The Wind does not want to go

One of the best comedy skits ever done was Carol Burnett's "The Wind Done Gone" and boy do we here in West Texas sure wish the wind done gone. But she's still lingering around, refusing to budge for long. Today has been a particularly ugly day throughout Texas as the local news just reported that seven counties were battling wildfires. The weather forecast shows winds through most of the upcoming week. We're suppose to finally catch a break on Friday. Ugh, what a waste of days during which I could be gardening.

During those few times in the day when the wind is catching its breath, I'll wander out into the garden to see what's happening. So much is blooming, it's as if a switch was turned on and everything went into overdrive. The irises have started blooming which is unfortunate as the winds are causing the petals to curl into themselves. I managed to peel back some of them to get a few shots. The three below are passlongs from a friend's garden.

We have no idea of their names, if they had any, so I just call them Lyn's Irises. The first one is the shorter of the three and the most hardy. I have dug up the bulbs for these, replanted them in another bed and still they bloomed three weeks later. A VERY hardy iris, to say the least. And prolific too, as I've divided them each year to spread around the front and back beds.

This one always makes me crave grape jelly on toast. 

This one is a little more blue and taller than the two above. I only have a few of this variety but hopefully they'll live long and prosper so I can spread them around the garden beds. Their height, along with the striking sword-shaped leaves add vertical interest to the beds. 

The main wind damage I've noticed is to the largest and most full of the four Climbing Americas. Several stalks have literally had their leaves and buds completely ripped off in large sections. It's sad to think of all the roses I won't be seeing due to this. I had around a 100 blossoms on this huge plant last year. I probably should prune these down to where the leaves are but I so hate to cut the plant down.

A Little Too Early?

It was pretty cool until late afternoon today so this tired gardener decided to take the day off and catch up on some ILL DVDs that are due next week. The warm sun called me out to the garden around 5 to walk around and see what was new. It seems like everyday there's something new showing up in the garden. Inspecting the roses I was shocked to find rose buds already. It's not even April yet! I don't recall the roses have buds before April before but then we've had a lot of warm days in the last three weeks. Albeit not consistently warm days but obviously enough to cause the plants to grow like their on drugs.

The rose bush above had 5 little buds on it. It's a creamy yellow rose that I planted last year. Must find the tag to identify it.

This bush had three buds on it. Another one I need to find the tag on. I had planned to put in plant stakes next to the roses last year and never got around to it. This one is a very soft yellow, different from the one above. 

This bud is on the one of the three Climbing America rose bushes. I highly recommend this rose if you want a large gorgeous pink rose that grows well. My friends planted three of these on a three legged metal arbor. One side is well over 7 feet tall and I have to use a ladder to clip off expired buds. The other two are around 5 feet or so. Not only is are the flower's a gorgeous color of pink, they are so very fragrant. And all three also are "two-fers" in that they were apparently grafted onto the root stem of a red rose. Last year both red and pink blooms covered the branches. It was incredible. The red did not have as much fragrance as the pink but it made up for it in vigor. Entire branches is covered in red like they were on fire. It was so incredible.

Above is a photo from last year showing the two different roses growing together on the same plant. It's truly a blessing to have your rose bush offer two gorgeous blooms at the same time. My only concern right now is that it's not yet April and we're having another cold front coming in on Tuesday. A cold front last year froze the top half of my lilies and while they still bloomed they did look a little off with shriveled brown leaves on the upper half of the stalks. Hopefully this year's cold blast won't harm the tender growth popping up all over my strolling garden.

[FYI - Blogger is not working right tonight. The photos are not showing up but if you scroll over the blank spot between the text you can click on the image to see it. I don't know why it's doing this but I've been having some problems with Blogger lately. Sometimes I have to publish my post between uploading photos to get it to allow me to upload a new image. So annoying!]

Another Blustery Day

The two big work deadlines for next week haven't left much time to work in the garden. The winds and 90s degree weather hasn't helped either. It's not yet June and we've already had several days in the 90s. Course, none of that has stopped me from plotting my next garden schemes, reading about gardening or hitting the nurseries last weekend for plants. I do have to get on the ball and put more time into the garden though, before it becomes so hot that I can't work in the yard after noon.

Here are some images of what my strolling garden looked like in spring, about a six weeks ago before the roses and irises burst alive with the bulk of their blossoms. The garden is going on three years old now. There was no landscaping when I moved in, except for the bermuda grass the builder had put down two weeks before I moved in. I HATE that grass. It creeps, crawls and leaps everywhere, particularly in my flower beds. Someday I hope to have all the grass removed [except maybe for a very small plot] and replaced with either gravel or a hardscape of some kind. But I digress... annoyance over the grass can do that!

This is looking south. The grass along the right edge by the fence will hopefully be gone by this summer to expand the bed. Then only the grass walkway through the arched arbor will remain. The plan is to have this walkway end at the back bed and to the left of that stepping stones would lead me out to the main grassy area to the left. The Dutch irises had just started going to town around this time.

This view is taken from that grassy walkway looking east. The winds ripped the pretty bird house off the top of the pole so that's something that will need to be replaced. The stone bird bath in the background sits in a small circular bed which will be a herb wheel.

The three-legged, metal rose arbor is still standing... though it's already starting to rust. Have no idea what I'm going to do if and when the thing falls apart. The roses, Climbing America, are going strong. One bush is already over six feet tall and had over 100 blossoms on it when it started blooming.This rose really lives up to its claim to be a vigorous grower. The bush in the foreground is a Bird of Paradise bush that is starting to bloom this month. The bees and hummingbirds love it.

This is the beds in the southeast corner of the yard. It was the first one I dug up and looking back I probably would have put the arbor at an angle in front of the bed but oh well. That's gardening. It's ever changing and I think that's a big reason why people garden. There's always something new. Plants expand, produce "babies" and/or die which requires the purchase of new plants. It's a living canvas which you can make as monochromatic or vivid as you, the gardener, want.

A third matching arbor is sitting in the garage, waiting to be erected. Just have to expand one of the beds to put it in, which would require me to dig out more of the Bermuda grass. Did I mention I HATE the grass?

A Bouquet of Roses

There is nothing like the scent and beauty of a rose. In three short years I have added twenty roses to the strolling garden. Hoping to add images and descriptions of each variety I starting taking photographs like crazy... and learned that the colors of the photos don't come anywhere close to the vividness of the original item. So keep that in mind when looking at the images as they are added.

Left:  Climbing America is an amazingly vigorous plant with large salmon colored blooms with a "spicy" fragrance (so claims the tag that came with the plant). It has proven to be very hardy here in zone 7. It has doubled it's size in two years. One plant literally has over 100 buds on it and has grown to over six feet tall. If you plant this keep in mind that it grows out horizontally in addition to vertically. I have one massive branch over almost 6.5 feet tall growing away from the arbor and there has to be at least 40 blossoms on it alone.

Close ups of blossoms captured when a few rays of sun escaped through the clouds.

My friend, Tony, had planted two of these at the base of a three legged metal scrolled arbor. A white rose, whose name I forgot, was planted at the base of the third leg. They weren't large plants but hardy. However by next spring I had three Climbing America plants... all three were salmon pink! Weird but still beautiful. This year I noticed that two of the plants have a deep red roses entertwining in the branches. My co-worker, an longtime gardener, told me that the deep red was probably due to one rose being grafted onto another variety. The deep red is probably the original, hardy plant with the America being grafted onto the stem. Either way, I ended up two rose bushes that are "two-for's" having salmon and deep red rose buds. Both varieties seem health and compliment one another wonderfully.