my little waxy begonia

(I don't know the actual name) flowered this year. Just one flower. Mixed pink/white.

all the jars-

well, the newest one is a vase. This same vase. Now I have it with crypt balansae, which I couldn't bear to throw away when emptied the 20H. Keeping it in here for a few months, hopefully then whatever pathogen killed my angelfishes, will have died off, and if the plants are still alive I might move them into the 33L.

It's so strange to have an empty tank in the room

and houseplants moved into its spot.

But I've still got my jars- this one 

with two shrimps

the anubias need older leaves with algae trimmed off again, but the buces are all nice

I hadn't noticed it until today, but my little patch of corkscrew vals is getting thin. Some of it's been dying off. I think I need to add a few more shrimp to make waste, or put plant food in (haven't done that in a long time)

The mermaid weed is rather small, too. Looks wavy in this picture from the old thick glass

which also blurs out the snail I tried to get a closeup of.

My other jar has less variety of plants- just anubias, crypt beckettii-petchii, 

a few buces. Nothing tall, so it doesn't even start to fill the space

It does look nice from above, though. Only snails live in here, most of them ramshorns.

now just one-

fish among my tanks (well, one tank, two jars and a vase now- more on that next time) has a name: Tucker. Here he is feeding (the white specks are daphnia)

I put a backdrop on the tank and attempted more photos today- but of course he zipped around expecting food, and kept swinging his head to look at me

I removed (and um, disposed of outside) the bloated, hunched minnow and the nerite snail. No idea if Tucker caught anything from the snail, which had been in the angel's tank- but then again, I probably cross-contaminated via my hands, tools, or might have dropped a few smaller snails in here from the other tank who knows how many weeks ago.

I forget to be careful sometimes. Tuckered colored up some when I put the darker backdrop on to take these pictures- but he still looks pale, especially when I compare to older photos. 

Is he uncomfortable because the tank is too bright, or feeling unwell? It's so hard to tell. He acts eager to see me, eats with gusto, even leaps to nip my finger again. Fins are growing out- I still don't know why they had lost the long tips before (unless it was bad water conditions, during that time I didn't take the best care of my tanks).

Just hope I haven't compomised his health. The minnows all look great, there was much fin flaring and displaying and quivering in the thickets again, when I dropped the background in place. So I guess they prefer a darker backdrop too. Maybe that means I should move this tank and not have it be window-lit any longer. Or try to grow the rotalas and vals in thicker to block more light across the back glass. That would be my preference.

bye, Precious

My last angelfish died last night. She'd been gradually getting worse. Darting around the tank, acting "twitchy"-jerking her head to the side, or her pelvic fins as if something irritated them. Lately doing this odd thing where she'd drift down and then turn and swim body horizontal to the tank floor, across the length of it. Pushed by the gentle filter flow? she must've been so weak. Yesterday I thought she was looking poorly- didn't eat, and sat nose kinda angled up for most of the time. I thought: oh, she hasn't got long now, and did a partial water change. This morning she was gone. Still looking stunted. I don't feel terribly sad like I have loosing other fishes in the past- I wasn't really attached to this one, she reminded me of how badly I cared for my angel tank the past two years . . .

There was still a zebra nerite in her tank. I acclimated

and moved it into the 33L, as I have no other tanks running now. And then realized my error: if the angelfish had a contagious disease (probably) I've just now introduced it to my healthy tank. Facepalm. How could I have done that. Now I feel I should pull and just euthanize the snail- but it's been alive for four or five years! - but it's probably too late. Here below the crypt moehlmanii patch (they're looking rather pale, another thing I need to fix)

The white clouds have been flirting and darting in and out of plant thickets in here- breeding again. The few I had put in the smaller QT did nothing of the sort. I gave up and moved them all back in. Fat female is still fat- I was trying to get a photo of Tucker here who got excited that I might feed him and was going too fast back and forth- she's just visible there in the background. Now I notice she has a hunched spine, so probably it's bloat not eggbound and I might as well end her suffering.

Fish stuff is not going so great. Mainly because I somewhat neglected my tanks over the past two years of: accident, illness, low energy due to near-anemia, surgery and now an injured finger! I can at least manage water changes with that, as long as careful to keep my hand dry. Sheesh. But it's the errors I make from not thinking clearly, that are the worst.

tiny baby frog

or toad, not sure- so very small! it was on the edge of the door of my car, of all places. Found it when getting out of the car. So glad I saw it, or might have accidentally squished the guy when closing the door! My daughter took a picture of it here in my hand. Later that night I found an adult leopard frog on the porch- missed getting a picture. I'd like to think that's the momma, but no idea if the little one is same species, or even if it hitched a ride home on the top of my car? or was on the driveway and hopped up randomly when we arrived.

I chopped

back the two shrubs in front of our porch. I want them to have a more open growth habit, and the one in front of the living rooms windows is finally looking nice. Much healthier this year, too. But the pair by the porch were already swarming with whitefly this spring. I was going to just cut back the worst branches, but they're all infested. So started cutting- and the plant kinda showed me where. Below the mass of compact foliage (dense enough I could set my clippers or a collection container on top of the shrub and railing!) there was a good several inches of dead massed leaves and bug litter, then naked stems below but with a few fresh leaves sprouting further down. I pretty much cut each stem right above a new leaf sprig, removing all the top mass. 

It looks severe. My daughter exclaimed as soon as she got home "Mom, what did you do!?" as I expected. (My husband just said "hey, you removed the cat's hiding spot"). I reassured each of them it will grow back! and hopefully look a lot better. 

a friend

gave me a plant! It's red hot poker flower.

Looks so tropical. 

I planted it on the front corner of the larger sideyard, by the turtlehead patch. Which normally would be swarming with bees, but the deer chomped off most of the flower heads this year.

the minnows

I admit, I have not paid much attention to my fishes lately. Aside from the feeding, and once a week (more like every two or three, which makes me feel guilty) water changes. Yesterday I finally started trimming old and algae-spotted leaves off plants in the 33L, put a new backdrop panel on it to block the sun (hair or thread algae is showing up again behind the rotalas) and sat back to admire how nice it looked again. Tucker showing his colors, especially when he gets excited about a worm. But of course that means I can't get a good photo, because he zooms up and down the front glass when I'm near. And leaps to nip my fingers again. I've had him just over two years now.

And I still have the one gold angelfish, Precious. And a dozen white cloud mountain minnows. One of the females has been looking particularly fat, I assumed she was full of eggs and ready to spawn. But nothing's happened- and she's been that way for a month or two now. She just keeps getting more swollen. Tucker chases the minnows when he's hungry, so I guessed she was unwilling to lay eggs with a predator in the tank. I don't want to raise fry, but I just want to give her some relief- she looks really uncomfortable. (It could be a disease, a tumor or something- but the squarish look is telltale of a gravid female, and I swear I can see the round shapes of eggs in there).

So I set up a temporary tank, in my usual fashion: half home tank water, half new, as much decor pieces with plants on them as I could pull out, some fake plants too for more cover, a piece of established sponge from one of the 33L filters, and two small sponge filters running.

It all looked good to me, but some of the fishes crashed- looking pale, breathing fast, lying near the bottom. I though maybe I'd lost my touch, forgot something important, so tested the water- no nitrite or ammonia. (That's my shrimp bowl behind the test tubes).

I figured some of the minnows were just stressed at the change. When some still looked bad on the second day, I did a water change, put those individuals back in the home tank, and replaced with a few different males (who were showing off their fins to each other). Here's the female's suitors- 

moving quick!

Except I didn't look close enough, I think this one with a slightly larger opaque white belly, is also female. She looks a little plumper today.

Then I saw something bad: a crack in the frame dead center on the bottom edge of the tank. Made me nervous. Only ten gallons but that's a lot on the floor. Sigh. I emptied it, transferring everything into my larger quarantine tote (switching out some of the plastic plants for softer silk ones) and also made a spawning mop of yarn. Because the clump of subwassertang is so small. First time I've ever done that. 

It looks kind of cool.

The minnows seem more at ease now- nobody's crashed, they all ate this morning- and I'm starting to see hints of the activity I was hoping for- the males checking out the yarn and subwassertang, flicking their fins in that inviting gesture, dancing next to each other with their fins fully extended and quivering for seconds at a time. But only the younger female seems interested- the really fat one hangs out in the back facing the wall. I think she's more distressed. I don't know if she'll actually spawn. Going to leave the setup a few days, wait and see. Feed them the best foods I have and hope. I'll just feel bad if only the young female spawns and not the older one that I wanted to help out. 

Side note: these fish were so easy to catch! In fact, the ones that got stressed on the first day, were in the temporary tank before I was even done setting it up- because I was scooping water out of the home tank with a plastic cup, and got some fishes by accident. They grew up in this tank, never been netted, had no fear of my hand moving stuff around. (They even come nip at freckles on my arms when I'm trimming plants). No dashing around like crazy trying to evade me. (Probably that's why they were stressed, being in the tenner while I was putting in all the stuff. I thought it would be better to leave them there then move them again for just twenty minutes, but maybe I was wrong).

I have still

not been out in the garden much. Pulled some weeds around the front walk and the front bed, that's about it. Here's a small report: my milkweeds are still tall and untouched. I did see one swallowtail in the yard the other day, and a goldfinch on the echinacea. The joe pye on the smaller sideyard are towering tall and lovely, but I haven't noticed any of those blue-winged wasps. My cardinal climber is pretty all over the deck railings, and I have to pinch off new runners daily to keep it tidy- but there's very few flowers. Because I planted it so late? I have not seen the hummingbird much (though it did come a few times to the geraniums outside the kitchen window, which was delightful. I hear the cicadas- they're not nearly as loud and annoying as previous years- but haven't found one up close for a picture yet. Borage came and went around the mailbox spot with only some aphid damage, I never saw a single japanese beetle- though I did find one on the catmint in the backyard. Only one! (Promptly squished). I pulled out all the fading stems to let the self-seeded celosia there grow in- but again, late in the season so I doubt there will be any spectacular flowers. Likewise my cana lilies are getting bigger! but I don't see any sign of bloom. 

I'm still quite pleased with the late boneset in the rear by the camellia, really want to get an earlier-blooming common one too. There's two butternut squash getting fat and tan in garden bed nine, I can't think what else they might be. Weeds are getting ahead of me in the lawn and fallow beds, all I have done is make sure to put the catcher bag on the mower when I see them seeding. I did some work on the smaller sideyard to pull out mock strawberry and vinca runners, and some weeding in the bed where the panicle hydrangeas are, and got most of the creeping jenny out too. 

On the deck, most things are doing okay, though my basil and chocolate mint are more bothered by aphids than usual. (I haven't been throwing soapy water over them as often as I should). The fenugreek was lovely for a while, especially the scent when I ran my fingers up it- but now it is faded and gone.

Thyme got big enough to eat a few times (in lentils, on fish, in chili and soups etc) 

Dill is all gone to seed and I pulled out most of the dried stalks. Scattered some randomly into the garden beds because I didn't feel like walking out to the compost bin, and now there's dill seedlings popping up all over. Which I like. I've cut summery savory to dry, and next will be tarragon. We've eaten more of the sculpit but that wasn't the best idea- the flavor was very strong (not quite bitter) and it caused some digestive upset. I think because of the heat, too far gone in the season and already flowering. So now I am just cutting it back to keep from encroaching into space of the tarragon, winter savory and lemon balm.

My little experiment with kidney beans is a fail. We have not yet got the fence built, and the deer eat every leaf off the plants. If I remember to scatter hair and/or irish spring soap shavings, they stay away for a few days but then come right back. Or maybe they are staying away until the plant regrows enough leaves to feed them again. 

I've been cutting back and pulling out yellow salvia from under the panicle hydrangeas, that bed just looks too cluttered and untidy now. And I'd rather see the pink turtleheads (deer are eating the buds off those too) and wild chrysanthemum- which grew much thicker this year and even has a few little offshoots. I'm thinking of digging up and replanting some of that into the front bed. The deer don't seem to touch it, whereas they've eaten the heads off most of my 'autumn joy' sedum this year. This chrysanthemum will bloom late in the year when not much else is . . . 

So that's very rambling but I will try to get more active in the garden, and keep up with posting here too. I'm starting to finally get my energy back and do more than just the bare minimum of housework and my usual tasks indoors- need to do some outdoors now too!

how some things are doing

out there- these are some of the newer plants, from the last swap I went to, months ago. Coreopsis on the narrower side yard did okay- at least, it bloomed- but flopped over into a tangled cluster. Pretty sure it ought to look a bit more tidy?

The Liatris spicata has made interesting spikes topped with purplish-pink flowers- but they're so straight and tall, the few in the front bed feel out of place. And this one's leaning.

I'll move them to join these on the side later

The obedient plants are unimpressive- just greenery. So is the boneset, but it's grown so tall and healthy looking, actually done better than anything else I planted in that spot back near the fence yet. I would like to get another boneset, maybe an earlier-flowering one . . . 

I've got a volunteer baby evergreen back here, too- that escaped my attention when it was smaller (I usually pull them when just a few inches high)

Here's that dusty miller I always thought would die- it survived and grew a little more. I think because I've started pulling out and cutting back all the yellow salvia around the panicle hydrangeas. They're spreading and it's too much.

Still love my false indigo plant, and it has these odd, fat fuzzy gray-blue seedpods now

Black-eyed susans have spread to the other side of the walking path. So bright in that corner. My kid likes picking them.

My milkweeds are tall, tall! But no monarch caterpillars still. I'm disappointed at that. They've got heavy hairy seedpods on them now (not pictured) and quite a few are flopping over- I think probably because growing near the remnants of old maple stump under the ground, which might thwart the roots of new plants still?

Last of all to note, here's one of my redbuds that survived the deer so far (because I fenced it in). Funny, this is supposed to be an understory tree, but all the others which grow in shade are much smaller than this one, which is getting full sun more than half the day.