I was overwhelmed by them.  I found a place along the fence next to the sidewalk and they reseed themselves only in that spot.  The spent foliage and seed go right into the trash now. :)

Spring Planting Guide for Tulsa, OK

Spring Planting Guide for Tulsa, OK

This is my Spring Planting Guide for Shangri la, (Stickfigure Gardens).  If you use your own starts then sow them in flats 3 or 4 weeks before the planting date shown.  For example I start my broccoli in the middle of January and place them in a southern window.  Feel free to copy the guide or make one yourself using this format.  My guide was made up following the Oklahoma Agricultural Extension's pamphlet and then modified it a little for my particular garden.  You can do the same for your area.  This format is easier to follow and I made one up for the fall as well.

  I looked out my window and the cabbage moths are waiting for me. :)  I love to see them doing a ballet with my garden as a stage.  The only real damage they do is to cabbage that heads....I stopped growing them because the catapillars would turn them into swiss cheese.  The sparrows and wasps do forage for the catapillars and if you ever saw a wasp suck the life out of that poor creature you'd be glad your not one of them....the catapillar, I mean.

Cabbage moths are waiting for me

I looked out my window and a cabbage moth is waiting for me.  They sure do make the garden come alive when they do their ballet.  I also spotted an orange butterfly.  I hope to have my camera ready next time so I could try to ID them.

The buds are starting to swell on the magnolia tree, roses, flowering quince and lilac.  I noticed that not all the buds started up.  I wonder if this is a way of preventing the loss of all the flowers when the inevitable freeze comes.

The milkweed seeds have taken flight and are looking for a home.  Even though the pods and seeds are beautiful these plants have become pests and I have to weed them out of every bush on the place.

We used to have a flock of pigeons in our neighborhood but now there are only 3 left.  I wonder if the west Nile virus also effected the pigeon population as well and the chickadees.  Could be the red tailed hawk and eagles that have been hanging about had something to do with their demise.

Pink Oxallis

This is pink oxallis wintering over in one of my beds.  It came from my great grandmother's garden.  I remember it as a child and so I know it's been around for at least 60 years.  She would plant them in clumps that would dot her iris garden.  As you can see they can remain green in Oklahoma winters although I have seen them completely die back if it gets harsh enough.  The bulbs set almost like ducks on water and are easy to divide up in the early spring.  I also have a white variety but it is not as hardy as the pink and just before the first frost I bring in a potted clump for insurance.  They look very nice in the iris beds and bloom all season long.  

Wasp Houses

Here are my two Wasp Houses......no takers for 10 yrs.  Oh well, they still look nice in the garden.  My granddaughter and I painted them with acrylic paint last winter and they have held up pretty well.  They were given to me by my next door neighbor as bird houses but they are too small for that.  I think they are meant to accompany flower arrangements along with artificial birds.  I used to nail inverted 1 lb coffee cans to wood posts and have plenty of caterpillar eatin' wasps take up residence in them.  I was always afraid I would bump one and suffer a painful volley of stings.  So I didn't grow anything near enough to them for that to happen.  That was out in the country were I kept a 100x50 ft vegetable garden as a deer feeder. :)

Bachelor Buttons in Winter Condition

This is what bachelor buttons look like at the end of winter here in Tulsa.  I planted them from seed in 2001 and they reappear every season.  I collect and sow the seeds in the fall and keep some in the frig just in case something happens.  They stand about waist high and have light blue blooms.  The wood bees are especially found of them as are several other insects.

Blackeyed Susan in Winter Condition

Here is a photo of Blackeyed Susan as it winters over in my garden.  The seeds germinate in the fall and appear year after year in clumps.  I collected the seed from a pasture in Owasso in 1994 and have had them in my garden ever since.  I collect the seed every year and sow in the fall at their designated places.  The insects love the flowers and there is a special bee that collects pollen by going 'round n 'round the middle part of the flower.  I put a low cage made from hog fencing around the clump to keep them from falling over.  By the time real hot weather arrives they will have made seed that is ready to collect.

Sedum in Winter Condition

Sedum in winter condition.  These are planted in cement blocks and are completely covered by the plant

A cold front moved in today but didn't effect the high temps predicted.  When the wind died down I came out to enjoy the garden.  The sedum I have is a very nice winter plant to have here in Oklahoma.  This plant is from my great grandmother's garden.  She would plant several varieties in upturned cement or terracotta blocks and line her iris bed with them.  Among other plants in these folksy containers were Oxalis,  Blue-eyed Grass, Portulaca , & Grape Hyacinths.  Last year I took cuttings, (with some root still attached), in the spring rather than in the summer so they could take advantage of the wet part of the year to establish themselves.  The flowers are beautiful yellow at the end of tall stalks set up in the spring.  Skippers and other insects love them and my Korean sister-in-law told me they use it as salad food.  In real cold weather the ends of this plant turn reddish purple or just purple.  Other plants do the same in the garden and I've read articles where it is believed that the reddish tint (anthocyanin) is a way of protecting the plant from damaging sunlight and drought during the winter.

Mushrooms

Here is a page from my journal about mushrooms.  I copied the drawing from an old antique botany book I have.  Several years ago I took a Zoology class here at the local community college and drew many illustrations of microscopic creatures.  But somehow the notebook has been lost along with the drawings. I've always wanted to take Botany but so far it hasn't happened. Maybe I'll try this summer or fall.  We'll see.

Leonardo de Stickfigure's Studio

Here is a colored pencil drawing I did several years ago.  As you can see someone tilted the painting on the wall and the stool is turned around.  Wait a minute, where's Leon?

Winter Condition Botonizin'

Above are some drawings of plants in winter condition.  The one on the left is the magnolia (Tulip Tree) in my back yard taken from my sketchbook.  The one of the right is from my garden journal of a gumweed plant I collected near the OU campus here in Tulsa.  I collected several other plants but they were so fragile in their winter condition that they did not survive my handling them.  I love botanizing in the winter.  Here is a list of Plants that winter over in their green state in my garden:  Star of Bethlehem, Black-eyed Susans, Larkspurs, Groundsel, Henbit, Winter Onions, Garlic, Speedwell, Winter Rye, Honeysuckle, Bachelor Buttons, Sedum, Mosses, & Spider Lillies.  So there is plenty to see here in our part of the country during Jan & Feb.  There are also plenty of insects that show up on warm days, even in Jan.  And, of course, you can see me out in the garden during those times.  Also, if one digs under the mulch or into the compost pile you can see a whole community of little creatures to study.  I would be happy to post a link to your site for any winter botanizing or gardening you have blogged.

I finally found a book on winter botanizing.  This one is by Carol Levine, "Wildflowers in Winter" available from amazon.com.  Unless one has a wildflower garden, many of the plants will not be found in this book.  But many gardeners love to go out and visit natural places...even in winter.  You can preview this and similar books on the amazon site.

The henbit is blooming

Henbit on left, Speedwelll on right

The henbit is blooming along with the groundsel and another plant that looks like dead nettle but has blue and white flowers about 2.5 mm wide. (Turned out to be speedwell, veronica polita) The groundsel came in from some hay that I used for a scarecrow one year and completely covered two of the nearest beds the following year.  The advantage I have of getting rid of it is that it blooms in early, early spring and so sticks out well enough for me to weed it along with the henbit.  I don't let the henbit get too far along because it harbors powdery mildew.  All this means that I have to get out in early Febuary and weed.  Luckely we do have warm, sunny days with little wind during this time to play in the garden. Yestarday it was 80F with no wind and enough sun to get a sun tan.

The sparrows are pairing up and gathering nesting material already.  I put some water in the birdbath and in the time it took me to turn around it was full of little chirpers taking a bath.  Within about 10 min all was quite and I guess they  went off to preen themselves.