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This is no joke!


I cleared my calendar today in anticipation of 84 degrees and a full day of planting. It turned out to be 92 – unbelievable!

So, here’s what happened in my gardens today. I went to the nursery early this morning and bought every thing they had in stock that was deer-resistant and then scurried home like a little ant to begin my planting. I WAS the ant today.

I planted about 35 plants – and got most of the new bed in place, dirt spread, rocks removed and leaves scooped out. I will certainly add more, and some things with different blooming seasons like some wildflowers and some cutting flowers, but for now, this is a good start.

In the new bed, I planted:

3 Blackfoot daisy
1 Flame Acanthus – Anisacanthus wrighti
3 Damianita – Chryactinia Mexicana
3 Delphinium – bellamosum
1 Mexican Oregano – Poliomentha
5 Indian Paint Brush – Castilleja
9 Rosemary Shimmering Stars – rosmarinus prostratus
5 Society garlic
1 Crepe Myrtle tree that I propagated last summer

Elsewhere, I planted:

1 Nicotiana – pink
4 Snapdragons
1 Cherry Laurel

I started to post a picture of the horrible dirt and rock that I had to dig and crack through to plant these things. I added several inches of garden soil, but the natural dirt was nothing but rock, caliche and black clay so hard that it was just like clumps of rock. Ugh! I hope this amendment will be enough to help the plants grow. Many of them are tough by nature, and deer and drought resistant, so maybe they will feel right at home in my rocks!

Other people were working at my house today, too. The fence is finished! YEAH. The gate was built and hung and it’s lovely. Well, maybe not lovely, but functional and it makes me smile. And it WILL be lovely, after I’ve added some doo-dads and thing-a-ma-jiggies.

My back hurts and I’m the “good” tired. I’m off to bed. Tomorrow, it’s supposed to be 63 for the high, after a front blows through tonight. 30 degrees difference in 1 day — crazy Texas weather. I’ll be working inside!

Well, we HAVE had snow here in winter…

Monday, February 25, 2008

Don’t fall out of your chair! It isn’t snowing here today. In fact, it was 92 today!!!!! But looking at all the beautiful northern snows and ice covered plants, it reminded me that we HAVE had snow here, and it’s just a beautiful when we get it here. It turns everything into a magical winter wonderland. I thought you’d enjoy seeing these — they were the winter of 2003-2004.



And this is my little munchkin’s first look at it!  She doesn’t seem too sure, does she?

By |2016-04-14T02:47:53-05:00February 24th, 2008|Blog, Sharing Nature's Garden, snow|0 Comments

Don’t chew, I surrender!

I surrender. Sigh. After planting lots of little eye candy last week, I got up and went outside to survey Saturday morning. Lo and behold, several of my plants were strewn about the driveway and the beds. Clearly, someone, or several someones, came through for a tasting sampler and found some of them unpalatable! If they didn’t like them, I wishe they’d at least figure that out first, or put them back!

I was able to shove most of those back into their holes and water them. Unfortunately, there were also quite a few plants that were obviously tasty, because they were munched on. They ate all the blooms of Kallie’s Cyclamen, and munched on shrubs and annuals. I know the deer tolerance for most of the perennials and shrubs, but there are just too many annuals to keep track of. And, let’s face it, when I’m standing in the nursery oogling some cute new plant, I know I’m not going to rush home to look it up and come back to buy it. I want it NOW!

So after the deer had a nice salad from my beds Friday night, Saturday morning I went out with strips of laundry dryer sheets to tie around the plants I was most worried about. (They are very scent-sensitive and I’ve some success with it in the past to keep the deer out of the bird feeders.)

Mostly eaten.

Spared — and now with a dryer sheet scarf!
Munched on — sporting a lovely new scarf.

Here are a few bulbs from the experimental ones I planted last month! They are actually coming up now – I can’t believe it. I think these are daffodils or irises. I guess they will surprise me, or I can go back and search my posts.
These are two amaryllis that were eaten last year and managed to survive to grow another season. I guess I’d better chicken wire them until they’ve bloomed!
Here’s another little daffodil that sprouted up and surprised me — I thought these were hyacinths when they first peeked up!
Here is my new vegetable bed — the little one on the left. I just thought I’d squeeze one more in there.
These are the two cleaned-up beds — new garden soil inside and with weed block and thick mulch in the pathways instead of the zoysia grass that kept invading the gardens. Between that and the new metal edging, I’m hoping to keep most of the grass at bay. I swear, last summer it looked like a LAWN in my veggie gardens at one point! Cross your fingers for me.

The gate has been promised tomorrow. And it’s supposed to be 84f — unbelieveable. I’m postponing my teacher conference meeting until Tuesday when the cold front comes through and we drop to 63f 😉

Sago seeds

Posted Friday, February 22, 2008

Meet my “Big Guy.” This is my biggest Sago palm, cycas revoluta. He’s a beautiful specimen, and he’s got lots of pups (which I’m happy to share if you are willing to brave getting them OUT!) My Dad had a long battle with him one day when he didn’t want to give up any pups, but I’m glad to say that Dad won and the Sago was none the worse for the wear.

My neighbor has several Sagos, but she has both male and female specimens. And a week ago, she gave me 4 seeds from her female plant. (The cluster of seeds is an amazing sight if you haven’t ever seen it. I’ll try to get over there and get a picture for you.)

So, I soaked them for several days, and today I removed the outer shell of the seed to prepare them for planting. I’m thrilled that they floated in the water, which is the sign that the seeds have been pollinated and will grow. The outer shell was remarkably thick, but relatively easy to remove with some gloves (the shell is a nasty orange substance that will stain your hands) and my thumbnail.
Now they will sit in a cool damp place to dry out and then I will rehydrate them (seems odd to me, but that’s what you’re supposed to do.) And then they are planted – sideways of all things. not with the point up or down, but on its side.

I have a big new bed into which two of these babies are going to go soon, along with a variegated agave that another neighbor passed along to me. This is the bed behind our iron fence that doesn’t really get watered. I have pots close by that I drag the hose out to water daily, so I can give them a drink periodically, but they will prefer it on the dry side. I’ll be adding some other native grasses and xeric plants to the bed as well.

By |2016-04-14T02:47:53-05:00February 21st, 2008|Blog, Sago, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

A little Sunshine in my garden

We had a mixed bag of weather today – humid and damp and misty this morning, then that broke and the sun came out and then a cold front blew in and blew right back out again, leaving sunshine and warmth for the rest of the afternoon. As I was cleaning up the back patio and pruning some, I was struck by how many yellows I have in my garden. So I thought I’d take you on a tip-toe through the yellows today. This is a Gerbera daisy left from last year’s basket of mixed color.

Mickaela Euonymus
Daffodils – -again!
This is a Duranta stem with some yellow berries on it — hard to see because it’s in the garage still until we pass the early March last possible freeze point. I’m not moving that baby twice — she’s heavy.
Here are some flowers in my kitchen today.
Mums and Alstromeria – some of my favs.
Euryops Daisy
Primrose Jasmine
Variegated shell ginger.
(With quite a bit of freeze damage that I just
haven’t cutback yet, so this is a sample of
yellow and dead!)
Leatherleaf Mahonia.
Compact Daisies.

Thought this might be a little ray sunshine for those of you who are still deep in the throes of winter.

Enjoy.

Projects…


This is my newest project. Well, one of the two…or twenty! I’m still on the veggie fence and new bed but my workers have abandoned me for a few days. They’ll be back, but since I can’t plant my vegetable garden yet, I’ve turned my sights elsewhere.

These photos are at the end of the river rock path that runs along the side of the house. This whole area is at the end of our driveway and before our septic field, which is just a grassy area. This is a nice, sunny hole in the woods and I got a vision last summer to plant wildflowers and cutting flowers here. The statue I bought last week is the anchor for this area, and I’ve decided to name her, Artemis! Thanks to Annie, at The Transplantable Rose, for the idea. It was hard to pick – thanks to everyone for giving me lots of great suggestions — it was tough to decide. Flora ran a close second – thanks also to Kate at Kate Smudges in Earth, Paint and Life, for the suggestion.

So, yesterday I bought some larkspur and society garlic (to deter the deer) and some blackfoot daisies and some corralberry to frame the area and feed the birds. I bought those gigantic sunflowers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center last summer and planted them here and they will be back. I’ve also sprinkled some seeds here from my other native plants over the last year. I’m going to leave these new plants sitting here and ponder them for a while. Isn’t that part of gardening, pondering? I tend to be impulsive in the garden (and in life, let’s be honest, here!) so I’m trying to think this through for a change.

For some strange reason, I don’t usually draw out landscape design plans for myself, I just start throwing stuff in the ground. Generally, that works for me. But I will also be pulling OUT 4-5 plants from the front bed for exactly that reason — I over planted the summer before last. That wouldn’t have happened if I’d drawn the design out formally because I would have seen clearly that there was too much material there. But there was a sale at the old Marbridge farms and I went nuts. So, now I get to dig it back up and guess where it’s going? The edges of this new bed! Irony. And, I’m kind of an old dog — hard to teach me new tricks.


These little fillers will look nice in front of the lantana and guara and ferns when they come back in.

It’s drizzling and overcast and we have a 30% chance of rain today, so I’m not sure I will get these plants in the ground. But, with the moisture, they’ll be happy outside anyway.

By |2017-11-29T23:27:56-06:00February 20th, 2008|Blog, new bed, planning, Sharing Nature's Garden, wildlflower|0 Comments
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