The Drought's Over

May was a wild and wet month. Unusual amounts of rain and its persistence throughout the month made this May the second wettest in Lubbock history. Many other parts of Texas and Oklahoma saw unusually heavy rainfall as well. Most of Texas is no longer classified as being under drought conditions anymore, which is a blessing after four long, very dry years.We had bouts of flooding throughout the month but the city's drainage system did its job in diverting the overflow into our playa lake system. As someone who loves rain this month has been the best one in a very long time. The local cotton farmers aren't happy with their fields being so damp but if the fields can dry out before the June 5th deadline for planting all this rain might be a major windfall for them this season.

Here some photos taken in early May of my backyard garden shortly before an evening storm rolled in and lit up the sky with lightning and thunder.

The photos are a little blurry, unfortunately, but with wind being a constant in West Texas it is hard to find a non-windy day to take photos. The grass hasn't yet greened up and filled it. That's certainly not the case by the end of the month.

 Incidentally, these images were taken close to 9 pm and the sky was so amazingly light for such a late hour.

Here's hoping we continue to get some rainfall in June too. I only had to run the sprinkler system once in May. How awesome is that!

What's flourishing in the garden this year part 1

The strolling garden is doing much better this year due to better rainfall (though we are still under the normal average rainfall) and less days of triple digit temperatures. The herb circle is now in phase three. The first, pictured below, was heavy on chamomile and dill plants that had reseeded from last year. Nice fragrant combination and I love the little cheerful flower heads of the chamomile.

The caterpillars love the dill and chew it down to the ground but there's so much of it reseeded, including in the grass, that I had plenty of full grown dill plants with their fragrant umbrella-shaped seed heads. I always make a point of brushing against the plants to release their scent too. Pity I dislike salmon as dill goes so well with it.

The second phase of the herb circle was dominated by the reseeded Dalhberg Daises, which I am grateful for since it's very difficult to find these in plant or seed form locally. I planted two six packs 3 years ago and they came back this year. Their nice spicy scent is a favorite of mine. Miss Penny the Pill here enjoys padding through the circle on her daily marches around the yard as she secures her yard from other trespassing felines. Quite a feat for her since the neighbor seems to be collecting cats and then letting them roam free to terrorize the rest of the neighborhood. The next phase will be the Gaillardias at the front of the circle which have now developed flower buds and will eventually brighten up the circle with its red-orange flowers that beckon the butterflies and bees to linger longer in the garden.

Salvia is the garden plant that keeps on giving. It blooms it's heart out, gets a severe trim to clear out the spent flowers, and then sends out more flower spikes within 6 weeks. I have three varieties that I've been transplanting around the front and back yard over the last four years. Love the white and purple color combination of the three varieties and the yellow Coreopsis likes to reseed itself among the salvia, making for a vibrant color combination. Don't think I could ever have a garden without some salvia plants.

The Flame Acanthus, also known as Hummingbird Bush, is gorgeous when in full bloom. Haven't seen any hummingbirds since the severe drought started three years ago but there are plenty of butterflies and hummingbird moths that flit around it.

Amazingly, I have managed to grow one hearty bush of marigolds. This is quite a feat considering I have killed every marigold plant I've tried to grow. Sad, I know, considering it's labeled "the plant you can't kill" and it's grown in children's gardens. The plant below was grown from seed and has been blooming non-stop for almost two months now. My grandmother, from whom I inherited the gardening bug, always had marigolds around her little house that she'd grown from seed and so there's a lot of sentiment attached to this plant which is why I keep trying to grow it despite failure year after year.

 And finally, the Verbena Bonarensis from last year came back and flowered from over two months. I cut it back down to the ground this week after it was done flowering and hopefully it'll come back next year. The butterflies loved it too and I loved the height it added to the back of the bed.

Summer Recap

Wow, I hadn't realized how long it's been since I last posted. In the last two months we've had the usual constant sunshine and ever present wind, but we've also been very blessed with rainfall. To the point where we're up to around 9 inches for the year, which while under our normal amount of rainfall is still more than last year. And the difference is so apparent in the garden. It's so much greener and lusher than last year. The wind's pretty strong today, making taking any decent garden pictures impossible, so I'm posting some pictures I took earlier in the summer.

Finally gave into temptation and purchased the cute little potting table from World Market I'd been eyeing for two years. It was fairly easy to put together and has been sealed with waterproofing. It's tucked against the wall near the garden gate and adds some vertical interest to the garden. To the left of the table you'll notice the daylilies are doing amazingly this year. In fact, the entire garden is the best it's been in over 3 years.

The larkspur, whose color never seems to film well, went gangbusters this year. And the Gaillardia looks stunning in contrast to the vivid purples of the larkspur.

I have no idea what this plant is. The tag said the tiny plant would grow up to be a foxglove. This isn't a foxglove. It took a year to finally bloom and put out these large cup-shaped white flowers which had a strong vanilla-ish scent that the bees and butterflies adored. And the flowers lasted for a good two months. The down side was the plant got so top heavy the tall stalks flopped over and flattened the plants around it. Anyone have an idea what this plant is?

Love the spring combination of yellows and blues. The Tickseed Coreopsis reseeded underneath to add a golden sea under the roses and larkspur.

Another view of the showy larkspur display. The cute garden bench is from World Market. The cushion is starting to tear apart in the second year so I'm planning to buy some waterproof fabric and recover it.

 The larkspur blocked the pathway through one of the arbors but was so pretty I waited until the blooms started to wane before pulling it out. I also removed the flower bed in the background as it never did that well and constantly pulling out the grass was a losing battle. The bistro set works better in that spot.

The salvia, pincushion, and snapdragons were very happy in the east side beds. Found the cute owl stand and snail at Ross. As the garden is maturing now I've been adding more fun bric-a-brac accents like these to add some whimsy to the garden. It wouldn't be cottage garden without whimsy and bric-a-bracs.

Penny the Pill, aka the garden cat, loves all the cushioning added to the garden bench. As do I. It's the perfect spot to relax and enjoy the color of the strolling garden.

One thing I do need to do eventually is find another site to host my garden blog. Blogger is an absolute nightmare to work with. It took 7 tries and two different browsers to be able to add images today and even then trying to change the order of the images was difficult. Any suggestions for a different blog site?

Anyway, Happy Fertilizer Friday! My garden's doing lovely. How about yours? Visit Tootsie Time to see who else is participating in "Fertilizer Friday" and showing off what's blooming in their gardens.

A Very Sunny Weekend

The article on the main page of today's local paper was about the difficulty of predicting this year's winter season due to a late El Nino. This weekend is warmer than normal, - 90degrees in mid-October is odd - and appears to be a trend of what forcasters are predicting this winter will be. Personally, I don't mind the warmer winter forecast as long as it is accompanied by lots of rain. However, West Texas could use a cold, wet winter to kill bugs and help with next spring's crops. In terms of the drought scale, we have moved from last year's D4 rating (exceptional) to a D3 rating (extreme) thanks to the almost 11 inches of rain this year versus the 3 inches last year. Fingers crossed we'll get another 2-3 inches before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, last weekend was a little cooler and I was able to put in a good 6 hours in the yard on Sunday. First thing up was finishing off the bird feeder. Since the pole would not stand upright I placed cement blocks around the base, filled the centers with potting soil and relocated some yellow ice plant from another section of the yard. This should look pretty in the spring all cover with flowers and trailing over the cement sides. Penny the Pill gave her stamp of approval by walking all through the small planter and then bending over for a drink from the bird bath, which sadly cannot stay on its heavy cement base because somehow the strong winds keep flipping this heavy top off the base. So bizarre, really, but the birds do seem to enjoy climbing in and bathing in it.

Next up was removing the decayed base of the previous bird house from the top of the pole. Discovered the thin platform on the pole to attach a bird house is thoroughly rusted too. The hard water and winds do take their toll on everything here.

Managed to temporarily rig up the new birdhouse to the platform and will later buy a new pole. The bird house is a little too small in scale but works fine for now.

The expanded side bed that I planted this summer by the front gate is doing very well. The Cleveland Pear tree seems to be doing just fine and I can't wait for the shade and privacy it will provide in the future. The shades of pink and purple planted around it really have brightened up a dull area. I was thrilled to find an apricot Mullin this summer and it's sent up two rounds of tall stalks of flowers. The flower, in the center of the picture, looks pink but it's really a soft peach in person. Hoping this will survive our winter and come back next year with more stalks of delicate flowers. Other plants I tucked around it include pink geraniums, The Fairy Rose, pink gladiolas, pink caladiums, and purple salvia.

Speaking of pinks, the Veronicas are in full bloom thanks to the cool spells we've had over the last month. They're blooming better than in the spring amazingly enough. One should have spiked flower shapes in a cottage garden and Veronicas are excellent for this purpose. Just planted a red one under the pear tree and looking forward to seeing what those spikes look like.

October is a good time to visit local nurseries and scour for bargain plants. Scored two of the Flame Acathus or Hummingbird Bush plants for the price of one originally. I'd been looking for these for the past two years. The one pictured below is three years old and covered with red flowers that humminbirds and bees like. Beside it is a ruella that I planted at the same time that has grown almost four feet tall and is loaded with purple flowers. I'd like to plant more of these elsewhere in the garden next year.

The Angelonia that I got on clearance this spring looked pretty pathetic up until about two weeks ago when suddenly blossoms started to appear. The rain and cooler weather seemed to have done the trick. These are so pretty when planted en mass and when the three trees I've planted this spring fill in I'll tuck more of these into the beds.

And speaking of clearance plants, I bought this one at Sutherlands, which strangely enough at times has a really good selection of perennials from time to time. The tag said this was a delphium. I hope it is because it's doubled in size and has yet to produce any type of flower. Hoping I didn't inadvertently buy some invasive weed by accident.

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.