In like a Lion and Out like a Shorn Lamb

This post about my garden in Austin, Texas was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.

Did my February post listing all the trees in the garden put a hex on them? This part of the privacy screen looked pretty good six weeks ago.


By the first of March tiny leaves and buds had appeared on Spiraea, Redbud, roses, Arizona Ash, Fig and dwarf Pomegranate, and flower buds swelled on the native Texas Mountain Laurel

But then came the March 3rd-4th Thundersleet that bent the Loropetalum to the ground

While the iced Oleander leaned over to block the steps to the driveway

The trees and shrubs soon bounced back from the ice, but unlike plants in a northern place where dormant plants sleep, insulated by snow from cold air, our plants were wide awake and full of sap, making leaves and setting buds. When the temperature dropped to 19°F on March 6th even the native plants were shocked at the cold.

The results have slowly revealed themselves over the last few weeks.
All the leaves dropped off the Arizona ash and the pomegranates, every leaf and bud froze on the redbud trees and on the fig tree, leaves fell from the 'Climbing Iceberg' and the Meyer's Lemon, the flowers froze on the Texas Mountain Laurel, and leaves on all four Confederate Jasmines began to turn brown. Friends who grow agaves and aloes say they're badly damaged.

Plants that were dormant are mostly OK. Evergreen plants like Salvia greggii, Skullcaps and Salvia 'Hot Lips' froze way back but most are alive at the base. Semi-evergreens like Mexican honeysuckle, Philippine Violet and Turkscap died to the ground. Plants like iris and daffodils didn't die, but most buds froze.

The Lady Banks rose lost all its leaves and buds

The ends of every boxwood twig and branch began to die back, with stems turning light tan instead of green - something I've never seen in 15-years of growing them in Central Texas. The Barbados Cherries were already iffy - now they look dead.

Last spring I took many photos of the garden in bloom, but never got around to making a post at the end of March 2013 to celebrate the end of that unusually mild winter. The garden in those photos seems like fiction this year.

On March 30th, 2013, the Lady Banks was in full bloom.

On March 29th, 2013 the Mutabilis rose looked like a dream of spring

On March 29th, 2013 several Bluebonnets popped up with yellow Four-Nerve daisies, the tall fragrant Peach Iris, and white Salvia coccinea AKA Hummingbird Sage.

On March 30th, 2013 the white rose 'Climbing Iceberg' filled the left side of the sweetheart arch with blooms while the white-flowering Confederate/Star Jasmine filled the right side.


On March 30th, 2013 another Confederate Jasmine grew 8-feet high on the shed trellis with Spanish Bluebells at the base.


We were busy nursery-hopping and planting tomatoes at the end of March in 2013 - no guests arrived to see the garden clothed in blooms but we appreciated them every day.

Any longtime gardener can take the bad years along with the good years - of course, we can! And I know that much of the cold damage to this year's garden will grow out and repair itself and make flowers again some other day or some other year.
But the thing that made me want to scream was that this year there were garden visitors - real, talk-Latin-to-me, gardener-type garden visitors. 

Flash forward to the end of March 2014... and what do this year's guests get to see?

How about a frozen and browned Loropetalum chinense var rubrum 'Plum Delight', no longer a screen but a see-through shrub?


Or the pitiful remains of the Jasmine on the shed trellis with one stem of Hyacinthoides?


At least the Rosa 'Mutabilis' had begun to releaf, even though it had no flowers


The Lady Banks rose also has made leaves, and may yet bring forth a few golden blossoms


What a trouper! After losing the main crop of buds and leaves, the Texas Redbud produced a second batch of buds for a light but lovely show of blooms.


The Confederate Jasmine is now 8-inches high instead of 8-ft tall, but the white 'Climbing Iceberg' has releafed and is forming buds. The Magnolia figo/ Banana Shrub is almost bare of leaves but tiny new leaf buds show green.


Only two-thirds of the knee-high Mexican Buckeye is alive, but the little tree was in bloom to greet the guests.


The buds froze on the white iris and the peach iris, and most of the dozens of Salvia coccinea AKA Hummingbird Sage plants died, but the Four-Nerve daisies are a cheerful lot, and some bluebonnets are in bloom, saying This is Texas. It's not a dream of a garden, but still a real one. Let the pruning-back begin!





This post about my garden in Austin, Texas was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day February 2012

This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose Blog.

February 2011 kept us below freezing for 3 straight days, killing some plants and damaging many. So far this February of 2012 has given us cool temperatures rather than freezing cold nights, and there has been some rain. Although the amount of rain that has fallen on my garden is much less than those official measurements from Austin Bergstrom Airport or Camp Mabry, in combination with no nights below 27°F, it was enough to pump up more blooms than usual for February.

There's a complete list of what's in bloom today at Annie's Addendum - the Shrimp Plants, Four-Nerve Daisies, Rosemary, Pineapple Sage, Creeping Phlox and Loropetalum are on the list for another month.

In many winters the Mexican Honeysuckle/Justicia spicigera acts like perennials do in the North, freezing completely to ground level. But this year it has experienced minimum dieback and is in bloom for February

The Sweet Olive/Osmanthus fragrans is quite wonderful right now. In a good year it will be in bloom from late fall until mid-spring. Last year the flowers opened but the scent didn't carry through the parched air, then deep cold froze off the ends of each branch. This year there's new growth and the shrubs are covered in tiny flowers, never showy, but as the name promised - they are fragrant.

One bluebonnet/Lupinus texensis is open today with buds forming on other plants scattered in a few beds.

I don't have a name for this daffodil - perhaps it is 'February Gold'? Someone started it in this yard years ago and the bulbs turned up occasionally after we moved in and began to make a garden in 2004. We tucked them into different beds and borders and I like the way they look with morning light on the petals. This spiraea was also here when we bought the house. It's similar to the ones we called Bridal Wreath in Illinois, but the leaves are more oblong - perhaps it is the variety called Reeve's Spiraea. None of the flowers were open today, but the buds are formed.
The Carolina Jessamine/Gelsemium sempervirens had become a huge tangle last spring and in a normal year would have been pruned back. But once the heat struck, I hesitated to put any additional stress on the plant. Last month I gave it a drastic pruning, taking out deadwood and long vines. The timing meant many flower buds were also pruned but there are enough left to be pretty now.
Is anyone watching the new TV series "Smash"? The story centers on a stage musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn the Star had a reputation for being unpredictable and not showing up when you expected her. 'Marilyn's Choice' the Abutilon has been unpredictable, too - blooming in 2010 then refusing to present a single blossom in 2011. Now in February 2012 she has decided to bloom once more.

Two of the roses decided to bloom this February, too - 'Julia Child' has just begun a bloom cycle, but something about the weather has made the color less like butter and more like a peach.

The front Rosa 'Mutabilis' has taken advantage of a mild winter in a very big way - and even the individual flowers seem to be larger than usual. This rose has a fragrance but you usually have to be close to the flowers. The other day you could smell that rose smell while walking down the sidewalk to the mailbox.

Carol of May Dreams Gardens first invited bloggers to post about their blooms in February 2007 and she was pleased when more than a dozen bloggers gave links to posts. I was one of that group, with a list that included the yellow daffodils, Carolina Jessamine, pansies, the Coral Honeysuckle, Texas Mountain Laurel and the Salmon geranium found on today's list. Apparently there is something addictive in counting up the flowers! Five years later you'll find well over 100 links to posts for this February's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose Blog.

Good Things Emerge in April

Last night the predicted temperatures ranged from low 40's to mid 30's F. We weren't worried that the vegetables would freeze, but tomato & pepper plants sometimes sulk after being that cold so we rigged up some sheets and curtains - hopefully for the last time this spring. Since the thermometer showed 38°F it was worth the effort.

Early this morning the tent was still up -that cloud of white is Philadelphus inodorus, the native Southern scentless mockorange, single-flowered, and a beautiful background shrub for a fence. We've just about finished playing 'Dead or Dormant' here at Circus~Cercis, with only a few plants whose fate is undecided. My head is telling me the big Bay Laurel is dead as a doornail, but my heart made me pretend it's dormant for now. Some plants don't need pretending - they're alive!

Whether called Clerodendrum ugandense, Rotheca myricoides 'Ugandense', Blue Butterfly Bush or Blue Glory Bower, it looks as if we'll have Blue Butterfly flowers here. Although the large container I bought last summer froze badly, one sprout has emerged and a few cuttings that I took last fall seem to be rooting.

Even better, the original plant that had looked like a goner after the February deep freezes was tougher than expected - three new sprouts are emerging.
In the long fence bed the Dietes bicolor/ Bicolor iris was alive, but barely half the blades were green. When I bought this plant it was labeled as a Butterfly Iris /Dietes grandiflora - that's the one I wanted, but Bicolor Iris is what I got. So a plant I didn't want in the first place was badly winterkilled two years in a row and it never even bloomed in 2010. I decided to just dig the whole thing up - even had the garden fork ready, then a closer look showed not just one but 4 flower stalks.
How could I trash a plant that was making such an effort? I set to work with garden scissors and spent 40 minutes making it presentable. A few days later the open flower still seems more interesting than beautiful, but the plant can stay for now. The 'Marilyn's Choice' abutilon was shrub-sized last December, then possibly dead in March and now just a few inches tall. But at least this abutilon is alive - unlike 'Patrick's' abutilon -definitely dead, not dormant.
Last spring the 'Ramona' clematis began to bloom almost exactly the same minute that the 'Julia Child' floribunda roses started - a spectacular combination. This year Ramona jumped the gun and was more than half open by last weekend. The many buds on 'Julia Child' were barely showing color yesterday: ... but today it looks as she's shouting Hey, Ramona - Wait for me!
Our Texas Superstar shrub rose 'Belinda's Dream' came through rough weather and is covered in buds - here's Belinda in the area rather grandly designated as The Pink Entrance Garden:
In 2006 I bought a 1-gallon pot with a starter plant of Weigela 'Rumba' at the closing sale for Howard Nursery on Koenig Lane. The stock was down to just a few plants so I picked it up for sentimental reasons - in Illinois we called it 'Cardinal Bush' - not expecting it to live long. But here it is, at 30" tall, slightly larger than last year, and blooming for the 5th spring not far from 'Belinda's Dream'.It's annoying that the Hesperaloe/ Red yucca at lower left has not been inspired to floral display by its neighbors... although alive and larger than last year, this native plant has produced the desired tall spires of coral-pink-red flowers only once in 6 springs.
I pruned the large Mutabilis rose quite severely in mid-February which only made it bloom more - and the scent in the front butterfly border is wonderful. This is its 4th year in the ground. See that spot of orange to the left of the birdbath base? It's a Texas Paintbrush, back for the 3rd spring.
Mutabilis, my sweet baby... Happy April & welcome back!

Ideas from Zilker Garden Fest

The annual Zilker Park Garden Fest takes place toward the end of March here in Austin. This is the modern name for our annual plant spree, and while it's descriptive, long-time Austinites like MSS of Zanthan Gardens still call it "Flora Rama". Was gardening more fun years ago? In 1978, Mayor McClellan declared an entire Flora Rama Week.

It's always fun to wander the winding paths filled with vendors of every kind of plant and decoration - we found interesting plants and stopped to buy another Cobrahead from Geoff. You'll also find music & food, a flower show and lots of information. There are garden talks - in 2007 we heard Felder Rushing. The park itself is always beautiful and inspiring - before I had a place for my own Mutabilis roses, seeing them blooming at Zilker Park made me even more determined to grow them.

The Hartman Dinosaur Garden was begun while we still lived at our previous house. From the first sight I fell in love with the Hartman garden and the Hartman plants - Magnolia/Michelia figo/Banana shrub, large Magnolias, evergreen plants similar to Podocarpus, Purple-leaved Loropetalum, palms and sago cycads, orchid trees and horsetails, with Texas Mountain Laurels and palmettos tucked in. We began to add some of those plants almost as soon as we moved in to this house.

Sometimes what grows at Zilker Park does well here -like the Loropetalum, Podocarpus, 'Little Gem' magnolia and the Banana Shrub... and sometimes my attempts at copying have failed. After 4 years in my garden, two miserable leaves of Bletilla striata struggled to the surface. They've never bloomed.Above is the patch of Bletilla/Chinese Ground Orchids at Zilker Park last Sunday! This week my underperformers took a ride on the garden fork to a different border - maybe they'll like it better and bloom some day.

One of the informational booths was run by The Austin Herb Society, tucked in next to the charming herb garden with raised beds so you can see the plants up close, and benches so you can rest and people-watch.
I fell into an enjoyable conversation with Ann, the volunteer at the booth, telling her that seeing the thriving rosemary shrubs reminded me of an odd sighting in my garden last week. A pair of goldfinches (my guess is Lesser Goldfinches) spent more than 15 minutes working over the rosemary just outside the breakfast room window. They tugged off petals and tossed them to get to the ends of the branch where the seeds developed. They were so intent on their work that they didn't fly off when I held the camera to the window pane for a blurry photo.
Ann's theory was that some of the usual seed plants for finches were so affected by drought that they didn't make seeds, so even the tiny rosemary seeds are sought after in this dry spring. This idea makes sense to me, too. Ann also thought it would be a good idea to post about this interesting behavior and I agreed.

Has anyone else seen birds eating rosemary seeds?

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.