They may be without power. Hope we hear from them soon.

Thank you so much for your prayers! We have been visiting family out of state and missed the hurricane. Our neighbors are keeping us updated as much as they can. There is no electricity and damage to trees, plants, fencing etc. No one was hurt in our area, and I'm thankful for that! 🥰

Thank you so much for your thoughts! 🥰 I am going to post to the Community tab today with an update.

@@ButterfliesNBirds very thankful for you guys safe travels home

Thank you! 🥰

Unfortunately we couldn't because we have been out of town visiting family. My neighbor has been keeping me posted. We will be returning soon for cleanup. I hope you missed the brunt of this hurricane!

Trailing torenia is considered an annual although it may survive mild winters in zone 9. Upright torenia is a reseeding annual. Look for the wishbone inside the flower. If it has broken, you can bet a bee visited that flower.

@@melaniemohler3634 thank you... love the broken wishbone 😊

Good morning neighbor! I have been thinking of you in Lake Jackson ... how are you? We have been out of town visiting family and missed this hurricane. My neighbor said it was really scary as we were on the "dirty side". We will be returning for cleanup. I hope you are safe. I will be replying to the comments soon about the plant questions, but I wanted to check on you.

Some passion vine does spread by rhizomes (one of mine does - the hybrid Incense, the other native passion vine I have does not spread). I totally understand you not wanting it to take over your garden bed! I hope you get some rain soon. Last summer was brutal for us as we had a drought and extremely high temperatures (over 100 degrees) for extended periods of time. I had to continually water too. I unfortunately lost a handful of perennials due to those extreme conditions for us. I hope you don't have anything like that this summer. We have gotten some rain this year which has helped so much.

I love the plants you listed in the shady areas of your garden! 😍 I wasn't familiar with astrantias, so I had to look those up! Very pretty. 😊

Thank you! 🥰 The Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly lays eggs on dill, and the caterpillars love it.

Hello! Unfortunately, the Latin name is just the standard Lantana Camara. 😕 The Bloomify series is the first sterile lantana and it is patented/trademarked. Here are a couple of websites with info on this series in the U.S.: www.ballseed.com/webtrackplantinfo.aspx?phid=036908083004054 www.almostedenplants.com/shopping/products/11411-bloomify-red-lantana/

​@@ButterfliesNBirdsthanks for the links. I will ask the hardware/nursery if they know if it's been released here. I was sure I had seen a pink lantana at some stage in there but maybe it was an old style one.

lol - I know they are always "busy" in the garden. It is fun to be out there with them. 😊

I don't think it comes back from the main stalk, but I could be wrong. It might branch if I don't cut it close to the ground - I think I would have to cut it above healthy and growing leaves.

You bet! Thanks for the comment. 😊

Thank you so much for watching and your lovely comment! 🥰

Good morning neighbor! 😊 You can't go wrong with either of those two plants down here. The Stoke's aster is a native for us. Pollinators will love those two additions in your garden!

Hello Houston neighbor! 😊 Our humidity (and heat) can be such a challenge in the garden for us ... not to mention the heavy clay soil we deal with too. Thanks so much for your comment! 🥰

Hello from Texas to Ireland! 🥰 Oh wow ... I love the list of plants you have in your garden!!! 😍 Peonies are a flower I cannot grow here, but it is one of my favorite flowers. Do you have a favorite flower in your garden at the moment?

@@ButterfliesNBirds That's a hard question to answer because I like all the flowers and shrubs in our garden.

Fair enough! 👍😊

That is fantastic!!! I hope you get nice plants sent to you!!! I find that too in my garden, my hummingbirds don't go to my bird feeders in the summer because they have so many nectar flowers and small insects/gnats to feed on. I have taken my hummingbird feeders down now and will put them back up in mid-August when the males start to migrate through. And it is absolutely wonderful about your female monarch laying lots of eggs on your common milkweed. Double hurrah!!! 🥰

Hello! Yes, I plant them as seeds. The first year I started them indoors in seed trays (I'm not great at seed starting, but they lived in spite of me). I then planted these starts outdoors. I do deadhead the spent flowers, but some self seeded last fall and I had Tithonia flowers until we froze. This spring I had about 20 plants come up from self seeding, and I saved 10 of them and moved them to the new "central garden bed". So, the self seeded ones were like the "just tossing" method. 😊

I'm glad you enjoyed it! 😊

LOL - Tri-clopse is funny - I like it! 😂

If you do put out shelled peanuts, the blue jays, cardinals, titmice, woodpeckers, and wrens really like them. (Squirrels do to, so unless you want the squirrels eating you out of house and home, you can get a feeder that deters squirrels.)

I think that is a great idea! 😀👍

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! 😊

Thanks for visiting! I have cardinal climber in my yard each year, and I really like that it is easy to grow from seed. 😊

LOL ... the poor thing ... these bees are actually pretty endearing to us. I admit "ugly bee" is a poor name for it, but I was shocked by its appearance when I zoomed in on a picture I had captured. It has 3 large round spots ... more like in the positions of eyes and nose ... but they they are all the same size. When I was researching at the time for it, I could never find a picture of it ... and we now have quite a few in our yard. It is estimated that Texas is home to between 1100 and 1500 species of native bees, so it doesn't surprise me I had difficulty finding it online. I eventually quit looking. (But I did scour all the Houston area native bee pictures I could find.) It is really difficult to get good pics of it, but if I knew anyone who knew native Texas bees, they could probably help me identify it. 😊

If you have lots of flowers, I know your garden is beautiful! 😍 I used to raise monarch and eastern black Swallowtails in enclosures too, but stopped this year. I had critters break into the enclosures and eat all the chrysalises. 😪 I think they have a better chance of survival in my yard if they can choose their own spot to pupate. For the bird food I use different food at different times of the year. I get all my bird seed at a store called Wild Birds Unlimited. Right now I am putting out Safflower seed for the cardinals and house finches, shelled peanuts for the woodpeckers, blue Jays, and titmice, a blend for wrens, chickadees, shelled sunflower seeds for most birds that visit my yard, and a suet called Bark Butter. Whew - that was probably more than you wanted to know! Lol.

@@ButterfliesNBirds Thank you, that was lots of good information, my husband gets the small sunflower seeds, but the white winged doves have found our yard some year ago and so the blue jays and cardinals, besides squirrels they don’t have much of a chance. We used to have a store of the Wild birds unlimited in Beaumont, but sadly they did not last long. I will contact them again.

White winged doves are an absolute menace in my backyard. Flocks of them would fly in (like 40+ at a time) and they would devour all the seed they could eat. They didn't exhibit aggressive behavior, but they are so large that they move out all the other birds. I finally quit using my platform feeders and purchased a "Sky Cafe feeder with dove guard" that has kept them at bay. They are smart birds though, and constantly try to find a way to get to my seed. At least I don't have the flocks fly in now ... but I do have about 5-6 "regulars" that forage and keep trying my other feeders.

@@ButterfliesNBirds I don’t know if I can talk my husband into giving up that beautiful platform feeder from Wild Birds Unlimited, but that would have to happen you are right

I hear you! I haven't taken mine down, because I love how it looks in the yard. I just don't put seed in it at the moment. I can tell you I don't have a White winged dove problem anymore. Yay!!! 😀👍

Lol ... they are noisy! 😂 I try to enjoy what is in the garden each season because I miss things once they are gone. For instance, we only have Goldfinches in the winter and they are in our backyard January and February. I will have 30-40 come together at the same times each day and they are such social little birds it is fun to watch them. But it is so quiet once they leave in the early spring to go to their nesting grounds. 😊 Right now I have butterflies and our native birds.

🥰

Oh boy, that is tough. Think about what type of birds you would like in your yard, and that will dictate the type of seed or suet, which will help me recommend a bird feeder. 🐦 😊 (Quality seed is important so you don't have messes in your yard).

@@ButterfliesNBirds my inclination is to say songbirds but that seems naive. What are the best birds for pest control?

The birds I have observed to comb through all my pots and garden beds in the summer are the cardinals, Carolina Wrens, mockingbirds, and sometimes blue jays. The feed to attract them are suet (like Bark Butter), shelled peanuts, and shelled sunflower seeds. If you have a squirrel problem, definitely consider a "squirrel proof" feeder or seed/suet laced with hot pepper.

@@ButterfliesNBirds thank you!! Very helpful!!

Thank you! 😊

I just love lots of activity in the garden. It is so fun to be out in it. The birds, butterflies, hummingbirds, and bees are used to me so they don't fly away. I get to know their little quirks too, which is fun.

Awww, thank you! 😊

I agree! The fennel loves its life where I have it.

You know, when I was trying to find out what it could be one of the first things I looked at were hover flies on the internet because these bees "hover". But the ones in my yard don't look like the pics of hover flies. Maybe it is a special type! Lol.

My Carolina Wrens are loud little birds! In the spring when they are singing for mates it is hard to believe such a little bird could belt out such a loud song. 😂

I hope you had a great vacation! I got the Happy Frog at Enchanted Gardens nursery in Richmond. It was cheaper there than at Ace Hardware believe it or not. I would Google and see where you could get it that was close to you. It is kind of expensive ... I think I paid $14 a bag. But I only put it in the beds in the spring.

That's a great tip! 👍😀

It is a bummer when you see that happen. 😢 You have a kind heart trying to assist it. 🥰 I'm sorry the baby woodpecker didn't make it. I have seen dead baby birds in our neighborhood when I take my puppy for walks. Squirrels are yucky to have because they kill/eat baby birds.

@@ButterfliesNBirds I didn't know squirrels kill birds. Maybe the baby fell out the tree hole trying to get food from it's parent. Maybe he was too young to fly back up. Idk My son and I buried it. It was such a beautiful sweet little bird.

Squirrels kill baby birds, but I don't think they kill adult birds. The baby birds are just more vulnerable. Whenever I see a dead baby bird on the sidewalk, I always wonder what happened to it. I saw maybe two or three this spring that lay dead in people's yards. 😢 I'm glad you and your son buried the one you found.