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Farms and Fairs

We’re having a big time at the farm in Indiana. We enjoyed an outing yesterday to the little county Fair where sweetie girl got to ride on the Moon Jump and to ride on a pony.

We also ate some delicious sweet corn and some (not so delicious) chili cheese fries (which I knew was a mistake when I ordered them).

Today we’re having a quite day on the farm, feeding horses and watering plants.

I love that everything is green here – they are wondering where the heck summer is.

I know.

It’s STUCK in Texas!

This was my favorite exotic chicken at the fair. I really like them — when they are someone else’s!

And then below, sweetie pie is checking out the goats with her uncle.

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:44:32-05:00July 19th, 2009|Blog, Fairy, Indiana, Kallie, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

Bloomin’ veggies

Some of the perennials and annuals like the heat and some don’t.

But this Okra can’t get enough of the hot, baking sun beating down on it every day.

I’m growing okra the size of my head (I know I’ve got to pick it faster!) and I have so much I am giving it away.

I sure hope it’s tasty. I picked a big bowl full of it off two plants yesterday to share with a friend before we left.

When I get home I am REALLY going to make okra pickles. Really, I am!

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:44:32-05:00July 17th, 2009|Blog, okra, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

I’ve failed for Bloom Day — I missed it by a day and I didn’t get everything that was blooming. But it’s a long list and much of it has been posted lately, so I’m giving you the short and sweet edition.

The Butterflies are out in full force these days, so I try to keep lots of water (shallow) available for them. Like the birds and the deer, they get thirsty in these 100+ degree days, too.
Grandpa Ott Morning Glory.
My transplanted ditch lily, brought back to me in a bucket from Wisconsin from my good garden-blogging friend, Lori, at the Gardener of Good and Evil.
My Tropical Punch Canna.
Another Morning Glory.
This isn’t technically a bloom yet, it’s going to be beautiful when this Little Gem Magnolia blooms while we are gone next week.

Thanks, Carol, at May Dreams Gardens for inviting us to share our garden beauties with on Bloom Day.

We’re headed to Indiana and Kentucky tomorrow, so look for some cooler posts from the Midwest if my new computer is set up.

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:41-06:00July 16th, 2009|Blog, butterflies, cannas, GBBD, magnolia, Morning Glory, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

The good, the bad and the ugly…

“To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.”
— ecclesiastes 3:1-8

So, as the Death Star blazes on (100+ for as long as I can remember …103 today), some things in my garden are still doing well — many things, in fact. These plants have popped up recently and come into their own. These are some of my hot St. Tropez-on-the-beach-loving plants!
Grandpa Ott morning glories greeting the day on the back fence in the cutting garden.
Look hard for the 3 new Butterfly weed plants in the center of the bed – finally filling a hole left by last year’s Viburnum exorcism!
Coral trumpet vine is bursting with trumpets — can you hear her?
The huge Duranta bush looks like purple fireworks exploding in this corner.
And one of my very favorites, the Pride of Barbados, is giving us a long show this year. This tropical normally doesn’t bloom until August and I’m so excited to see them so early. I hope they can last the whole, hot summer.
Another Pride of Barbados.
Like the Pride of Barbados, this Cassia alata, or Candlestick Tree, normally blooms in August. I have two in a slightly less than perfect spot – they routinely stop growing at about 2-2-1/2 feet tall, and this one is blooming already! My other 3 are in a hot protected corner in the back and they are easily 10 feet tall! They aren’t blooming yet, but they never even died back during our mild winter last year. Can’t wait to show them to you.
A few spindly vines still have wonderful tropical colors to offer. They just need to GROW and fill in! The orange one is a Mexican Flame Vine and the other is a Morning Glory.

Ok – did enjoy the tour?

You might want to shield your eyes now — parental discretion is advised for the following photos. These are the bad and the ugly. Things stressed by the heat and the sun and not enough water, or, conversely, too much water or scalding on the leaves. I desperately try to water before 9 a.m., but life doesn’t always cooperate and at 106, 1 missed day of watering can mean death. So, sometimes even careful watering with warmer temps can damage.

Ready? Are you sitting down?
My new Avocado plant. I think it fried in the heat, I thought it like sun…maybe not OUR sun, though.
My lacebark elm is stressed and I’m going to have to get a drip hose on it to deep water tomorrow.
A Mandavilla vine recently planted with roots too close to the surface in the cutting bed.
The variegated lemon tree has a few sad leaves.
And the Sago is suffering, too.
The black elephant ears were great until about 2 weeks ago. These are in full sun, and on a less than scorching summer, which we USED to have, they are fine that way. But, that’s not this year!
Variegated shell ginger struggles, too
And apparently, I have the dreaded day lily rust that came to Texas in the last year or two. I may have to remove them before the other plants in the bed succumb to it.
Even the tropical Plumeria has a few sad spots.
And this one is just plain UGLY. But amazing, nonetheless. This is a Texas Bluebonnet. They normally bloom in March, but I did see my first bloom this year on February 28th and posted about how amazing THAT was in this Seriously? post.

Seems we could all write a lot of “Seriously?” posts these days, couldn’t we?

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-09-28T18:08:46-05:00July 12th, 2009|Blog, blue bonnets, butterfly weed, candlestick tree, coral trumpet vine, duranta, heat, Morning Glory, Pride of Barbados, rust, scorched, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

Hot? Who’s hot? We’re not!

I wouldn’t call my garden particularly xeric — I have many natives and plants that don’t mind hot weather, but my beds are not full of agaves, succulents, grasses and cacti by any means.

I do have a few of those plants scattered about though, and they seem unfazed by this bout of miserably hot weather. It hit 106 and 105 this week, and there is no hope that the mercury will dip below 100 for the next 7 days.

But these guys don’t seem to mind:

After walking dogs and watering between 7:00-8:30 a.m. (the only truly tolerable part of the day) I went to a Master Gardeners Association seminar this morning on diagnosing plant problems and it was great. Much of it was refresher, taken from the TMGA courses I took to get my MG certification many years ago, but so good to be reminded and to get some new ideas for ways to deal with disease and pests.

Tonight (when it cools down to 80 degrees) I will be working on the stink bugs in my tomatoes. You’d think the tomato horn worms would have warned them about me!

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:44:33-05:00July 10th, 2009|Blog, Master Gardener, pests, Sharing Nature's Garden, succulents|0 Comments

The dog days of summer …

I was wandering around this morning, feeling remiss for not having posted for a while, and looking for things of interest in the garden.

But since it was 104 yesterday and we’re months into our summer, I had a hard time finding anything new to write about. And then I saw Tanner sprawled out in the sun and it hit me … July 3rd or no, in Austin, Texas, it’s the “Dog Days of Summer” already.

According to Wikipedia, the term “Dog Days” was used by the Greeks and the Romans (who called these days caniculares dies) after Sirius, the “Dog Star,” Latin. The dog days of summer originally were the days when Sirius rose just before or at the same time as sunrise, which is no longer true, because of the precession of the equinoxes.

Here’s the icky part: The ancients sacrificed a brown dog (look out Tanner!) at the beginning of the Dog Days to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that the star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather.

Dog days were popularly thought to be an evil time “when the seas boiled, wine turned sour , dogs grew mad and all creatures became languid, causing man to burn fevers, hysterics and phrensies” according to Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, 1813.

I don’t think my wine is sour and I’m not sure if the seas are boiling, but I will definitely be on the lookout for mad dogs and hysterics at my house!

But, I can see how the oppressive heat could make you believe in all those things, don’t you?