My Agony in the Garden, by the decade, Part 3 - Glory, Glorious, Gloria in excelsis!

My long, long driveway is my magnum opus.

That sounds pretty weird. But you should come walk the length of this thing, not just when my praire plants are at their riotously colorful peak in July, but in September too, when the deep purple aster reigns in harmony with the goldenrod.

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Prince will lead the way. September 2020 photo by me.

Remember my lament on the invasive grass species

overwhelming my native praire plants? I have happy news: the everlasting battle is tipping in my favor, for now, for a while. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

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The composite photo (above) shows it's the same site, with our little chestnut tree as a marker. You can see my work is still in progress - on the lower right, there's our driveway, shadowed by bromegrass. Have I posted photos of my mountains of pasture grass set ablaze after my days and days of piling up wheelbarrows full of the stuff? No? Another day!

Wish you could have seen our little chestnut tree in April. We ended up buying SEVEN in all, we love is so much! More on that some other day....

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I believe I have every single grass listed below, the worst of all being QUACK grass with its extensive root system. Ok, the reed canary is just as impossible, and I have an entire acre of it in the wetlands. sigh Nope, not gonna do a chemical dump.

Timothy
Smooth Bromegrass
Meadow Bromegrass
Orchard Grass
Reed Canary Grass
Creeping Red Fescue
Meadow Fescue
Tall Fescue
Meadow Foxtail
Kentucky Bluegrass
Canada Bluegrass
Perennial Ryegrass
Red Top
Quack Grass

The photo below, taken last December seven miles from home, shows how prairie can look. I believe the grass shown here is Big Bluestem.

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WHAT I WANT TO DO NEXT:

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photo poached from the "My Story" wall of my sister's "earth goddess" daughter

My niece is in Washington this week, photographing lavender fields, beaches, waterfalls, forests, and other wonders of the world. I will resist the urge to poach more of her photos. She is amazing.

Meanwhile, I continue to search books and the internet for clues to identifying the mystery species that show up in my garden. Somehow, one of bergamots turned white. Cool! Not so cool: the black larvae eating leaves. What are these things?

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I summoned a biologist (retired) to the premises because he knows every bird and bee in the Midwest. But when asked to ID my mystery hornet (little black fighter jets, faster than the Stealth Bomber), he was stumped.

Who might you bee?

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He also could not ID all the bees. This one, yes (but don't ask me to remember it!):

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He did confirm the identity of my quick, elusive little lizards. Not prairie skinks, as I'd have guessed, but six-lined racerunner! MY PRAIRIE PLANTS drew them here. "If you build it, they will come." What a bonus! What a crazy amount of happy it brings me to see these little glimpses darting into the cover of towering goldenrod stalks! I don't know how I managed to get so lucky as to capture this little racerunner, whose skin is a lot more green in real life than in the photo:

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Even in winter, even on "drab" wet days,

(I maintain there is no such thing as "drab" here; just different hues and shades and colors),
my long, long driveway is my passion. My obsession. I love it.

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I walk it and rejoice that I am alive in this world of alien invaders, tormenting chiggers and mosquitoes, conquering hoards of Japanese Beetles, pasture grass trying to own the universe, and mystery species to keep me speculating for decades to come.

Winter White

is a reminder that the agonies of the biting bugs are DONE for the season. Also, what is drab about white and shades of gray and black? How underrated this "monochromatic" palate can be!

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One day I managed to get my caption to appear with my photo at the "My Story" page. No two days, no two years, are ever alike, when the blossoms burst into color. Every day is good! (nope, not gonna mention today's heat and humidity.)

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(Now to see if I managed to post from the right community this time: #SilverBloggers, I hope! Not lifestlyle lounge, oops!)
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(Edited)

Beautiful photos, and what an elegant princely pooch. Have you tried an app called PlantNet to identify your mystery species? I used your image, and the top three hits are Early Goldenrod, Goldenrod, and creeping Croftonweed. The rest are all varieties of Goldenrod.

Edit: nevermind. You were talking about the bugs 😅

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LOL, yes, it's the bugs that stumped the biologist. But thank you for looking it up! I have at least three types of goldenrod, and I never remember which is which.

I have Ageratina riparia? 😅 No I don't, honest!

Do you trust that Plant App? My white flowers are spurge, fleabane, soapwort (more lavender than white), and the woodland flower that poisoned Abe Lincoln's mother:

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The white snakeroot was responsible for poisoning the milk that killed Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Abe’s mother, and many others in Indiana during the early 1800s when he was 9 years old. Cows ate snakeroot; apparently only Mrs. Lincoln consumed their milk; seven days later, at the age of 34, she was dead.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/05/12/abraham-lincolns-angel-mother-and-the-mama-who-outlived-him/

This one is known for poisoning horses (but I'm pretty sure creeping Croftonweed is not what I have):

The specific toxin responsible for poisoning has not yet been identified, however it has a cumulative effect on horses. Symptoms of poisoning may start to develop anywhere from a couple weeks to several months from when the plant was first ingested by the horse. The toxins damage the lung tissue, resulting in permanent damage to the respiratory system. Horses tend to like the taste of A. riparia, so it is important to be diligent about removing this plant from pastures where horses might graze. A. riparia is most toxic when it is in full bloom.

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See more at: http://www.horsedvm.com/poisonous/mistflower/

Thank you for reading and researching and commenting, @litguru!

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Plants with history! I wonder if and how such an event altered the course of history in the USA. It goes to show how even small events could have large outcomes. Chaos. =)

The app is pretty good. I use it with another app called "Planta" to take care of my plant watering schedule. Planta also has an identification function but it's Premium, so I use PlantNet to identify them.

Good luck getting rid of the pesky bugs.

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The bugs, like the common cold, and now Covid, are with us always.
Best I can do is spray myself with Pyrethrin (toxins, ugh) or just stay indoors.
I may have to overcome my phobia of "Apps" and download some botany apps.
Ah, the history, the small events, the large outcomes (well said, @litguru) - no wonder so many of us like to believe in a parallel universe (Mandela effect, people who remember the Monopoly man wearing a monocle, but no, that's only the Planter's Peanut man).....

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oops, make that "spray my clothes," not skin, with Pyrethrin.
Scary stuff. But effective.

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I am very jealous of your driveway!!! It's gorgeous, invasive grasses and all. And that chestnut!!! I wish I could see it too.

You don't have any big bluestem? You must have everything else but! What a prairie that is, and those colors... I agree that there is no such thing as drab where you are - that shot of Prince on the driveway (driveway?) is pure silver and gold. Stunning.

You are one goddess in the garden.

a modest goddess

I tried to write a haiku, but that's as far as I got. It's a good start!

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ooh, "modest godess" might become my new user name!
Yes, I do have some big bluestem. Much more of the little bluestem.
In 20 years, my side oats gamma have not multiplied. Frustrating! I've planted it along the driveway but the pasture grasses choke out the natives.
I had some maiden grass up by the mail box, but road work took it - along with my yellow-blossom cactus which is actually native to the Midwest. GONE. Gone. And poachers dug up my asculapia tuberosa! May the chiggers eat these thieves!
For all the casualties, lots of survivors have given me hope and reason to keep fighting this endless fight to give the natives room to breathe and slow the inexorable advance of the alien species.

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Hey, if things didn't disappear, you wouldn't have anything to do!

modest goddess
engaged with nature

(can't remember the last line)

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modest goddess
engaged with nature
the wedding is off!

Wedding, Weeding... it just came to me on seeing "ENGAGED." :)

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You have a great driveway with all kinds of lovely plants lining it, Carol. Prince is enjoying life there.

”alien invaders, tormenting chiggers and mosquitoes, conquering hoards of Japanese Beetles”

I can add many kinds of ants to your collection of annoying critters.:)

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Ah, yes, the ants. As long as they stay outside, I can tolerate them.
But they find their way in, and I must leave out baking soda for them to take back to their nests, where, I'm told, they ingest it and it forms a gas that makes them explode. How can this be...????
I've said nothing about the mice. Or the moles and voles. A whole special kind of hell... the damage to our vehicles! Our mechanic told us one guy had mice packing the exhaust system with popcorn kernels. You can guess what happened next.... though the guy who had his car towed had NO IDEA what was going on....

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Baking Soda: The Non-Toxic Way to Get Rid of Ants

To use baking soda as an insecticide, you need baking soda and confectioners sugar. Ants know to avoid baking soda, but masking it with sugar will trick them into consuming the chemical and sharing it with their colony. Follow these steps to kill ants with baking soda: Mix equal parts confectioners sugar and baking soda in a cup....

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Thanks Carol @carolkean. I didn’t know the baking soda would work. Icing sugar and borax in equal parts was what someone told me here. I’m not sure what the borax does besides keep them nice and clean. :))

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Borax - mined from the earth, in California - those old commercials, 20 Mule Team Borax!
I don't know what it does, exactly.
Espom salt + vinegar + Dawn dish soap allegedly kills weeds (and any good, wanted plants nearby).
Good luck with your ant infestation!

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Thanks Carol.There are every kind of ants here, small , red, big black ones, flying ants, etc. Luckily no fire ants. I had a box of the 20 Mule Team Borax in the laundry room. I mixed it with icing sugar (equal parts) and put the mixture around the outside of the house. That seemed to do the trick to keep the ants from coming inside.

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Powdered sugar + Borax = No More Ants in your house? Good for you!

I will force myself not to picture exploding ants. I'm still using the baking soda method myself. I actually like ants. And mice. But NOT IN MY HOUSE.

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I feel the same way about the ants and don’t like to have to kill anything but they have to be stopped from coming into the house. The carpenter ants can do damage to the structure of a building.

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Carpenter ants: we's had to battle those.
And woodpeckers! How do they create such perfect circles, drilling holes into the siding, pulling out insulation, finding their way inside (the cabin). Destructive little feather-brains. We've had swallows trying to nest inside the garage. They never seem to catch on: the door goes SHUT, regularly, which would keep them from their eggs, or from feeding the babies. Bird brains. Relentless ants. Home invasions. We have to defend our territory, and I hate killing things, but they drive us to it. -_- You are absolved, @redheadpei! :)

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The wildlife can be relentless when they want something, like to come inside or eat the building.

Thanks Carol @carolkean for absolving me. :))

Have a wonderful ant free week my friend. ❤️

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Powdered sugar + Borax = No More Ants in your house? Good for you!

I will force myself not to picture exploding ants. I'm still using the baking soda method myself. I actually like ants. And mice. But NOT IN MY HOUSE.

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