"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?
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?
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