Bloom Day & Genealogy

WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE??
Maybe you recognized that line as a riff on the recent family history series "Who Do You Think You Are?" It was fun to see Twitter-friend Megan Smolenyak on the show, helping celebrities find out answers to mysteries of their family's past. My time and brain cells have been devoted more to genealogy than to gardening lately - and until last night's blessed 2-inches of rain fell, the gardening mostly consisted of watering.
Somehow old records suddenly appeared, solving some puzzles while sprinkling new question marks all over the charts.

Some of the findings are fun: A previously unknown great-grand-aunt appeared out of thin air on the Zoelle branch! Researching this name has produced such variations as Zolle, Zolla, Zoller, Zello, Seller & Colley.

Some of the findings are disturbing: so many death certificates had forms of tuberculosis as the cause of death that I started reading about its effects on Chicago in the late 1800's-early 1900's. Now I'm feeling emotionally overwhelmed with sympathy for my poor immigrant ancestors, many of them born before TB was recognized as infectious rather than an inherited tendency. Logic and reason remind me this happened so long ago that they'd all be dead by now... even without consumption to carry them off...how is it possible to mourn for and with people you never knew?


Enough of Family Trees for now! It's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, begun by May Dreams Carol. Even in that relationship genealogy comes into play... I first found Carol in a web search- not through her garden blog, but at her Grandmother's Diary.



In other months my GBBD posts may feature plants that will only grow where winters are comparatively mild - Texas mountain laurel, Carolina jessamine, White ginger or bluebonnets.But sometimes a vignette like this one looks quite similar to some place 1200 miles away and a dozen years ago.


This little reblooming daylily, a recross of 'Stella d'Oro' called 'Vi's Apricot', used to flower in Illinois -
But it bloomed in July rather than May, and never at the feet of a 'Meyer's Improved' lemon tree!
Tomato blossoms are beautiful no matter where or when they bloom.

Calibrachoa and green beans are pretty universal, aren't they?

The so-called Ditch Lily (Hemerocallis fulva) really did grow in roadside drainage ditches in Illinois. It was so common that I didn't bother to bring a piece with me to Texas. It's been nearly 11 years since I saw one blooming but thanks to Good and Evil Lori this Wisconsin-born orange daylily opened flowers today.
And thanks to the inspiration of MSS of Zanthan Gardens, the daylilies opened with a cloud of 'Royal Wedding' sweet peas above them

In Illinois the yellow rose would have been 'Graham Thomas' instead of 'Julia Child', the pine was a dwarf Mugho Pine instead of an Italian Stone Pine and the pale purple bells of Mexican Oregano would never survive winter, but the vine in the background would be the same -a Clematis 'Ramona' eventually shows up in all my gardens, no matter where we live.

So does the light yellow daylily, Hemerocallis 'Happy Returns' - here with other old favorites blue larkspur, yarrow Achillea 'Moonshine', yellow snapdragons and Salvia farinacea. The main difference in this scene versus one in Illinois is that the rocks are free in Texas!

If I see a beloved plant from the past on the distressed/sale table there's a good chance I'll try to grow it here. This Oakleaf Hydrangea followed me home from Countryside Nursery last winter



But before anyone calls the Reality Police and tells them to stage an intervention, here is proof that I really do know where I am. This is Austin, Texas, where Salvia 'Black & Blue' grows like a weed

Where exotic fruits like Pineapple Guava are used as garden shrubs


And tender fruit trees like 'Wonderful' Pomegranate live through the winter and bloom

Where 'Celeste' figs grow uncovered and unprotected as landscape elements

Where a fragrant double yellow Oleander from Plant Delights
Combines with fragrant white Confederate jasmine

And a fragrant white 'Little Gem' magnolia to scent the air and make one feel like a superannuated Scarlet O'Hara

Austin is a place where odd lilies like Eucomis copy pineapples
A Justicia pretends to be a Shrimp

And Cuphea llaevea mimics a Bat's face

Where Pam's passalong Aloe can survive hail and cold in the shelter of a holly tree to bloom in the shade

Where wildflowers like Texas Paintbrush can be picked up at local nurseries to grow as container plants on the patio (last year's plants even seeded in the front lawn!)
And where the tender Rosa Mutabilis that I once sighed over in out-of-zone gardening books elbows out every other plant in the front border
Here's one more look at the 'Royal Wedding' Sweet peas, caught a few days ago as the sun came through their petals in early morning light. The seeds came from the Natural Gardener - a little gift when we bought our second rainbarrel last winter.


Happy Blooming Day! Celebrate by checking out the gardens linked to the GBBD post at May Dreams Gardens. Soon I'll get a list together of everything in bloom with botanical names at Annie's Addendum.

(The GBBD List is now up)

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.

Flowery First Weekend In March

My post is just photos today - we're in the middle of several projects. Up in Northwest Austin spring comes a little later than it does to Pam's garden in Central Austin, but we're catching up!

Last week it was all fuzzy buds, but today our neighbor's Saucer Magnolia is opening on the other side of the back fence.

One of our redbuds is this Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy', planted in fall of 2004. It's barely grown in height, but the branches are fuller, and each spring there have been more flowers dotted along the branches. Some of the buds froze and dropped off when our temperatures fell to the low twenties a couple of weeks ago - how wise of this tree to hold more buds in reserve. When the leaves emerge, they're a dark purple color, which fades to green in the heat of summer. The evergreen vine behind the tree is Star Jasmine, Trachaelospermum jasminoides, which will have fragrant white flowers in late spring.

The Carolina Jessamine, Gelsemium sempervirens, is now in full, fragrant bloom.

The coral honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens, is blooming on the arch. In the background you can see the still-blooming Camellia japonica 'Pius IX' and the top of the tall saucer magnolia. The tree trunk is the pecan tree.

Tea Olive, Osmanthus fragrans, is mostly evergreen in our yard [although cold weather can damage some foliage] and it blooms in winter.

Although the individual flowers are tiny, just a few open blooms can fill the side garden with their fragrance. That reddish color is new leaves forming at the ends of the branches. We had one in a container at our previous house which we planted in back. We liked it so much that we bought a second Tea Olive last fall, and so far it's doing really well.

The Meyer's Lemon has been out on the park bench for air and a little sun. There are a few new baby lemons! The tree is coming back inside tonight, just in cast the 'possible light freeze' that is predicted for both tonight and Sunday nights turns out to be more than a possibility.