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.

Snow Day

So apparently reports of an early spring were a bit premature. From a nice 60 degrees early yesterday we are now at 28 degrees and it's still snowing. Schools and colleges have been cancelled so much of the area is enjoying a snow day at home. We were at the southern edge of this blizzard. I imagine Amarillo and cities north of that have seen 2-3 times the snow we've received.

View from the living room window. At 10 am it's still snowing hard and the wind's a whipping.

Symon, my 13 year old half siamese half tabby, is frisky today and chasing his tail and toys around the room. He can't figure out why he can't see anything through the bottom halves of the windows which are snow covered though.

I just hope all the ranuculas (Persian Buttercups) survive this latest round of freezing cold. Everytime they start poking out of the ground and greening up the cold kills the new growth. Also found the California poppy seeds my co-worker gave me back in the fall and will scatter those this weekend when the temperatures go back to the more tolerable 60s ranged.

In Between Days

Today is a beautiful day... just made for gardening. What little wind exists is gentle and the plants poking up everywhere are soaking in the warm rays of the sun. Hard to believe we have a 30% chance of snow tonight and the temperatures are going to drop 15-20 degrees tomorrow. The Lubbock area of West Texas has had little in the way of a real winter. We've gone from a very cold fall to a chilly spring, but no freezingwinter as we enter the third straight year of severe drought. Each year gets a little better though so hopefully this one will be even more wet than last year. We had about 11 inches last year and so far we've almost reached 2 inches since the start of the year. Things are looking good so far! 

Miss Penny checking out the daylilies, pincushion plant, and catnip flouringing in the bed underneath the dining room window.

In the garden, the larkspur is coming up everywhere, including everywhere in the grass. A good mowing will fix that later on. The rose bushes are budding out everywhere with striking red and dark green foliage.

Red leaves budding our everywhere on this rosebush, which was planted in memorial of my cat, Basil. The serene angel was a gift of a co-worker and watches over his deep red rose bush year round.

The daffodils are still short with no flower buds yet but they normally don't bloom in my beds until April anyway. The shasta daisies, sedums, nepeta, salvias, and daylilies are greening up nicely. None of the trees and rose of sharon bushes are showing any signs of green so far.

The flower-shaped heads of the sedums are coming up nicely, even in the shade. 

The month of February is such an in-between month. Can't really plant much because the ground is still freezing in the early mornings. Watching numerous episodes of Cottage Farms on QVC is only making the gardening bug more impatient. I keep eyeing the reblooming daylilies and fruit-named butterfly bushes and have to remind myself that I should try to buy more locally this year as the drought has been hard on our local nurseries due to city watering restrictions and little annual rainfall.  February and early March is the clean up months. Need to repaint the wood fence, expand flower beds, dig up weeds and put in a ton of humus and top soil. The earth seems to inhale the compost and new top soil the way I drink iced tea. Seriously, I can't figure out where the tons of dirt/compost I put down each year goes. The beds don't seem to get any taller. 

The Pill insisting her picture is taken. Half the shots I took today had either a tail, furry head or behind in it. There is something relaxing about having a garden cat following you around the yard... well, until she starts rolling in the dirt or chasing the butterflies around. Thankfully she's never caught one that I'm aware of. Don't think she really tries to catch them but rather just enjoys the chase itself.

As soon as the ground freezes are over I also need to start cramming plants into every open spot of dirt. Four neighborhood cats, three of whom actually belong to people around me, keep using bare spots in my flower beds for their litter boxes. The fifth culprit is the stray I adopted, Miss Penny the Pill. The tight planting would also help cut down on weeds in the beds.


Adding oranges and orange peels has so far not deterred the cats from digging into the beds. Bummer. The green pictured here is one of the shasta daises in this bed. Their flowers are so cheerful swaying in the summer breezes.

The weeds got so bad last year that I finally consented to having pre-emergent put down on the grass. We'll see if it was worth the cost later on. I'll have to put down more bug pellets this summer too since the lack of winter is going to make the bug situation bad in the summer months. 

Well the basil might have died. The dill and cilantro, on the other hand, is coming up everywhere in the herb circle. I just love the weeping seed heads of the dill and so do the butterflies. The dill is also coming up in the surrounding grass and thin side bed of the east side of the fence.

The raised veg bed didn't work out so well last year due to the drought and baking temperatures. What did work well was all the mint, cilantro and basil plants tucked into the cinderblock openings. The chocolate mint, mojito mint and orange mint is reviving itself in our warming temps. I suspect I'll need to reseed the basil.  

The cilantro is quite happy in the cinderblock too. Must add more this year. I think instead of veggies in the larger opening I'll add some flowers and turn the rest of the raised bed into a herb bed, most of which will be mints. Will have to look for apple and pineapple mint to add to the collection.

Update: By 5 pm the wind was whipping and the sky was dusty pink with dirt in the air. The cold wave is definately headed our way.

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.

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 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.

Turtle Tales

You hear things about turles growing up. They're slow as molasses. They're favorite thing to eat is bugs. They're reptile like and have no personality. You can't train a turtle. Uh huh. Well, Yertle really isn't a turtle, he's a land tortoise but that's a mouthful to say and tortoise doesn't rhyme with his name "Yertle." He does have beady red eyes and his head kinda slides out like a snake, particularly when he just "pops" up out from beneath a flower bush. But he's turned out to be such a amiable little fellow. He's probably only 2-3 pounds at the most, just barely wider than my hand. And yeah, that little sucker can book it across the yard. Turtles are slow my foot. I have to say when he's waddling away on his tiny little legs and swaying little tail he's pretty damn cute.

Well, he showed himself after a week of hiding in the back yard and freaked me out when he started to "race" toward me instead of away from me. I was so surprised I shrieked and ran inside, but then quickly returned with a little cat food. He practically threw himself at the food. I thought his kind was suppose to love snails and bugs but no, he loves the Iams cat food I gave him. Those small pellets are almost too big for him to get into his mouth but he manages to crack them in half to swallow. Which is good because I REFUSE to give the hymlich (sp?) manuever to a reptile. Even one with a cute little waddle.

He now regularly has a bad habit of just popping up and startling me when I'm in the garden. And he now always comes to me. By the time I dash back into the house to get him something to eat he's usually half way across the yard heading for the back door. He remembers me and knows I have cat food. This past Saturday I thought I'd give him a choice of things to eat - a selection about half the size of my palm consisting of diced up cucumbers, bananas, a little roasted chicken and the cat food. Wanna guess what was the only thing he wanted to eat? So much for my hopes that he'd wipe out the pill bug population that torments me annually. It appears to be cat food or nothing. Gotta give him props, he must know Iams is some pricy cat food. [in this photo you can see one of the food pellets, it's pretty small stuff so that gives you an idea of how big he is.]

Sunday morning I'm chilling in kitchen enjoying breakfast and perusing the sales ads. My cats are sunning in their cat tree and on the window ledge enjoying the scents of the outdoors. At 9:30 am it's not yet hot enough that the windows have to be closed for the AC. Basil, who's half tabby half Siamese and a major yappy pants, gets excited and talks up a blue streak. His brother's head is moving around too but he saves his vocal cords for either begging for food or calling for his brother to play chase. After a few times of yelling at him to shut up I finally walk over to see what's got his knickers in a twist. Expecting a bird I burst out laughing at what I saw on the other side of the window. There's Yertle, halfway on the small patio, playing stare out with the cats. He had came to the back door for breakfast! If he ever starts knocking on the door I'm packing his butt off to the Jay Leno show for one of his pet segments with Jack Hanna. [pictured above is Basil, who was finds Yertle a very peculiar "bird" roaming around in his back yard]