Gotta plant while the sun shines and the wind don't blow

 Woo-ee. It has been a crazy windy few days down here in Austin.  It did blow in a cool front, but, dear lord, did it blow.  I had empty plastic pots that were pushed from one end of the yard to the other, and they only didn't go further because of the fences. As one point, the large plastic dog kennel we keep outside for the cat got blown to the other end of the deck.

So now, with the sun shining, a few days after a nice rain storm, and while the wind isn't blowing, is a great time to do some of that fall planting.  I planted shallots in the east garden (and labeled the area, thank you very much), planted some Lady Jane tulips by the bird bath and in the front close to the irises I got from Sheryl, and some Tinka tulips next to my purple iris bed and by the "Lucinda's iris" in the hell strip. Also finished off planting the gomphena from Jenny, and the Mexican Bush Sage and Marilyn's Choice Abutilons I bought from Barton Springs Nursery last week. 

Still on the lookout for big tooth maple (small size) to replace my dead Arizona Ash and a Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum to replace the Rough Leaf Dogwood and Carolina Buckthorn trees that I ripped out.

Also - if you haven't already done it, now's the time to cut back that Mexican Milkweed (the one that blooms orange/red and doesn't seem to die back as quickly as the other milkweeds). I just counted 5 monarch butterflies on my shrubby boneset which means the migration is well underway.

Behold: my fish! A gift from Roberta for my 40th birthday last weekend.  Now I just need to get the columbines to paint around it and like 2 more fish to make it all look intentional.

More work

 So one of the weird things is that once I start working on something, I'll either let it sit for like a decade, or I'll get it done in a weekend.  

This is a spot that nothing has every grown all that well - except for the spreading liriope, and part of the reason why things don't grow well, I'm sure, is BECAUSE of the spreading liriope. So I made the decision to yank it all out as well as the rough leaf dogwood I never really liked. Which means now I get to think of something else to put there.  I'm thinking Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum and a bunch of columbines.

Monarchs

 I tend to let my paper wasps have free reign of the yard. I currently have at least 5 different nests, and, as long as they don't sting us, they get to stay. Full disclosure - one DID sting Shawn but by the time I went out and bought wasp spray for him to spray the nest he was over his anger at getting stung so that nest earned a reprieve.

The benefit of wasps is that they keep the yard caterpillar free. The downfall is wasps is that they'll also keep your yard free of the caterpillars you actually want (i.e. the monarch caterpillars).  Thus, if I find monarch caterpillars, I have to raise them in the house.  I've previously written about this so I won't rehash all of that here, BUT I figure y'all would like to see the videos I got earlier this summer of both the beginning and the end of the pupation stage. (As we are now in fall migration mode, be sure to cut that tropical milkweed to the ground for the rest of the year - we want those butterflies making their way down to Mexico, not getting waylaid by thinking it's time to mate)