Tomorrow is Another (Garden) Day

Yes, the weather is hot and it's very dry. Yes, we could be heading to the kind of historic drought that gripped Central Texas in the 1950's. At my house the container plants get water and so do the borders. I water the tomato patch and the young trees and non-established shrubs but not the lawn. The grass looks okay where it grows next to the borders, the lawn is hanging on unwatered in the shade, and it is dying in the parkway and in the sunny parts of the front yard.


But I don't want to talk about any of that! Today I want to be Scarlet O'Hara, ignoring reality to concentrate on what's still good as we mark a "late-1970's ranch-style home" anniversary...it was five years ago that Philo & I bought this house, got the keys and began the move here, bringing a pile of plants along.We'd spent the previous 5 years living in another part of Austin, in a tall house on a canyon with deer in the front yard, a view, and nearly 100 pots of plants hiding from the deer on the deck. Losing the view was not fun and it would be very different to live with a flat, fenced back yard. That almost-blank slate was pretty exciting, even though the backyard was smaller than the front yard and shaped like a trapezoid. In the photo above you see the original long view across the back of the oddly-shaped back yard. Two pecans grew at the far end and most of the yard was grass. The concrete patio was a rectangle large enough to hold the table & grill.
When you entered at the gate a few medium-sized pink crepe myrtles grew along the left fence and a metal shed held tools and the mower. Nothing terrible, just normal and kind of boring. But what we wanted was something interesting. We wanted to walk out the back door and feel as if we were going Somewhere.

Five years in are we closer to that goal? When we open the gate the white Acoma crepe myrtles have filled in along the fence and reached up to soften the magenta explosion from the next yard:

Look down the long axis today and it's obvious that the pecan trees have grown, that the grass has been turned into mixed borders and that the patio has expanded. Our original view from the breakfast room window was the inside of the old shed - now we look out to watch the fountain add sound and motion to the life-giving water flowing for birds & beasts.Whether you come in the gate or come out from inside the house there's always something to do, something to see, somewhere to go - perhaps to check out a magnolia with edges browning almost as soon as it unfurled, its decrepit beauty still appreciated by a bee.
Maybe I could take a photo of an open flower on the Bauhinia/Orchid tree from my friend Ellen so the image can be used to help identify the species.
I can take back my earlier complaints about partial shade delaying the formation of blue blooms on the Duranta and instead rejoice that the shade gives the plant some relief from the intense sun.

Taking out the trash can be an adventure since it brings me near enough to admire the yellow Plumeria/Frangipani against the blue sky, even while hoping for dark clouds!
I can bend down to pull a few weeds and see the Crocosmia flames and Yarrow sparks at the base of the white Acoma crepe myrtle
Against the back fence a few tomatoes haven't given up - not the sturdy grape tomato 'Juliet', which sets fruit in heat and not the old favorite 'Early Girl'. A couple of 'Carmello's have set and might grow to maturity while the single plant of 'Costoluto Genovese' produces one small fruit every day. That's not shade cloth from a garden store - it's an old cotton curtain bought for a slider door, then used on an interior doorway, now draped over the birdnetting, held up by Philo's homemade wooden tomato scaffold.


At the back of the small plot the volunteer Pattypan makes tiny perfect squashes.
And in the shade under the curtain the tomatoes do their best. As you saw in the last post, I bring them in the second they show any color and put them on the counter, ripening just fine because the kitchen is always at least 80°F. Developing inside is a good idea right now. I've finally caught up with the 2009 events at the Divas of the Dirt blog and am gradually reworking the archives from 2001 to 2008, using the text from the original website with added photos. A new song is in the works, too, but until then, here's the Pond Song I wrote last summer - the 18th and 19th of July are the dates for this year's Austin Pond Society Tour.

Squirrels and Amarcrinum

It's not supposed to be over 100°F every day in June, but that's happening in Austin in 2009. The heat may be on, but these weirdly fragrant Amarcrinum still opened, probably because they were given one of the best sites in our yard, a smidge of the only border that offers morning sun with afternoon shade. You can grow almost anything with that exposure - even in Texas - but most of our lot gives us the reverse - shade in the morning turning to baking, parching, frying afternoon sun.

We woke this morning to the sound of little paws skittering madly across the roof, and all day long the trees have been full of chattering, sex-crazed squirrels. While on my way to the garden shed I startled this busy pair and was able to snap a photo because Kerri taught me that a blogger never leaves the house without a camera. The image is so clinical that I'm not sure whether to thank her or blame her for this post!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, June 2009

Welcome to Garden Blogger Bloom Day the monthly Floral Circus presided over by May Dreams Carol. Guess it's time to take a break from writing about what the Divas of the Dirt have been up to lately and write about what's in bloom at Circus~Cercis. Holding our GBBD meetings on the 15th of the month didn't work out for a few flowers - the White Delphinium ignored the calendar and bloomed for two weeks around the 1st of the month.

You missed 'Best of Friends' when it was at its prettiest - this photo is from May 24th. This pretty passalong daylily from Pam/Digging still opens flowers, but when temperatures graze 100°F every day, the flower color is paler.
You totally missed my new 'Devonshire' daylily bought at the Austin Hemerocallis Show and Sale. It had three stalks, each with lots of buds but they finished last week.


You've arrived just in time for the native Flame Acanthus blooming near the front door - another passalong from Pam/Digging.
At the end of the veranda these Blue Balloonflowers don't look too stressed yet... this is Platycodon grandiflora, carried to Texas from Illinois as tiny seedlings.
Cross the drive to the Pink Entrance Bed and see the first Coneflowers of the year- these are Echinacea 'Purple Stars', with natives pink gaura, Red yucca and pink skullcap, Mexican oregano, white trailing lantana, more balloonflowers and...one of the purple larkspurs which usually reseed in spring. In April 2008 they bloomed at 6' tall - this year only a few larkspur sprouted to bloom now.
In this border the Balloonflowers are Platycodon 'Miss Tilly'
Let's go see what's blooming inside the fence now - tropical milkweed in orange

It took the 'Acoma' crepe myrtles three years to reach the level of the fence - they look established now! That's a plumeria at left - no flowers but it has buds.
Down at ground level near the right crepe myrtle these passalong crocsmia from blogger MarthaChick are also in bud, rather than bloom. I let at least one of the wild sunflowers grow every summer on the edge of the vegetable garden. It doesn't seem to bother the tomatoes and peppers growing in the little garden behind it and shouldn't sunflower seeds for goldfinches count as a crop? .

The tomato crop isn't large but there are lots of 'Juliet' grape tomatoes and enough 'Early Girls' and 'Carmellos' so that one is ripe in time for dinner every day. I didn't plant the pattypan - it's one of those lasagna-composting bonuses from a chunk of squash added last fall. We've had two so far. The native coral honeysuckle has recovered from pruning and had begun a new bloom cycle.


Look at the shape of those flowers - no wonder the hummingbirds visit them.
The hummingbirds like the Salvia coccinea in the center of the back yard, too - that blur is a hummingbird and that lavender flower in the corner is another confused larkspur.
Sometimes the best color in an Austin heatwave is no color at all... it's White 'Fuji' balloonflowers and white coneflowers with silver gray Lambs Ears, a passalong from my friend Carole.
The color can be a surprise White Calla lily from a clump that hasn't bloomed in a few yearsIt's the White of the fragrant white abelia and the fluffy white crepe myrtles.



But my favorite is still White sails of the Blue River II Hibiscus, another plant carried from Illinois


The hibiscus reminds me of something else that slipped by in the last couple of weeks - my first blog post on June 7, 2006 was about them. These past three years of blogging have been great fun - thanks to all of you, especially MSS of Zanthan Gardens and Pam/Digging, the first garden bloggers I met and my inspirations from the beginning.

Carol will have links to all the GBBD participants and as usual, the list of all plants in bloom with my closest guesses at their proper botanical names can be found at Annie's Addendum.

Imagining Dad In the Garden

It's a dozen years since my dad died but he was with me in imagination as I mowed and wandered around the garden today. He loved our Illinois garden and if he were here he'd recognize these first 10" blooms as the Blue River II Hibiscus. Dad would know the Citrina daylily. A neighbor shared it with me in 1978 and it's bloomed in four of our gardens. Dad disliked purple clothes but liked purple flowers so this basket of Calibrachoa might get a nod of approval. Even if the visit is imaginary I'd better do something about the tree saplings sprouting in every shrub and flower bed. That was one of Dad's pet peeves. Get that pecan out of the hydrangea! There'd be no excuse for not weeding once Dad saw the Cobrahead tool Anneliese sent me for winning a contest on the Cobrahead blog. And he he might be amused that the winning plant ID was Horseradish, something he grew near his picnic table. If we were lucky we could catch a glimpse of the small Praying Mantis hanging upside down on the Meyer's Lemon. We could taste the first 'Carmello' tomato - a new one this year. Under bird netting some 'Early Girl' tomatoes are coming along and so are a cluster of 'Costoluto Genovese'. With so few tomatoes we'd have to use canned tomatoes for spaghetti sauce. In my mind I hear him say, "getting a little heavy handed with the oregano, aren't you, missy?" He'd be okay with lots of basil, I think...not being Italian never stopped my dad from cooking old-time Chicago Italian dishes - pounding round steak thin, rolling, filling and tying it to make Brachiole in red sauce. With maybe some zucchini sliced, dipped & fried in olive oil on the side.




I can't even imagine what kind of conversation we could have about the non-garden world - my father was a pipefitter at a Fisher Body plant, the division of GM that made car bodies. Every news broadcast this week has made me wonder how my parents would have felt about the whole thing.






What would he think about part of his family living in Texas?Dad learned to hate Texas weather when stationed here on manouvers prior to shipping out for 3 years in New Guinea during World War II.

Forty years later he learned to dislike Texas highways and their primitive rest stops when he & Mom drove IH35 all the way through Texas to San Antonio one hot September. But like most guys - once he got to the reunion of old army buddies, he had a great time.
Miss you, dad!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, May 2009

It's already May 16th here, long past midnight after a long hot day. I went out to take photos for GBBD early in the morning under an overcast sky, hoping the flowers would be fresh. The back lawn looked pretty raggedy so I mowed it, then took more photos in the late afternoon. Many of the photos of individual flowers are pretty good. But you won't see them! I've spent hours formatting the pictures and trying to write this post but Blogger is being a pig as usual, uploading most of the closeups sideways. They look like crap that way so I deleted most of them. I might try to put the apricot daylily on my Twit-pic page instead. This little harvest of a 'Spanish Spice' pepper, 3 'Juliet' tomatoes and 8 peapods appeared there a couple of days ago. What you get is the garden in long shots - perhaps it's just as well. It's hot, we need rain, and insects and crustaceans have been chomping everything. Poor Rosa 'Julia Child' has been devoured. Pillbugs got the marigold seedlings. The front garden - 'The Bride' white gaura, Salvia guaranitica, Texas paintbrush, Yellow Bulbine, lavender blue Creeping Phlox, Salvia 'Nuevo Leon', Verbena bonariensis, the dependable Mutabilis rose The Pink Entrance Garden - a dwarf burgundy daylily, Mexican oregano, Rose-pink gaura, verbena bonariensis, rose Ice Plant, Deep pink 'Telstar' dianthus, white trailing lantana, pink skullcap, 'Belinda's Dream' Rose, deep magenta Calibrachoa. Just inside the gate, flowers in purples and oranges, blues and apricots. Mexican honeysuckle, Orange cuphea, , 'Vi's Apricot' dwarf daylilies, Verbena bonariensis, Setcreasea(Purple Heart tradescantia), Bicolor iris and Butterfly Blue scabiosa. In the middle and at the far end of the fence bed two shrubs of Mexican oregano are in full bloom And in the far corner the Rose of Sharon has a dozen flowers and the top of this shrub has finally reached the level of the fence, a small step toward the dream of a green screen.In the triangles and the center back bed are more 'Vi's Apricot' Daylilies, white salvia greggii, one lonely larkspur, tropical Asclepias/Butterfly weed, snapdragons, cilantro gone to seed, lavenders, Zinnia linearis,
the tiny flowers of Myrtus communis nana, Dwarf Greek Myrtle

The large fragrant flowers of Little Gem magnolia A white delphinium Budded daylilies, Batfaced cuphea, Black & Blue salvia, Salvia coccinea, Salvia greggii, Salvia guaranitica, Shasta daisies and Perovskia Head back to the patio and the color comes from geraniums and petunias (and more calibrachoa offscreen)Abelias dangle from the tall shrubs at the entrance to the secret garden. Inside are geraniums, impatiens, passionflowers, Mexican lime flowers, 'Coral Nymph' salvia and two pomegranates with a few flowers, one regular variety and one dwarf kind. In a few hours I'll be digging with the Divas of the Dirt so goodnight! Wonderful flowers with much less cranky gardeners can be found at May Dreams Garden, where Carol keeps track of more than 130 Garden Blogger Bloom Day posts from around the world.