Sharing Nature’s Garden

Plant This! Lyre leaf sage

This lovely spreading ground cover produces tall, electric blue blooms for 4-6 weeks in spring.  Perfect for any shady or semi-shady spot, lyre leaf sage shows off before much of the summer garden wakes up.

Green and purple foliage adds interest once the blooms have finished.  About 1-2 feet tall when it blooms, it spreads quickly, so make sure you give it enough space to roam.    I’ve planted it in my woodland shade garden, pairing it with ferns, black scallop ajuga, ground orchids and columbine.

Check it out – you’ll be glad you did.

 

Spring in full swing at Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

It was a beautiful morning.  Drizzling, foggy, chilly and damp.  But, I was at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center spring plant sale with my friend, Laura, of Wills Family Acres, with a smile on my face and money in my pocket!

Modified for Covid protections, reservations were required and the sale has been stretched out over multiple weekends.  While there were less plants in a smaller space, that wasn’t surprising given the winter we just had and the spreading out of the event time.

As is often the case in the spring, we were greeted by one of the baby owlets that are hatched each year.  For the last 10+ years, the entrance to the center has been home to a pair of great horned owls.  The mom’s name is Athena, and she and her little ones can be seen high above the entrance arch for 6 to 7 weeks in spring.  Can you see the little one peeking over the ledge just under plant on the right side?   Learn more about our iconic feathered friends here

They still had lots of great natives in 4-inch pots and gallons.  Sun plants, shade plants, trees, agaves and grasses and yuccas.  As always, I was fascinated to learn about natives new to me, and a few of them ended up in my cart.  (Surprise, surprise!)

I’m trying Geum canadense, a woodland herb that grows as a ground cover in a woodland setting, it has strawberry-like evergreen foliage and a sweet little white bloom April – June.  Also new to my garden, I bought a Solidago – I admire them every fall and have said for years that I’d like to have one.  Well, now I do!

I also picked up several of my annual sale favorites – Helianthus maximus, calylophus, Henry Duelberg salvia, and Datura.   Having a new garden helps me rationalize my purchases these days.

 

After our retail therapy, we treated ourselves to a leisurely walk around the grounds.  The spring wildflowers and other bloomers blanket the beds, filling them with a patchwork of colors and textures like a beautiful quilt.

Engleman’s sage clusters brightened the beds all through the grounds.

Winecup makes a beautiful border.

Several windows create a secret garden effect, allowing visitors to peek from one part of the garden into another.

I’ll try to keep up my blogging momentum and post the rest of my pics this week, so pop back over!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Build a beautiful butterfly garden to enjoy while staying at home

Want to create a beautiful butterfly garden to enjoy during your time at home?  It’s easier than you think.  I’ll show you how in a few simple steps.

There are many native and adapted plants that will entice butterflies to enjoy nectar in your garden.  To keep them around, you’ll want to include nectar plants on which butterflies feed and lay eggs, as well as plants that feed their caterpillars.  This will ensure that your garden provides for the whole life cycle of butterflies.

The best nectar for butterflies comes from flowers growing in a sunny area; native plants, in particular, provide an excellent food source.  To enjoy butterflies from spring through fall, put in plants that bloom throughout the seasons and provide a continuous source of nectar.  Purple, pink, yellow, and white are the favorite colors of flowers to butterflies.

And don’t forget to provide water sources for butterflies – they often drink from small puddles near the butterfly garden.  Containers could be a shallow dish or platter.  Fill the container with sand.  Place a few rocks and twigs on the sand to provide landing sites within reach of the water.  Then fill the container with water to the level of the sand.  Butterflies do not drink from birdbaths, ponds, or large water features, so in the hottest summer months, finding water is often very difficult for them.

There are many, many excellent native and adapted plants that provide nectar for butterflies.  Below is a short list of plants you might want to include in your butterfly garden. Plants marked with *are both host and food source plants.

Aster*
Bluestem*
Butterfly Bush
Clover
Coneflower
Fennel*
Flame acanthus*
Goldenrod
Gregg’s Mistflower
Lantana
Lindheimer senna*
Marigold
Mexican bush sage
Mexican
Mexican Petunia
Milkweeds*
Mallows
Parsley*
Skeletonleaf goldeneye
Texas gold columbine
Thistle
Verbena
Vetch
Zexmenia*

Simple steps to delicious container veggies at home

We are all craving back-to-basics outdoor time right now.  Early concerns about food lit a fire under many of us to grow our own fruits and veggies at home.  But what if you’ve never grown food before?

Many would-be vegetable gardeners are thwarted by a lack of experience or space, impenetrable rocky soil or clay, or a shortage of sunshine.  With limited space on a balcony or patio, too much shade or landscape conditions that aren’t conducive to vegetable gardening, what’s a wannabe green thumb to do?

The burgeoning gardening movement and the increasing national interest in growing vegetables at home has fueled the creation of many alternatives to a patch of rich soil in the ground.

Alternative growing containers are the latest trend, making vegetable gardening simpler than ever.  To go along with the increasing desire for small space alternatives, there are also more container-sized vegetable varieties now than ever before.

Most vegetables can be grown in a whole host of containers.  From boring plastic pots to specially designed grow bags, it’s never been easier to get started.  There are many other container options for inexpensive and moveable mini-gardens, too.  Consider large 5-gallon plastic buckets, leftover from house projects.  Other options include wooden barrels, galvanized tubs, even bushel baskets.   Just make sure the container has adequate drainage by poking holes in the bottom.  And, if you’d rather not look at a white plastic pickle bucket housing your tomatoes, you can spray paint your container to match any garden decor.  Make sure the container is safe, and not treated in any way with toxic materials.

Don’t forget about vertical spaces. Hanging baskets can be used for lightweight greens and herbs and some fruits or vegetables will even grow in upside-down hanging planters.  Train your vining vegetables up on poles, supports or trellises as much as possible, using the vertical space in your garden as well as the ground.  Large plants like tomatoes will also need tomato cages in the pots to give them the support they need.

Use the right size planter.  Smaller containers work for herbs, but for veggies, make sure your pot is big enough and has drainage holes in the bottom.  One of the most important things you can do to ensure success is to use a big enough container—the bigger, the better. For one indeterminate tomato plant, for example, you need a container that is at least 1 square foot, but 2 square feet is better. Five-gallon buckets (with holes drilled) are the perfect size for one plant.

Be sure to use a lightweight potting soil.  Choose a mix designed specifically for pots that will help it drain properly. Do not use topsoil or garden soil.

Keep a close eye on the moisture needs of the plant – remember, containers dry out faster than soil in the ground.  Be sure to water regularly to keep plants happy and healthy.  Keeping your containers near a water source will make regular watering easier.

Check out your sunlight.  Most veggies need between 6-8 hours of sunlight.  If you have lots of shade, containers are great because you can move them around the maximize sun exposure.

Make sure you give your plant the right nutrients—nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium—all essential for container growing. Some potting soils come with fertilizing nutrients in them. If your bag doesn’t, buy all-purpose slow-release fertilizer or a tomato/veggie-specific fertilizer and follow the directions on the bag.

Happy Gardening.

Design definition and texture in new landscape garden bed

I’m on a roll.  Gardening is good for the soul, and for the exercise and creative outlet it provides during this stressful time.  My free time is often spent surfing the web for the perfect plant since I’ve been avoiding nurseries.  As fast as they arrive in the mail, I’m expanding garden beds to contain them!

Since the move last summer, I’ve been lonely without my recommended daily allowance of blooms.

There were a handful of hastily pre-sale planted impatiens in the front of the house, but nary a flower anywhere else.  I couldn’t even make a tiny posey for my desk.

It was sad.

Having filled the new beds that I created along the dry creek, I decided I needed some more plants.

I turned to my winter sources, searching for my favorite plants online.  I’ve slowly been planting in front of the creek above of the sidewalk.  I’ve been digging out multiple 6-inch circles to plant individual plants, leaving the grass right beyond that!

Having filled the new beds that I created along the dry creek, I decided I needed some more plants.

I turned to my winter sources, searching for my favorite plants online.  I’ve slowly been planting in front of the creek above of the sidewalk.  I’ve been digging out multiple 6-inch circles to plant individual plants, leaving the grass right beyond that!

Last week, I finally got help to get the whole bed dug out with room for a lot more plants!

Here’s the before photo. When we moved in, there was little to no grass because of dense shade of over gown trees.

We pruned the trees heavily last summer and watered the grass, but this area is still a little shady, so it would be perfect for the part-shade and part-sun plants I love.

In the new bed I added salvia, rose campion, datura, daisies, lantana, gomphrena, iochroma, and eryngium. When the universe opens back up again, I’ll be in search of a very large turquoise pot to put on top of the large rocks at the top of the hill before the oak tree.

I can’t wait until all of these lovelies are in full bloom.  I’m hoping it will be a bouquet of color, texture and form every single day!

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