Garden Resolutions 2019

There was a light frost on the ground this morning as I strolled through the backyard, casually checking on my plants. The first frost of this season was back in November, so there were no surprises this morning--everything that could have been frostbitten has already been there, done that.

This time of year, there's little to do other than daydream and plan. I could be putting down compost and mulch to prepare for new plantings, but I'm not quite there yet. I'd like to sketch out a few ideas first.

Changes I'd like to make in 2019:

• Add some summer perennials to the N part sun rock bed closest to the front door. I'm thinking Esperanza (Yellow Bells, Tecoma stans) and Pride of Barbados (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) for height, drama and shade, with something shorter in the front, like Plumbago (Plumbago auriculata). Might want and need to add some evergreen structure, i.e. a yucca or two. Yucca rostrata would be cool...

• Define the orchard area of the E yard. I might need to move the raised garden beds to a sunnier spot, without totally sacrificing the flat lawn area. Add cardboard, compost, mulch to orchard area. This already includes the Brown Turkey Fig and Mexican Plum I planted this past fall.

• Transplant Reve D'Or Rose to a sunnier, deer-proof spot. The only one I can find for this climber is the same SW corner where my other perennial vines are waiting to take off and really wow me this year, I hope.

• Plant Passionflower - Would love to invest in a giant ceramic pot to put at the corner of the pergola so this one could climb and clamber over the top. Need to research and see if that could work.

Things are looking a bit drab, brown and gray, but not everywhere. I leave you with a couple of pics of the colorful annuals along the front walk...

...houseplants cheering up the SE windows...

...and a pair of shadowy shots of houseplants atop the new living room bookshelf:

Owl bids you adieu.

Welcome Surprises

Where does the time go? It's already mid-September and the blessing of rain has been upon us for the past week and a half or so, intermittently. My husband and I had a weekend getaway in which we actually drove to South Padre Island to escape the storms. It was beautiful there. But I was happy to hear, on our return, that we got several inches here. Looking at the Home Depot bucket I left in the backyard as an informal rain gauge, it looks like it was at least 6 inches at our house.

The first surprise I happened upon was this lovely little gourd or melon growing at the base of the Bur Oak sapling. I had added some mostly (I thought) finished compost to the base of this tree back in the spring, only to have a bunch of mystery vine seedlings pop up about a week later. I thinned the seedlings down to two, which turned out to be two different species entirely, but I still haven't figured out what they are. One died during the long, hot July-August stretch. This one, clearly, survived and is thriving. It has tendrils and branches lumbering in several directions, but only one fruit developed to this point. There's another fruit that's still pretty tiny right now. Guessing from the food scraps that fed the compost, this could be honeydew, muskmelon, zucchini or summer squash.

Surprise #2:

Monarch caterpillars on the tropical milkweed made me smile. I invited the kids to come witness this backyard nature show, and my keen-eyed girls found one caterpillar going into chrysalis on the neighboring Spanish Dagger Yucca, then another already in chrysalis on the other side.

Here's the one curling up to go into chrysalis yesterday evening...

...and here's the same one in chrysalis, photo taken this morning. Backyard science is the best! Of course, we will eagerly watch these amazing creatures in transition. The Yucca makes for an excellent rain shelter, it seems. 

Surprise #3:

Oxblood lilies are always a welcome harbinger of fall. The first one is a bit pinker than it is red, but the one next to it in the ground, and in the photo below, is the true red color. Hooray!

Taking a walk on the wild side

"It's raining!!" shouted my daughters, as they dashed outside to enjoy it up close. Rain is a pretty big deal here anytime, but especially in August. Though the forecast showed a possible rain bomb for this area since Friday, we've only had a few short showers overnight for the past two nights. This afternoon's rain may not last long either, but it's a thrill nonetheless.

I recall that last August was unusually rainy here. I just looked it up on this cool website, and sure enough, where average August rainfall is 1.77 inches, last year we got 9.16 inches, with almost half of it in one day.

This morning it was cloudy and pleasantly cool, so I took a stroll through the wild half-acre side yard with my coffee in hand.

Shortly after we moved in (January 2015), we paid a landscaping company to come through and give the side yard a major haircut. The brush was so thick, we couldn't really see what was there. They cleaned out the lower branches of Ashe Juniper (Juniperus ashei, a.k.a. "cedar") trees, and cut the False Willows (Baccharis neglecta) down to the ground. I didn't know anything about these plants, except that they looked scraggly and weedy in the winter. 

We found a few promising Live Oak saplings (Escarpment Live Oak, Quercus fusiformis, I think.) They were maybe 5 feet tall when we moved in. They've about doubled in size. Here's one below with a False Willow growing back underneath it.

In the three photos below, you can see the informal sandstone border dividing the cultivated side of the yard from the wild side.

I will add a connecting path here ↡at some point--I find myself cutting this corner quite a bit, with a wheelbarrow or just on foot, on my way to or from the back to the front yard on the west side of the property.

There's sort of a natural doorway between the corner of fence and the nearest regrown False Willow (which has since mostly regrown, and I've grown to appreciate.)

Here's the western gate linking the cultivated garden with the wild beyond. The 'Blue Ice' Arizona Cypress (Cupressus arizonica) is caged to deter antler attacks from the local deer. So far, they haven't jumped the fence, but I won't be surprised if they do. Up until the past few days, we've had a very dry summer, almost but not quite on par with the 2011 drought.

Here's the path we constructed from the cut juniper and chipped mulch from that giant brush cutting in 2015.

What can I do with broken pieces of a chiminea? I've been thinking I would add them to a crushed granite pathway, maybe.

Here are those False Willows. I appreciate the privacy screen, and they put on a lovely coat of white flowers in the fall. The butterflies and birds seem to appreciate them, too. En masse, they can be lovely.

Under one of the many junipers, a holly of some sort is gradually spreading and getting taller. Sometime around November, it will be covered in fiery orange berries. More False Willows stand in front of this holly, understated at this time of year.

My husband cleared the lower limbs of this spreading juniper and made a rustic treehouse with a rope swing for the kids.

He also made a firepit from found limestone and discarded sandstone from the house.

In Native Texas Plants, Andy and Sally Wasowski take on the controversial subject of the "cedars"--Ashe Junipers--and point out that contrary to their reputation as nasty, water-stealing trees, they function as nurseries for understory trees. I'm seeing this play out in the wild half-acre. Below, Lantana and Texas Mountain Laurel (which I accidentally killed on the cultivated half-acre) are thriving under one of the larger junipers.

Can you see the Mountain Laurel in this close-up shot?

I am particularly fond of the two yuccas (Twistleaf Yucca, Yucca rupicola, if I'm not mistaken) and a small Texas Persimmon (Diospyros texana) under this one. The longer term question in my mind is: How big will these understory beauties get? Does growing under a juniper end up stunting the understory plant? Of course, species matters. These yuccas are probably close to fully grown, if not already there. But the Mountain Laurel and Texas Persimmon could grow to be small trees, eventually, 10-15' or so... if the juniper doesn't inhibit this growth at some point. Only time will tell.

Here's a closer look at the firepit. Brush waits a long time to become kindling during summer fire bans.

Here's a look from the firepit area back toward the house. The firepit is a little downhill, which adds to the secluded feeling out there.

Looking west, past the firepit, now there is a model home for the new section of neighborhood already well underway. This is part of the deal living in rapidly growing Dripping Springs. I feel blessed to have this wild half acre of buffer between us and the rest of the world, though I welcome our new neighbors. I know the local birds appreciate it, too--I get to watch and listen as they dart to and fro in the juniper canopy.

This is the extreme SW corner of the property, where we hope the False Willows will fill in to give us more privacy and sound buffer. There isn't much more than rocks and clumping grasses here (I'm no grass expert, but I'm guessing it's KR bluestem.)

Walking back toward the house, I enjoy taking in this scene. I visualize how I could make it more appealing, but it's pretty nice as it is. It feels like "welcome home".

Someday the Arizona Cypress will be large enough to provide some serious shade. It'll probably be much wider by then--I hope I didn't plant too close to the fence. I love the silvery-blue color, and this is my most drought-proof tree so far.

Here's that "doorway" again. Arbor here? Suggestions welcome!

I'm ending with a shot of the three Crape Myrtles in the front yard, that have only recently started blooming. I started watering them when I realized how desperately dry July was turning out to be. I need to mulch these and the other two trees in the front. I'm never sure these Crapes will make it. The deer have girdled the trunks of all of them, and the one in front is particular bad off--down to one trunk that's still leafing out and blooming.

Does starting a blog light a fire under you to tackle your garden to-do list? I hope it will have that effect on me. I know I don't tend to "see" everything happening in the garden until I start to scrutinize photos.

Does your garden have a wild side? What, if anything, do you do to manage it?

10 Things I Love About Summer Gardening (even in Scorching Hot Texas)

Hey y'all!

It's easy to hate on Texas summers. I've lived here for exactly 20 years now, and every year I have high hopes of coping really well with the heat, get out and swim more often, only to find myself grumbling by July.

Something I'm striving to improve on is noticing all the positives, particularly in tough situations. In that spirit, here's my list of 10 things I genuinely appreciate about gardening in the summer in central Texas:

1. Breezy mornings. The morning is by far the coolest time of day, and it's a joy to be out in my garden with the sun rising, listening to the birds chatter, sipping my coffee, which I can enjoy hot. (Later in the day, it will be iced.)

2. Minimal weed problems. Almost any other time of year, especially when the weather is pleasant, all sorts of weeds are quick to jump in and try to take over anywhere they can. During the summer, I spend little to no time weeding each week. Nutsedge and Bermudagrass are still a problem, but even they slow down during the hottest months here.

3. Handwatering. Wait, what? Isn't handwatering a chore? Well, technically, yes it is. In theory, with enough time and money, I could install drip irrigation into absolutely all of the garden beds, bubblers around tree drip lines, and automatic watering thingies in all of my potted plants... but that's not going to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, I actually enjoy my morning routine of watering and garden inspection. I change "zones" each day, so that I'm watering a bit every day, but not the same areas every day. I deep-soak my trees at least every couple of weeks, and weekly if we're up around 110F (as we were in mid-July). My husband goes off to work and my kids are used to my routine, so they pretty much entertain themselves while I'm out watering. Sometimes my little guy joins in as my garden helper. Being out in the garden so regularly in the summer leads me to...

4. Wildlife encounters. Summer being hotter than Hades most of the day means that the wealth of birds, butterflies, bees, etc. that call Central Texas home in the warm season tend to come visit my yard just when I do--I regularly see several hummingbirds and butterflies visiting their favorite flowers, bees buzzing around my salvias or beautyberry, or Cenizo when it blooms, beetles, spiders and Praying Mantises (what's the plural of those? Saw one almost catch a bumblebee the other day!) I see owls and hawks flying low overhead at sunset.

I particularly love curling up in a chair with my coffee on the flagstone patio nearest the Hummingbird Bar. Currently they're sipping on the Fall Obedient Plant in purple flower, checking the Coral Honeysuckle daily for blooms (it's in between blooms right now), and zipping over to the Bat-faced Cuphea in the evening for a drink. There's a newish Flame Acanthus that has yet to bloom. I'm excited for them to discover it. They'll often perch on the wire fence to rest ever so briefly before zipping away.

5. Pots on the porch. Fall and winter are always welcome in my mind, but covering and/or hauling potted plants to overwinter in the garage is an annual bummer. Bringing them back out again is exciting. The succulents look gorgeous over the summer in their part-shade locations under the pergola, and the flowering plants bloom like crazy. They continue to grow this time of year, when so many other things are going dormant here. I look out the kitchen windows and smile to see my little friends thriving in pots.

6. Shade. Obviously shade is crucial for summer comfort and to keep many plants from frying to a crisp, but it's also nice to be able to enjoy the shade of our porches, the pergola, the back row of native Ashe Juniper and scrubby oak, and the Texas Red Oak and Live Oak out front. This spring we added a pergola, and watching its shadowy grid pass over the yard opposite the sun is a particular joy.

7. Long days. Especially for folks who work 8-5, isn't it nice to have daylight when you're setting out on your commute, and again when you pull into (or up to) the garage at the end of the day? There have been a few days when I've been up at 5:30 or earlier to get a jump on the morning watering, and fumbling around in the dark with hoses is no fun. But shortly after 6, the sunrise is gorgeous. My kids can get out and play after breakfast, as long as they don't sleep in too late, and we can all head out again after dinner, when the sun begins to hide. In between, there's always the pool at the YMCA. Otherwise, we're mostly indoors while the sun's out. In winter, I'm bummed that the days are so short, and our entire routine changes to make the most of the daytime sun. Getting outdoors for at least a few minutes a day is crucial to my sanity. Daylight helps.

8. Seeing neighbors at dawn and dusk. I enjoyed this in our former neighborhood, and I enjoy it here, too, even though our houses are further spread out. Like me, my neighbors have small windows of time to get out for a walk or to work in the garden in the morning and evening. So as I'm out working in the yard, particularly in the front, I enjoy waving to my neighbors and stopping for a chat when time allows. I love that my kids get to ride bikes with their neighborhood buddies. Hanging out in the front yard watering in the evening affords me the opportunity to be around my kids outside without hovering.

9. Dormancy. In Central Texas, winters are short and in unusually warm years, our perennials won't even go dormant. Spring brings a lot more trimming in those years, or else overgrown monsters. But summertime brings dormancy for many of our plants. My bulbs are sleeping right now, or else working on their underground network of roots. I don't have to think about them, let alone trim, water or fertilize them, and one day they'll happily pop up again. Or not. But most of the time, they will. Some perennials will go dormant in the heat, too, and growth generally slows down. It's not as exciting, but I need a break from the excitement after the spring flush of growth.

10. Dreaming of fall. Sitting around in the A/C waiting for the scorching heat of the day to pass, what else am I going to do? Well, now that it's August, I could be following one of the planting guides out there and starting seeds in pots. August is a peak-busy month for me in other areas of my life, so mostly I'm just visualizing what I could do with my garden next. There could be a sheet-mulching plan in the works; there was a couple of years ago. Or I could be solarizing away some Bermudagrass and weeds. But this year, I'm just dreaming, mentally filling in gaps with salvias or yuccas I haven't tried yet, thinking of putting some drift roses in the bed in front of the front porch to cascade down the slope, imagining where I might divide and transplant a few things in September. And there's the truckload of compost I'm contemplating to improve the side yard, which is scorched, compacted death right now. Compost followed by new trees, maybe a Mexican Sycamore and a Big-Toothed Maple. There are issues of Texas Gardener and episodes of Central Texas Gardener to catch up on.

Hey, with all this to enjoy, summer's not so bad, right? It gets too hot and dry for even the mosquitos to survive, at some point. And autumn is around the corner... eventually...

How about you? What do you actually like about crazy hot summers? How do you cope?

2 Photo Post: First Signs of Fall

Late summer greetings on this Thursday, August 9, 2018. By now, for most of us in Central Texas, gardening is truly a labor of love. Emphasis on the word "labor". Getting up at dawn to water and check on plants is a reflex, and the routine is getting old. Any cooling of the morning breeze, any hint of changing weather, is heartily welcome.

There's some rain in the 10-day forecast, but it's a few days away, and sometimes I think the forecasters just put it out there to keep us checking the weather report. Those 30-40% rain chances tend to evaporate with the morning clouds.

This morning I reflected on this as I dutifully paced around the garden, blessing the backyard plants with a foliar feeding of fish emulsion (Medina Liquid Fish Blend, 2-3-2, purchased at the Natural Gardener.) I'm diluting 2 tbsp of fish emulsion in about 1-1/2 gallons of water, which is what I can carry without spilling or further injuring my lower back. But, I digress.

As I was wandering about the backyard garden, watering and thinking about signs of fall, I stumbled on some welcome changes to this beauty, none other than American Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana. 

This is still Year One of this plant in my garden, so I didn't know when the berries would start to color. The stems have borne gradually swelling clusters of green berries that started out looking a bit like cooked quinoa. My 4-year-old son can hardly resist picking them, and has given into temptation at least a few times. Fortunately, there are thousands. I keep asking him to please wait until they turn purple. As of this morning, just a few clusters are starting to turn a cabernet color.

This aptly named perennial is getting water every 2-3 days this year. By next summer, it'll be getting watered weekly, tops, unless it looks like it's about to die and it's only 8AM. Even then, my ultimate goal is to have self-sustaining plants, so I can't baby this one forever.

Sure is nice to have a purple hint of eventual autumn... which around here, might really still be two months away.

I'm curious to see what my Fall Aster does this fall, given that it bloomed in May this year.

Happy gardening!

The Part-Time Gardener

Greetings from Dripping Springs, Texas, 13 miles or so west of Austin, where my young family and I live in a house on a hill (well, more like a limestone ledge sloping down the front of the property), nestled into the Hill Country. There's an acre of land on our property, with about half of it developed and the other half mostly wild. This is where I'm a part-time gardener.

When my oldest was born, 9 years ago today, I not only became a parent at home, I slowly but surely became a gardener. It was key to my sanity. My husband and I had three kids within a span of 5 years. Homebound with babies and toddlers for most of the day, gardening offered me a creative outlet and nature therapy at home.

I could be outside with my kids, observing the changes in plants and the parade of critters--song birds and hummingbirds, butterflies, squirrels, lizards, the occasional possum sightings (in Austin, I haven't seen one yet in Dripping Springs) made it that much more delightful to be a witness to nature. In Dripping Springs, the critters are a bit different--the resident jackrabbits and roadrunners, lots of deer, occasional armadillo sightings, Scrub Jays instead of Blue Jays, hawks and owls, more lizards, and snakes, to name a few. Oh, and scorpions, and all manner of interesting spiders. There's a great variety of bugs out here.

I savor my garden time, but I know I can't do it full time in this season of my life. I have to choose plants that can take care of themselves most of the time.

It's summer now, which in Texas means I'm up early moving dripping hoses around the base of trees and shrubs so that I don't lose any of them during our scorching days of heat, stretching into weeks and months. Right now is the coolest part of the day, and I get to water in my pajamas, so I don't mind too much.

We moved to Dripping Springs 3-1/2 years ago from Austin. Here's a shot of the front walk from May 2018:

I've done little more than maintain the front yard, and even that's a bit shaggy most of the time. I'd love to rent a backhoe and scoop out the invasive Nandina hedge along the front porch, but until I save up the money for that renovation, I'm focusing my efforts on the backyard.

The Mexican Feathergrass (Nassella tenuissima) and Autumn Sage (Salvia greggii) are most welcome. The sage is even more overdue for a trim now than it was back in May, and once August rolls around, I'm heading out there to give it a loving haircut. Fortunately for the bees and hummingbirds, there are more salvias and lovely things blooming in the back.

Here's the fenced-in backyard area:

Variegated privet came with the house. Showing in this photo: We removed an overgrown standard Privet, and added the flagstone walk and pergola, and the Texas Redbud (Cercis canadensis var. Texensis), Silver Ponyfoot (Dichondra argentea), lots of bulbs that bloom Fall-Spring (dormant here), Fall Aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium), Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), Mealy Blue Sage (Salvia farinacea), and a few Liriope (Liriope muscari).

Desperately seeking shade, I sheet-mulched this bed and planted Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa), along with fall color in the form of Fall Aster  (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) and American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), and evergreen texture with Gopher Plant (Euphorbia rigida) and Variegated Spanish Dagger Yucca (Yucca gloriosa 'Variegata').

There was no fence when we moved here, and none of this hardscape or playscape was there yet, either. Our son was 6 months old when we moved in, and our girls were 4 and 5-1/2. When the boy started walking, boy howdy, his favorite thing to do was to take off down the street as fast as his wobbly legs would take him. I convinced my husband that we needed to corral at least part of the yard for the sake of my sanity.

The wire and metal post fence was inspired by my neighbor's fence and the look of many fences around the hill country. More than I wanted privacy, I wanted to be able to see through the fence and train vines on it.

I learned the hard way that while native and well-adapted perennial vines are hardy and lovely when they bloom, it takes a long time for them to really fill out and give much privacy. We do have enough tree screen that the property feels pretty private, thanks to native live oaks and Ashe juniper (a.k.a. "cedar" in Texas).

I also want our property to feel inviting and welcoming, and I think being able to catch glimpses of the other side of the fence enhances that feeling.

There's a Carolina Jessamine vine (Gelsemium sempervirens) languishing in the corner there. It's actually pretty tough and gets by with minimal water in this spot, but it's going to take years to fill out at this rate.

Here are two more Carolina Jessamine vines, and on the right, a Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata 'Tangerine Beauty') on the fence behind the Cedar Elm (Ulmus crassifolia) I planted Fall 2016, in my quest for shade.

I have so much more to show and tell you; these photos are the tip of the iceberg. There's a wealth of plants that came with the property, that are endemic to this area. There are oodles of plants in pots, indoors and out, bulbs, succulents, roses, annuals and perennials, grasses, wildflowers... if it's a plant, I will try it at some point.

Thanks for stopping by! And special thanks to all the garden bloggers and authors out there who have helped me learn the craft over the years.