May 2018 Garden Scrapbook

It’s already July. The temperature is around 100°F every day, the world is a mess and good friends are in the hospital and/or rehab. So what can I do?
I can’t march but I can be registered to vote. I can send contributions to the food bank and Beto and RAICES. I can make phone calls to people in rehab. I can work on my songs. And I can still put up garden photos once in awhile. Here are a few from May.

A yellow warbler stopped by on May 3^rd. Some of the little birds like to hop around the bottom of the birdbath fountain… maybe they feel safer there? They sometimes sip from the side of the stone.

Tiny leaves appeared on the over-wintered Musical Notes clerodendron/Clerodendrum incisa on May 10^th. Every spring I watch and wait and wonder if this will be the year it stays dormant and doesn’t wake up. That will no doubt happen some spring but it’s alive this year!

By May 11^th both the pomegranate and the pineapple guava were in bloom. When they flower together the secret garden is gorgeous and gaudy. Unfortunately they never do make any fruit (the orchardist equivalent of All Hat and No Cattle?) but what lovely hats.

A couple of days later the fragrant double Mock Orange was in bloom. A decade ago I carried a tiny rooted piece from my parents’ home in Illinois here to my Texas garden. Their house belongs to other people now but I have this sweet memory.

I had an Oak Leaf Hydrangea in Illinois 20 years ago and am glad I tried it here. The shrub does well in partial shade but that comes with a side effect in my yard. The pecan trees create shade but they also drop vast amounts of spent pollen tassels on everything under their canopy.

Most of the daylilies had flowers but the number of stalks and blooms was half of what they can do in a good year. 'Best of Friends’ is pleasing even with fewer stalks and flowers.

Before snapping this photo I should have groomed the daylily by removing the spent flower. This is ‘Echo Canyon’ and it’s a spider daylily.

 Did you watch or read about any of the Royal Wedding? Some articles mentioned the components of Meghan Markle’s bouquet as being myrtle. My dwarf Greek myrtle had quarter-sized flowers in bloom that day. I think the myrtle grown in England is slightly different but this variety can survive in Austin, it’s fragrant and pretty and bouquet-worthy!

 The original division of this Shasta daisy came from a dear friend fifteen years ago. 

Last year I noticed a small shrubby plant that had popped up in a border. It looked vaguely familiar so I let it grow until fall. After it went dormant I chopped it down to 12 inches. The plant woke up, made leaves and by May 28^th a few flowers had opened. So far it looks like an American Beautyberry/ Callicarpa americana but I’m not sure yet. Will this gift from the birds be a good gift or a bad surprise? 

This post May 2018 Garden Scrapbook was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog