Julie the ok gardener

@juliejam

Gardener and reader interested in Oklahoma native plants and the bugs that live with them. I live in the northern Cross Timbers ecoregion, USDA zone 7B.

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Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· 4d

Good morning. Instead of bugs and native plants, I thought you might like some pictures of Frankie from last weekend. #husky #dogs

A husky dog on a sunny day smiling with his head out the window of a white pickup, a boat being pulled behind it. (Seen in the side view mirror.)

Now he has his face looking forward pressed against the side of the truck.

Now Frankie has his face in the wind, cheeks bellied out to the sides. I don't let him ride the whole way like this because it's probably dangerous, but he loves it.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· 4d

Two courting Pipevine Swallowtails on the first Tall Thistle, and a skipper trying to ignore them. #butterflies #gardening #nativeplants #flyday 🌱

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· 10d

The super-annoying mating dance of the Fiery Skipper. #butterflies #gardening 🦋 🌱

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· 12d

Taking a little siesta in the garden. Hibiscus Turret Bee in Swamp Rose Mallow. #nativeplants #bees #insectthursday

A closeup of a black bee with golden-yellow fur on his shoulders and head sleeping curled around the bottom of the stamen in a pink hibiscus flower. The flower petal underneath him has darker pink stripes radiating out from the center and is sprinkled with yellow pollen. Ptilothrix bombiformis and Hibiscus moscheutos.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· 18d

Good morning. Some of the flowers from my garden. We're heading out to the lake today. #gardening #nativeplants #bees 🌱 #SixonSaturday

A collage of six flower photos: Trumpet Creeper (Campsis radicans) and katydid; Prairie Verbena (Glandularia canadensis) and Hoary Edge butterfly; Swamp Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos); Butterflyweed ( Asclepias tuberosa) and American Bumblebee; Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata) and American Bumblebee; Maypops vine (Passiflora incarnata). Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· 19d

A Clubbed Mydas Fly on the Slender Mountain Mint. They look like wasps, but can't sting and feed only on nectar. The larvae are predators of scarab beetle grubs. #flyday #gardening 🌱 #invertebrates #bugsky #nativeplants

A large black Clubbed Mydas fly feeds on the white-pink flowers of Slender mountain mint. It has a long segmented abdomen that curves in a "sting" posture with a wide band of bright orange under its wings. The tips of the antennae are clubbed like a butterflies, hence its name. Mydas clavatus on Pycnanthemum tenuifolium.

A picture of the mydas fly from above, showing the coppery-pink iridescence on the wings.

The fly has its wings spread slightly in a v shape so it looks more fly-like than waspy in this picture. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· 22d

Love and war in the garden for Twosday. #insects #bees #nativeplants #gardening 🌱 #twosday

Two tan-colored skipper butterflies sit on a white hibiscus flower with their abdomens joined, mating. Hibiscus moscheutos.

A scuffle between a pair of Hibiscus Turret Bees in a white hibiscus flower. The males constantly patrol the flowers for females and have these quick fights whenever they meet in the same flower. Ptilothrix bombiformis. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· 25d

Good afternoon!

The top of a tall sunflower plant showing many blooms against a blue but cloudy sky, a neighboring roof and power lines in the background. A flying bee is visible at top right.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· 25d

Last year I spotted a big beautiful Buttonbush at the lake, so I wanted to get a picture when I was there last week. Unfortunately, it doesn't look so hot because of all the flooding this year, but it is a good example of how much water they can tolerate. Cephalanthus occidentalis. #nativeplants 🌱

A large Buttonbush in front of a cloudy sky. The bottom six feet or so is covered with fresh bright green foliage, while a few longer branches sticking out of the top have larger, darker mature leaves and white spiky ball flowers on them.

The same plant from farther away. It is around twelve feet wide and eight feet tall with a lot of horizontal branching. In the background is a muddy lake and the opposite shoreline covered in trees. The surrounding plants are mostly dead and brown.

A photo of the shoreline beyond the buttonbush, showing a slope dotted with flat sandstone slabs and mostly brown (flooded) vegetation, as well as a few smaller buttonbushes with fresh green leaves. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a, Keystone Lake reservoir.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jul 11

Not a Coneflower, but they're not picky about petals.

A orange-yellow grasshopper on the back of a sunflower, eating the petals. Bumblebee on the front.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jul 9

The False Bee-killer or white-tailed Robber Fly flies around spearing all kinds of flying insects with a sharp proboscis that is hidden under its loraxian facial hair, and then sucks out their juices. Larvae are also predators underground. Promachus bastardii. #insectthursday #gardening 🌱 #bugsky

A False Bee-killer sits on the edge of a pink hibiscus. It is a large insect with a long tapered abdomen, wings held folded on the back, and a bulky thorax. The face is covered with long silky blonde hair that mostly covers the sharp beak underneath.

Another bee-killer clinging to the side of a liatris flower.

A male robber fly, distinguished from the female by the white tips on its tail, clinging to penstemon seed pods.

Another fly resting on a stick with a honeybee speared on her face. She will fly around with it until she's finished eating.This is the only robber fly I have seen with prey, and I have read that they especially like honeybees. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 27

An American Snout. Supposedly they see swarms of snouts south of here, sadly I only see singletons. Libytheana carinenta. #butterflies #PollinatorWeek #gardening 🌱

An American Snout butterfly with wings folded up sits on a unique Black-eyed Susan with an extra tuft of petals coming from the center of the cone. The butterfly has a long snout that is actually the mouth, which opens out to the sides, and drooping antennae. It has wings wth jagged edges resembling dead leaves that are gray and tan on the underside, while the top of the wings are orange with black and white blocks along the top corners. I think this is a female since she seems to have six normal length legs, and males have very short legs, plus the front legs on males are so small it looks like they only have four.

A longer view showing the entire flower the Snout is sitting on and the green leafy background.

Snouts hardly ever sit with wings open, but here she flutters her wings so we can see the orange backs and her little curled tongue is also sticking out.

A more moody backlit view of the Snout. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 26

A Two-Spotted Longhorn Bee from the garden. Melissodes bimaculatus. #bees #PollinatorWeek 🌱 #gardening #bugsky

A female Two-Spotted Longhorn bee clings to a cornflower bud. She is a black bee, about the size of a honeybee but a little more chunky, with thick ivory scopal hairs on her rear legs. There are blurry yellow coneflowers in the background.

Now she is rubbing her rear legs around her bottom to clean herself. You can see one of the small white rectangular spots on the end of her abdomen that the species is named for, which are only found on females. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 23

Tiny bees for tiny flowers. White Vervain, Verbena urticifolia. #tinyflowertuesday #nativeplants #bees #gardening 🌱

A very tiny bee perches on a flower spike of White Vervain, sitting on one open flower while drinking deeply with its face. Buried in the flower right above it. The slender bee is gunmetal gray with a haze of pale hairs all over. I don't know the species of any of these bees--they're too tiny.

A tiny reddish bee with stripes clings to a spray of white vervain flowers.

A more distant photo of a tiny metallic coppery bee flying towards white vervain flowers.

A picture of White Vervain growing in a raised bed, focusing on a large flower cluster. The flowers heads have many long green filaments coming from a central point that are dotted down the length with tiny white trumpet flowers that open in a scattered fashion, resembling delicate sparkler fireworks. The plants grow about 4-6 feet tall and have dark green foliage. Birds eat the seeds. This plant was a volunteer, and it's easy to start by winter-sowing in jugs. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 21

Good morning. The sunflower in my grow bags is starting to bloom.

A grow bag garden full of rudbeckka, gailardia and bee balm with a sunflower about 10 feet tall coming out. It has a few open flowers at the top.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 20

Good morning, here's some of the native perennials blooming in my garden today. #nativeplants #gardening 🌱 #SixonSaturday

A collage of six flower photos, from top left: Maypops (Passiflora incarnata), White Vervain with a tiny #BlurBee (Verbena urticifolia), Illinois Bundleflower (Desmanthus illinoensis), Swamp Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos), Black-eyed Susan and a Coneflower Mining Bee (Rudbeckia hirta and Andrena rudbeckiae), Prairie Blazing Star (Liatris pycnostachya).

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 14

The asters are already blooming in the front garden. Drummond's Aster and Bush's Poppy Mallow. #nativeplants #gardening 🌱 #bloomscrolling

A flower garden in front of a gray brick wall (my front porch). There are Drummond's asters next to the wall, and Mealycup sage (Salvia farinacea) and magenta winecups flowers scattered around, as well as a few white echinacea flowers. Also weeds, mostly small redbud trees.

Drummond's Aster, Symphyotrichum drummondii. Many tiny daisy flowers with pale bluish-white petals and yellow or pinkish centers.

Bush's Poppy Mallow, Callirhoe bushii. Magenta flowers with five soft petals and white stamens and green palmate leaves. They send braches a few feet along the ground in all directions and then shoot up to flower. The purple clovers in the background are not native.

Another view of the flowerbed, looking out toward the lawn. There is only one Bush's Poppy Mallow plant in this picture. I have planted several native shrubs in here, but they are still too short to see in all the flowers. The red flowers out by the edge are Salvia greggii, a US native, but not in this ecoregion. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 13

The grow bag garden is really filling out now. #gardening #nativeplants 🌱

This is a flower garden in grow bags in front of a white garage. The flowers blooming are Black-eyed Susans, Firewheels, Clasping Coneflowers, Prairie Verbena and non-native cornflowers and petunias. The cornflowers are in the ground in front. There are 4 20-gallon and 7 or 8 10-gallon bags all smooshed together. The sunflower in back is in a 20-gallon.

Same flowers, only more in your face. All of these were either started indoors this spring or moved from other places in the garden. Three native plant species that I sowed direct in the bags are not flowering yet.

Looking over the grow bag garden into the back part of the garden from the driveway. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 11

Bumblebees in the brush pile today. Brown-belted Bumblebee and American Bumblebee. #bees #insectthursday 🌱 #gardening #nativeplants

A Brown-belted Bumblebee drinks from Lemon Bee Balm. The bee is small with a furry yellow thorax with one central black spot, a black abdomen with a yellow band at the top and a brown crescent underneath, and black wings. She has a stripe of white pollen down the middle of her head and shoulders. Bombus griseocollis.

A brush pile that is mostly yellow Clasping Coneflowers (Dracopis amplexicaulis) and Lemon Bee Balm from this angle. My husband was like, why did you plant flowers on the brush pile? I didn't, now get away with the weedeater.

A bumblebee in flight, seen from the back in front of Lemon Bee Balm, Monarda citriodora. A black bumblebee with a band of yellow across the top of the thorax above the dark wings and two bands of yellow across the top of the abdomen. American Bumblebee, Bombus pensylvanicus.

Another picture of the American Bumblebee from the side, sitting on bee balm flowers. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 8

I really like the middle picture. This is a green sweat bee in a firewheel flower, I'm not sure of the bee species. #bees #gardening 🌱 #nativeplants #insects

A shiny green sweat bee with bulging hind legs covered in yellow pollen is digging into the center disc of a red firewheel flower, Gaillardia pulchella.

The bee has dived into the flower head first. Her shiny green abdomen is sticking straight up and both of her chubby yellow legs are sticking out sideways, one propped againt the flower petals.

Now she is upright and kicking one leg in the air like she just doesn't care. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 8

My favorite hibiscus plant is first to bloom this summer. They love all the rain we've been having. Swamp Rose Mallow, Hibiscus moscheutos. #gardening #nativeplants 🌱

A tall hibiscus plant with two large dark pink flowers coming from opposite sides of one stem is surrounded by yellow Black-eyed Susans. In the background are white basketflowers and a passionvine growing over an old weathered wood fence. Rudbeckia hirta, Plectocephalus americanus and Passiflora incarnata.

Closeup of a deep pink hibiscus flower. It is about the size of a dinner plate with five wide petals and a long upturned stamen coming from the maroon center. There are raindrops on the petals. This is my favorite color because it is a new color seedling that came up from old plants that are darker and lighter shades of pink and white.

Another picture of the Rudbeckia flowers with the hibiscus in the background. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 6

Good (late) morning, I guess I overslept because of the rain. I haven't posted one of these in a while. Six (ok, maybe seven) pollinators on American Basketflower for #SixonSaturday. #nativeplants #gardening 🌱 #insects

A collage with six photos of pollinators on American Basketflower, clockwise from top left: Diana fritillary, Argynnis/Speyeria diana; Pipevine Swallowtail, Battus philenor; Fiery Skipper and Carpenter Bee, Hylephila phyleus and Xylocopa virginica; Banded Hairstreak, Satyrium calanus; Guinea Paper Wasp, Polistes exclamans; American Lady, Vanessa virginiensis. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 4

Six-spotted Flower Longhorn Beetle eating a Firewheel. Strangalia sexnotata. #insects #beetles #bugsky #gardening #nativeplants 🌱

A beetle feeds on the disc center of a red Gaillardia pulchella flower. It is a long narrow beetle with dark red head, body and legs, and long, slightly curved antennae held out to the sides. The wings are ombre colors of gold, orange and red with three rows of black spots. The beetle has grains of yellow pollen on its head and legs. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 3

A little party on the mountain mint for Wasp Wednesday. IDS in alt text. #Waspwednesday #wasps #gardening 🌱 #bugsky

Three wasps and an American Lady butterfly on a cluster of Slender Mountain Mint shaped like an X with an insect on each arm. At bottom left is the butterfly, top left is a Red Paper Wasp (Polistes carolina), top right is a black and white Fraternal Potter Wasp (Eumenes fraternus), and bottom right is a black and white Pseudodynerus quadrisectus, a mason wasp with no common name. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 3

A special visitor in the garden. I saw a Diana Fritillary once for the first time in 2024 and once again in 2025, and now today. All of them have been females so far. Speyeria diana. #butterflies #insects #lepidoptera 🌱 #gardening

A large black butterfly sits on a white basketflower. We see the top of one black wing with a pattern of horizontal white dots and dashes along the edge, and the dark brown bottom wing facing the camera. The underside of the top wing has a pattern of pale blue and white bands and dots on a brown background. The butterflies body is also dark brown.

The Diana has her wings spread on a basketflower. The top wings are black with horizontal white dots and dashes along the wing borders. The lower wings are inky blue with a row of large rectangular light blue cells along the bottom, each with on black dot near the top, and white and blue dashes around the edges.

Another view of the Diana butterfly from the side. The caterpillars of this butterfly eat violets.

Another view with the butterfly's wings held up, showing both sides of the wings. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a, June 2, 2026.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 2

A Brown-belted Bumblebee enjoying the Slender Mountain Mint. #bees #gardening 🌱 #nativeplants #insects

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 1

An "alba" Sulphur butterfly on Lemon Bee Balm. #butterflies #nativeplants #gardening 🌱 #insects

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· Jun 1

A busy leafcutter bee on a Firewheel. #bees #gardening 🌱 #nativeplants

A leafcutter bee feeds on a Firewheel flower. The bee is black with short pale hair on most of her body that makes her look gray, and has smooth black stripes between narrow bands of white hair on the top of the abdomen. The bottom of the abdomen is covered in white hair to collect pollen. The daisy-shaped flower has a red and yellow disc center and vibrant gapped petals that are magenta in the center shading to bright lipstick red in the middle of the petals with a band of bright golden yellow around the toothed edges. Megachile policaris (?) and Gaillardia pulchella.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· May 31

Scenes from the garden today. #gardening #bloomscrolling 🌱 #nativeplants

The edge of a flower border with yellow Clasping Coneflowers, purple Lemon Bee Balm, and magenta winecups. The winecups are starting to go to seed.

A wide garden scene with many colorful flowers. In the center are tall red Murray's penstemons and orange Butterflyweed surrounded by the annuals from the first picture. It looks like a sea of flowers but it is three separate beds with grass paths between. In the background is an old weathered wood fence.

This is just another picture like the last one, but a little closer. Also, the ight is prettier. All the plants are OK natives except the blue cornflowers next to the fence border. I will probably take those out next week because they're going to seed.

Basketflowers growing in front of the fence with two black pipevine swallowtail butterfly visitors. There are also green Hibiscus moscheutos plants and passion vines that are about halfway up the fence, neither blooming yet, as well as Black-eyed Susans that are just starting to flower. Oklahoma Northern Crosstimbers ecoregion 29a.

Julie the ok gardener@juliejam· May 30

Good morning! Native annuals for #SixonSaturday. Some people don't like annuals because they tend to come up everywhere and have to be pulled like weeds, but I think they're worth it for all the extra flowers. IDs in alt text. #nativeplants #gardening 🌱