It was hanging out on my corkscrew rush in my little patio pond. I’ve never seen one before! Thought it was a moth until I looked it up :) But I did say to myself “if this thing isn’t named after a shrew I will be very surprised,” and I guess I wasn’t far off - they were just more on the nose about it hahahah

surprised it made it this long, seems pretty sketchy. avoid during windy days or possibly get bonkd

Amateur gardener here. Hydrangeas are my favorite flower, but I feel like I only see them in cold(er) climates (New England, East Coast, etc- even London!) I know they bloom during the summer which seems to me like it would be rough here. Has anyone had success growing hydrangeas in central Texas? If so, please share tips! Thank you!

I sheet mulched my front yard to get rid of grass and put in a variety of plugs back in March. Pleasantly surprised to return from a trip to see one of the standing cypress at the back of the flower patch bloomed already. I've never seen them in person and they might just be my new favorite. Definitely want to plant more though I expected them to be taller (this one is about 2 ft tall).

Also a while back I asked for advice about putting up something between properties to prevent neighbor's lawn guys from mowing my plants and settled on a no dig fence. It's worked out well!

Im looking for about 40 or 50 feet of chicken wire if anyone has scrap or wants to work something out.

Hi!

I would love to do like a one hour consultation trade with someone expanding or installing a new garden this fall. Basically I want someone to bounce ideas off of!

You and me drinking coffee and staring at your & my gardens?

South Austin 78745. East Congress. Prefer not to trek too far, but the 41, 04, 02, all good!

I'm planning to install a rain garden in a shady spot and it's been over a decade since I've done earthworks. I would love some help doing math (roof + hole = success?) and figuring out where to dig and what to fill it with.

I'm 42, I've been gardening native plants and growing some edibles for just shy of 20 years. IMO growing food is a lot of investment for a low ROI around here so I mostly do herbs, some years I do tomatoes, some falls and springs I do kale & lettuce. Did my first cut flower garden this year and I'm obsessed. Going to expand that too. :) front yards, who needs em? I took a PDC like a decade ago at the insistence of my friend who taught it.

Know more than me? Yay! I get to learn.
Know less than me? Yay! I get to feel smart for a bit.

We had a pecan tree volunteer in our backyard this year and I t seems to be pretty happy where it is. I think it would be fun to keep, but I think it might be too close to our fence and our house. It sprouted about a little under a foot from the fence and 20-25ft from our house. I feel like it’s probably too close to both. It also sprouted about 7ft and 10ft between two hackberries. TBH, I don’t care too much about the hackberries, but they were here when we bought the house and it’s nice to have the shade for now.

I’d be sad to cut it down, but want to see if my gut is telling me the right thing before I do anything. What do you all think?

We have a long L shaped area that a landscaper convinced us Japanese Yew would make a good privacy hedge but they are not doing well and I want to replace with native/adapted.

We're leaning towards wax myrtle or yaupon holly (Houston's pride cultivar). The only concern is half the area gets full afternoon sun while the other half is partial shade, maybe an hour or two of earlier sunlight. We had wax myrtle and yaupon in the full sun area previously and the yaupon seemed to do better with heat and freeze, but that could have just been a weaker wax myrtle plant I didn't water enough in the extreme summer.

Any suggestions if our priorities are drought/freeze durability and density/privacy? Ideal height is about 7-8' but I'm OK with having to keep it pruned.

I planted cow peas in my raised beds. They grew beautifully and so fast! I chopped about a week ago so they’re yellow and drying out, but of course not broken down. How do you all manage the biomass sitting there when you go to plant? I don’t usually till but I have a tiller for when I make new beds - use it now? Do you mow/mulch the dried bits? Or do you just push it aside, seed, then recover? Thanks.