u/Alternative-Try1271

While doing my daily drowning of the Japanese beetles I noticed that the leaf cutter bees have been busy! I’d only heard about them so far and this is the first time I’ve seen my garden supporting them in this way, so I was excited to share! Now I just have to learn how to identify all the types of bees that grace my garden. 🐝

Ignore the tree of heaven sapling that we’ve been battling since we moved it. Luckily it’s the only one and hopefully this will be the year!

Year two Saucy Seduction Yarrow cultivar. I have two plants, both of which thrived last fall and grew in a happy little perfect mound this spring. Almost as soon as this one started blooming it started flattening out in the center. I can almost guarantee that I probably watered too frequently but a few plants around it were roasting in the sun and I did start to notice a bit of a gap in the middle of the foliage. Came out one morning and the plant was flattened into a bowl and looked like someone took a cozy little sleep in there and likely kept coming back. It kept blooming around the edges and is now starting to fade. The other one of these has put out one tiny bloom and I’ve significantly cut back on watering.

They were planted in existing soil, with a small amount of compost and expanded shale and mulched with squeegee in full sun.

Any ideas? Wondering if I just didn’t break up the rootball enough or give it enough space in the amended clay soil to expand its roots. Should I just divide it come fall, give it some compost now, cut it back altogether and hope it recovers?

Thanks in advance!

A few weeks ago I noticed one of my echinacea plants that is in its second growing season had one bloom that was starting to grow in half normal and half with light green petals and half of the center was still green as well. There are now a few other buds forming the same way on this one plant and other blooms as you’d except them to look. A few gardener friends suggested fasciation and now I do see one bud started to grow with an elongated center unlike the others that are just half and half.

However I’m now seeing a handful of prairie coneflower that I planted from seed early last year also in its second growing season growing in with double head or elongated heads.

Curious if anyone else is experiencing something similar potentially related to the late spring freezes and snow? I understand genetic anomaly is always an option but it’s such a high rate of something that is supposed to be sort of rare?

I’m also living in southeast Westminster in a portion of the potential fallout zone from the Rocky Flats plant and I’m curious if that could be causing some of the mutations. Could be a stretch but not ruling that out as a possibility and wanted to know if any other gardeners are experiencing higher rates of this this year or in other areas that could have plutonium contamination in the soil?

These pics are all different buds and there are probably four different prairie coneflower plants on which this is happening.

EDIT: Asters yellow seems likely for the echinacea. Foliage all appears normal so far but will keep an eye out in case I do need to pull it.