Let It Rain!

Today we in West Texas have been blessed by a day of measurable rain. I think I have received more rain today than any other day this year. The little sparrows and morning doves have been enjoying the moisture as they feed at the bird feeder and root around in the grass and flower beds. The plants seem to be loving the rain too as they are all standing at attention, such as the holleyhocks in the back corner.

 Since today is the last chance for rain for the next 10 days I set out a bunch of buckets to catch what extra rain I could. There's no point in buying a rain barrel right now since rain is such a rarity. Buckets will work fine.

Little by little the rain is bringing West Texas out of the sever drought from next year. Most of Texas has gotten out of the sever range and here's hoping that West Texas will achieve this by the end of the summer.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! We're having another lovely cloudy day with a few sprinkles that I keep hoping will lead to actual rain. The cooler weather has had such a good effect on the garden. The Cleveland Pear tree, whose branches bough down somewhat like a weeping tree, wasn't doing so well two weeks after being planted and I though it might be dying. But the cooler weather and the little bit of rain we've received this week seems to have revived the tree. Yay! The other tree I planted at the same time, the peach tree, is doing just fine too. It has four tiny little peaches on there so hopefully at least one of them will survive and ripen before the end of the summer. Meanwhile, here are some lovely flowers blooming in the garden today:

A fragrant daylily I purchased from Home Depot two years ago. The tag that came with it said it would be pink, when in fact it's a creamy beige with purple and yellow eye. It's doing really well and has spread.

The Scabisoas are all pale pink so far. Not a dark burgandy in sight, unfortunately. That color was the reason I planted the seeds two years ago. The pinks are cheerful though.

Fertilizer Friday, May 11, 2012

Here in West Texas we have been blessed to have several chances of rain in the last two weeks. In my area we've reach above 3 inches in rain to date this year. One of the local weatherman announced last night that we would have to get 30 inches of rain before the end of the year to make up for the several drought from last year and barring a major flood before December that's just not going to happen. We will be very lucky if we hit 15-18 inches before the end of the year. However, today I'm just going to celebrate the beautiful abundance that the rain has brought to my strolling garden.

My little book fairy statue tucked under a miniature rose bush, which is actually around 3 feet tall, and by lilies and daylilies.Growing on the trellis behind is a yellow Lady Banks which frankly hasn't seemed to have grown in the three years it's been in the ground. Fast growing rose my foot.

Larkspur Lane gone amuck. Beautiful though. Pulled up a bouquet of them from the walkway to take to a co-worker today. Three of my colleagues have asked for larkspur seeds from my garden. Can't wait to see what color the hollyhocks are that are towering over the garden bench in the background.

The Shasta Daises are loving the gentle rain we've received over the last two day. I'm loving it too!

The Gaillardia seems even brighter this cloudy day.

The Zebrina Mallow is blooming their little hearts away. They're shorter than I expected at less than 2 feet tall but their flowers are so abundant right now.

The Yarrow is spreading like crazy in the front bed. It's popping up everying in the grass. I knew the plants were hardy but I had no idea they would fast spreaders and crowd out the roses and salvias. The silvery dusty miller looks striking against all the shades of green.

The black of Nigra Hollyhocks is eye catching on a cloudy day but looks washed out on a bright sunny one. I plan to pull these out at the end of the year to put in some more colorful ones. 

The Ditch Lily, the tallest of my daylilies, is the first to bloom this year. The middle of last month I was noticing that all the daylilies were going into stress and showing signs of dying back but the cloudy days and gentle rains over the last two weeks seemed to have made a difference. Hoping this keeps up for the next two months as May and June are our raining month.

Visit Tootsie Time to see who else is participating in "Fertilizer Friday" and showing off what's blooming in their gardens.

The Veg Bed

For the last three weeks I've been working on creating a raised concrete bed to grow my first vegetables after seeing different examples of these types of raised bed on Pinterest. The spot chosen was a central area along the east fence where everything I've planted over the last three years, even the hollyhocks, struggled to grow. A raised bed seemed the ideal solution. Next year I'll paint the blocks a bright color like green or French blue. The temperature hit 100 degrees today and therefore any type of outdoor painting is a no go.

I have to say that took a lot longer than expected. The concrete blocks were very heavy and had to be carried one by one from the garage through the house out the back door to the other side of the yard. And it took more blocks than I anticipated. And the number of bags of garden soil and planting soil to fill what appeared to be a small bed was even more surprising. However, next year I should only have to top off the bed so that expense won't be much at all. Before pouring in the soil I lined the bottom and sides of the two-tier bed with weed block fabric. For the smaller one-tier bed I just lined the bottom with the fabric.

Planted in slots around this bed are three types of mint (orange, chocolate, and Mojito), two strawberries, a sad looking nastursium that doesn't seem able to stand upright, Texas terragon, cilantro, English and Provence Lavender, a grape tomato, and shallot and garlic bulbs [they're planted in the back in the slots that look empty right now]. Lowe's was having a half price sale of herbs and veggies this past weekend for $1.50 so I kind of went overboard with the plants. The center of this bed has zucchini, squash and bell peppers. Marigolds, one of the plants I have always killed, was tucked in to help ward off bugs. The veggies and herbs I have high hopes for. The marigolds I have no doubt I'll kill within three weeks, which is my record for how long I can keep this particular plant alive.

In the lower bed, I have onions, the remainder of the garlic bulbs, and three strawberries planted in the outer slots. The central bed has two types of cucumbers and blue lobelia [for some color until the cucs grow up the trellis].  As a first time veg grower I think I made an amateur mistake. When I described what I was growing my co-worker pointed out that some veggies cross pollinate. So I may have some very onion-y tasting cucumbers before the summer is out. Oh well. Live and learn.

My luck with seeds has improved this year. The chammomile I planted last year came up and is blooming. The cheerful little white flowers look great next to the dill, and little seedlings of the cilantro I planted at the end of March are poking up from the soil too. Yay!

And lastly, the Zebrina Mallow seeds I planted in the fall of 2010 made it through the severe drought of last year thanks to much nursing from me to FINALLY bloom this year. It's not quite as tall as I was expecting but the lovely striped flowers make up for its stature. Now if we could only get more rain. The stage 2 water restrictions are a royal pain. We can only water 1 day a week 1 time. Handwater is allowed anytime but with a garden like mine it takes an hour just to do the backyard. Course, it's rather relaxing to walk around and slowly handwater the beds and inspect everything.

Do or Do Not - You Can Always Try

I have discovered over the years that many gardening rules can be broken... or at least you try. It might cost you a plant or a few plants but one of the appealing parts of gardening is that it's a living palette and you, as the artist, can move the plants around as much as you like.

I often read that you are only supposed to transplant plants at certain times. Well, I've moved irises around in the spring, summer and fall. And when I bought my first [and so far only] home five years ago, I dug up every bulb I could in my rental cottage to take with me. And boy am I glad I did. The four feet tall magenta asiatic lilies bloomed that summer and I have never found these again in the big box stores. I also haunt the clearance racks of Lowe's regular and have gotten such great deals that I didn't care what month it was when I had to plant it. For example, I got a lovely white rose standard for 75% off at the end of last october and planted it immediately afterwards... and it's doing just fine as the central focal point in the center bed. Can't wait to see it bloom for the first time this spring!

Pictured below: Transplanted lilies and larkspur. All doing just fine in their new homes. Got dirt? Will fill!

If you don't succeed, try, try again.... this circular bed dug two years ago was supposed to be a herb circle. Well, I learned that first year that I can kill more herbs than I can grow. So year two daylilies, gaillardia, and shasta daisies were inserted into the bed along with the parsley, dill and cilantro - the herbs I did succeed in growing. Now it's just the circle bed and this year the dill and parsley are already coming back in full force. The cilantro I've had to reseed. And a beautiful rose bush that I scored for $2.50 from Lowe's along with that rose standard mentioned above made it through winter just fine. Course, we really had a mild winter so I probably just got lucky with this one. 

That plant I saw and wanted... then couldn't find. My co-worker bought a new house right before me and I discovered what looked like striped miniature hollyhocks in her backyard. Before I could make it back over to dig it up - since they were cleaning out this overgrown bed - her hubby had run over it with the mower. No more plant, wah! Two years later I found it at a local nursery and eagerly bought it and planted it along the back fence. This was a pricy plant for me, though I'm sure most folks would find the price reasonable. Anyway, it died by winter, 5 months later. Then I discovered that the nursery on the Texas Tech campus had this plant - the Zebrina mallow - growing in their strolling beds and collected a few seeds. Got nada. In case you're wondering why I didn't order the plant from a nursery the reason is simple - I kill over 50% of all plants I've ever ordered. The odds are just not in my favor. So I try to buy my plants from local nurseries and big box stores, which I know get a bad rap but for a gardener with a small wallet they really are great options for plant buying.

Finally find the mallow seeds at Sutherlands's two falls ago. Plants came up last spring but died down almost to the ground due to the drought. But this year might be my lucky year. Several healthy little plants are growing and I am excited to finally get some purple striped blossoms this summer. Some plants are worth the wait. [I am wondering when they'll finally get taller though. The seed packet said they'd get 3-4 feet tall. So far not even breaking 1 foot.]

Ever wonder why when you scatter seeds that nothing ever comes up or your plants don't reseed like they're supposed to? Maybe it's because you're using mulch. For three years I regularly mulched my beds to keep them clean looking and to keep down the weeds. Last year I didn't get around to it fast enough and bingo! suddenly I have tons of baby plants coming up in the fall and early spring. Pictured below are about 1/3 of the tall coreopsis plants that have reseeded themselves from last fall.

No more heavy mulching of the beds for me! I want my freebies for next year's garden. And I've discovered some plants reseed themselved several feet from their mother plants. For instance, today I dug up 5 purple salvias, 1 maroon scabiosa, and 1 gaillardia babies from the grass walkways and transplanted them into the various flower beds. The salvias particularly are really good about putting out offshoots or babies. More free plants, wahoo!

And sometimes the plant just win. I have tried to dig up this large hollyhock for two summers. The tap root is so deep I can't get it out. So I've decided to just let it flower this year and then try killing it again... and dig out all the reseeded plugs that will obviously result. Meanwhile I guess I'll need to transplant the two pincushion plants being overshadowed by this monster. Seriously, this thing is 3 feet x 3 feet, the widest hollyhock I've grown so far. This is growing around the small patio and this variety of hollyhock has reseeded itself around three sides of the patrio. The seeds get between the concrete and the grass and the tap roots are impossible to pull out. So I'll just go with the flow and enjoy the flowers in the summer... while I quietly plot it's death in the fall.

A few other quips of gardening wisdom. Bermuda grass is evil and always will be. It is next to impossible to remove when I'm creating a new flower bed and then sneaks back in before the season is out. Like coachroaches, you cannot truly kill Bermuda unless you pave over it. So I just have to continue to curse it regularly as I putter around in the beds.

True gardeners are plant collectors. We can't help it. We have to have as much as we can cram in the ground. Got a bare spot to fill? I'll cram a daylily, rose or salvia in it as soon as possible. Course, it will probably involve shoving the garden cat, Penny the Pill, out of the way as I'm doing it because as far as she's concerned a bare spot is grounds for rolling in the dirt... before she waddles over to roll on top of my plants. A fluffy bed of larkspur? Penny finds it to be a very comfortable place for a nap. Funnily enough, she can't stand the catnip which is running amuck in three of my beds. I only planted it in one!

And if you see a plant with the words "The plant you can't kill" written on it just spit on it and keep walking. It's only teasing you. For example, I've killed marigolds more times than I care to admit. I simply cannot grow this plant. And yes, the stupid plants did have that written across the pot. The only reason I want to grow it is that it reminds me of my late granny. She had a green thumb like nobody's business. I've inherited my semi-green thumb from her. So each spring I buy a marigold and hope that this is the year I can get granny's signature plant to grow... but deep down I know I'm going to kill it within 7 weeks. I guess I'm an ever hopefuly optimistic pessimist?

 And last, but not least, you should always wear either sunscreen or a hat while working in the spring/summer garden. A rule I'm constantly guilty of not doing. Yesterday it reached 82 degrees with a soft breeze. It didn't feel hot enough to get a sunburn but my lobster reflection in the mirror says otherwise. I so need some shade in the backyard! Even Penny wanted inside to take her afternoon nap.

The Color Green

As of this week we have now had over 1 inch of rain since January and what a difference this year is so far from last year. The color du jour in the strolling garden is green, green and more green. The cloudy days combined with the rare day of soft, drizzly rain and warmer than normal temperatures have done quite a number on the yard. The center bed below was heavily effected by the drought last year and I had though half of the daylilies had died. There's no brown here now. The daylilies are back in full force. The larkspur is reaching for the sky and has developed flower heads this week. The miniature roses are fully leafed out and I spied tiny rose buds on the rose standard in the middle that I managed to get for a steal last November.

This is another view looking back onto the house. The irises have tripled in size and the purple ones in the front year have already started blooming. The large Climbing America rose bush to the left already had clematis growing up it and they already have blossoms on them. The rampant larkspur growing in the middle of the pathway still needs to be transplanted to other spots in the garden beds. It's amazing that all of that came from only three seed packets originally.

This clump of dianthus has been a reliable bloomer two years in a row. I'm sure for most folks that would be no big deal but I somehow manage to kill these after two years. Keeping my fingers crossed this clump makes it to next year. The light pink colors really stand out in the evenings. Pinks, purples, whites and yellows are the main colors I'm planning to add this year. They seem to stand up better to our hot, intense sun during the summer months and lend to the moongarden feeling in the evenings. [oh, the striped thing in the lower corner is my camera cord, not a snake... believe me, I wouldn't have stuck around if it was one of those!]

The first rose blossom of the spring is from the pink Knockout Rose. Have been contemplating digging up all three of my Knockouts. The red Knockout bushes are huge! Had I known those suckers would have gotten four feet tall and just as wide I wouldn't have planted them where they are. [okay, I'm sure the tag had the size on it but I'm terrible about reading the size part. The joy of having a cottage garden is being able to plop whaterver one wants whereever one wants.] The pink one is a third of the size and has never bloomed with the hearty gusto that the red ones have.

I am bummed to find that the majority of my 25 rose bushes, including the minatures, have serious aphid problems this year. Have been hosing them down with water to knock the little suckers off but had to go get some Ortho spray today. I did spot one Lady Bug and one of the creepy pre-Lady Bug stage bugs on one of the tall Climbing Americas. Only need about a 1,000 more of those to take care of these awful aphids.

Hope your garden is enjoying a green insurgance the way mine is. There is nothing better than being in the garden in spring. Even Penny the cat, the little pill I adopted from outdoors, is having a ball in my garden. Course, she doesn't enjoy being rubbed down with a wet wash cloth after her naughty jaunts rolling in my flower beds.

The Early Spring Garden

Today is a rare treat in West Texas - a cloudy, drizzly wet day. Awesome! Three months into the new year and we have yet to receive a full inch of rain in my area. The little rain and snow we've received has been light and soft, and therefore the moisture is not getting down deep into the soil. But we will take whatever comes our way, even a little drizzle. Everything looks great here when it's wet, even the obnoxious weeds in the Bermuda. So I'm just having a lazy day watching the drizzle and QVC's Cottage Farms and Robert's Garden on the tele. 

Spring is already here in the garden. The daylilies leaves have popped up and tripled in the last three weeks and the daffodils are finally blooming. The larkspur plugs that I've been digging up out of the grass [see photo above] can be seen in this photo with the blooming daffs. Hopefully they'll get big enough to hide the ugly brown stalks of the daffodils after they've bloomed. The patch of light green in the upper part of this photo is larkspur growing in the grass between the two beds. This is where I've been digging up transplants.

 I also found a large plug of scabiosa that had reseeded itself in the grass. Dug it up and replanted back into the bed. The roots were pretty thick so I think this one will survive the transplanting.

 This purple and light green combination is striking. The larkspur reseeded across the walkway into this bed and has come up through the voilas. Free plants, wahoo! So by the time the heat starts killing the violas the larkspur should be blooming. I have to say one of the things I love the most about larkspur is its soft, feathery texture. I always run my hands over it whenever I walk by.

 Don't remember the variety name for these cheerful violas but the color is striking from across the garden. Hopefully these will reseed before the heat comes around. Which apparently is next week. We are having 20-30 degree temperature changes within the week, which confuses the plants and causes everyone's allergies to go wild. Basically normal spring weather here in West Texas.

The Weekend Plummet

Like clockwork, the temperatures always seem to drop 10-15 degrees as soon as the weekends roll around. We reached 70 twice this week... then come Friday and the temperature drops to the low 50s. No wonder the plants are confused. This sad little Iris put up a stunted flower stalk this week. It shouldn't be blooming until April at the earliest. Hopefully the flower will open and blossom before another cold front freezes it on the stalk.Perhaps the combination of a little blessed rain and a few unusually warm days has encouraged early blooms on the plants. One Pincushion plant has had a 3-5 blossoms on it since December.

Last Saturday we had half a day of drizzly rain and was cloudy all day. So nice! The Sunday before that we had snow all day. So beautiful when you get to stay inside and enjoy it. Not fun when you have to slog to work the next day - though we got to go in late so that the roads cleared. The cats had a great time watching "Bird TV," especially after I sprinkled bird feed around near the windows. They weren't too bothered about the snow as every day is a snow day for the furr butts. I must confess that I too loved watching the birds playing in the snow and hunching down on the tree when the winds got too strong. I'm sure the garden appreciated the moisture as those 3 inches were the most we'd gotten so far.

A Cloudy Day

Finally after almost 8 weeks of almost precititation we finally got some. Last Sunday it snowed off and on all day and was such a beautiful sight. Threw bird seed everywhere and the indoors cats had a ball watching "bird tv" with the windows. Yesterday we had a soft, drizzly day for half the day. If this keeps up, which I hope it does [fingers crossed], we might actually have a full inch of rain by the end of the month. Already things are looking better than last year, believe it or not.

Not much color in the garden but there is a lot of activity going on. The daylilies are poking up everywhere. The daffodils are half way up and should bloom by the end of next month. The roses are budding out everywhere, which is not necessarily good since we always get a freeze every time the roses bud out in February. But the larkspur, oh my, they're popping up everywhere and are the greenest things in the beds right now. The light, feathery leaves contrast nicely to the other shapes from surrounding plants.

 Last year was the second time the larkspur bloomed. I planted the seeds two falls ago and got short, thin plants and then the next fall the plants came back twice as thick and some reached four feet tall. With this third bloom the seedlings are dense and coming up everywhere, including in the walkway below.

Two weeks ago I experimented in digging up plugs from the walkway and transplanting them to other spots in the flower beds. Amazingly, all twenty plugs have taken and are doing well. So, from now until the first mowing, I'll be digging up plantings in the pathway and transplanting the seedlings. Talk about bang for your buck. From two seed packets I got all of this and it's only going to continue to multiply.

There's so much to do in the garden this year. I'm hoping to build a few small raised concrete beds in a spot on the east fence that nothing, even the hollyhocks, wants to grow. Another trellis needs to go up. The fence needs to be painted. Privacy trellis needs to be installed to block out the neighbors obnoxious trampolines - seriously, how unlucky am I that the houses on either side of me have trampolines full of shrieking children all the time? It's like having a daycare center on both sides! - and tackle the adventure of growing my first veggies. The drought last year damaged and killed many of my plants. The cool weather and recent precipitation have revived several of the herbs in the herb circle - the dill, cilantro and parlsey are greening up nicely. Around them the Gaillardia, Shasta Daisies and daylilies are filling in too.

Garden update

Wow, I did not realize how much time had passed since my last garden post.  Texas is still in pretty bad shape water-wise. According to the weather channel the state is about 73% in drought. There's even talk of one town reclaiming their sewage water for recycling for human use [Ewwww! Thank goodness it's not here.]  Many of our playa lakes have dried up or are on the verge of drying up. It's quite sad to drive by and see the birds scratching around searching for water. The two bird baths in my back garden are quite popular. I've had to place a large rock inside one to keep the larger birds from splash out half of the water as they bath themselves. Grackles are particulary messy and loud visitors. We finally received rain this past Thursday. Around 2-3 inches within an hour. We had only received 1.25 inches of the 12 inches we normally received by August when this latest ran occured. Talk about a god send! Now if only we could get more. My uncle in Florida offered to send some our way but unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

Another large problem that the drought has caused is the insurgence of the ant population. They're everywhere, in swarms, to the point where you can't walk with them all over the ground. Many people have had problems with them invading their homes in search of water. The organic ant bait I put out worked for about two days. The strong mint smell brought tears to my eyes but barely effected the ants. Go figure. Two weeks later I put out a ton of heavy duty ant/bug bait. That worked for about two weeks. The ants have bounced back so I guess I'll be baiting again soon. I estimate that about 80% of the "drought tolerant" plants I put in this spring have died. The picture below shows one bed's decline in July. Most of the daylilies have died. Thankfully others in more shaded spots are still hanging on so I should have some to transplant in the fall when the temperatures get below the 100s.

Despite the drought there have been some plants that are still blooming and charging on. This plant came up beside one of the Veronicas. I have no idea what it is and I'm hoping it's from one of the wildflower seed packets I scattered this spring and not some noxious weed taking hold of a flower bed.

I planted a ton of gladiolas this spring. Not even 10 have bloomed. Most of them had dried up before a bloom could appear. This peach one was lovely, pity the rest didn't make it.

I received twenty Costco mixed lily bulbs from one of my best friends. About half bloomed. The other half dried up before the stalks could really form strong leaves. Two of the ones pictured below made it and looked really nice mixed in with the Larkspur and Veronica. Hopefully they'll come back next year as lilies are my favorite flower.

Just about every herb I've planted I've killed. Whether I ignore it or baby it, I generally kill herbs. This oregano plant tucked underneath the plants above actually seems happy with it's location. It's spread over the edge of the pavers and has produced delicate little pink flowers that stand out underneath the taller plants.

Verbena is another plant that doesn't live more than two months in my garden, so I was quite happy to discover this little section had reseeded itself and bloomed just to the left of the oregano. This whole bed is in shade in the late afternoon and I suspect that's part of why several of the plants have done well during this miserable summer.

Behind the oregano is this Veronica Speedwell which has come back from last year. It's done quite well this summer and I've got to remember to buy more of these next time I go to the nursery. The chartreuse green and vivid purple make a very striking combination. The Larkspur has been hands down the best performer this spring through summer. I scattered the seeds all around so hopefully some will return next year.

Some of the dayliles bloomed well in June and mid-July. After that several died completely to the roots. The ones below are still hanging on. "Grape Magic's" large colorful blooms stand out across the yard.

However, I think my favorite this year is the "Romantic Rose" daylilies I planted this spring. I'd really like to spread these around the yard in the future. It's such a soft rose color that blends well with other colors.

The majority of the "Grape Magic" blooms are washed out due to the intense heat and sunglight of this summer.

The "Ditch Lilies" are probably the best performers of the dayliles in the garden. They've stood up to strong winds, intense heat and drought... and this one large plant has four babies coming up behind it. Now this is a plant worth growing in the garden.

Lastly, two of the three Rose of Sharon plants finally started to bloom at the end of July, despite the bushes dropping many of their leaves.

Morning Glory continues to reseed and grow no matter how much I pull them out. Love the flowers but hate the way the vines choke everything around them.