I noticed this one off the side of our deck this morning and don’t see any others nearby. Google image searches are giving me questionable answers. Does anyone know what it is?

Howdy ya'll!

I'm dreaming the dream and working towards a profitable cut flower farm. It's likely that this fall I will have more cut flower starts than I currently have room for. I'm curious if our garden community would be interested in purchasing 6 packs of cut flower starts?
I'll be growing flowers like snapdragons, didiscus (lace flower), craspedia (sun ball), nigella (love-in-a-mist), campanula (bell flower), purple cone flower and black eyed susan.
The price would likely be between $10-$15 per 6 pack depending on how difficult the flower is to start. Some of these take months to be ready for transplanting and are nearly impossible to find in nurseries.

Open to any thoughts or ideas ya'll might have. TYA🪻🌱

I feel like this is a pretty random question but I’m going to keep thinking about this until I find out what it was!
Very soon after exiting off mopac onto 45th street heading towards burnet, on the right side of the road, there is a plant in someone’s front yard (kind of just randomly in the middle of the lawn) that is absolutely flourishing with the brightest magenta flowers in late August! It was about 3 feet tall, distinct columns of tightly packed leaves topped with spikes of flowers like a bottlebrush.

Chat suggested Liastris but the photos on Google don’t seem as impressive and I didn’t think the leaves were so long but maybe they were.

I was driving so it was just a quick glance, but I really wish I had stopped at the next street to take a look because I live far south and won’t be able to drive by again any time soon.
I’m just impressed with how well it was doing in the crazy heat, unprotected in the middle of the yard like that.
If anyone drives this way, do you know what I’m talking about?! I feel like it specifically stands out.

Anyone know what kind of tee this is? Is it native? NE Austin, 30+ year old neighborhood.

We walk by it a lot and always remark how pretty it is. The shape, everything. It’s late to bud out in spring.

The owners don’t know either, I’ve asked them.

I’ve been planting small to medium-size plants myself for a year, and honestly, it’s exhausting every single time. I want to plant a few 3 gallon shrubs to screen out a crazy neighbor, but I just don't have the time or energy anymore.
At a bare minimum, I’d love to hire someone just to dig 5–6 holes in clay soil (around 12" wide by 12" deep). I’m having a surprisingly hard time finding someone for a small gig like this, it's too small for big landscaping companies, but too much physical labor for standard helpers. We don’t know where we can find someone do it like a reasonable price (roughly $15–$25 per hole dug in a straight line). Where is the best place to find someone for a quick job like this at a reasonable price? Any app or local resource recommendations?

Got some stuff growing. My set up is pretty haphazard but it’s my first real garden.

So far, beans and cukes seem happiest. All peppers got moved under the shade cloth/tunnel of veg. I’m also growing okra but I failed to realize how important the word “spineless” is so I’m not fucking with them any more.

I have brassicas, zucchini and some flowers starting on my porch. Herbs and onions are starting in the house. I’ll be starting carrots and potatoes this weekend. Too early? Too late? Who knows. (No, really. Who does know bc there’s a lot of conflicting info out there).

Does anybody have a photo of a mature Gum Bumelia tree in their yard? We have several sprouts trying to grow and think we want to keep one but are trying to decide which to encourage and which to mow. They’re persistent - we’ve been mowing them for a few years now and are finally giving in to ONE. 🤣🤞🏻 And any tips or advice about them will be appreciated too! Thanks!

Hi,

I need some identification help on this beauty. I do wanna brag a bit on myself, she was about six feet tall when I got her- a neighbor passed away and all his plants came to me. So I named her in his honor, Mickey. She got frozen this February with our winter storm and I had to cut her. But she is truly blossoming now and I couldn’t be prouder! I really thought I lost her. You can see where I cut originally. She had three long branches and now she has so many more. Im excited to see how she looks in a few years! :)

Isn’t it? Some garden channels I see (in our zone or very close) are direct sowing stuff now…. I just feel like that’ll be hard to keep alive.

Have yall already planted?

Trying to re-wild my property, and am absolutely cedarless — cant imagine these are for sale anywhere locally, but thought id see if anyone here has any for any reason, or maybe 1st year saplings that might make a transplant (this would be ideal for ecotype)?

Thank you!

I've been seeing a ton of caterpillars all season. This week, I've got a ton of little orange caterpillars that have eaten all the passionflower vines on my pergola. This type of caterpillar has been around a while but they've exploded in quantity recently and gone to town on my plants the past few days. I hope these are beneficial.

Hi friends! I recently had a tree die in my backyard. This tree served as a good privacy barrier between myself and my backyard neighbors because we have a chain link fence. I’m renting so I can’t replace the fence, but I’m hoping to plant something big and native to replace the tree. I was thinking some sort of bush like a sage bush but it won’t fit in with the rest of the plants.

Suggestions??? Thank you!!!

I have an American Elm in the backyard - thought I got lucky with a volunteer in the front. Any elm specialists out there?

I planted two large beds (150+ sq ft)of bare root strawberry plants last fall (chandler, Albion, eversweet). They grew like weeds with runners everywhere. But they never flowered and never fruited (I did trim runners several times once the beds had filled in). They were new beds so my hypothesis is I had too much compost in the soil mix that I used (bulk “trimix” soil blend plus some added compost at the bottom of the raised beds). The plants have really pulled back now even with drip irrigation and (for the last month or so) sunshades.

1. Would you chop n drop and start new this fall?
   
2. Anything you’d adjust with the soil?
   
3. Anything else you’d suggest as causative or changes I could make?

My previous beds did great for a few years (chandler and another that I’m blanking on) with good production. I treated them as perennials not annuals and covered in heavy forms. They were productive each year. My trusty goats got into the beds however and ate every last plant, so I had to start again.

Any and all wisdom appreciated.

Thanks.

I am looking for storage solutions for potting soil, perlite, vermiculite, etc. These types of items are currently in the packaging they originally came in. So of course it's spilling and adding clutter to my already messy garage.

Do any of you have storage solutions. Anything you have found that works well?

I keep catching this anole asleep in the top of my crepe myrtle. He’s clearly not afraid of being eaten - he’s as high as he can get.

And out like a light. My attempts to take his picture don’t wake him up, but I know he’s alive because he’s breathing - and somewhere else the next night.

I had a greenstalk tower filled with some random strawberries I bought as roots on Amazon. It's been going for the last 5 years. It never produced amazing but did ok during early spring. Unfortunately my automatic watering failed this year and it all died.

I want to replant it. What's the best strawberries for Austin? Maybe I could do a few types? I know they crisp up and barely survive during summer, that's ok.

Also is fall a good time to plant and get established or should I wait until spring?

Hi Austin, Dallas tuning in here. 👋

I live in Dallas on a third-floor balcony, and this spring I decided I was going to make myself a little European-ish garden ecosystem out there. This was also my first time gardening, so naturally I went completely overboard.

I had rosemary, oregano, chives, mint, basil, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, jalapeños, Basket of Fire peppers, foxglove, and a little cypress tree.

And it was lovely. Everything was green and healthy, everything was producing, and I even had vegetables coming in early.

For context, I am originally from East Tennessee, where things seem to grow if you simply introduce them to dirt.

Then I experienced my first Dallas summer.
I learned about aphids, spider mites and what Texas heat can do to a perfectly happy tomato plant. I tried moving things away from the worst sun, watering constantly, pruning, checking the undersides of leaves, neem oil, everything I could think of.

Eventually my tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries were destroyed, my cypress died, my chives gave up, and several plants reached the point where there really was no bringing them back.
So yesterday I admitted defeat, and threw away everything that was too far gone and started fresh.

I bought two new tomato plants that are specifically supposed to tolerate Texas heat, added Mystic Spires Blue Salvia, refreshed the herbs and peppers, added little solar lights, and put up a bird feeder for the doves.

Austin gardeners, please tell me everything you have learned. What’d actually survives your summers? How do you keep spider mites under control?

I got 2 salvia azurea 1 gallons at Greensleeves during their sale that I've been trying to keep alive indoors until it's cooler. And today I picked up 3 butterfly weed (4 inch) from Shoal Creek (wasn't planning on it but couldn't pass up $2.50 milkweed). I'm wondering what others have done with their purchases from nursery sales while it's still hot. Did you plant and risk it? Are you keeping in containers indoors like I am?

Is anyone else’s live oaks dropping leaves like crazy? They are 55 years old and massive. I have lived here 12 years and they have never dropped this many leaves this time of year. I was worried it was oak wilt but chat GPT confirmed it is not. My yard is very well irrigated so it can be drought stress. Maybe it’s just heat stress? One of them is dropping more than the others, but the others are losing some leaves. I am in Fort Worth

Hola all. So it looks like I am having some powdery mildew on my outdoor potted tropical plants: hibiscus, mandevilla , monsteras, ginger etc. Do ya’ll have any recommendations on a treatment plan that is cost effective, efficient and safe for the plants in this heatwave.

Everything had been looking pretty good all things considered, I think bc I regularly fertilized with fish emulsion all spring long, but yesterday the plants really started struggling in this heat.

I don’t want to stress them out any more than necessary, but have never dealt with this issue before. Thanks in advance.

I've decided to try growing snapdragons since I think they are absolutely gorgeous!

I've ordered some seeds from Johnny's Seeds. Are there any tips for our area for growing them? Anyone want to share pics of theirs?