Betty and I pulled about 3 million weeds today from the lower half of China Valley

Today was forecast to be unseasonably dry and a bit cooler than average so it seemed like a good opportunity to work in an area that's pretty much unbearably hot all summer. Of the three million weeds roughly 1.57 million were Koelreuteria, 1.42 Vitex, and the balance a random assortment of the usual suspects. The bad part was we had to extract the weeds from the clutches of one of Stefan's roses; it was about 18 feet in diameter and most of the weeds were taking full advantage of their thorny protector. We painstakingly removed the prostrate canes from the rose at a cost of some blood and then things went pretty well. We were rewarded for our efforts by the sight of this nice mantis on the daylily flowers.

Liatris oligocephala close-up of the flower

You have to love the common name, Cahaba torch. We, Joan, Amy, and I, collected this from dolomite barrens in Bibb County Alabama a few years back. Earlier this summer I happened upon the Valerie the Fern Valley intern and Shannon, the boxwood intern planting some along the road at the bottom of Fern Valley.