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Garden mish-mash…

These are a few of my newest little knick knacks in the garden.  No baby birds live here, but I do have a little red Cypress Vine that’s climbed up the fence and is trying to find a room!  

(Actually, I think I might want to plug the hole rather than inviting birds to live IN my vegetable garden — what do you think?!)
On that note, I thought this ceramic Mr. Cardinal was a clever way to keep some less-than-friendly friends out of my garden and make me smile at the same time.

His real-life cousin lives on the other side of our yard in the woods, where he frequents the many feeders my DH fills.  He also occasionally pecks at my windows in a very unfriendly fashion, for which I manage to forgive him since I have been wholly unsuccessful at detering him!

Well, this little cuke was green and healthy a week ago when I ripped out the rest of the cucumber vine.  I left a few vines since this seemed to be ok.
Clearly it isn’t ok!  Don’t know what it has, but it is an unhappy plant, that’s for sure!
But take a look at her neighbor.  This is my Malabar Spinach, and it is taking over.  And it’s not just taking over my garden, I think it has designs on our whole neighborhood and maybe even Austin!
Whatever got the cuke sure didn’t get this girl.  She’s gonna find herself a window and come in the house pretty soon!
Hmmm… I guess if my posts start to sound strange soon, you’d better check to see if she’s a body snatcher that’s taken me over because of my gardening weaknesses!
By |2017-11-29T23:27:52-06:00August 28th, 2008|Blog, cucumbers, malabar spinach, Sharing Nature's Garden, vegetable garden|0 Comments
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beans, beans, and a potato…


In spite of the heat that’s bearing down on us and our plants, Mother Nature has a job to do, and do it she does. They might be thirsty and hot and sweaty, but my plants continue to bloom and amazingly, have enough energy left over to make seeds for the next generation to go on.

Pretty amazing, to me.

So, here are some of the lovely seed pods that have just popped up in my garden in the last week or so.

The first is the stunningly beautiful Pride of Barbados that is one of my very favorite plants.  It’s exotic and delicate and hot and colorful all at the same time.  It’s hearty and fern-like and it brings a smile to my face when it finally shows its true colors late in the summer.

These are my Hyacinth Bean Vines, with their leather-y purple pods that look good enough to eat!

My prolific Coral Trumpet Vine makes these huge seed pods, but then again, this specimen is pretty darn big and woody, and I think it would take over the cabana if I let it.
This, gardening friends, is a real bean!  A green bush bean in my veggie garden.  I liek to call the seed pods beans and take a little license with gardening lingo, since they do look like beans!
This Esperanza or Tecoma Stans, is full of slender, little green pods – hundreds of them – waiting to drop and start life all over again deep under the mulch this winter.

Ok, THIS is your laugh for the day.  I kept seeing this big, smooth pink orb poking out of the potato vine in my front pots.  Thought it was a river rock from the dry bed, wondered if I’d stuck it in there for some reason when I planted the vine.
Seriously.
I thought this for weeks!
Today, as I was removing dead plants and adding a few fresh ones, it hit me like a V-8 POP on the forehead!
It’s a POTATO!!!!!!!
Duh.
Double Duh!
Sigh….I am not only not in charge, I am clearly clueless!
I never saw an actual potato on a decorative potato vine that I’d planted before.
I mean, there are some plants that are named after things that they are not, right?
Well, at least I get points for posting it out there for you all to laugh WITH me about!
By |2016-04-14T02:45:10-05:00August 26th, 2008|Blog, green beans, hyacinth bean vine, potato, seeds, Sharing Nature's Garden, trumpet vine|0 Comments
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Cause and effect…

I walked all around my garden beds this morning, inspecting the cause and effect of the recent rains. So many things are just jumping up and down in the garden, saying, “look at ME, look at ME!”

So I thought I’d share my observations with you today.

Fellow Austin garden blogger Lori, of The Gardener of Good and Evil, just posted lovely photos of all her blooming Datura plants. She has six of them and I can’t imagine how huge they must be.

The recent rains have brought dozens of buds to my two plants (one planted, one volunteer), so I thought I would share the promise of blooms.

This is a Mealy Blue Sage that has been sad and pasty-colored all through this hot summer, bu today it is a vibrant blue-purple color. It clearly likes temperatures that are only in the 90s and it loves the rain.

The Verbena is always more colorful after a nice rain.
The trailing Lantana and the Blackfoot Daisy are checking out each other’s neighborhoods!
This Cape Honeysuckle that I insist on keeping in a pot for orange on the deck (which isn’t really the best way to try to grow it!) LOVES the rain and just explodes with color afterward.
This is my mutant Brugmansia – German Double Pink. I can only report that from the order I placed, since I have yet to see it bloom and some critter has been EATING the leaves all the way up the stem. I hope it survives. I haven’t seen anyone on it.

And, of course, I have lots of WEEDS who are saying “look at ME, look at ME, too.” But I’ll spare you the pictures of those!

By |2017-11-29T23:27:53-06:00August 21st, 2008|Blog, brugmansia, cape honey suckle, datura, rain, Sharing Nature's Garden, verbena|0 Comments
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“The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.”
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Oh — I am ALL about letting it rain!  It is raining at our house right now.  It threatened all day and I was worried that it had passed us by.  It’s a nice, steady rain — the kind that melts slowly into the ground and revives the dry, brittle plants and fills up ponds and puddles for the wildlife to get a much-needed drink.
It’s hard to imagine how we were drenched and flooded last summer and we thought it would never end.  This year, we thought the 100+ degree days and the drought would never end.
I guess the one thing we can count on here is extremes.  When it’s good, it’s really good.  When it’s bad, well…you can fill the rest of that in!


These aren’t very interesting pictures and my photo skills leave a lot to be desired here, but I just wanted to capture the WET!  You can certainly SEE it, I just wish we had what Emeril calls “smell-a-vision” so you could smell it.  It’s that wonderfully earthy scent of growth.

I hope the rest of my blogging friends in Austin are getting a drink — how about it? Where else is it raining in Austin tonight?
By |2017-11-29T23:27:53-06:00August 16th, 2008|Blog, rain, Sharing Nature's Garden|16 Comments
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Bloom Day!

It’s hot and steamy in Austin, Texas this Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day when Carol from May Dreams Gardens brings bloggers around the world together to share a peek into their gardens.

We had RAIN today at our house!!!! We got a quarter of an inch in a very short time and it was a blessing. I’m not commenting on the fact that the downpour happened exactly when I walked out of the grocery sstore with a cart full of food. I just smiled and let it plaster my hair to my head, being mindful of how much we need it and how long I’ve been hoping for it.

We’re supposed to get more tomorrow, and on through the next week, and I say, bring it on!

So here is a glimpse into some of the plants that I
am enjoying in my garden today.
I won’t post them all, these are the nicest right now…

Cape Honeysuckle loves a big, long drink and rewards
me with vivid,over-the-top orange flowers.
They aren’t blooms but they are beautiful!I love these
Caladiums that add texture and color and interest to my shady garden bed.
These zippy Zinnias are a rush of color in the middle of my rock pathway.
More splashes of sunshine in my pathway — here a Purslane
and a Moss Rose make friends!
And a yellow Purslane is their neighbor in the pathway.
The Turk’s Cap in the dappled shade bed
is blooming all over,
and doesn’t seem to mind the heat.

Tall and flowing Esperanza — it peeks over the
Day Lily fenceand I get glimpses of it from the other side!
Happy Rosemary, reveling in these arid conditions!
Regal Purple Duranta draping gracefully.
Perky variegated red Hibiscus waves at the plants all around her!
By |2017-11-29T23:27:53-06:00August 15th, 2008|Blog, GBBD, rain, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments
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A few of my favorite things…

This is a little peek into the small bed I created this Spring for the Day Lilies.  It’s outside of one of our breakfast room windows, and shares the space with our air conditioners, but it’s turned out delightful.  The corner is nurturing three Cassia’s which will soon be in beautiful bloom.  In the center is a Hyacinth Bean vine, and the left corner is home to a Variegated Hibiscus.
On the lower right side are two Indigo Spires, trying to hide the lattice fence around the air conditioners.
And this is one of my two Durantas just across the walkway from the hibiscus.  

I have to say, the Lilies have not turned out to be what I imagined.  There only seem to be two colors, when I’d ordered 4 distinctly different colors and two heights of each, at that.  Just another reminder that I’m not in charge…when it comes to Mother Nature, or catalog orders, for that matter!
In spite of the heat and drought, I hand water this little bed frequently and it looks lush and lovely and makes me happy when I am sitting at the table.  It’s my little corner of paradise these days!
By |2017-11-29T23:27:53-06:00August 14th, 2008|Blog, daylily, duranta, hibiscus, hyacinth bean vine, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments
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