August Yard Highlights
/The two plants that are the highlights of my yard this month are the crepe myrtles – which all died back to the roots over last winter and are now blooming – and noticing a stinkhorn under one of my red maples.
The crepe myrtles are not my favorites because they will never grow into small trees with interesting bark like they do in Texas and Maryland. Both winters we have lived in Missouri – the 4 crepe myrtles in our flower beds have died and come up from the roots - growing enough to bloom in August. But they will always be short bushes if this continues. I am giving them one more season before I start replacing them with a native plant.
Earlier in the season I saw stinkhorn fungi in the area where a pine tree fell in our back yard and the chipped remains of the stump are decaying. This month, there was a stinkhorn near one of the red maples. They are a welcome sight so far because their presence means there is plant material decomposing and being recycled in the yard…and there are never very many of them to be unbearably stinky.
