April 2018 Garden Scrapbook

April 2018 Garden Scrapbook

April Fool! Here’s what is left of that viola bowl.

The is the first time two blooms were open at the same time on these pale yellow Louisiana iris. They make a lot of leaves and take up a lot of space but are stingy with bloom.

The white eye ring makes me pretty sure this cute bird is a Nashville Warbler. They’re not here all year but they’re here for a lot of the year.

Iris and columbine – a favorite combination.

The unscented native Mock Orange (Philadelphus inodorus) was spectacular this spring, and even prettier with a swallowtail butterfly hovering.

At one time I had four clematis vines but I was not a good enough gardener to keep them alive. I’m grateful for the lovely no-name clematis that has survived.

 

This purple iris is usually the last of the bearded iris to bloom – this year it’s backed up by annual poppies and Coriander/Cilantro in bloom.

My Byzantine Gladiolus is a treasured passalong from a friend in the old part of Austin.

Against my advice, a pair of cardinals made a nest in the Lady Banks rose, two feet from the patio table, not far from the birdbath fountain. The male cardinal then attempted to chase every blue jay from the area. 

Since the Lesser Goldfinches are here all year long we sometimes take them for granted. When visitors get all excited to see them we remember how special they are. 

 

In the middle of April I saw a lone Monarch fluttering around one bed. Most of the milkweed froze and the few surviving milkweed plants were just starting to regrow. After checking out the bluebonnets the butterfly left.

  

Third week in April and the pecans are putting out leaves and pollen tassels… goodbye Sun.

After the green bowl smashed I rescued the violas and put them into a hanging basket. In the third week of April I added a hot pink calibrachoa.

 

Our pomegranate tree had a lot of blooms this year. We’ve never had a single pomegranate fruit – will this be the year we do?

Larkspur reseeds every year but the number of plants keeps going down as the garden matures and the sunny spots shrink.

The climbing mini-rose is called Red Cascade and it’s a real trooper.

Tiny wildflower Venus’ Looking Glass deserves a closeup photo.

When the hard freezes came most of the developing loquat fruits dropped off the tree. Only these three loquats matured. It’s OK – while I like the fruit, I like the tree more.

This post “April 2018 Garden Scrapbook” was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.    

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day August 2011

My original intention was to ignore May Dreams Garden's GBBD for this month - here in Austin we've had 62 days over 100 degrees F - just a few days from the record. Rain is just a memory and the few plants with flowers seemed to be the same ones that appeared in July - so what was the point? But then on Saturday a Texas Star Hibiscus that I'd been babying along rewarded me with one bright red flower

I stubbornly held out... then this morning I noticed an open flower on a Stapelia gigantea plant that I'd moved to a semi-sunny spot on the patio. I took the pot to the patio table for a closer look - not just one flower but with 2 more budsI couldn't ignore this! My current herd of Stapelia plants descend from one given to me by my Aunt Phyllis over 20 years ago. "Herd" may not be the official collective noun for Stapelia, but doesn't it seem appropriate for members of the Milk-weed family? Stapelias are container plants here - our winters will kill them if they're left outside. Carrion flower is another name - the meaty scent draws flies.

The Blue Butterfly clerodendron bloomed for July GBBD - but the BLUE is a transient characteristic now, rather than a permanent attribute. Look how bleached the blooms become in this intense sun: The little annual native Zinnia linearis (or if you prefer, Zinnia angustifolia) have been in bloom only because I handwater them. The grass is not so lucky.I also water a container of 'Sun Gold' tomatoes - soaking it well every day. The runoff seeps into the ground, ending up in the roots of the native Sunflower just below the container, keeping the flowers and seedheads in production for the finches.
A similar relationship has developed under this not-quite-established 'Zuni' crepe myrtle, put in last winter with hopes it will someday shade the breakfast room windows. I planted a 'Mexico Midget' tomato under the young tree so watering one waters both.

Keeping the Sunflower and Crepe Myrtle alive means keeping the tiny tomato plants alive & keeping the tomatoes alive means I get a small handful of little tomatoes a couple of times a week. They're very tart and go especially well in tuna salad. The heat means I refill birdbaths and saucers at least once - usually twice- a day. I've been diligent about watering other plants with flowers that are not just decorative, but are important to wildlife. The bees need flowers like the tiny pink & lilac blooms on this Cuphea
Usually my assorted collection of tubular red and blue Salvias keep blooming most of the summer, but this year some Salvias have bailed and others refuse to bloom at all. Some extra water coaxed the Mexican Honeysuckle into taking up the slack as a nectar source for the hummingbirds.
If you think things have gone to the birds around here, you're right! The lawn is toast, the vegetable garden abandoned, and even the cooking sage may have croaked, but I won't give up trying to keep my friends with wings alive.
For a complete list of what's in bloom with botanical names go to my Annie's Addendum blog. To see the GBBD posts of other gardeners go to May Dreams Gardens.

Yellow-Billed Cuckoo

People in Austin are seeing interesting bird visitors this week. I'd hoped for a painted bunting but was quite happy when this Yellow-Billed Cuckoo stopped at our garden today!

I took the photo through the window - my presence didn't seem to make the bird jump, but a clumsy grackle & a white-winged dove sent it flying. (Photos will enlarge when clicked.)

There's a slight chance of rain over the next couple of days - we need it so badly, while along the Mississippi people are dealing with floods. I've hand-watered the daylilies so there are some flowers in bloom on both sides of the back walk. Will the rainchains finally get to do what they're designed to do?

Identifying Things With Wings

Many of the birds that come to the birdbath fountain are common ones, not mysterious: the Blue Jays in my blog header, pairs of nesting Cardinals, omnipresent Mockingbirds, the English Sparrows who have taken over neighbors' Purple Martin houses, hoards of White-winged Doves, noisy Grackles and the most welcome Chickadees.

Robins were my companions when I gardened in Illinois, waiting for me to throw a grub their way, but we went a decade after moving to Texas without seeing a single one. What a thrill when they began to visit our Austin garden:
House finches flew in-and-out of a huge blue spruce at my friend Ruth's house near Chicago, but they didn't come to our Illinois houses. They're regular visitors at this house.
We saw waxwings 30-years ago at house #2 in Illinois - that house had a berry-covered Mountain Ash tree and a row of large, berry-covered junipers. Cedar waxwings began to stop here a couple of years ago.

Goldfinches (think it's lesser goldfinch?) didn't come to our previous Austin house, but they come here. Titmice and hummingbirds come here too, but are usually too fast for my camera.

Local birder Mikael Behrens has a wonderful website- Birding on Broadmeade. The people who go with him on birdwalks find themselves checking many species off their lists without ever leaving NW Austin - even Bluebirds and Caracaras! Birding along Mikael's magic creek sounds like fun if you're able to walk & look through binoculars at the same time.

Birdwatching takes practice and study, but it's probably necessary to have good vision in the first place. When the description tells me to notice if there is "a black smudge below the second wing bar" - it's a lost cause - I can't discern that even when the bird is right outside the breakfast room window and a bird book is in my hand. But even if being a true birder is beyond me, when something more exotic than the usual White-winged doves and Mockingbirds show up on the next Great Backyard Bird Count, it would be great to turn in the correct identities.

Mikael also uses the birds' songs to help identify them, but only certain voices can be heard through my windows - like grackles, jays and mockingbirds. Outside you can hear the calls of a chickadee, wren, cardinal or titmouse and it's easy to tell when a flock of cedar waxwings is in a neighboring yard.

Last year we had what I think was a male Yellow Rumped Warbler and it looks like another (or the same one) is here now, looking like a wet, real-life version of an Angry Bird through the breakfast room window! Hope this one is right, Mikael:

Could this be the female Yellow-Rumped Warbler? Here's the back of this bird A similar bird was around in January, so maybe they're not just passing through.

In March I took a photo of the male yellow-rumped warbler, perched on an herb trough at right, waiting a turn to bathe. Reflection from the water spoiled the image of the bird at left, but at the time I thought it might be a Nashville warbler.
I'm not sure if the same bird was here yesterday, but with those white eye-rings it looks a lot like the Nashville warbler from last year-

Could the bird with white eye-rings at top left in this trio also be a Nashville warbler ... or maybe the same one, rumpled and wet? As to the other two - any chance the one at right is a Ruby Crowned Kinglet?

Here's another shot of the trio. Did I get anything right?

Insects with wings can be confusing, too - this is some kind of Swallowtail butterfly on the Carolina Jessamine but which one?

A few days ago a mammal with wings rested for a short time on the wall in the Secret Garden - my guess on this is a Little Brown Bat. Some sites suggest a full moon can throw off the bat's normal schedule... my hope is that a night of eating mosquitoes made the bat too full to fly straight home. Thanks for any input ... there is some video footage of the little birds hopping around on the fountain - it can go up on YouTube once they have names.

GBBD, GBBC & Foliage: A Portmanteau Post

Apparently Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year and the 2010 Winter Olympics weren't enough for one weekend so we're also observing Garden Bloggers Bloom Day with May Dreams Carol, Foliage Follow-up with Pam/Digging and the Great Backyard Bird Count with Cornell University's Ornithology Lab.

In the race for available time an extensive genealogy-photo project for Valentine's Day took Gold, watching Moguls and Pairs Skating got the Silver and the Great Backyard Bird Count won Bronze... with just a few photos of Spring trying to come to Austin, Texas for Pam & Carol.

LOOK UP

Some of the usual suspects appeared during the times I kept watch for the Great Backyard Bird Count, but the Chickadees hid and it was surprising to see only one White-Winged Dove. If the Cedar Waxwings would come to the fountain we could see their faces better but these seasonal visitors swoop into the neighbors' yards for Waxleaf Ligustrum berries, then perch high overhead in the pecan trees making all my photos look like this
The numbers weren't very high for this count - lower than what I see on many a non-counting day - I think the strong winds encouraged the birds to hide in the large old evergreens all over my neighborhood for much of the weekend. I know they were just out of sight on the other side of the fence! Will our shrubs ever grow big enough to provide the thicket they crave in my garden?

LOOK DOWN

Most of the flowers are reruns from last month - both white-flowering upright and blue-flowering trailing Rosemarys are blooming, the Carolina Jessamine opens flowers that sometimes freeze, but the hundreds of buds ensure they'll keep coming

The oldest Camellia japonica kept its buds, but 'Pius IX' is not supposed to be striped! That's freeze damage.

The early paperwhites froze at 13 in January, but the 'Grand Primo' narcissus aren't bothered by the lighter freezes

Out in the parking strip some daffodils blaze yellow

'Woodstock' Hyacinths planted in 2007 have returned - opened on their stalks near the brick wall of the Secret Garden



but just showing florets in the more exposed Pink Entrance Garden.



The Dianthus 'Telstar Hybrids' are opening flowers again - they'd be annuals if I had them in the ground, but in well-drained containers can go on for years.



This winter-planted Pansies is now blooming on a shepherd's hook near the big loquat. The loquat tree is fine, but most of the small fruits were frozen and the few still attached don't seem to be developing.



The Coral Honeysuckle did not get a swelled head over being the star of last month's music video, just buckled down to replace the frozen foliage and keeps pumping out flowers. Against the sky on the other side of the arch the Lady Banks Rose is also beginning to releaf.
LOOK ALL AROUND

The weather was beautiful at midday when we drove down to the rather new Sunday HOPE Farmers Market on Sunday - bumping into friends made it even better. Philo liked the Four Onion Soup from one vendor and I had terrific Ricotta-Spinach pie from Me Myself & Pie. After buying vegetables we decided a stroll at Zilker Botanical Gardens would be perfect for Valentine's Day.

For Foliage Follow-up come walk the Bamboo Path with us and listen to that rustling sound. Most of the bamboos looked okay, some palms were frozen, others fine, and there were very few flower buds developing on the Texas Mountain Laurels.

Many of the water features were drained for cleaning and sealing but turtles sunned and koi flashed in this pond while children ran and squealed on every path

Eventually we wandered over to the Hartman Prehistoric Garden and found drained ponds and work-in-progress there, too. That palm tree was hit hard by cold!

This year has not been kind to cycads either - wherever we go browned Sago Palms show how cold it's been - but I'd hoped that the more sheltered and protected location of Zilker Park would have made a difference. The bases of the plants above still hold some green - maybe they'll survive but how can they ever regain their perfect form and magnificence? This garden will never be the same.

Other cycads look dead and their bronze color has a weird beauty.


I keep the camera near the breakfast room window, hoping for new birds. The official bird count may be over but trying to catch images of the winged visitors is a game that never stops -And trying to keep the many wandering neighborhood cats from reducing those bird count numbers is another game with no end....hey, you lurking in the garden - go home!

Ed 5:19PM - forgot to include Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras and Lithuanian Independence Day in that list, along with Westminster Dog Show as Linda notes...now trying to think up a menu that combines Lithuanian & Louisiana cuisine! Also - thanks very much to Mikael Behrens' Birding on Broadmeade website for help with bird ID's