bridal wreath
Spirea not only gives us this wonderful show, but it also gives us pain relief in the form of aspirin, although the willow plant is better known from ancient days as a source of the main ingredient salicin.
Many people today prefer other pain relievers to aspirin, but not me. I happen to enjoy the taste and always chew up the tablets and let them dissolve in my mouth.
spring
The weatherman was predicting rain but it never happened. There was a gorgeous blue sky on the first day of spring. Everything in the lawn was green and perky. Salvia greggi was blooming in several colors. The mutabilis and rouletti were covered with blooms. The white wisteria spread its sweet perfume over the west yard.
rouletti
We have our first rose of the season (actually several blossoms) on the Rouletti. It's a miniature rose we picked up at the Antique Rose Emporium on one of our annual road trips to South Texas. When I say miniature I just mean the flower. Although the literature suggests that it is good in containers, ours are quite ample in size.
It really felt like Spring today. It was pleasant to be outside even if it was a bit damp. Lots of daffodils and tulips in neighborhood yards and some of those early blooming white irises, or flags as my grandmother called them.
redbud
Lately we seem to have alternating days of rain and sun. Plants are slowly greening up, but there is still not much to talk about in the way of flowers. It's fun to look at the buds on the limbs though and watch them develop. These are on a redbud branch.
Today is Texas Independence Day. It used to be a big deal when I was a school boy; now you don't hear much about it. I guess the state employees and schools still get a holiday. Traffic was really light on my daily commute.
jonquills
It felt like Spring this weekend. The bright sun and warm air made us want to get outside and do things. Tricia cleared the garden and planted potatoes and onions. I even mowed the lawn.
I also planted two walnut trees and an esperanza bush. I debated a long time about where to plant the walnuts. In the end I decided that rather than leaving them in the containers it was better to just pick any spot and move them later if I changed my mind. Through indecision I have left many a plant in its container only to see it wither and die.
Such a contrast with last Valentines Day when we had heavy snow on the ground.
Today there was steady flow of deliverymen bringing flowers to the women at work. I stopped on the way home and got roses for my own sweetheart. It seems to me this is a holiday that is made more of than it used to be. I remember it mostly as a schoolchild's holiday. My parents certainly never celebrated Valentines. Perhaps teenagers may have though. Since I did not have a girl friend it may not have registered with me.
sunflowers
Maximilian sunflower stems are almost stripped of seeds and leaves. Their twisted stems pass for our garden in January.
rosemary
Our warm spell was brief. It's colder again and rainy, although well above freezing at night. We needed the rain but I would appreciate it if the sun came out for the weekend.
Tricia has been out of town visiting her Dad but she will be back tomorrow. Meanwhile I am having to take care of the cats on my own.
moss
Wouldn't it be fun to have a garden of rocks covered with moss and lichen. I wish I knew more about this form of life.
I have been reading Muck and Mire and my interest has been aroused. Now I am in the market for a book or field guide to tell me more.
quince
The bees are already buzzing around the quince. It has been warm and sunny but the weatherman says cold is on the way back. We are expecting below freezing night-time temperatures by Thursday.
I've also noticed flowers on the phlox and on the rosemary. And, yes, today is my birthday. Thanks Mary Lou for sending well-wishers my way, and a happy birthday to you too.
getting into the spirit
Roses are still blooming here this weekend. I was outside in my driveway this morning when my neighbor Cindy caught me and dragged me into her back garden to exclaim over this one. Don't know the name of it but it did have a lovely citrusy fragrance.
Sorry to say I am not yet into the Christmas spirit. Still have not even started to shop for gifts. But last night I brought down the tree and the ornaments from the attic and by the end of the day we should have our decorations up. Tonight we are going to a holiday show at the symphony.
So with this big a dose by tomorrow I should be on the right track.
first frost
Frost glistened on the lawn this morning as I stepped outside to go to work. The morning glory blossoms which expected to greet the sun as their siblings had been doing for weeks were pinched shut. The hollyhock was slumped over the driveway.
I had to scrape the windshield of the truck before I could make my commute. Who says we don't have winter down here in Texas?
martha gonzales
Another rose that is blooming now. It is very red and has a nice scent also. The flowers deteriorate very rapidly however.
This is only the second year for this rose and it still has not grown very large. The rouletti and the mutabilis have both grown very large however and are very profuse with blooms. We have two of each in the front yard and the air smells wonderful when ther is a slight breeze.
another beautiful sunday afternoon
This afternoon was sunny and warm. I got out and mowed the grass in the front yard and trimmed around all the edges so it was nice and neat just the way all the other yards in the neighborhood are. I probably should have got out the electric hedge clippers and trimmed the privet hedges on both sides of the yard, but it's too late in the day now.
Most of the yard signs have been taken down now. In another week I probably will have forgotten which were Bush yards and which were Kerry yards. Without the signs there is nothing to give it away.
As I read in a post today at Tender Dirt, "We are far better off planted in our own lives." I feel so much better when I turn off the news and go outside to work in my own little garden.
valentine
We have lots of roses doing well right now. The Valentine has only one blossom but it may be the prettiest of the lot.
garden update
We had an invitation to drive out this weekend to visit our friends in Alpine but it looks as if it is just not in the cards. Too many thngs going on at home. We will have to take a raincheck.
Speaking of rain, we have had showers off and on all week. The moisture and cool weather have made changes in the garden. The sunflowers are all gone now, but the roses are revitalized. The Iceberg and the Mutabilis are especially full of blossoms.
I had to mow the front lawn tonight after work. I don't like to think about spending my time maintaining St Augustine but it is actually the easiest landscape to manage, except for concrete. It doesn't take much time and you don't even have to think while you mow. There are some people who love the look of a grassy lawn, and others who turn up their noses at it. I like to think of it as just the space between intersting parts of the garden.
back in the garden again at last
Today was a wonderful fall day. A shipment of irises from Argyle Acres had arrived a few weeks ago. They should have already been in the ground.. It felt good to get my hands back in the dirt. I have been way too busy lately with work, with the responsiblity for my parent's care, and various other concerns.
After planting the irises I weeded the front garden, then just watched the clouds in the sky and talked with neighbors.
Blue is one of the best colors for the garden in my opinion and there is lots of it right now. Not only the eupatorium which is so popular with monarchs but also morning glory and the blue lantana. Next to the lantana in the picture above is another favorite plant of mine, four-nerve daisy or Tetraneuris scaposa. True, the little yellow daisy is not that showy but the plant has bloomed for me every single day of the year. It bloomed on the hottest day of the year in July and it bloomed in January when it was buried in snow.
maximilian sunflowers
With all the rain we have had lately, the maximilians are too top-heavy to stand up.
elusive butterfly
As soon as I saw this butterfly through my window I rushed outside into the garden with the camera. It was not quite like the usual swallowtails. The body was larger and there is that bluish cast to the wings.
I never did get a good shot though. It never stopped beating its wings even when feeding. It kept coming back to these bright red anisacanthus flowers interspersed with long graceful flights. When I got back inside I tried to find it in my field guides. Could it be the Spicebush Swallowtail?
salvia regla
Every year this salvia impresses me more and more. I remember the spring after I first planted it. It was just a bare stick with no life at all until just when I was about to give up on it, almost in summer, it sprang to life with very long vermillion blossoms.
Now it seems to come to life earlier but the late summer and early fall is still the season that it blooms the best. It blooms in time for the hummingbird migration and they seem to appreciate it. It's become quite a substantial plant too, about four feet tall and with a thick woody trunk. I wish I had chosen a better spot for it. It is not in a place where it is shown off to best advantage. But apparantly it likes it where it is and I doubt it would survive transplanting.
The name is said to come from the town of Regla, in the province of Hidalgo. It is native to northern Mexico and the Chiso Mountains.
esperanza
This is another plant from the southwest that has recently become very popular. The proper name is Tecoma stans, Another name is yellow bells. It is winter hardy in zone 8 and can make a shrub up to 5 or 6 feet.
Mine is about a year old and is in a medium-sized container. I intended that to be temporary, but when I tried to move it in the spring I found that the roots had grown out through the drainage holes and into the ground.
turk's cap
Turk's cap or manzanilla is another member of the hibiscus or okra family. The funny thing about it is that the flowers never open. It blooms almost all the time in late summer and early fall. It's a good plant for shady areas. It will grow in the sun but won't bloom as much.
lycoris
One of the great joys in the September garden is the sudden appearance of the Lycoris radiata. These were found in the garden when I moved here and I have divided them and spread them until I have quite a colony. They are dormant in the spring and summer, bloom in the fall and have foliage through the winter. Nonconformists like me. Perhaps that is why I am fond of them.
We will have houseguests today and overnight and then tomorrow there will be another trip to visit mom.
goldenrod
So many people think goldenrod is just a weed. It seems like such a perfect color to me.
artemisia
After a morning rain, yesterday afternoon was great for working outside. I had a small household plumbing repair that had to be done inside first but when I finished there was a clear sky, the sun had dried things out and the temperatures were cool enough to work without getting all hot and sweaty. It felt a bit like a fall day in fact.
I cleaned up one of the front beds and then trimmed back an artemisia that was getting out of bounds. I dislike working with artemisia. The plant feels funny in my hand, too rubbery or something. And the fragrance is one I really don't like. It gives me the creeps.
I keep it because the color and texture makes a nice contrast to other plants. The kind I have is called "Powis Castle" and it spreads out to about 6 feet in diameter, almost making a tall groundcover. I've heard that this variety is a cross with the variety that was used to make absinthe. It seems to have somethng sinister about it.
obedient plant
Fall must be just around the corner. The obedient plant is blooming. It is called that because the stems stay in whatever position you bend them.
the garden at midsummer
It's just past the middle of summer but there are already hints of autumn in the garden. The obedient plants are beginning to open and all the lantanas are really blooming proficiently now. The Gregg salvias are waking back up too. Fall is my favorite season in the garden and I'm looking forward to it.
Most of the plants that love the hot summer will still be blooming in the fall too, like the zexmenia and the turk's cap.
I finally found the energy and time to clean up the back garden enough to make it seem presentable. The very back is still pretty wild and wooly but I am working my way that direction. A plan is shaping up in my head about how to redo the one corner that looks especially bad.
One of my problems in gardening is that I don't stick with a plan. I make plans all right but I keep changing them. And some of the plans I make don't work out the way I intended. The garden is just a place for playing around and having fun anyway. It is not as if it is intended to last or be a work of art or anything.
We got some bids on replacing the wooden fence separating us from the schoolyard but decided to pass on it for now. The question is whether it can stand up to the pounding it gets from schoolkids and their soccer balls every day. In the last couple weeks they brought in some temp buildings and partially filled up the schoolyard. Word is that they are going to do some renovation of the main building. It brings the kids closer to the back fence. Before they weren't even near our end of the playground except when they were chasing a ball.
gulf fritillary
A common butterfly of our area, bedding down for the night on a sprig of rosemary. I hope it is safe from spiders.
The camera does not do it justice. The spots that appear white in the image are really a metallic silver.
purple sage
Cenizo or Leucophylum frutescens may not be familiar to northern gardeners but it has become almost ubiquitous in Texas gardens. I can't remember ever seeing one when I was growing up though. It is not really native to this area, it's a desert plant from northern Mexico and west Texas, but it was introduced into the nursery trade and took off. It's silver foliage looks good in the landscape both summer and winter, and it is such a splendid sight when it blooms.
It is said to only bloom after summer showers. I have never been able to trick it with a sprinkler. They are blooming all over town right now. Rain is in the forecast but to my knowledge none has fallen here yet.
texas star hibiscus
One of the prizes of my garden is the Texas star hibiscus which each year has its first bloom just before Tricia's birthday. This year it was a little bruised and sun-scorched before I got to it with the camera but it still looks lovely.
mosquito repellants
One of the gardening groups I belong to has been discussing natural mosquito repellants recently. We can't go outside here for more than a few minutes without being attacked, and I have never liked putting the commercial stuff on my skin, so this is a topic of some interest to me.
Many of the natural repellants sold in stores use ingredients like pennyroyal that I don't grow, but one member of the group makes her own repellant by infusing horsemint in olive oil. Horsemint is a type of monarda with a citronella type scent. It is a common wildflower in this area of Texas and I have some in the garden. She puts the leaves and flowers in a saucepan and covers it with olive oil and gently heats it, then lets it sit overnight before straining. She claims it works great.
My own remedy is simpler. We have a couple of large rosemary plants, one near the front entrance and another out back. When I am outside and the mosquitos start to bother me I simply break off a branch of rosemary and rub the oil from the leaves all over my face and arms. The leaves practically ooze oil after sitting in the sun so a small branch will go a long way. It really works for me and it's so handy, not to mention being free. Another plus is that the fragrance is nice by itself.
the mortality of gardens
After dinner I got outside and worked a little at clearing up some more of the weeds that have sprung up from last month's neglect. I started to reflect on how fast nature takes over our feeble attempts to impose our will.
My worst enemies are the trees and the vines. Pecan, hackberry and redbud seedlings are so prolific that I would be living in a jungle if I let it go. Then there is the bindweed and the honeysuckle waiting to smother everything to the ground.
I wonder what will be left of my garden within a few years of my leaving. Actually I guess that would depend a lot on the next owner. Our house is practically ancient for this area of the country - sixty years old. We have fixed it up a lot. Tore the kitchen down to the studs and rebuilt it ourself. But many of the older houses around here are being leveled to build "mini-mansions."
South of Ft Worth are the ruins of a fabulous garden built in the 1930's by a wealthy man. When we visited there a few years ago there were remains of creekside walks and a "ship" built of stone in the creek where glamorous parties were once held. But not much was left of the roses and other plants that once grew alongside those paths.
my gardening taste
After taking Chan's Taste Test and reading Kathy's comments, I started thinking about my gardening experience and decided I need to explain a little.
I grew up in Texas and have mostly lived here. I have memories of the gardens of my parents and grandparents and others but I did not have a garden of my own until I moved to where I am now about eleven years ago. I learned about plants from Sierra Club hikes and wildflower field guides.
When I finally had enough space for a garden my first thoughts were about plants that were familiar, namely wildflowers. I took a landscaping class taught by Sally Wasowski and joined a garden club specializing in native plants, both of which reinforced that point of view. I am not a purist though. I left anything that was still surviving in the old garden beds and have planted lots of roses and irises.
So not only has my gardening experience been confined to one region, I have even deliberately limited my plant selections (with a lot of exceptions, as I have to point out).
back in the garden
The summer heat and humidity is enough to make anyone feel a little wilted.
Actually this is a datura blossom near the end of its short life. I like daturas, also known as jimson weed, but a lot of people don't. The plant itself is mostly big and ugly and is poisonous. But the flowers are gorgeous at night when they first open and have a strong fragrance.
The garden is starting to bloom out again now that the rains have mostly stopped and the sun is back out. The roses especially have really come back to life and the summer flowers are starting to show themselves too.
I am still trying to trim back the rampant growth of weeds that took over during the rains. It is so bad that it is intimidating, but I just have to take a small section at a time and try to tame it.
garden update
It's starting to get difficult to enjoy the garden. It's either unbearably hot and humid or else it's raining. There are tons of mosquitos. By the time it cools off in the evening I am too tired to get out and do much.
I've kept the front yard up but out back weeds and overgrowth are starting to get the best of things. The wisteria has runners that cross the path now. A couple times I've tripped over them on the way to the vegetable garden. Maybe this weekend I will feel motivated enough to withstand the conditions and cut them back.
There are still roses blooming but the blossoms are just not as numerous. The most prevalent flowers are the purple coneflowers. They look best in the shady areas where they keep their purple color.
So far the lantanas have had only sparse flowering and the flame acanthus is just coming to life. The ruelias are blooming but I don't get to enjoy them because the flowers have fallen off by the time I get home from work.
vitex
When I was a student in Houston there was a large gnarled old vitex tree that grew next to the driveway of my rented house. In the summer I would have to sweep aside the branches to get into my car. I learned to like the fragrance of the foliage and I equally enjoyed the dark blue spikey flowers.
I was not familiar with vitex then so I had to ask my friend (who was also named Bill) about the tree. This other Bill loved trees and knew all that could be known about them. He had bought a piece of land outside town and gone into the landscaping and nursery business. He was planting trees on his land with the intention of making his living selling them and planting them on other people’s property. He lived frugally. His land did not have a house on it so he bought one of those pre-fabricated sheds like they sell at the big hardware stores. He had it set up on his land and that’s where he lived. There was no insulation in the walls and no plumbing. He had a cast-iron wood-burning stove that sufficed for both heating and cooking.
Eventually Bill met a pretty librarian who tamed his wild ways and they moved off to her native Oregon. But not before he transferred a little bit of his knowledge and interest in trees on to me. And of course he identified the vitex tree for me. It has become one of my favorite trees and I can’t imagine living without one now.
Vitex is a common plant in the South. You see it often in old neighborhoods. It likes lots of sun and is very tolerant of drought. Many people think it is native but it actually originated in south Asia. It can be either a large shrub or a small tree up to about twenty feet. It is naturally multi-trunked, but if you cut back all but one or two of the trunks it becomes more tree-like. The leaves look like marijuana, which gives rise to the nickname “hemp tree.”
Another common name is “chaste tree.” For centuries the legend has persisted that the fragrance of the flowers reduces passion. Some say that the tree was often planted around monasteries in Europe for this reason. The flowers are very popular with bees and I’ve read that some of the best honey comes from bees that feed on vitex.
veggies
The first tomatoes have just about ripened on the vine in our vegetable garden. The vines are heavy with green ones too. The trouble with growing tomatoes is that the harvest comes all at once. We'll soon be trying to foist them off on our friends. I have never tried fried green tomatoes but we know someone who professes to like that dish and she should be expecting a sack of the green ones this weekend.
Tricia collected a nice harvest of potatoes just before the rains started. I am not a big fan of those large potatoes they sell in stores. I don't really like french fries or baked potatoes. However I do like the little red-skinned potatoes in a cream sauce. Those are the kind we grow and they actually have a taste.
I've read that in the Andes where potatoes originate they have many varieties growing wild, even some that are red and some blue. One day I'd like to find some of those and see what they taste like.
garden update
For the record here is what is happening in the garden at the end of May.
We still have roses. The rouletii and the mutabilis still have plentiful blossoms. The Iceberg however which usually has the most is currently barren. All of the new roses we planted this spring currently have at least one bloom on them also. The Prosperity is really doing well now but the Ducher is definitely going to be my favorite of these, because of the fineness of the blossoms and the fullness of the foliage.
The salvia greggii are no longer as prolific, but the coccinea are now blooming and the regla is just starting to get a few blooms too. I acquired a sylvestris from a friend last weekend which is in bloom. The leucantha and the farinacea have yet to flower. Last week there were several penstemons in flower but none this week.
Lots of echinacea and yarrow. I love to walk in the garden in the very late evening when the yarrow heads seem to just be floating above the ground. Guara has an effect like that too. It's pale pink flowers look like little butterflies.
The pink and yellow lantana is starting to flower but the blue which is my favorite has not yet. Of the yellow flowers the zexmenia is beginning to flower and of course the four-nerve daisy blooms every day of the year. The red yucca has four stalks of flowers. Also avens, mexican hat, milkweed, mexican oregano, skullcap, winecup, pavonia and I'm sure I've missed a few.
caterpillars
The fennel out near the street is now over six feet tall and covered with caterpillars that grow into black swallowtail butterflies. We don't object to their eating the fennel. In fact it is mostly for their benefit that we grow it.
However fennel is a fairly nice plant to grow anyway. We started out by planting it out back in the garden. Somehow this one escaped and set itself up under a tree near the street. Like all volunteers it seems to do much better than any we have planted ourselves.
Being near the street it catches the eye of passersby. In the early spring when it is under two feet tall most assume it is some kind of fern. It is probably most attractive as a landscaping plant at that stage. At the stage it is now it has interesting yellow flowers and seedheads but is kind of rangy. The caterpillars tend to strip the soft foliage away and leave bare stalks.
I like to eat the seeds myself. They taste like licorice. They also make a nice seasoning.
But really all those are just extras because the real pleasure comes when you see the big black swallowtails floating gently in the breeze.
changing seasons
As I stepped out this morning to go to the car, I was greeted by the first daylily of the season. This is is the only one to even have buds on it yet, in fact.
My lantana is just beginning to bloom and there are a few pink flowers on the skullcap that I recently planted next to the driveway. The zexmenia has also had a flower or two on it. All these are hot weather plants that will really not look their best until July.
All signs of the changing seasons. The afternoons are starting to get hot and muggy. We are needing rain already and there is none in the forecast. I got out the hose and watered a little around the plants that I put in this spring.
annuals
Most advice I've read about gardening advises to plant perennials. That seems to be based on the assumption that annuals will only last one year. If that is true then perennials would be the better value not just for the dollar spent but for the labor of putting them in. They get bigger and better each year.
But if you plant the right annuals they return each year, and if they don't get bigger they multiply so that you get more and more plants. What's more they have this interesting habit of moving around in your yard.
These larkspurs originally were part of a wildflower seed mix that planted in a corner of the yard three or four years back. There are a few still in that location but they wanted a sunnier spot. I've found them here and there in various beds. There was even one that came up in a crack in the driveway. But this year the best display is right here alongside the walk across from the vegetable garden.
They look good here and they will have spend themselves by the time the other plants here are ready to show off.
Salvia coccinea is another annual that moves around and shows itself in different places each year. Neither of these is invasive, and if you don't like them somewhere they are easy to pull up. But you have to give up a little bit of control over your garden to really appreciate them
how to get your garden weeded
The vegetable garden has been invaded lately with spearmint. It escaped from a nearby shady bed under a juniper tree across a paved path into the area where we are trying to grow tomatoes and lettuce.
As weeds go this is a pretty nice one, providing extra benefits of fragrance when you pull it up. I've read that spearmint increases mental acuity. I had thought about leaving it to see if it would keep the pests off the tomatoes, but it was threatening to overwhelm the tomatoes.
But then we got volunteers to weed the garden. Our friends Charlie and Susan are planning to make mint juleps on Saturday for their "Kentucky Derby" party. We offered free mint for the picking and they accepted the offer. Now there are but a few traces left. I'm looking forward to the mint juleps tomorrow.
troublesome vines
Today I pulled out a bunch of Japanese honeysuckle with stems almost a half-inch thick. It had planted itself among a stand of nandina and I did not even notice it until the white blooms revealed themselves a few days ago.
I hate pulling honeysuckle out because it has a pretty flower and a nice fragrance. If only it did not spread everywhere. When I first moved here there was a whole corner of the yard completely covered with it. It still keeps popping up along the fenceline.
There is a coral variety available which is much less invasive. I would try it but I am not sure I could keep from confusing it with the Japanese variety.
I have another vine in my garden that is even worse. In fact it is one of the most troublesome weeds in my garden. It is a relative of morning glory which I call bindweed. It seems to pop up just about everwhere with thin twining stems and heart-shaped leaves. It strangles my roses and other perennials and can be very tedious to remove without damaging the other plants.
dogwood flower
Since I did not get to take any pictures of the dogwoods last Sunday as I had hoped, I am posting this shot of a dogwood flower in my neighbor's back yard. We don't have any flowering dogwoods ourselves but the limbs of this little one may someday extend over our fence.
first taste of the garden
We got our first small harvest from the vegetable garden today. Enough new potatoes for a meal for two, cooked with sprigs of rosemary and diced onion, both also from our own garden.
It feels good to have your own food growing just steps away from the backdoor, even though the vast majority of our diet is still processed foods from unknown origins. It would be satisfying in more ways than one to be even more self-sufficient.
I took the Ecological Footprint Test but found I did not do much better than average - mainly the result of living with only one other human in a (relatively) large house in a very hot climate. Fully half my result was housing.
trimming abelia
Something I haven't figured out is how to keep abelia trimmed down and have it look good. We have two big bushes of it that I would like to be just a couple feet shorter. One in particular is under a window. Or at least I would like for it to be under the window. As it is it obscures the window.
Some people try to clip these into a square hedge but that just does not look right to my eye. The plant has many stems that come up from the ground and fall over in a kind of fountain effect. If you cut the stem anywhere it branches from that point, spoiling the effect.
At one office where I use to work, the parking lot was surrounded by a hedge of this type that got too big. One day the groundskeepers came out and whacked everything down at ground level. They looked terrible for a while but grew back in looking just perfect.
I wish that I had thought of doing that in the winter. This late in the year I am afraid I might be looking at another whole year before they looked good again. Abelia is evergreen so one hesitates to cut it in the winter when not much else is looking good.
What I did instead today is crawl around under the bush trying to identify the longest stems and whacking them off at ground level. That method helped a little, but truthfully all the stems are too tall. I also made sure that I got the stems with branches that scraped against the windowglass in a breeze making my skin crawl the way it did when kids used to scrape their fingernails on the blackboard (remember that?).
poison ivy
Uh oh. I think I could have a rash from poison ivy. There is a small area near my right elbow that is red and itchy and a spot on my left wrist underneath my watch band where I've scratched the skin raw.
I always thought I was not allergic. In fact I sometimes pull out poison ivy with bare hands without giving it a thought. I've heard that you can develop an allergy to it at any time though.
Last Thursday I spied a small patch growing under the trees near the back fence and pulled it out. I was wearing gloves but I remember the vines reaching back and rubbing against my bare arms.
Did my immunity wear off? Looks like I'm going to have to be more careful in the future.
we visit an iris farm
A cold front moved in today. It was cloudy with intermittent light rain. It was not really good weather to work outside so we decided on a car trip. We headed up to a little place just south of Denton where the owners of an iris farm hold an annual garden tour at their home.
Forget what I said a few days ago about the lack of wildflowers along the road. On this trip we saw lots of bluebonnets and especially primroses along the right of ways. I still think the bluebonnets have not quite hit their peak yet though.
Our destination was Argyle Acres and it turned out that the demonstration gardens were in the front yard of the owner's log cabin style house. The setting was a Crosstimbers forest on a hillside, lots of small post oaks in a reddish sandy soil with natural underbrush and leaf mulch, and no lawn grass to be seen. Heavily mulched paths connected the iris beds within the woods. It was a completely natural and very simple landscape.
They claimed over 1200 varieties of iris in the gardens. No more than a third were blooming at best, but it was still an overwhelming sight. Of course I had my camera with me and if you are not already sick of seeing iris pictures you are welcome to visit my photo gallery where I posted some of the prettier shots.
With the light rain and the wind Tricia and I were rather chilled by the time we were ready to leave. Plus we were starting to feel hungry. We headed back through downtown Grapevine where we stopped and got lunch at an old favorite that we had not visited for several years.
No, we did not bring any irises back with us, but we did order some to be delivered in the fall.
irises
This does not seem to be a particulary good year for wildflowers. Most of the bluebonnet displays I have seen so far have been rather weak. But then I have been sticking pretty close to home lately. The roses and irises are what catch my attention here. Both are looking very good right now.
The latest edition of Texas Highways magazine came a few days ago and has an article about a big iris grower near here. The article says there is no true red iris. (Unfortunately the article is not online). That may be true but this one in my backyard seems awfully close to red. Perhaps a little rusty. An odd thing about it - the buds are a very dark navy, almost black, before they open. I don't know the names of any of my iris varieties. All of them were pass-alongs.
There are more pictures of this month's flowers in the photo gallery.
The magazine says that the iris grower is offering tours of their demonstration gardens over the next couple weekends. I may have to brave the crowds.
UPDATE: We visited the iris farm and saw one almost like this called Lady Friend. I think it is enough alike that I am going to assume that is what ours is.
garden maintenance
The predicted rain for the weekend never materialized, so I got to be outside working the best part of the day.
Mostly I weeded the various beds. A lot of my friends get the wrong idea when I tell them I like a natural looking garden with lots of native plants. They think a garden like this requires no care. I am old and lazy so I wish that were true. And there are some parts of it that do look like it has gone wild.
It might be true that a native plant garden takes a little less care than one with exotics. But the yard with the minimum care has got to be an expanse of lawn grass that you can just hire somebody to mow flat once a week. I really cannot understand these people who promote alternatives to lawns on the basis of easy care. On the basis of beauty and interest, yes. But easy care? Not unless I am doing something drastically wrong.
While I was weeding Tricia planted the tomatoes and peppers in the vegetable garden. We are little late setting these out. We will have Early Girl, Celebrity, Fourth of July and Red October tomatoes this year. For peppers, I picked out jalapenos, habaneros and serranos. We usually have some volunteers in the garden that come up from seed from last year's plants too.
Sable tended the potatoes.
garden update
The wisteria is starting to fade and the flowers are being replaced by bright green leaves. There is still a hint of fragrance though and the ground underneath is littered with the remains of the blossoms.
The irises are starting to show their stuff now. The white ones are blooming first. This colony by the path in the shadow of the wisteria has over a dozen large blooms on stalks so tall they topple over from the weight. Elsewhere in the yard there are yellow and blue ones soon to open.
The salvias are beginning to bloom too as well as the blackfoot daisies. Underneath the pecans there is a flower on one of the buckeyes (Aeschylus pavia). This is the first time I have seen it bloom and I am surprised to see that it is a pale yellow. I was expecting scarlet.
The pecans are still barelimbed but the cedar elms have fully leafed out now. It is surprising how they were transformed so suddenly in just a few days. I am so busy at work I have just spare moments to enjoy them. One day I look and there is just a bit of green and then the next time I look the tree is bright yellowish-green all over.
lessons
Daughter and grand-daughter were houseguests this weekend. While they went with Tricia to see "Monsters on Ice", I worked outside in the garden and played with my new Canon. It's got a lot more features than my old Olympus digital, but that added complexity means a lot more to learn and I seem to be a slow learner. On closeups especially I seem to be out of focus most of the time. At least I am not using up film while I practice.
Perhaps I need a tripod. It seems like the subject will go in and out of focus while I am aiming. I am talking mainly about photographing flowers here. Of course I got in a little practice on portraits this weekend too.
I also gained a bit of wisdom from grand-daughter Beth, "Rolly-pollies are nice to people." I bet you did not know that either. Actually I have suspected them of eating the lettuce in my garden; but I am willing to concede that they probably have no evil intentions toward me.
This weblog got a little extra attention over the last few days thanks to Burningbird and Reading and Writing. Just a little light-hearted kidding about my flower pictures. Hopefully my readers will bear with me while I enthuse about Spring. In a few months the sun will be burning everything up, and I will be looking at scorched earth while you northerners are enjoying your summer.
ducher
This is the first blossom on the roses I got last weekend. It has several more buds too, which have a tinge of pink around the edge. The flower is small.
I've read that Ducher is the only white China rose. It was introduced in 1869. It is not supposed to get very large. I've planted it in a space between my driveway and a tall privet hedge at the edge of the property. It will get good sun in the morning through early afternoon but be shaded in the late afternoon.
Nearby is the Valentine which has buds already too. I'll post a picture as soon as one opens.
white wisteria
The white wisteria has a stronger fragrance than the purple one. It will perfume the air over an area of at least half an acre when it reaches it's maximum bloom a few days from now. Standing under it is almost intoxicating.
first day of spring
We celebrated the first day of Spring with a drive in the country. This time we headed northwest for a change. We skimmed across the northern edge of Fort Worth to Highway 199. It had been a long while since I had visited this corner of the world and I was dismayed to see how suburbanized it had become - all chain stores and fast food.
We headed north on the Jacksboro Highway but it was not until we got past Springtown that we finally escaped the urban traffic and settled down into a relaxing drive. Jacksboro turned out to be a pleasantly sleepy little town.
We had heard about a new rose nursery opening up there and that was the ostensible excuse for our trip. All we had to go on was a street address and no map but it was a numbered street. I resisted the plea from Tricia to stop and ask directions; eventually we crossed a "Fourth Street" and from there it was easy to get oriented. The nursery was a modest operation right at the edge of a residential area.
It turned out that we arrived on the very first day that the nursery was open to the public, although they have been selling wholesale for several years. The owner and his wife were on hand to show us around and offer us a Dublin Dr Pepper from a washtub full of ice. They sell "antique" roses which are plants grown on their own rootstock, as opposed to grafted roses.
We picked out five to bring home - Ducher, Buff Beauty, Prosperity, Valentine and Zephirine Drouhin. All of them have strong scents, which is the quality we were after.
We took another route home through Bridgeport trying to get as far as we could on country roads before hitting the city traffic. The countryside was greening up but there was little sign of wildflowers that far north yet. At least it looked better than this however.
spring flowers
Lot's of new flowers in the garden and more just days away.
That is spirea in the picture below. We also have candytuft, phlox, roses (rouletii, martha gonzales and mutabilis), four-nerve daisy, and salvia greggii.
The first blooms are appearing on the white wisteria and in a few days we will have blooms on the purple one also.
Click for a larger image
redbuds
Tuesday I had to mow my lawn. We've been having so much rain lately that it was starting to look out of control.
Today it actually seemed warm. Redbuds are at the height of their glory all over town. We have roses too. I saw several blooms on the Rouletti this afternoon. The salvia greggii are just starting to open up. Irises and daffodils are blooming in gardens all down the street.
It's affecting my mood. I feel more optimistic, cheerful, like starting new projects.
daffodils
Daffodils are everywhere this week. Why is it that I have never planted daffodils? Strange oversight. They are undeniably a pretty flower.
All week long though I have not been able to get a rhyme out of my head. It's something I read in MAD when I was a boy.
I wandered lonely as a clod,Please, make this go away!
just gathering old rags and bottles.
When onward on my way I plod
I saw a host of axolotls.
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
A sight to make a man's blood freeze.
iris
A few days ago I was talking about "rescuing" plants. This iris was rescued a couple years ago from an abandoned garden at a property that had been donated to our church. Eventually the whole site will be bulldozed for a new building. For now the garden is just a hindrance to the grounds crew who have to mow around it.
This plant bloomed the first year after I planted it and then I decided to move it again. I read in one of Scott Ogden's books that it preferred a damp shady environment. Last year it did not bloom at all, and I was afraid I had made a mistake in relocating it. I was very surprised to look out the window this afternoon and see the flower.
It's the first of my irises to bloom. The flower like the foliage is slender and delicate. The fans die back all the way to the ground in the winter.
plant rustling
Saturday, I "rescued" a few native plants from a site in Plano doomed to be scraped clean in the near future to make another road. I did not have any definite idea of what I was looking for when I set out. There were about fifty people there when I arrived. I spied a few I knew who were more knowledgable than me at identifying plants and attached myself to them.
With their help I found a few wild orchids and some prairie verbena and an aromatic sumac, all of which have already found a new home in my own garden. Many of the people were digging the prairie grasses, but I passed on that for now.
I am most curious about the orchids. I can't wait for them to bloom so I can find out what kind they are.
independence day
Wow. I had to be reminded that yesterday was Texas Independence Day by someone who doesn't even live in the state. Thanks to Hands in the Dirt. Time was this was a well-known holiday. Or was it only recognized in the schools?
There are unmistable signs of Spring now. Gazing out my office window I thought I could detect leafing out on the row of big trees on the far side of the parking lot. We have a little bit of lettuce already in the garden, holdovers from last year. Enough for a very small salad. And the seeds I planted have sprouted.
the garden in february
I saw a white iris blooming as I was running an errand this morning. According to my mother the old-fashioned white ones are the first to bloom. She calls them "flags" instead of irises. Mine always bloom much later, even the white ones. But the foliage is always interesting to look at even when they are not blooming.
It was cold and damp today. They are predicting rain for tomorrow. It was very late when I got home from work last night and I was still recovering this morning. At first I did not even want to get out. Finally I decided to fertilize the front lawn. It is something I always do about this time each year with an organic fertilizer. It always annoys Tricia because it is made of chicken manure and has a smell. She claims I always put it out just when she is expecting her friends over. The activity warmed me up a little and took my mind off my "office work."
There was a hike scheduled for this morning that I intended to take. Looking for "trout lilies" in the Trinity Forest. I seem to always miss seeing these woodland flowers. But today I seemed to just need a morning of doing nothing more than anything else.
starting the vegetable garden
Another sunny afternoon today. We worked in three inches of compost in the vegetable garden. Then Tricia planted potatoes and onions and I set out seed for lettuce. I suspect we spend more money on this garden than we would spend on buying the vegetables in the store. If we counted our labor cost I am sure that would be true. We like the idea of being self-sustaining but there is no way we will ever come anywhere close to that ideal. We do it partly because we think the vegetables we grow ourselves taste better than the ones in the store and because we know exactly how they have been grown. We do it partly just because we come from families who always had gardens. I don't know if it makes sense but it is satisfying.
I have a small flower bed near the front walk that I would like to make some changes to. Last year I put some salvia greggii in the back which have a color called "pink flamingo" along with with a red hibiscus. Along the front are blue trailing phlox and candytuft and there are daylillies of several colors interspersed. In the middle of this bed is a large zexmenia. It does well there but it is too tall for the salvias that I planted behind it. I have another location in mind for the zexmenia but I can't decide what to replace it with. The area is in full sun around the middle of the day but is shaded morning and late afternoon.
sunny afternoon
Sunny and in the low seventies. You could not ask for a more perfect day and I had the afternoon off. First I got out the chainsaw and took care of the split live oak that met its demise in the snowstorm. It's funny how trees on the ground seem to have so much more bulk than they do when standing. I cut a little of it up in the right lengths for firewood and added it to the wood pile. But mostly it was too small. It will have to go out to the curb for trash pickup.
Next I went to the vegetable garden. We don't have a tiller and we usually just rent one for jobs like this. But the ground still seemed very soft and it's not really a very big garden. It's a raised bed and the soil has been heavily amended. I got out the garden fork. When I held it a couple feet off the ground and dropped it the tines sank in all the way to the wooden shaft. I decided to try turning the ground by hand with the fork. That wound up being a little more of a task than I was really in shape for, and by the time I was finished I was ready to sit down and have some tea.
There still is not much blooming yet in the flower beds. The quince blossoms seem to have survived the snow rather well and the bees were out visiting them again this afternoon. The only other flowers were the candytuft (Iberis sempervirens) which also survived the snow.
snow day
Woke up early this morning with an inordinate amount of whiteness shining through the bedroom window. The weatherman had predicted snow and it looks like he got it right this time. It's still falling and we already have a soft blanket covering the ground and clumping on the trees and bushes.
For the benefit of the northerners who may be reading this, we get snow maybe once or twice a year here and when we do it is a BIG DEAL. At least it's Saturday so no attempts to get to the office.
I was talking to my Dad on the phone Thursday and he wanted to know if we had our potatoes planted yet. He reminded me that Lincoln's Birthday is when you need to have them in the ground. The answer was no; it's been too wet and cold every weekend. I don't think I am going to be in the garden today either unless it's to build a snowman.
dream garden
Last night I dreamed I stopped overnight at a hotel in the big city with some traveling companions. The weather being bad we didn't want to venture out so we decided to entertain ourselves exclusively within the hotel during our short stay. There was a night club there vaguely like one I had just seen in a movie and a magic store and of course a restaurant.
It was a restaurant within a garden, with tables set between beds of flowers and herbs. Due to the mystery of dreams it was inexplicably sunny as well as being in the basement of a hotel. Fragrant roses and climbing vines divided the area into "rooms" and there was a wide border around the whole place with banks of rosemary, thyme and oregano, as well as iris and other flowers. Beyond the border a stone wall encircled everything.
I woke up wishing I could go to a restaurant like that. The closest I can think of is one at an herb farm, which is not actually al fresco even though you can appreciate the garden through the windows.
advice from the past
I am sure I could never make it in the north. Even the weather we have this time of year in north Texas gets me down. I hate the grey sky and the way I cringe from the cold wind under my coat.
In search of some diversion I headed to a used bookstore. Whenever I am in any bookstore I always check the gardening section to see what I can find. This time I came across a slim spiral-bound paperback called Dallas Planting Manual. According to the forward it was orginally "compiled" by Mrs. Edward Belsterling in 1941. This was the Eleventh Edition, published in 1981 by the Dallas Women's Club.
It includes a "monthly calendar" with gardening tips. For February the advice includes, "start a garden diary. It will be your most valuable reference book. Keep records of time of bloom, combination of bloom occurring at the same time and of what is blooming in other gardens that you would like to have in yours. FEED THE BIRDS." Sound advice.
The things to plant this month: potatoes and onions, larkspur, poppy and dahlia seeds. "Bare-root roses should not be set out after the 15th."
When I first started gardening the only books I found were written for the north. They were totally out of sync with the seasons in Texas. There are plenty of books written about gardening in Texas now, but even those are not always relevant. Texas is a pretty big area and what works in Amarillo does not necessarily work in Corpus Christi. So I am happy to find a book that is specifically for my area, especially one written by an amateur whose voice I've never heard.
Besides the monthly calendar there are sections on soil and bed preparation and descriptions of the most popular plants. I am looking forward to reading it.
rosemary flowers
Our cold front is still with us. The days are sunny and pleasant enough for those fortunate enough to have the leisure to enjoy them. Once the sun goes down the temperatures drop however, and we will have another freezing night tonight.
I am reminded of my schoolboy days when I would bundle up for the morning walk to school and then forget and leave my coat in the locker when I left to come home. How many others remember doing that?
There is a big rosemary plant between our driveway and the front door. It's about three feet high and at least four feet in diameter. I like to brush against it as I walk by. Sometimes Tricia picks a branch to cook with the chicken or with potatoes. Last week she made sweet potatoes with rosemary that were especially good. This rosemary bush has been blooming now for several weeks. They are small flowers and tend to be buried down in the shadows of the leaves where you don't see them much. I haven't seen many insects around them. Rosemary tends to repel a lot of insects I hear.
garden update
Saturday was rainy but today we had a clear sky and temperatures in the 70's. It was a perfect afternoon to spend outside.
We cut back some of the roses and pulled weeds out of the flower beds. Tricia and I tend to disagree about the attractiveness of the dead stalks of perennials and annuals. She doesn't like to look at them. I think they are attractive in a stark sort of way and I like to leave them standing through the winter. To compromise we cut down the ones in the front on public view and left some in the back that I can appreciate.
The quince which opened its first blossoms just a couple weeks back now has many blooms and the bees are buzzing all around them. There are other signs of spring too. I have been playing with a new camera and I tried to catch the first buds of Aeschylus pavia as they start to open. Red buckeye, as it is popularly called, is an abundant small understory tree or shrub in east Texas which is known for it's bright red flowers of early spring.
cold
We are finally getting a taste of winter here. It got down to 19 Monday morning and only got as high as 36 yesterday. It's only a little bit warmer today.
That may still seem warm to some of my readers in the northern climes, but I think it all depends on what you are adjusted to. It felt mighty cold to me.
In general I don't worry about freezes in the garden because I mostly use plants that are natives and can stand the cold. I do take care in the vegetable garden but right now there isn't anything there to be concerned about. But I forgot about the twin planters of mother-in-law tongue that were sitting on the front porch, until I got home and found the "tongues" trailing on the ground. I quickly put them inside hoping they weren't complete goners. I think some of the spears on the inside of the bunches may have survived.
Tricia and I are terrible with house plants. We invariably put them outside and forget them until they freeze or if they are inside we forget to water them for months. On my office desk now I have an African violet that someone gave me. It has stayed really pretty with dark blue flowers for over a year now. But just wait. I'll manage to kill it somehow.
flowering quince
First plant to flower each year is the quince (Chaenomeles speciosa). At a time when there is so much grey, it cheers me up to see the bright spots of red appear at the very back of the yard.
Quince looks its best in winter and early spring. Once the weather starts to get hot it loses a lot of leaves and turns yellowish. For that reason it is good to mix it with some other shrubs that stay green in the summer. Ours has remained green longer since we constructed a high wooden fence behind it that protects it from the western sun.
The shrub tends to look rather wild. The limbs are long and somewhat thorny. They were here before us so I can't say how old they are or what variety they might be. We don't trim them back at all and they are about six to seven feet tall and about as wide. They are practically indestructible.
Quince comes in a variety of shades of red and pink. A house a few blocks from us has a wonderful bright red one in the front yard that gets a lot of sun and blooms profusely. I will be looking forward to seeing it in a week or two.
Later there will be small fruits. I've heard they make a nice jelly. The birds and insects get to ours before we've had a chance to find out.
garden update
On the last day of the year there is very little blooming in our garden. A week ago we had roses on several plants. Now only the Iceberg has a few withering blossoms, although several others will probably produce a blossom or two from time to time.
There are tiny blue flowers on the rosemary bushes and we still have a few blossoms on the lantana, although the leaves have turned really dark on it. The paperwhites continue to bloom. The four-nerve daisies which have been consistent bloomers through past winters have been dormant all month.
Except for those few bright spots the garden is fairly bleak and seemingly lifeless. In the vegetable garden we have only a couple of herbs - oregano and cilantro - and lots of purple vetch, which we grow as a cover crop.
the shakespeare gardens
Kaylee likes butterflies. We did not have anythng to show her in our little backyard city garden this weekend so Sunday we rounded her up along with the rest of the youngsters visiting in our house and went on an expedition to Fair Park to the Texas Discovery Gardens.
I thought we would find butterflies in the Tropical Conservatory but we were disapointed. There was only a display of mounted specimens, which was somewhat interesting in itself. Likewise the Butterfly Gardens was devoid of the insects too, and the plants there were as bleak as the ones in our own gardens.
But we hit gold in the Shakespeare Garden. It's an iris garden, overplanted with Mexican milkweed. The plants were covered with Monarch caterpillars, moving sluggishly. After a moment or two we realized that many were in various stages of building their cocoons. This delighted everyone, even the kids.
From there we walked over to the roses, many of which were blooming. We even found a pair of live Monarchs there.
To fill out the afternoon we went on to the Natural History Museum so the boys could see the dinosaur bones. It was a good break from the kid's regular diet of videos and games. The weather was cool and a little damp, but still not bad enough for a coat. There were a few other families in the museum, but we had the gardens all to ourselves, so the kids could run all they wanted without bothering anyone.
mistletoe
Most of the leaves have fallen from the cedar elms in the front yard. I can now see how much the mistletoe has spread since last year. We have three trees along the street and there are heavy accumulations in the two on each side. The big tree in the middle is still fairly clean.
Elm trees and oaks are two kinds of trees that mistletoe infects. Hackberry is a kind of elm and being a very weak short-lived tree in the first place is also especially affected. We used to have a row of old hackberries along the fence line on both sides of us. That's probably where the mistletoe got its start here. The berries tend to stick to the fur of squirrels. Birds eat them too and spread the seeds.
Tree experts have told me there is not much I can do to prevent the spread of the mistletoe, except to try to cut off the limbs where it grows. It is a parasite and will eventually kill the tree. Most of the limbs though are large and well beyond my reach. In other words about all I can do is slow down its spread.
If I can cut off some nice-sized pieces I will hang them over my door in time for New Year's. The custom began with the Druids.
paperwhites
Now that we've had a freeze and its warmed back up, the paperwhites have started to bloom. This usually happens later like in January, but the weather in Texas tends to trick flowers in this way.
Narcissus tagetes 'Papyraceus' is one of the earliest bulbs to bloom. These are naturalized in a woody border near the garden shed. So far this bunch are the only ones to bloom. They have a really strong fragrance like candy.
We have lantana and echinacea still too, as well as all of the ever-blooming roses. There was even a lone blossom on the morning glory vine today, though all of the foliage has shriveled up. It is still not really winter here yet. The leaves have not all fallen from the cedar elms nor from the big oaks on the other side of the road.
No pecans are falling either. Usually they make their aerial bombardment the last couple weeks of November, but this year we had practically no crop. It's okay, they are native pecans - very small and hard to open - so they are mostly just a nuisance. The squirrels are disappointed though.
garden update
Today the sun is out and it is shorts and t-shirt weather. The freeze did not hurt much. I did not protect anything except the outside water faucets. It looks as if the morning-glory vine pretty much bit the dust, which I could have predicted. The mountain sage lost all it's flowers but the leaves are mostly still green. I had thought about covering it in order to keep the flowers going another few weeks but decided to let nature take its course. The lawn grass is still green though.
My one regret is that I did not do anything to keep my pepper plants alive. If I had thought about it I could have put up the "water walls" and maybe kept them alive through the winter. We have a pretty good supply stored away though.
possible freeze
Saturday was a little windy but warm and sunny, just right for working outside. I mowed the front lawn for what I expect to be the last time for a few months and raked up my leaves.
Luckily I don't bag my leaves so I can't have the same experience with vandals that Kurt did. I like to chop up the leaves with the lawnmower and then either add them to the compost pile or use them as a winter mulch. At one time I used to drive around the neighborhood and "steal" the bagged leaves on the curbsides, but this year I am going to make do with the produce from my own trees.
Saturday night the temperature started falling and it may get down to freezing tonight. There is a brisk wind blowing too. I probably should have chopped down these goldenrods. The wind may blow the seeds everywhere. But I like the way they look. The leaves are still green but that may change tomorrow if we get the freeze.
Usually I try to post once a day even if I don't have much to say. However, my brain has been so fried by pressures at the office lately that I haven't been able to string two coherent sentences together. The opportunity to work outside yesterday was refreshing.
echinacea
Today was a cleanup day in the garden. I raked up pecan leaves in the backyard, chopped them up with the lawnmower and transferred the remains to the compost bin. I cut back the maximilian sunflowers which were just dried leaves and stems now and also the eupatorium which is spreading way beyond where I wanted it.
While I worked dogface butterflies danced around the red salvias, while overhead geese were flying south for the winter. It was a grey day but warm. The predicted rain never materialized.
The Echinacea were making a small comeback. I cut the tall stems down long ago and there are just short stems now with a few flowers.
martha gonzales
The last couple days we've had sunny afternoons sandwiched between dark and moody mornings and evenings. I walk about in the garden in the late afternoon and watch the clouds roll in as the sun sets. The air feels soft and sensuous against my skin.
There is still a lot of red on the mountain sage and the flame acanthus. I even saw a Monarch today. The lantanas are at the height of their glory. Some of the roses are doing well too. The Martha Gonzales that we planted last winter struggled through the summer, but now is looking very healthy even though it is small. It has had a small burst of blooms this week. The flowers deteriorate very rapidly so it will be nice when it gets large enough to have more than a few at a time.
Now another cool front is moving in. As I sit typing in front of the open window the wind is picking up. It's blowing away the cloud cover and I can see the almost full moon shining through the treetops.
pepper harvest
We are still getting a good harvest of peppers from the garden, in spite of the shorter days and cooler temperatures. I pulled these off the vines this afternoon. The small skinny ones at the lower left are my favorites.
It's still cloudy and a little rainy here today, although we got a bit of sunshine in the afternoon. I got home in time to enjoy just an hour or so of it today. Nothing damaged yet in the garden from the wet and cold. I am sure missing the display of the morning glories though. It had not occurred to me but I guess they don't bloom if the sun does not come out.
getting colder
Another cool front is moving in tonight. The temperature has been dropping all day and a light rain fell for awhile in the afternoon. Building services failed to keep up in the temperatures in the office and I had to put on my jacket to keep from shivering.
It's time to do something about the furnace at home too. I turned it on to test it and then Tricia reminded me that the AC man had turned off the gas to it when he was here doing some maintenance in the summer. Seems he had found something wrong with the vent stack. Probably the roofers had taken it apart when they were doing their job and didn't assemble it right. I had forgotten all about that. It didn't seem very important in July. Now I need to go up in the attic and determine whether this is a job I can do myself or whether I will have to call in the professionals.
That's Lindheimer's muhly blowing in the wind. This is the season it looks it's best. It's one of the few successes I have had with grasses. I have tried seep muhly and love grass also, which have stayed alive but don't seem to look as nice in my yard as they do at the nursery.
garden update
The sky is overcast and grey. We had a few cold days the early part of the week but now it is warm enough again to be comfortable in shorts and a t-shirt. A light mist was falling in the morning. The cats love to drink rainwater and when they come out of the house with me they immediately head for the spots where they've learned that little pools of it collect.
The limbs of the trees are not bare yet but they have lost their healthy green color. Little eddies of dry hackberry leaves have started to form in front of the garage door and along the edging of the flower garden border. The cedar elms have started to drop leaves too. Their leaves are so small that they are only noticeable on the pavement. There is a long berm of them in the gutter, with a clear space about four inches wide separating them from the curb, where the runoff from the rain cleared a space.
The butterflies are still making whoopee out back with the Eupatorium and the milkweed. Several salvias are blooming and the pavonia. The lantana is just now starting to look good and we have a small resurgence of purple coneflowers. The big show though is the morning glories by the driveway. Every morning as I go to my car they cheer me up with several dozen bright blue blossoms.
The Iceberg rose still has multiple blossoms although not so many as a month ago. The Rouletti and the Mutabilis are also blooming reliably. The Mutabilis is one of my favorites. The simple five-petal blossoms open a creamy white and then slowly darken. They always seem slightly bruised and damaged.
a change in the weather
Working outside this morning I did not believe the weather forecasts. It was warm and not a cloud in the sky. I went inside for a lunch break around one and when I came back outside things had changed! The wind had picked up and temperatures have been dropping ever since.
I transplanted a Mexican mint marigold and a lantana and a few other things. Then I trimmed up the rosemary that keeps encroaching on our driveway. I came inside smelling good for a change, and I brought in a few of the bigger rosemary boughs to make the house smell better too.
While I was outside I noticed the Texas betony was still blooming. It is a sprawling plant related to lambsear and has the same soft fuzzy feel to the leaves but the leaves are small and not as grey. Also they do not have a pleasant smell. The Latin name is Stachys coccinea. Now that it is finally cooling off this is probably the last bloom until spring.
invasion of the alien insects
The back yard is teeming with insect life these days. to my delight there is now practically a swarm of monarchs on the blue Eupatorium. When I make a small disturbance near them, a dozen or more will take to the air at once.
More dismaying there are at least four species of insect on the Mexican milkweed seedpods with which I am not familiar. One is a large beetle, most resembling the Labidomera clivicolis in my Audubon field guide, although the markings are a little different. There are also some extremely large red ants and a colony of some other kind of bright red insect, smaller than the ants. The latter two of these seem most interested in the seedpods, but the beetles are eating the leaves.
Where all this insect life comes from I have no idea. The milkweed we bought during the spring at Texas Discovery Gardens. Could the insects have been brought in with the plants that long ago and just now be making their appearance? Ordinarily I ignore insects but I don't want our plants ravaged by something I've brought in. I am going to need a better field guide to identify them.
herb planting
On our trip to the Hill Country we brought back a few four-inch pots from the Fredricksburg Herb Farm. Today after I got home from work I planted some of them.
Cilantro is supposed to reseed itself but it doesn't seem to do so very reliably for me so I put a couple of those in the garden. It is one of my favorite seasonings and it is impossible to have too much of it anyway. Next to it I planted something called "vietnamese cilantro" - just for the curiousity of it.
We picked up several new mints. Chocolate mint, apple mint and, for the cats, catmint. We've had the last one several times before and it usually gets dug up within a short time.
We already have a couple of good patches of thyme, but I like to fill in spots in my flower garden with it so I got more of that. Also another low-growing plant called skull-cap, with small purple flowers on it.
morning glory
It certainly is a glorious morning here and these guys are celebrating it. They are growing on the hedge between our yard and the neighbors. She planted them and I can't tell you much more about them. We are on the sunny side of the hedge so we get to see most of the flowers. I hope that does not discourage her from leaving them.
I have always had a bit of prejudice against vines, Im afraid. They always seem to be too unruly. But I have also seen so many vines in the wild that are smothering the plants they grow on. Since I haven't yet learned much about differentiating the species yet, I can't tell the good from the bad. A couple of the pests I fight in my garden are bindweed, which is a kind of wild relative of morning glory, and Japanese honeysuckle. Either of these will quickly cover a shrub or small tree in our back yard in a season if I let it go.
I've got to make a trip to the bank and attend to a couple of honeydos and then I have the rest of the day to myself. Oh boy!
garden update
The garden has never looked better. We've had great cool weather and the flowers have responded. All the roses have been blooming, but the Iceberg has been especially prolific.
The goldenrod is still brightening up the dark corner of the garden, but now there is also frostweed blooming there and Turk's cap. The Turk's cap is really loaded with flowers too. The sedum and the mountain sage that I wrote about recently are still blooming but the big attraction for the Monarchs has been the blue Eupatorium next to them. During the afternoons we've seen it practically covered with them. On the other side of it is the Mexican milkweed and the flame acanthus with red flowers.
In the front gardens we have several colors of ruellia, and salvia greggii, blackfoot daisy, obedient plant, lantana, zexmenia, pavonia, four-nerve daisy, salvia coccinea, bachelor buttons, abelia, and datura. I'm really excited that the gayfeather is blooming, even though it is only six inches tall and barely noticeable. I've tried to take a photo but it is pretty inconspicuous against the mulch.
On the other hand the Maximilian sunflowers are anything but inconspicuous. They have just started their bloom andfrom the number of unopened buds they are going to be brightening up our lives for some time. We now have a little grove of them, all from one plant I first put in the ground three seasons ago. They are adjacent to the vegetable garden where they get plenty of sun and water from the overspray on the vegtables during the summer.
two beauties
Those lavender pincushions in the foreground belong to Sedum spectabile a fall-blooming plant that was in the garden when I came here ten years ago. I've noticed the very same plant in several other gardens on this street, a testament not only to its popularity at one time but also to its hardiness. I've also heard it referred to as "Autumn joy." The flowers are very popular with the butterflies.
In the background is Salvia regla or mountain sage. Betsy Clebsch reports in A Book of Salvias that in its native Chisos Mountains the large red flowers are an important food source for hummingbirds making their return migration to the tropics. Here the timing is off for it just started its bloom this week and the hummingbirds are already long gone.
This salvia doesn't put out leaves until quite late so it can seem dead in the spring. The stem is very woody but still can barely hold up the lush foliage, so the plant always seems in danger of falling over. It continues to bloom through November.