June Begins With Abundance

Summer suddenly arrived on June 1st. The temperatures are rising, the rain chances are low to non-existent, and the mosquitoes are huge. Seriously, the mosquitoes are swarming everywhere. I tried deadheading plants last evening and had to give up due to all the bugs. The ever present wind has helped a bit in keeping the blood suckers at bay but not by much. Hopefully the city will FINALLY start spraying now that the rain has abated. Meanwhile, the strolling garden is going gangbusters with color and flowers.

The roses, larkspur, nepeta, dayliles and coreopsis, salvias, and scabiosa plants are blooming their little hearts out. The fertilizer I put out at the beginning of May coupled with more than 9 inches of above average rain made the plants the healthiest and fulliest in years.

The catnip is running rampant throughout the garden. I'm partly to blame since I've been transplanting it. Yes, I know it's a type of mint and mint can be a menace when planted in the ground due to its spreading tendancies. However, I never expected it to keep spreading and reseeding the way it has. I've transplanted some of it to give away to friends with felines of their own. Penny the Pill, my chubby ginger and white cat, barely gives it a sniff, and my elderly part Siamese part Tabby cat Symon likes it but can't consume that much. Getting old sucks, my furry little friend. He doesn't even get silly and cross eyed much anymore either.

 A windy view through one of the rose arbors. Annoyingly, the late snow storm and freeze in early March killed off any chances of apples, pears and plums on my young fruit trees. The peach tree, pictured in the upper right of this photo, does have several furry little football-shaped peaches still growing. I might be able to taste a rip one this year assuming we don't get anymore nasty wind storms before then.

The larkspur is gorgeous and rampant and at this very moment I'm sure its plotting reseeding everyone ridiculous spot it can think of. Good thing its so easy to pull out from the ground when not wanted.

The lilies are back! I haven't seen these beauties in a few years due to the drought. I lost the 5 foot deep maroon Asiatics I'd transplanted from my last home and it appears over half of the 50 or so bulbs I've planted over the years are gone too. But some of the remaining stalks are looking healthy and small little buds are popping up now so I have more of these lovelies to look forward to this summer.

The abundant rain has also revived this one Climbing America rosebush. Its been so scraggly looking for the past two years, unlike the pair planted behind it. The three bushes form a triangle arbor space under which I have a chair I like to relax in in the early morning before the yard gets too hot. You can clearly see the new growth compared to the thin growth above. I highly recommend this climbing rose. It's strong canes can withstand the whipping winds of West Texas, its leaves are a deep glossy green, and the lovely pink blossoms have such a lovely strong scent. I have a fourth one planted on the other side of the yard next to one of the arbors.

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 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.

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.

A not so sunny day

Wouldn't you know it? I take today off to be able to play in the garden [and get an extra day to recover from daylight savings - a pointless hour of torture for a non-morning person in a southern state] and it was rather chilly most of the day. In fact, didn't finally push my yellow wagon out of the garage and into the back yard until 3 pm.  And it was still a little nippy.  The low 60s wouldn't have been a problem if it weren't for the cool breeze. 

I couldn't really work on continuing the bed expansion since I was hurting pretty bad from the night before [darn that shoulder surgery! Almost 6 months later and it's still not completely unfrozen and back to normal]. So, today's task was to start planting the small plants, seeds and bulbs I've collected so far.

From the seed pile, about a quarter were planted today. Now, I KNOW we will have another cold blast between now and mid-April. The weather here always gets warm, fools everything into expecting several warm days and then bam! A cold front comes in and damages/kills things. So it's stupid to plant seeds. But I did it anyway, the every hopeful garden nut that I am.

The day before I managed to wrestle out the yellow Lady Banks rose bush which was suppose to be thornless and was definately not. It scratched up everybody walk by the north arbor. And to add insult to injury it grew twice as fast as the white, thornless Lady Banks on the southern arbor. In the bare spot I now planted Moonflowers and Black-Eyed Susan Vine to climb up the arbor. A beautiful miniature yellow rose was planted at the base on the other side of the arbor, with Larkspur seeds spread around the rose. This should be a pretty combination if all goes well.

All around this arbor I gleefully noted that lilies and daylilies are coming up, as well as Larkspur seedlings planted last weekend. Two annual cut flower mixture seed packets were also scattered around the bed. I should confess that I have mostly a black thumb when it comes to growing plants from seeds. I can probably count on both hands the number of plants I can grow from seed. So we'll see if I can break that record. I probably wouldn't have tried it but Lowe's had a buy one get one free deal so I thought what the heck.

I also managed to get several of the lilies planted before it started getting really cold and dark.  I've always wanted Tiger Lilies but have not run across them here in the nurseries for a reasonable costs, so I was excited to find a packet of 5 orange ones at Walmart. I've actually had good luck with their flower bulbs and they're so inexpensive that if they don't take you don't feel too guilty about replacing them. In fact my oldest  Asiatic Lily from Wally World is a gorgeous deep magenta color that reached over five feet tall last spring. I loved it so much that I took the bulbs with me when I moved into my new house four years ago and it bloomed despite being replanted two months earlier. So next time you run across those tempting bags of bulbs at Walmart consider giving it a try. It might turn out to be a great performer in your garden.

Back to the Tiger Lilies, I was glad that I read a small blurb about them in The Gardner's World magazine on Friday which warned that they should not be planted next to other types of lilies. As there are lilies planted in the bulk of the beds that basically narrowed down where the Tigers could go.

Next up were the pinks.  I had also picked up a gorgeous deep pink miniature rose this past weekend along with that yellow one. Both were really hard to photograph today as the colors in the photos didn't come close to the real thing. The yellow was impossible for some reason. Anyway, planted the fragrant pink one before the Irises. I plan to pick up two more of these to repeat the color.

And here I must make another confession. I have a cottage garden because I am not disciplined enough to follow a color or plant plan. I see it, I want it, I buy it... only to then to come home and say "where the heck am I going to cram this thing?!"  So I'm trying to be a little better about repeating either colors or plants in the beds this year to add more cohesion to the garden. Along with the rose, I planted three Romantic Rose daylilies and 5 Pink Heaven Trumpet Lilies. Both packets are also from Wally World. So here's to things coming up "rosy" in the garden.

The Garden in March

Late tonight I heard the most amazing sound - a soft tapping on the window which increased in intensity. It couldn't be I thought but, sure enough, a trip to the window confirmed my hopes. Rain, glorious rain! A sound that's been few and far inbetween this winter. It lasted less than an hour but oh what a great hour it was. All in all it's been a decent week in the garden, despite the yo-yoing of temperatures from day to day. On Wednesday I came home to discover that a few of my daffodils have started to bloom. And those wasn't the only plants waking up from their winter slumber.

The daylilies are peeking up everywhere. Love the striping on the daylily below, which is coming up around the fringed leaves of the larkspur that thankfully reseeded itself. I am so thrilled with how the larkspur flourished in the garden that I've bought 6 more seed packets last month. Now if only the weather will stablize more so that I can sow the seeds. It will be interesting to see what colors appear on the plants, especially the daylilies next to the Larkspur. These were planted last fall and I've totally forgotten what variety they were. Must dig through the tag pile after they bloom to match up their names. The majority of the daylilies have been gifts from a co-worker whose home garden seems to multiply daylilies and irises like Tribbles. And I have been on the receiving end of that generosity. Last count that was about 50 irises and probably 40 daylilies. Everyone with a young garden should be so blessed to have a friend like this!

The Salvias, Veronicas and scabiosas are bushing up too. The rose bushes are leafing out. Trimmed off the died rose blossoms off the Knockout Roses. I know they're suppose to be "self cleaning" but all those dried up buds were so untidy looking. They are also a good lesson to me about reading the plant tag. The Knockouts have tripled in size and overshadowed the underplanted irises and daylilies, so it's transplanting time for those plants this spring.

The Clematis plants are also a lesson in verticality. The saying "First year it sleeps. Second year it creeps. Third year it leaps." totally applies to this plant. I almost ripped one out in the second year when it seemed like the plant was underperforming and would never amount to anything. Boy was I wrong. Last summer that plant went gangsters in a matter of days. I even bought two more to add to the back garden. This week, within two days, several leaves have appeared on all the Clematis vines. Ah, the promise off large, gorgeous blossoms to come.

While poking around in the beds and clearing out dead leaves, I even saw one leaf of my earliest Asiatic Lily coming up underneath the mulch. These lilies are stunners. Around 5 feet tall with deep magenta coloring. Wish I could plant more but these came from one of those bags of lilies one finds at Walmart and I've never seen them again. Hopefully mine are putting out little babies and multiplying in the bed. The only thing better than a pass-a-long plant from a friend is a free, naturalized plant already in one's garden. Here's hoping your garden is waking up from its slumber to reward you with glorious green leaves and a promise of beautiful blossoms to come.