Turk’s Cap

It was a really warm and windy end of February in central Oklahoma. The high winds caused a severe fire risk alert and I saw two fires in my area. A neighboring apartment building caught on fire and I saw a loud news helicopter 🚁. I don’t know if anyone was hurt but I could see holes in the roof after. It was in the middle of the morning so hopefully most people were at school or work. I have been trying to transplant my seedlings into larger containers but didn’t finish. I ran out of potting mix so will have to finish the rest next week. They are about a month old and most are doing well. I have been starting to put them out on nice days and the majority are tolerating this. My aloe vera hasn’t been doing great since I transplanted it into a larger container and the squirrels started to dig in it. We went to the farm on Friday and worked most of the day. I planted lots of seeds, of course. I planted wild flowers, poppies, dill, borage, cilantro, parsley, calendula, and larkspur. I’m pretty sure there’s more I’m forgetting. I am definitely a chaos gardener. I try to keep up with what I have planted and where but I’m a bit forgetful like a squirrel 🐿️ in that regard. I helped my boyfriend again this week and he bought me another plant. We got a Turk’s Cap for the butterflies and hummingbirds. It’s already got a bloom. I will have to wait a few weeks to plant it until I can be sure if won’t freeze again. Oklahoma is unpredictable like that. Speaking of hummingbirds, I had bought a red trumpet honeysuckle for them from Walmart a few weeks ago. Imagine my surprise on Friday to find white blooms on it 😲. It’s a totally different species that’s invasive called Tatarian honeysuckle. Not really sure what to do with it now. My boyfriend has been telling me since we started the garden not to buy plants from there. I often find it hard to resist a good deal and a pretty flower photo. However, now I am done buying plants from Walmart in the future. The clematis I bought from Walmart recently also broke in half during planting. A lot of things are coming up already despite the drought. I saw the day lilies are coming back and the hardy banana tree is as well. We’ve decided to start doing some shorts for YouTube of the garden. I have already done a few with my squirrels and cat. It’s pretty fun and not as hard as I thought it would be. We planted the crossvine this week since it is very hardy and can handle a short freeze. I saw daffodils blooming nearby but ours haven’t yet. I did see the crocuses are blooming and the phlox is starting to flower as well. We have some asparagus ready for harvest but we forgot to take it. I also saw the henbit making all of the grassy yards look like a sea of purple 💜. The Bradford pear is also starting to bloom by our apartment but the one at the farm hasn’t started. I saw the biggest earthworm I have ever seen in the bulb garden. It must have been at least a foot long. I also saw a field cricket and a few mosquitoes. I had thought that freezing weather killed mosquitoes but apparently some can survive winter. I have had an allergic reaction to mosquito bites called Skeeter Syndrome in the past so I try to avoid those mosquitoes 🦟. I also saw some kind of gulls flying around the supermarket this week. I hadn’t realized that gulls lived as far inland as Oklahoma. I have been pretty busy with plants this week but did do both art lessons. My art teacher did a more abstract style lesson this week and it was out of my comfort zone. My boyfriend liked the drawing quite a bit at the end. I can certainly see the appeal of abstract work. It was fun to try something different and more expressive. I am planning to practice drawing flowers next week since I can’t wait for spring. 🌺