Shutter Snapping, Spraying & Shopping

Does anyone out there know what caused these bumps on clematis buds? I've never noticed them before this year. Vertie is taking an entomology course - maybe she'll know the answer.
After that bud opened the flower still looked pretty against the white wall, but the bumps showed through the reddish-purple petals as white spots.
Root Beer Plant/Piper auritum has huge leaves that are used in Central Mexican cuisine. It's more common name is Hoja Santa and its odd white flowers were so hard to photograph that I just listed them for bloom day instead of showing them. I hope this photo can finally give you an idea of what they're like. I also hope the photo will enlarge if you click on it.
Although the Hoja Santa planted in a border is struggling, this plant is in a container and had enough water to bloom. Mine are interesting novelties but the Hoja Santa at EastSide Patch is a major player in the landscape!

Last October Pam/Digging took us along when she visited the Chicago Botanical Gardens. and showed us Salvia madrensis. I found a pot of this tall yellow-blooming salvia at the Natural Gardener last spring and watched it grow slowly from a small plant to its present seven-foot height. Can you see it peeking out behind the plumeria? No wonder its common name is Forsythia Sage! But it's so tall that any photos of the blossoms are either lost in green foliage or washed out against the unrelenting blue sky.
So many things that I want to photograph are way over my head! This mockingbird has been singing non-stop. I watched the bird for half-an-hour as it flitted from one branch to another within the canopy of a large yaupon. I'd previously noticed mockingbird feathers scattered in several places around the front garden and wonder if one of the wandering neighborhood cats caught this bird's mate.
Is he disappointed in love or just dismayed that the gardener was too busy taking pictures to brush out and refill the birdbath?


Philo and I had a great time at the Sunset Valley Farmers Market yesterday - a friendly, lively place with live music, wonderful food and many cool plants.

I'm still browsing through recipes for the White Patty Pan squash but these incredibly delicious tomatoes, the wonderful whole wheat pita from the Mediterranean Chef and delicious Rosemary-Spinach pesto from Sgt Pepper's Sauces didn't need any recipes!
This small Kaffir lime tree was only $6! The leaves are used as flavoring, especially in Thai cooking. (This is something I learned from the movies - not from real life.) It's a tender tree so I'll grow it in a container and bring it inside during cold weather.

We scooped the last gallon of compost tea from the Ladybug Products booth. Fresh compost tea is perishable - buying it meant we had to use it in the garden within a few hours. We sprayed it everywhere and hope it helps the plants deal with the stresses of this year.
Last night I took the camera out to play with the night flash again, snapping one of the geckos that hang out under the roof overhang.
Because the intense yellow of the Forsythia Sage/Salvia madrensis didn't show up against the sky in daylight, I got the idea to see how it looked with the night flash. Pretty dramatic, isn't it?
I then turned the lens to the Moonflower vine/Ipomoea alba once again, using the night flash to see its heart, glowing like a star in the night.

Today is the last day of the Austin City Limits Fest - and as a loyal Austinite, I'm glad the crowd stayed dry. But once the fest is over, I sure wish we could sing along with the Beatles to September In The Rain.

Second Nature by Michael Pollen, GBBClub

This post, " Second Nature by Michael Pollan, GBBClub ", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

The writer studies literature, not the world. He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard’s quote appeared in the bridge column of today’s newspaper – guess she’s relevant everywhere! Those words remind me of my own history with Second Nature. I first read the book when it was new, partly because of an April 4, 1991 review in the New York Times. The yellowed newspaper article paper was still clipped between the end sheets of our copy.

I remember enjoying the book tremendously but didn’t feel the earth move – by that time Philo and I had owned 3 different houses with landscapes and gardens to tend. We’d already had our own battles with groundhogs, squirrels, raccoons, invasive plants and the tyranny of lawn as we tried to figure out what to keep and what to get rid of in each successive, pre-owned suburban yard.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to find this book as a beginning gardener looking for a guidebook. Reading Michael Pollen felt less like life lessons and more like the tales of a companion in the garden – a very well-educated, extremely articulate, confident, slightly bratty companion who was a few years younger, and who grew up on the East Coast, with different weather and plants, a lot more land, from a family with a great deal more money. It was fun to hang around with him, even when he did things that made me shake my head in disbelief – planting a Norway Maple? On purpose?

But I liked many of his ideas and his book influenced me to try a few things. At that third Illinois yard I mowed a path from the gated square garden behind the house out to the vegetable garden, past the fruit trees, leaving the grass to grow on the sides of the path all summer as a symbolic meadow. Few meadow flowers appeared but I noticed that the groundhog was so happy with the green and juicy clover growing along the path that he seldom bothered to go all the way back to the vegetable patch.

I loved the way Mr Pollan pondered the many possible consequences of actions in the garden – trying to guess what could happen. We bonded over the idea that Nature has no set plan for an area, that randomness was more true than Disney tales, that there is no way to be a gardener without making decisions, taking sides, choosing favorites and sometimes destroying trees and plants in order to make things better.

In the real world, all the trees may want to be the only tree and some plants will kill to be the main plant, but we don’t see the strife and battle because it all happens in slow motion. That Coral honeysuckle and Lady Banks rose make a lovely blend of color and leaf on the arch but they are engaged in deadly combat and only I with my garden shears enforce the peace.

After 17 years in publication, Second Nature is still lively, funny, thoughtful and worth reading – not as a road map for gardening but as a very personal account of one young man’s journey in the garden. As Annie Dillard warned, reading this book has influenced my own writing, and maybe some of my thinking.

One chapter in the book tells of a wild forested area destroyed by a monster storm and what could happen if it were left untouched, or was partly repaired, or bulldozed or treated like a garden. That led me to consider my own yard. Left to itself what would my own garden become? I’ve heard that the land around here was graded and filled many decades ago and that not much remains of the original landscape. Whenever I weed the borders it appears that my garden wants to be a pecan grove choked with understory invasives like Nandina, Waxleaf Ligustrum and Asiatic jasmine. If any open spots are left after those plants take over there may still be room for the native Ten-petalled anemone, Cooper’s Lily and Copper Lily, all of which popped up here on their own.

But most of what seeds or spreads here didn’t start out in Texas but in Asia.
Most of the native flowers in my borders are here because I, the gardener, planted them and because as a gardener I prune back trees to give the native plants sun and keep aggressive plants from overwhelming them.

This new front bed has tough garden plants like the ‘Mutabilis’ rose, cannas, Verbena bonariensis and larkspur , It also has Texas plants like salvias, bluebonnets, lantana, Gaura lindheimerii, Gregg’s mistflower and Anisacanthus wrightii. My managed landscape may not be “Nature”, but there will be something here for birds, butterflies, insects, lizards and humans.

Although the land in my neighborhood was probably changed a lot, I think Central Texas author Susan Albert’s land was altered less and it didn’t lose its wild plants and wildflowers. Susan’s Nightshade Blog Tour will stop here in a couple of weeks to talk about “Unbecoming A Gardener”, about her relationship with wild plants. The first stop in this Blog tour was today’s post at Carol/May Dreams Garden.

Carol is also the founder of the Garden Bloggers Book Club. For the February/March meeting Carol wrote about the Rabbit War Rules – these musings on Michael Pollan’s book will be my contribution to the book club.

This post, " Second Nature by Michael Pollen, GBBClub ", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

Salvia, Salvia, Save Me (from the deer)

This post, "Salvia, Salvia, Save Me (from the deer)", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

A year ago I sang farewell to an Arizona Ash tree on YouTube ~ today's song is a musical tribute to the beautiful, deer-resistant flowers in the genus Salvia.

Welcome to Annie's virtual piano bar ~ find a cozy table and spend two minutes in Austin, the Live-Music Capital of the World. We tried to make it sound live by using a simple mic connected to the built-in recorder on a laptop.

Philo and I had five years to learn about gardening with deer at our last Austin house. I wrote "Salvia, Salvia, Save Me (from the deer)" while we still lived there - it's part of an unfinished musical play called Roots in Austin. This plea came straight from the heart!

Our present garden doesn't seem to need deer-resistant plants so our Salvias don't have to work for us - they can just be beautiful.

This post, "Salvia, Salvia, Save Me (from the deer)", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

Harvest Haiku

This post, "Harvest Haiku" was written for my blogspot blog "The Transplantable Rose" by Annie in Austin.

Pleasure in Autumn
Stealing nuts from the squirrel
He rages; I smile

Oval wooden box
Fallen from the pecan tree
Valued when broken

Where are the loquats?
Hidden in next year's flower
Praying for no ice

Peppers were captured
Vinegar and glass hold them
Heat awaits the tongue

It was fun playing with these sort-of Haiku for the November edition of Garden Blogger's Muse Day . Unlike our friends in colder places, we feel no slowing down this month - there's too much to do! With more moderate day temperatures and the blessing of cooler nights we're happy to be digging, planting and transplanting. I'm deciding where to plant daffodil bulbs once the ground has cooled off a few more degrees. For the Austin gardeners this month isn't NOvember ... it's NOWvember!

This post, "Harvest Haiku" was written for my blogspot blog "The Transplantable Rose" by Annie in Austin.

Two Posts with One Stone

What could be more appropriate for Labor Day weekend than a Labor-saving post which takes in both Garden Bloggers' Muse Day and the new International Rock Flipping Day? These are rhyming lyrics rather than poetry - vaguely following the tune of 'Yankee Doodle' - so hum it as you read

FLIPPIN' ROCKS

Philo and I went in the yard
With cam-er-a on Sunday;
We planned to take some photos
for another blogger fun-day.



Flipping rocks and flipping stones,
Whatcha think we found there?
It can be a big surprise
What's living in the ground there!






An earwig wasn't a surprise,
Nor were the ants and ant eggs.
My camera is not that good
Plus they climb up your pant legs.


Flipping rocks and snapping pix,
makes a gard'ner take stock
Of what's living in the garden
Under every big rock.





I was glad to see two toads in
Borders where I putter.
But this cutworm didn't live
once I had clicked the shutter.


Flipping rocks and flipping stones
Whatcha think we found there?
It can be a big surprise
What's living in the ground there!




Next we found two slimy things-
Striped and in a co-il.
Howard Garrett recommends
A dollop of orange o-il.


Flipping rocks and snapping pix
makes a gard'ner take stock
Of what's living in the garden
Under every big rock;



They were flatworms and I read
That earthworms are their pre-ey
This worm may be grate-ful
That we joined rock flipping day!




Flipping rocks and looking under
Tryin' to get a good peek.
Running in to look on google
Proves I'm just a bug geek.


Annie in Austin

September 2, 2007

Inspired, as usual, by Thalia the Muse of Comedy

NOTES on the Planaria:
Here's the Howard Garrett flatworm reference.

This site notes that the planaria flatworms are a problem in warm, damp climates, endangering earthworm populations.
But as usual, What's That Bug had the best photos for making the ID.

Both Bill at Prairie Point in Texas and Salix Tree in Ireland posted for Rock Flipping day, along with lots of other bloggers.
Here's a link to Via Negativa with other Rock Flipping blogs.

EDIT Sept 5, '07
You've overwhelmed me with the great comments!
Below is a cut-and-pasted list from Via Negativa:

OTHER ROCK-FLIPPERS

(last updated Sept 5, 8:30 a.m. EDT - newer additions at bottom)

Flickr photo pool

Bev’s Pbase gallery

Windywillow (Ireland)

Heraclitean Fire (London, England)

Sheep Days (Illinois, USA)

Earth, Wind & Water (somewhere in the Caribbean)

Pocahontas County Fare (West Virginia, USA)

chatoyance (Austin, Texas)

Fragments from Floyd (Virginia, USA) - GRAND PRIZE WINNER

Watermark (Montana, USA)

pohanginapete (Aotearoa/New Zealand)

Fate, Felicity, or Fluke (Oregon, USA)

Thomasburg Walks (Ontario, Canada)

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Woman (Queensland, Australia)

The Transplantable Rose (Austin, Texas)

Nature Woman (New York state, USA)

Marja-Leena Rathje (British Columbia, Canada)

A Blog Around the Clock (North Carolina, USA)

Busy Dingbat’s Sphere (West Virginia, USA)

Hoarded Ordinaries (New Hampshire, USA)

Congo Days (Kinshasa, Congo)

this too (London, England)

Roundrock Journal (Missouri, USA)

Wanderin’ Weeta (British Columbia, Canada)

Blaugustine (London, England)

A Honey of an Anklet (Virginia, USA)

Looking Up (Ohio, USA)

Ontario Wanderer (Ontario, Canada)

Bug Safari (California, USA)

Riverside Rambles (Missouri, USA)

Pure Florida (Florida, USA)

Burning Silo (Ontario, Canada)

Musings from Myopia (Texas, USA)

Cicero Sings (British Columbia, Canada)

Joan (Missouri, USA)

Nature Remains (Kentucky, USA)

prairie point (north Texas)

Cephalopodcast.com (Florida, USA) - VIDEO

The above post is Part 2 of a four-part series on IRFD festivities in Plummer’s Hollow, Pennsylvania (USA). See Part 1, Part 3, and Part 4.

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day for August

Today is bloom day, but where are the flowers? To the south there are deep green shadows under the pecan trees, with the only color coming from a bright yellow chair. The shade is welcome since Austin has had several weeks of normal dry summer weather with temperatures hovering near 100º F.

Around the corner to the right, past the green settee, is the 'Incense' passionvine, star of the August 5th post. A hungry Gulf Fritillary caterpillar takes the place of the purple flowers that hung there a week ago.

From the patio I can see two red flowers - a Cypress vine~Ipomoea quamoclit, and the faithful native Coral Honeysuckle~Lonicera sempervirens, entwined to form a hummingbird's delight.

The vines cover the top of the metal arch - how could there be a bloom day post without a photo of that arch? Through it a spot of red is visible along the long back fence...

I called this tropical tree a Plumeria when I showed you the buds ten days ago, but Kerri knows it as Frangipani, a beautiful name that means both the flower and the fragrance.

Crossing to the gate and looking forward to the northeast brings the length of the North fence into view, with a few flowers remaining on the two 'Acoma' crepe myrtles, a 'Bengal Tiger' canna, and the tall self-seeded sunflower at right on the back fence.

Looking to the right while standing at the gate, one sees a bed along the housewall. The Brugmansia finally bloomed and the expanded Angel's Trumpets are yellow - very pale and lightly fragrant. Even with flowers the Brugmansia plant looks like a big weed to me, and the blue tumble at its feet has a weedy habit, too.

This flower is the semi-tropical Plumbago auriculata - grown for that wonderful blue color.

In the front of the house, Impatiens and Oxalis bloom in baskets along the veranda, and a small pink crepe myrtle leans into the picture.

August Lilies/Hosta plantaginea bloomed in my Illinois garden, spilling fragrance near Grandma's white phlox. I brought some of the phlox to Texas and in some summers it's looked happy. But this year's rain nearly drowned my phlox - it finally made one flower this week.

The fragrance no longer comes from August hostas, but from Hedychium coronaria, White Ginger. After I brought one tiny root back from Hawaii, six summers in Texas turned that root into several plants, enough to share with MSS one recent afternoon.

Fragrance also comes from Cestrum nocturnum, the Night-blooming Jasmine, which has a demure and dainty appearance in the daytime, but whose evening personality is rated at least PG-13.

It's evening now, and the jasmine scent insinuates itself into the landscape as one last flower uncurls - atop the obelisk the Moonvine has climbed over the Blue Butterfly Pea and raised one white disk to the dark sky.

Meme-me, Meme-me, Meme

Memes float around the internet ocean, sometimes traveling in on the same wave, and three have recently washed ashore here. I've participated in several memes already, so that when MaryC tagged me for Eight Random Things a few days ago, my reply was that I didn't have eight interesting things to tell. Dawn then tagged me for Seven Random Things. I decided to give it a try, but if this post bores you - blame Mary and Dawn!

A different kind of meme surfed in when Beth tagged me as a Rockin' Girl Blogger - not strictly true, but just having my name in the same sentence with 'girl' was a kick.

Random Thing One
The post title reveals that I cannot resist a pun, no matter how bad.

Random Thing Two
When other teenage girls were reading fashion magazines, I was curled up with westerns by Zane Grey or Ernest Haycox and loved historical fiction set in places like Ye Olde London. This could explain why much of my wardrobe is denim and suitable for working outside and the rest of it once provoked my youngest sister to declare, "you have a closet full of costumes, not clothes!"

Random Thing Three
I own a couple of Feng Shui books and like them - some of it seems goofy but a lot of it makes sense to me.

Random Thing Four

As mentioned in a previous meme, I think genealogy is fun. My sisters and cousins and I scan any family photos we can get, then pass the photo files around. I printed small versions of them and Philo helped me make this family history photo wall. To keep it from becoming static, some of the frames have blank spaces for future additions. One frame contains more than a century's worth of weddings-in-miniature. This grouping may not have the impact of a large piece of art, but is meaningful to us.

Random Thing Five
Recent stuff rewatched on DVD included The 40-Year Old Virgin [2005], Moonstruck [1987], and The Quiet Man [1952]. How wonderful it is to be able to see movies from every era! And I love the commentary tracks.

Random Thing Six
What's essential in my kitchen: Red Peppers, olive oil, heads of garlic, onions, tomatoes, broccoli, Marjoram, basil, Romano cheese, pasta, Ajvar spread on Wasa Rye, Philo's homemade salsa, pimiento cheese, green pepper tabasco sauce, thin corn tortillas, Kashi cereal, blueberries, dark chocolate and lots of French Roast coffee.

Random Thing Seven

I can keep a home-improvement or garden project in the planning stage for ages... refusing to start implementing it until I've worried the concept to pieces. At this pace our house will never appear in Cottage Living.

Random Thing Eight for Mary C, a new friend who is a birder.

I dearly love blogs that feature both plants and birds, and envy those of you who can photograph the feathered ones in mid-air. Many of us get lucky once in awhile, but Dawn catches them repeatedly . While Mary in NC is taking a break, wander through her archives and be amazed - she's put herself in jeopardy to get the perfect shot. James at Coyote Mercury records the birds well here in Austin. On behalf of near-sighted bird lovers everywhere, thank you all very much!

The rules state that I should now tag 7 [or 8] other people with this meme - if you're interested, please consider yourself tagged... memes can be a pleasant way to get to know each other.

As to tagging Rockin' Girl Bloggers - many of you fit the description, but I'm nominating just one. She has no regular internet access at the moment and may not know about this tag for weeks.

Did any of you see the start of the Blue Planet run around the world? You can read about it here at the Blue Planet Website. I don't know whether the run will change the lives of those who need safe drinking water, but I admire people who try to make a difference - and this team is extraordinary.

One of the team members is Mary Chervenak, a wonderful young woman who is giving up her summer for this cause. I held Mary in my arms when she was a baby - and am now thrilled to see what a strong, beautiful, articulate woman she has become. Mary occasionally has the chance to post to her blog page on the Blue Planet Website, and she gets my rockin' girl blogger nomination.

Go Mary!

Ponds and Poetry

Uncontrolled water in the home garden can be a disaster - water confined and channeled through a water feature can be wonderful. If you're in the mood to see wonderful water features, you're in luck - it's almost time for the annual Austin Pond Society Tour, that special weekend when some of the members invite you into their gardens, demonstrating how Nature and Technology can work together to bring water, sound, plant life and animal life into your own back yard. That's our birdbath full of bluejays in the photo - if just a simple birdbath can get this much action, imagine what a pond could do!

For 2007, the event spans two days and features 30 locations - including a couple that will be open on Saturday night. Mark your calendars for Saturday and Sunday, July 14th and 15th, 2007. Wristbands are available at the Wildflower Center, Emerald Gardens and Hill Country Water Gardens, and can also be purchased online. You can also get them the day of the tour, but buying ahead can save you a couple of bucks.

Pond Tour Information on the APS website

The Pond Society kindly linked to my posts about last year's tour. We made it to almost all of the Saturday locations - mainly in-town ponds, loaded with ideas for urban and suburban gardeners - but I didn't have the camera with me that day. On Sunday I took photos at some unusual ponds in more rural settings out to the NW of Austin. If you're interested, here are links:

Liberty Hill 2006 One , Liberty Hill 2006 Two, Liberty Hill 2006 Three,

Leander 2006 and the Night Tour

The Pond Society site also has links to photo galleries from several previous tours.

Carolyn at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago is trying to get a garden muse day going on the first of each month, much as Carol of May Dreams has encouraged us to post flower photos for Garden Blogger Bloom Day on the 15th.

There's also a 'Green Thumb Sunday', a monthly 'Festival of the Trees', and even a 'Wordless Wednesday' going around. My first reaction was that things are getting awfully organized and scheduled in the garden blogging world. I'm starting to feel like an Austin Slacker version of Huckleberry Finn, suspicious that the Widow Douglas is trying to 'sivilize' me and think I'll slope off for the river.

But the idea kind of grew on me, so what the heck - here's a poem for Garden Muse Day. When one of the Muses whispers in my ear, it's seldom Calliope guiding me to epic poetry, or Melpomene leading me to write tragedy. No - the Muse that usually shows up is Thalia, inspiring comedy. Maybe she also inspired me to plant 'Thalia' narcissus, seen in this March photo.

The following rhyme is a few years old. A lot of my garden verse has been set to music with more than a dozen of the songs comprising an in-progress musical comedy copyrighted as Roots in Austin. I've made some of the songs into videos for YouTube - they're linked at left in the sidebar. More videos are in the works, but this little snippet of doggerel doesn't seem to have a musical future - it's slight, and cute, and nerdy in a horticultural way:

CALLA
A long time ago from a silvered movie screen
Came words made immortal by a cinematic queen:
“The calla lilies are in bloom,” said Hepburn in a trance;
At seventeen I knew that I must own these lovely plants.

In Northern lands I nurtured them, rejoicing at one flower.
My rhizomes cellar-dwellers were through winter’s chilling hours.
To Texans they’re less precious - here they’ll live with no protection,
Yet still are waxy, delicate, a chlorophyll confection.

The spathe emerges from the soil; the spadix is concealed.
Soon luminous white, or pearly pink, or yellow is revealed.
Some ask for Zantedeschia, preferring Latin words,

Too many calla flowers? Never! The concept is absurd.

Written by Annie at the Transplantable Rose

Garden Muse Day