The Sun is Killing Me

Bloom Day - December 15th, 2011

2011-12-14T21:42:00.022-06:00

December bloom day via the 12 Days of Christmas:

On the First day of Christmas, my true love sent to me..
One succulent wreath on the garden gate:

closer:

On the Second day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
Two ornament adorned agaves:

I don't have any conifers in my central Texas garden, so agaves get decorated instead. Closer:

On the Third day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
3 pink geranium blooms. The geraniums are looking fabulous now that the weather is cool:

On the Fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
4 new limestone blocks under my garden gate. I replaced the mud and clay with some natural limestone blocks and gravel:

On the Fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
5 petals on the globemallow bloom. The globemallow is still blooming and looking wonderful!:

On the Sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
6 lemon blossoms. The Meyer lemon is blooming crazy right now! The outside entryway to the house is thick with the scent of citrus blossoms. Yummmm. :)

On the Seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
7 narcissus pushing through the earth. The narcissus are popping up all around the garden:

On the Eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
8 blackfoot daisies. These are still blooming even though we had a freeze last week:

On the Ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
9 pots of succulents snuggled in the greenhouse. With a heating lamp to keep them warm and toasty:

On the Tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
10 sets of cynthia tulips. I planted these within the new limestone retaining wall flower bed I built last week. Come spring, there should be a trail of yellow and red striped tulips blooming here:

On the Eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
11 icicles on the fountain during the first freeze on Dec. 7th. Right on time:

On the Twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
12 drops of rain on the xmas cactus. It has been raining lightly all week! Swoot! After the hottest summer ever recorded in any state in the history of the US, this rain is The. Best. Christmas present. Ever.:

Happy Holidays Everyone!!

Bloom Day November 15th 2011 - a day late.

2011-11-16T14:34:00.013-06:00

Well, contrary to my previous post it has not frozen in the garden yet this year. Yay! Just a freeze warning or two so far. And, AND it rained in the garden yesterday! Wooooo!!

The flowers seemed to perk up as the rain was approaching. Somehow they just KNEW it was gonna rain.

Copper Canyon Daisy. I very nearly lost these this year, but they made it through (barely) and are in bloom:

The coral nymph salvia is blooming:

And the Hot Lips salvia is back to blooming red and white now that it has cooled off(the colors change based on the temperature outside - in the dead of summer the flowers are fully red):

The paintbrush is still blooming and you can see the gulf muhly with its burgandy seed heads in the background:

Rock Penstemon still blooming and still looking fabulous:

Damianita and blackfoot daisy blooming crazy now that the weather has cooled down:

Leadwort plumbago blooming its gorgeous blue blooms. I planted about six small 4-inch pots of these several years back in the hopes they would carpet the ground. No luck. They just kind of stay the same size. I think it has just been way too hot and way too dry for these. If I want them to cover the entire area, I will need to buy a couple flats of them and plant them close together. They are still pretty, though:

Texas Mountain Sage. I had to replace this one this fall. The other one I had dried up and I even had it planted in the shade. I am quite fond of its heart-shaped leaves:

And last but not least, the morning glory is still growing and blooming beautifully each morning:

Happy Bloom day everyone!

Freeze Warning?!?

2011-11-03T19:09:00.003-05:00

Freeze warning for tonight?!? WTF. It's still early November and I don't have the greenhouse set up yet. It doesn't normally freeze until the first week of December! *sigh* Well, I'm pretty sure this motorcycle can handle a freeze, so out it goes and in go the plants. :D

New hanging baskets

2011-10-16T10:50:00.004-05:00

I picked up these nifty cone-shaped hanging baskets to replace the basic plastic ones I had before. I have had the worst time finding pretty hanging baskets in Austin. Back in Seattle, I could find really pretty wooden hanging baskets everywhere; but here? Nope. Nothing of the kind to be found. Why is that?

Here are the new baskets. Love:

Bloom Day October 15th, 2011

2011-10-15T20:02:00.017-05:00

Autumn has finally arrived in Austin! The temps are down into the 90's most days which is such a huge relief. And we received between 1-2 inches of rain earlier this week and that totally perked up the plants that made it through the hell that was summer this year.

I was able to get outside and trim up the front garden:

See that rose in the bottom left corner of the pic there? I swore I wouldn't plant anything this fall due to the drought, but the first knockout rose I had planted in early spring fried over the summer. I found a replacement on clearance at Lowes and decided to go ahead and take a chance and plant a new one. Hopefully it will make it this time.

This yellow knockout rose DID make it though the summer, however. I really can't believe it. It's blooming again since it rained the other day:

The rock penstemon is still blooming. This is one tough plant. It flowered all throughout the summer even though it dwells right up front in the hellstrip:

The wright's skullcap is blooming again. It was pretty crispy looking over the dead of summer, but it made it though and it's perking right up, now:

Texas bluebells are still blooming, although they are looking a bit scraggly at this point:

The lantana is looking great:

The batface cuphea are also looking stupendous:

Fall is yellowbells time. They are ginormous:

Speaking of ginormous, the purple passionflower has completely overtaken the side garden:

Normally, the gulf fritillary butterflies mow this vine down and keep it under control. Not this year. Awful drought = little to no butterflies, which equal 'eat the garden' passionflower vine. On the plus side, this vine does have gorgeous flowers:

The blue mistflower has spread pretty good as well:

There are few things that have come back to life now that weather has cooled down a bit that I had in pots in the shade. One is Torenia:

And another is Bishop of Landaff Dahlia:

These asters are newly potted and I think they look very pretty next to the succulents behind them:

The rains kicked the rainlilies into gear. Yellow rainlilies:

And last, but not least, the yellow paintbrush is blooming again:

That's it folks. Happy Autumn bloom day!

Bloom day - Sept 15, 2011

2011-09-15T16:43:00.016-05:00

Wow. So I skipped August bloom day, cause hell, I wasn't going outside even to take pictures when it was 105 degrees outside. No. Thank. You. I mean, christ, we are at 85 days at or above 100 degrees this year. The old record was 69 in 1925. We totally shredded that record this year. Just look at these numbers:

Due to this heat all summer, not much is left blooming. I do have quite a few scraggly salvias that the hummingbirds are loving right now. Here is a coral nymph salvia growing where the sprinklers hit:

There are a few Texas bluebells hanging on as well as some scraggly looking chocolate flower:

The turks cap is actually looking pretty good and the hummers are loving it:

The oxblood lilies were blooming crazy after watering day:

Some yellow rain lilies popped up after a watering as well. You can see them nestled amongst the tough and sparsely flowering leadwort blue plumbago:

One of the plants that has done really well all summer regardless of the harsh, dry conditions has been the Datura. Here it is blooming last night. Too bad I don't have smell-o-vision for these as they completely filled the garden with their thick, heady scent:

closer:

Well, that's it folks. Now excuse me while i hunt down some more chicken bones for another rain dance....

Mt. Rainier - Woodland Wildflowers

2011-08-12T21:40:00.020-05:00

Mt. Rainier National park is home to some of the last preserves of Old Growth forest in the Pacific Northwest. Only about 15 percent of the old growth remains and about half of that exists within the Mt. Rainier National forest and the Olympic national forest. While at Mt. Rainier, we took a hike down through the old growth forest by Narada falls. Many of these trees were between 500 and 1000 years old!

I would guess this tree along the trail is around 800-900 years old as we had seen one about the same size earlier in the day marked as 850 years old:

Ferns cover the slopes:

These are just unfurling their new fronds:

Closer:

But even in this dense woodland, there are wildflowers. Vanilla Leaf grows under the thick canopy:

What I am pretty sure is Pacific Coralroot was just starting to shoot up from the earth. It belongs to the orchid family and has very small, purple flowers on slender stems. It is very easy to walk right past these on the trail without noticing them:

Pioneer Violets were everywhere along the trail:

Closer:

And there was still the occasional Trillium or two in bloom:

Many streams make their way down the mountainside resulting in breaks in the dense vegetation that allow for many wildflowers to grow. It was along these streams that I saw gorgeous smatterings of Jeffreys Shooting Stars (Dodecatheon jeffreyi). I simply LOVE these wildflowers!:

Also found here were Marsh Marigolds:

And stands of salmon berries in bloom. Hummingbirds LOVE these flowers, by the way. We had these in our garden when I was growing up and the hummers would go wild over the blooms:

In other open areas, where the sun was able to sneak in a bit you will find Bunchberries or Ground Dogwood. These were also a favorite of mine growing up in our Pacific Northwest garden:

And the always fabulous Columbia Tiger Lily. These were hard for me to photograph. My little point and shoot did NOT like the orange on green background in the low light of the forest:

Closer:

Both the Tiger Lilies and Bunchberries were growing amongst the native Heuchera (Heuchera-glabra):

And again you will see Vanilla leaf here also growing with the Heuchera:

You will notice the last couple of photos were taken by the road, but to see most of the woodland wildflowers, you really do need to get out and hike some trails. The best flowers are back in a little way. You really don't have to hike that far in. Just a mile or so will do. And most tourists won't walk more than about a hundred yards or so in (really, we are a very lazy nation), so once you walk down the trail a bit, not only do you get to see more wonderful flowers, but you get the forest mostly to yourself. :)

Mt. Rainier - Subalpine Wildflowers and Cliffs

2011-08-12T19:59:00.017-05:00

As we were driving along the road up to Paradise on Mt Rainier, sheer cliff faces were everywhere and even these were covered in subalpine wildflowers.

Pink Penstemon were clinging to the cliffsides, drenching them in pink. It can be *very* difficult to get good photos of these flowers as these cliff faces do not often have nice wide road shoulders next to them that you can pull off on and just saunter up and take a photo. As a matter of fact, many are located on blind, shoulderless corners of the roadside. So what do I do? I challenge Darwin and walk down the road, around the blind corner and try to take photos. So, um, yeah, I very nearly got myself ran over. But I did get some penstemon flower pictures!:

Pink Pentstemon Rupicola:

The same cliff face was also home to this stuff, which I think is Moss Campion:

And also this Beargrass which looks like a grass, but is really part of the lily family:

At the very base of the cliff were big clumps of Twinflower:

At another cliff face, where the water was trickling down to pool at the base before trickling down the hill even further were these Common Yellow Monkey Flowers:

Closer:

Also found here were Mertens Bluebells. These were found anywhere at this elevation where water made the ground mushy:

Mertens Bluebells (Mertensia paniculata) belong to the Borage family:

Yet another cliff we stopped by had a waterfall cutting deep into it. Goatsbeard grew all around it:

Many wildflowers were on the cliff on the other side of the road and below this waterfall and I was leaning over the edge a bit to try and take photos of them.

Cascade Penstemon (Penstemon Serrulatus):

Rosey Spirea:

Some small sunflower-looking flowers (Senecio-fremontii) were growing in clumps on the rocks here as well:

Closer:

Mt. Rainier - Lupine, Paintbrush, and Avalanche Lilies

2011-08-12T18:52:00.021-05:00

For all you non-Northwesterners out there, Mt. Rainier is the great big, glacier covered volcano you see behind Seattle. Here is a view from the Paradise Visitor center up on Mt Rainier:

Paradise normally receives an average of 680 inches of snow a year. This 2011 year, they received 907 inches of snow! One of the top 5 snowfalls on record. There was more snow at Paradise than ever recorded since 1916. As a result of this large snowpack and the unusually cool spring and summer this year (one of the coolest on record), when we arrived at Paradise in very late July, there was still a very heavy snowpack where one would normally find large wildflower meadows at this time of year:

When Summer arrives and most of the snow has melted, the subalpine wildflowers begin to bloom. The first to appear are the Avalanche lilies. They can be found poking out of the snow as it finishes melting away:

Backside:

There were many of these poking through the snow between the still leafless shrubbery at the base of the visitor center:

Large swathes of these lilies will cover the ground as the snow melts. They were just beginning to bloom when we arrived as the snow was just beginning to clear away. Doubles:

In the few places the snow had completely melted these wildflowers were smothering the ground:

What is that you say? Paintbrush and Lupine? Isn't that the Texas Hill country?!? No! It's the Alpine Lupine(Lupinus arcticus )and Scarlet Paintbrush(Castilleja miniata) of the subalpine meadows. Paradise up on Mt. Rainier is at an elevation of 5400 feet and its wildflower meadows rival any that you will see in the Texas hillcountry. As a matter of fact, the meadows appear strikingly similiar even though the environments could not be more different!:

Scarlet paintbrush and Alpine Lupine:

When the snow finally melts from the slopes above Paradise, likely at the very end of August this year, they will be blanketed with these wildflowers:

Lupine:

Many other wildflowers bloom amongst the lupine and paintbrush. Here are some asters and buttercups:

The buttercups seemed to be a favorite of the black-tailed deer. They were very focused on browsing the little yellow flowers and didn't seem to mind me taking their photo:

Closer:

Bonsai!

2011-08-12T17:59:00.024-05:00

While in the Pacific Northwest, I stopped by Weyerhaeuser's International headquarters in Federal Way, Wa. to view the Pacific Rim Bonsai collection. The collection includes bonsai from six different Pacific Rim nations.

Weyerhaeuser is also the home of the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden that displays over 600 rhododendron species on 22 acres which in spring, when the rhodies are blooming, is the most amazing sight you will ever see! I highly recommend going to see it if you happen to be in the Seattle area in the Spring. When we were there this year, there wasn't much blooming, but they did have a couple nifty things I snapped photos of.

First is this climbing hydrangea:

I couldn't even get the whole thing in the photo. It had climbed well over a hundred feet up this tree!:

And in the giant greenhouse, where they have the tropical rhodies, they had this hanging pot of carnivorous pitcher plant (nepenthes truncata) which I thought was pretty keen:

OK, back on to the Bonsia. The bonsai ranged from a few years old to some several centuries old. Some of them were even grafted onto very old pine trees that were dug from the wild that were thousands and thousands of years old! All these grafted onto old wood bonsai were all older bonsai from pre-1960. You know, before that kind of thing was frowned upon.

There were single trunked bonsai, multiple trunked bonsai, bonsai trained to grow over rocks and even tropical bonsai that had to be kept in the greenhouse (most of the bonsai are outside). Every bonsai was unique and I got a little carried away (OK, *really* carried away) with the photos. But here goes:

And there were so many more. These were only some of the Bonsai in the collection. My favorite ones were those that had been trained to grow in the down direction as they appeared as if they were overhanging a cliff.

Seattle Japanese Garden

2011-08-05T13:14:00.048-05:00

The Seattle Japanese garden is one of the finest examples of a Japanese garden outside of japan. The Japanese garden was designed by Kiyoshi Inoshita and Juki Iida in 1959 and completed in 1960. It is part of the University of Washington Arboretum which was designed in 1924 by the Olmsted Brothers.

The Seattle Japanese garden, having been built in 1959, was the earliest post-war public garden constructed on the west coast, and therefore had a strong influence on many other gardens in the area thereafter.

The garden is filled with japanese maples, azaleas, rhodendrons, firs and pines. It has a large pond with koi, turtles, and a heron or two.

Upon entering the garden, the visitor is greeted with a path that leads one around the garden. The idea is to create views of different landscapes that disappear and reappear as one progresses along the path and through the garden.

Notice that the garden floor is not carpeted with grass, but with a delicate covering of moss:

The path leads into the 'forest':

Further down the path are hosta in bloom under some trees. These were about the only flowers in bloom this time of the year, but who needs blooms with all that gorgeous foliage?:

Stone bridge:

A stream:

Looking through the trees and across the pond is a stone lantern on a rock outcrop. Check out the orangy foliage in the background:

Neatly trimmed pine and looking out across pond towards the zig-zag bridge where you can feed the koi:

Check out this pine being propped up over the pond:

Small lantern at edge of pond:

Trimmed pines and tall lantern. Notice how the shape of the lantern mirrors the shape of the trees:

Heading off to the zig-zag bridge in the middle of the pond to feed the koi:

You can purchase koi feed at the entrance to the garden for a dollar. On busy days, get there early as they only have so much food they will give out each day. Don't want the fish to overeat themselves to death! Feeding is allowed from the zig-zag bridge:

Closer shot of the koi:

One of these fish actually followed us all around the pond the entire time we were there hoping we would feed him more food! Here he is just swimming out of this photo:

He's the orange guy heading out of the shot on the left. Also, in this photo above, there are several turtles warming themselves on a rock.

A view from the zig-zag bridge:

Back on the path a willow hangs over the pond, propped up by a large post:

closer:

An ancient wisteria envelops an an arbor over the pond:

Another view:

Looking out from under the wisteria arbor:

Back on the path, a few azaleas are in bloom:

At the far end of the garden, up on the hill and overlooking the entire garden, is a giant 3 1/2 ton granite lantern is 200 years old and was a gift from Kobe, Japan to the city of Seattle. Kobe is Seattle's sister city:

Looking out across the garden from below the lantern:

Moving along to the other side of the garden, a grove of pines stand sentinal on a mound above the pond:

More hosta in bloom along the gentle curved edge of the pond:

The pond is host to many lily pads:

pink ones:

closer:

The path then leads up the hill:

and to the teahouse. This teahouse was burned down by vandals in 1973 and rebuilt in 1981:

Back down the hill and ferns are found nestled in moss on the hillside:

And a waterfall with a pagoda above it:

closer:

And a lantern below:

The waterfall flows into a stream that then flows into the pond:

Ferns grow off the boulders in the pond and cast their reflection upon the calm water:

Coming full circle, the same lantern we saw across the pond at the beginning, we now see up close edging the pond with the garden in the distance:

another angle. I thought it was pretty nifty how the juniper that was hanging over the pond mimicked the saucer shape of the lantern top:

On the way out, I noticed the maples already had their propeller shaped seeds developed and were causing the branches to hang heavily over the trail:

Lakewold Gardens, Part Deux - The Woodland Garden

2011-08-05T09:19:00.021-05:00

Lakewold Gardens has an extensive woodland garden in addition to their English Garden. I don't mind saying that the woodland garden was by far my favorite part of Lakewold. The Woodland Garden begins upon exiting the teahouse.

The path from the teahouse take you to the Shade garden and the Wolf tree, a multi-branched douglas fir hundreds of years old. I understand there are Himalayan blue poppies that bloom in this garden in May/June. Alas, arriving in late July, I was too late to see those wonders of nature:

closer:

A large lace leaf maple resides here. It was tough to take a photo of it in the deep shade of this garden with my little point and shoot, but I think this picture captures the twisted structure of the maple:

A moss encrusted Buddha also lies hidden within this garden space under a bonsai pine and amongst the ferns:

Exiting the shade garden, a path leads you to a garden room in the deep shade of the woodland:

As one sits and rests in this peaceful place, they will soon notice some garden sculptures hidden here both on the ground and up above:

Exit this room and a woodland trail leads even farther down the hill:

Native foliage along the pathway:

Next we pass a grove of ferns and azalea:

Passing the ferns, we arrive at a man made pond and stream that appear to be part of the natural landscape. It begins under a Japanese maple and runs down the slope from there:

and creates a waterfall:

and a pool:

water plants along edge of pool:

Along the edge of the stream grow various japanese maples,ferns, and conifers (you know, those plants we can't grow in Austin):

I can't remember what type of conifer the one on the right of this photo is, but I really liked its weeping form:

Moving along the path and below the stream, the trail opens onto a view of Gravelly lake beyond some ancient-looking junipers:

Continuing along past the lake, we move back into the woods and into the next garden room 'Picnic Point'. Here is a giant picnic table made of large split logs:

A pot of succulents sits in the middle of the table as a natural centerpiece:

Moving past natural the dining area, the path again opens up, this time looking back up towards the house:

Looking across the lawn to the far side of the property are more maples and a japanese lantern:

Walking back up the trail through the woods, the woodland trail terminates just past this tree that stretches across the path, dropping you out back near the duck topiaries:

Just when I thought I was done with my tour, I noticed that Lakewold Gardens has a little garden shop on the way out. Within this shop I discovered the biggest selection of gardening tools in the state of Washington! And I'm talking high-quality garden tools - none of that big-box store crap. Just look at this gardening tool wonderland! *swoon*:

I really, really wanted this 5-tine cultivator, but decided I might not be able to get it back through security on the plane. I should have just mailed it to myself:

They also had the most ginormous selection of Bonsai tools I have ever seen:

And on the way out I spotted this really cool bell. It appears to be Japanese, but I'm no expert. All I know is it was really keen and I think it would look just splendid in my garden, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't for sale:

Lakewold Gardens, Part 1 - The English Garden

2011-08-02T18:39:00.045-05:00

Get ready for some good old Pacific Northwest summer green foliage porn! I took a tour of Lakewold gardens while I was in town. Lakewold Gardens is located in Lakewood, Washington on the hill above Gravelly Lake and is a century old. It was built in 1910 and by 1913 its gardens were already famous. The garden was designed by America's emerging landscape masters including the Olmsted brothers in the early 1900's and Thomas Church in 1958. The garden grew to include include 10 acres of English and Woodland gardens. It was donated by the owner Mrs. Wagner in 1987 to a non-profit organization, The Friends of Lakewold, with the stipulation that an endowment fund be raised to assure the continuing care of the gardens. Mrs Wagner stated she donated the garden because "As we become more and more city creatures, living in man made surroundings, perhaps gardens will become even more precious to us, letting us remember that we began in the garden."

The iron gates and eagles (one on each post) that guard the entrance are from the original garden:

There is a circular drive that was built to allow visitors to enjoy the natural beauty of the garden as they entered the estate. Ginormous rhododendrons flank the drive:

There is also a footpath along the drive tunneling through the rhododendrons:

The rhodies were all done flowering except for a scant few in the deep shade. I imagine the circle drive would be fantastical in the spring:

As you come around the drive you see the giant Chinese Empress tree (Paulownia tomentosa)making a statement all by its big giant self in the middle of the lush, green lawn.(yep, they actually have green lawn in the pacific northwest):

a wider shot:

The parking area in front of the lawn is flanked on the left and right with sculptures. There are sculptures throughout the garden:

The side walking path entrance is flanked with pooch sculptures:

closer:

The front entrance of the estate was rather dull as it was just a wall of brick and a couple big doors (all the better to keep the street traffic sounds to a minimum, I suppose), but look just to the right of the entryway and a gorgeous patio comes into view:

Upon entering the house, you are greeted with beautiful tapestries hanging on the walls seemingly bringing the garden inside:

Exit left, walk through the sun porch and enter upon the English garden out back:

Topiary ducks!:

Looking back across the topiary duck garden towards the house:

To the right of the topiaries is a porch covered in ancient wisteria. Again, this would be gorgeous in the spring when in full bloom, but is beautiful in all its green foliage glory in the summer just the same:

Hidden under the wisteria porch are a few little garden trinket surprises. A bird house:

And some chimes:

That well-looking thing in the bottom left of the porch-covered-in-wisteria picture up above is in the center of another hedged garden full of lavender:

Look out beyond the lavender and you will see a view of Gravelly lake:

Down and to the right of the lavender was a perennial garden. And it also had a statue:

Closer:

Back behind the statue the perennial garden continued at the edge of the shade of the evergreens:

crocosmia:

At the very edge of the garden a very simple and new-ish looking garden arch and birdhouse. This is definitely something the backyard gardener can mimic:

Heading back to the duck topiaries, just to the left is a brick walk that leads to a teahouse. This walk was built for the wedding of one of the daughters back in the day. The entire path and teahouse is lined with various species of dogwood including Pacific, Korean, and Cornelian cherry dogwood. Once again, I can only dream how glorious this walkway is in the spring when in full bloom:

Along the walk is a very pretty stone bench. I can just imagine the lady of the house dressed in 1920's garb sitting for a spell in this spot:

A little further along and just beyond the dogwoods you will find a pool punctuated with roses at each corner:

Closer:

On the opposite side of the path sits a sundial. Color me jealous. I have always wanted one of these:

More statues line the walk leading up to the teahouse. This one appears to be a fawn from Greek mythology:

At the end of the brick walk is the teahouse:

Closer:

A hanging basket full of begonia; the big poofy kind that hate southern heat but loooove the cool maritine climate:

On the wall of the teahouse hangs this greek or maybe romanesque (I'm not really sure) plaque. This was actually my favorite thing in the teahouse:

Exit the teahouse and you enter the woodland garden, which I will blog about in tomorrow's post 'Lakewold Gardens, Part Deux - The Woodland Garden'.

Drooling over Pacific Northwest Flowers

2011-08-01T19:45:00.014-05:00

I just got back from a trip to Seattle. No, I didn't go to the Fling because I am lame and didn't sign up in time and I didn't want to pay 75 bucks a day to attend (not lame). Having said that, Seattle is my home town, I know my way around, and I took my own tour of Pacific Northwest gardens inbetween trips to the ocean and the mountains. Stay tuned for additional groovy posts on Northwest plant-y goodness.

The thing about the Northwest is that it is green and lush and a gardeners DREAM. One can throw seeds over their shoulder and up grows a garden. Gardens are everywhere in the pacific northwest. Even the dumpy houses have accidental gardens. Along with gardens, there are gorgeous hanging baskets and pots of flowers EVERYWHERE. I lament the loss of these gorgeous baskets living in Austin. I must suffer with baskets of succulents and the occasional geraniums.

So here, fellow Austin gardeners, is some flower basket/pot porn straight from the Great Northwest:

Potted flowers outside the famed Pike Place Market. Inside the market are all manner of gorgeous cut flowers you can purchase:

Hanging Baskets in the town of Long Beach, Washington right by the ocean. You will find hanging baskets like these everywhere you look in the Northwest from city streets to ratty little houses to houseboats:

A flower bed outside Marshes Museum in Long Beach *drool*:

Ginormous crocosmia and sedum was everywhere from Seattle to the little towns along the ocean beaches:

Baskets full of fuschia hang over lush greenery at the University of Washington Arboretum. When I lived in the NW, we had HUGE fuschia baskets hanging from every corner of the house. I could never have that here. *sheds a tear*:

Clematis twining up a post blooming crazy at the Arboretum:

Hanging baskets and pots of geraniums at Alexanders Country Inn at the base of Mt. Rainier:

Yeah, there was even a working waterwheel in the garden:

Flowers along path to inn grow effortlessly in the cool climate:

A veggie garden at the Inn is full of what else, but rhubarb! 90 percent of the harvested rhubarb in the United States is grown in the valleys of Mt. Rainier. They have high fences set up to keep out the deer:

Bloom day - July 15, 2011

2011-07-15T22:06:00.013-05:00

104 today. 1-0-4. And the heat and drought carries on. What kind of stalwart-type plants can carry on through such a beating? These guys can:

Batface Cuphea:

Chocolate flower, Texas bluebells, and Mexican milkweed:

The always stunning in the dead heat of summer Pride of barbados:

Turks Cap:

Wrights skullcap:

Yellow primrose. I started out with 4 of these plants, I am down to three due to the drought, but these guys keep marching on:

Rock Penstemon. Still going strong and, along with the Turk's cap, helping to keep the hummers fed during this drought:

Yellow lantana. I find lantana a bit boring, but this stuff is tough as nails, puts on a great show, and I can find nothing better for the hell strip:

The Golden Leadball tree is loving the heat! It continues to bloom:

unfortunately, I lost a goodly chunk of this tree in the only spring storm we had this year back in April. Here is a branch that was shorn off and I had to cut back even more because that section of the trunk was all split.

So I lost about 1/3 of the tree. It seems to be making a fine recovery however, even in this heat. The leadball tree does love the hot and dry conditions!

And last but not least, the Duchess of Albany Clematis has been blooming. I thought I might lose it, since it is new this year and it has been so hot and dry, but I did plant it in the shade - it only gets a couple hours of morning sun - and it has been quietly growing, ever so slowly, up the garden arch making it's way towards the sun. (I don't think this plant knows what it is getting itself into. I mean, once those incinerating rays of the death star hit it, it is just gonna flash-burn right out of existence.):

Happy Bloom day everyone!

Datura

2011-07-07T19:16:00.006-05:00

The Datura has really taken off in this heat. This is what I woke up to the other morning:

The scent was intoxicating in the morning! I can only imagine how strong it was overnight. I took lots of photos because the blooms were just so gorgeous!:

It is called Devil's Trumpet because of the plant's hallucinogenic properties and unpredictable results and possible death upon ingestion. All parts of the plant are poisonous and may be fatal if ingested.

It is also know by the name Jimson weed or Jamestown weed. From wikipedia:

In the United States the plant is called jimson weed, or more rarely Jamestown weed; it got this name from the town of Jamestown, Virginia, where British soldiers were drugged with it while attempting to suppress Bacon's Rebellion. They spent eleven days generally appearing to have gone insane:

The James-Town Weed (which resembles the Thorny Apple of Peru, and I take to be the plant so call'd) is supposed to be one of the greatest coolers in the world. This being an early plant, was gather'd very young for a boil'd salad, by some of the soldiers sent thither to quell the rebellion of Bacon (1676); and some of them ate plentifully of it, the effect of which was a very pleasant comedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a monkey, grinning and making mows [grimaces] at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and paw his companions, and sneer in their faces with a countenance more antic than any in a Dutch droll.

In this frantic condition they were confined, lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves — though it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good nature. Indeed, they were not very cleanly; for they would have wallowed in their own excrements, if they had not been prevented. A thousand such simple tricks they played, and after eleven days returned themselves again, not remembering anything that had passed. – The History and Present State of Virginia, 1705[Beverley, Robert. "Book II: Of the Natural Product and Conveniencies in Its Unimprov'd State, Before the English Went Thither". [The History and Present State of Virginia, In Four Parts (University of North Carolina): pp. Book II Page 24. Retrieved 2008-12-15.]

And a closer view. Just look at these beautiful trumpets:

Beautifully deadly. I'll be sure to include this one in my witch's garden I'd like to plant one day.

Just be warned that this one can spread like crazy around here. I do cut off most of the seedpods and pull up the extra new sprouts in the spring. But I don't mind too much since these are night bloomers and put up quite a show in the evening garden with the giant white trumpets, heady scents, and the giant hawk moths they attract.

Bloom Day - June 15th, 2011

2011-06-15T21:58:00.018-05:00

Let me start out with this 7 day forecast for this week from KXAN:

It's not even freaking SUMMER yet!! And this has been going on for the better part of three weeks already. Good God. My garden is gonna french fry to little crumbly bits before summer is over. I will surely lose a bunch of plants. It went from winter to dead heat and drought of summer overnight. My sweet peas hardly even bloomed this spring before they fried in the heat and drought. At least I have a few hardy heat loving plants that don't much mind this desert heat. Here we go...

Mexican Oregano. This is just ginormous this year. I have already cut it back twice:

Behind it is Big Red Sage. Here is a closer shot. This plant was once thought extinct and was rediscovered in the 1980's. No worries in my garden for this guy. It has taken to reseeding itself all about in the gravel mulch. The hummers love this one:

The mexican milkweed popped up from seed everywhere and is now blooming although it is a bit small due to the lack of rain:

The Texas Bluebells are doing simply amazing! They are thriving in the heat. I do water them once a week. These reseeded themselves all over my gravel garden path last year, so I dug them up and planted them around the garden and they have just gone bonkers:

There are a whole bunch more of them here with the coneflowers which are also doing well right now:

A closer shot of the coneflowers. You can see the glad 'Atom' just finishing up blooming in the bottom left corner:

Here are a couple shots of what the glads looked like about 2 weeks ago:

Then there is the gloriosa lily. New this year and it has been blooming on and off for the last couple of weeks. So exotic!:

The always exotic Pride of Barbados is really taking off in the heat:

The purple passionflower is blooming right now and the vine has almost completely engulfed my butterfly bush. Normally the caterpillars of the gulf fritillary butterfly will defoliate this vine enough that it keeps it completely under control. Not this year! I guess there isn't enough rain for the caterpillars as I have seen very few of them and as a result the passionvine is going nuts! The flowers are so pretty:

The Morning Glory 'Grandpa Otts' is also blooming right now and looking fabulous in the early morning light:

The always fabulous and heat-loving turks cap has begun to bloom heavily:

And Batface cuphea is also looking fab:

Out front in the hellstrip along with the agaves, the rock penstemon continues to laugh in the face of the death star:

The hummers use the agave spikes to perch on to try and defend 'their' staked out penstemon flowers from rivals:

That's all folks! Happy Bloom day!

The Night Garden

2011-06-13T22:19:00.005-05:00

Well, sultry summer nights have already settled in and it isn't even summer yet! It's 95 outside just after 10:30pm this evening. And with these sultry summer nights come the deep, thick fragrances of the night bloomers.

The Datura has begun to bloom and fill the garden with its intoxicating scent:

I'm still waiting for the tuberose and the abyssinian glads to bloom to add to the perfumery the garden becomes at night, but while I am waiting for those to bloom, the Moonflower has just began to bloom. It does LOVE the heat and really takes off once the nights are warm and humid. I so love this vine! It is just gorgeous with those big velvety-white flowers and the gardenia-esque scent:

Notice the gecko in the background there? He thinks he's safe hiding out on the porch and stuffing his face with moths, but danger lurks just above him:

I found this guy literally hanging out looking for yummy little gecko snacks to munch on. Yum.

Bloom Day May 15, 2011

2011-05-15T20:46:00.018-05:00

It has been an exceptionally dry year so far in Austin and my flowers have been struggling to grow and bloom. Luckily, we actually had some rain the other day and so my flowers are looking perky for bloom day.

The Aztec lilies have been blooming on and off for the last couple of weeks:

New this year red passionflower Passiflora coccinea is just as exotic as the Aztec lily above. I originally bought a lady Margaret passionflower, but the grubs got it. I found this one to replace it, then just yesterday I found another lady Margaret passionflower at the store and planted it in a different location. Hopefully by next bloom day I will have some of those blooms, but for now, just the red one:

Grandpa Otts morning glory just began to bloom. I love the rich color of this morning glory, but I dare not touch the leaves as they make me break out in a rash:

The batface cuphea surprisingly made it through this winter's deep freeze and is blooming crazy!:

Next to the cuphea grow the red Brazilian petunia Ruellia elegans:

More reds are found in the hell strip where the rock penstemon is thriving. It loves being baked to death and doesn't seem to mind the drought in the least. Best. Hellstrip. Flower. Ever:

Although the red flowers draw the hummers like moths to a flame, their favorite flower in the garden right now appears to be the Black and Blue Salvia:

Another hummer favorite blooming right now is the Desert Willow. It's always hard to get a good photo of these flowers since the wind is always blowing and the branches are, well, willowy:

Oh, and the chocolate flower is blooming in drifts right now. I walk outside in the morning and the yard smells like chocolate. Mmmmmm:

I finally figured out how to grow nasturtium down here. Plant it in the shade and pour an ENTIRE packet of seeds in a small area. These things just don't grow to Pacific-Northwest mega-gigantic proportions down here but if I plant a shit-ton of them in one place, they look like they are one big plant!:

More shade lovers, Heartleaf Skullcap is blooming:

The Coneflowers are just beginning to bloom for me. It has just been so dry that it is taking them a while to get going:

The Russion Sage has never looked quite so good, though. I guess it liked the extra-cold winter and the now dry and hot conditions:

I had to re-seed the california poppies as the first crop froze to death in February. This second crop is just now blooming:

And not to be outdone by the diurnal flowers, these Yellow Evening Primrose have been putting on a show the second night creeps in. I rescued these guys last year from a road construction site and they reseeded nicely for me and I have several this year:

And last, but not least, the Flowering Senna has been blooming for a couple weeks now. I have never had this shrub flower in the spring before. It has always flowered only in the fall. I did wrap this over the winter, though so I would not lose it since I replaced it last year after my big beautiful senna froze to death the previous extra-cold winter. Maybe wrapping it has something to do with it's early blooming episode this year? *shrugs*:

Happy Bloom day everyone!

No April Showers, But Still Some Flowers

2011-04-20T22:55:00.017-05:00

Well, I missed bloom day last week because i was crazy busy. I even took pictures and everything, but just didn't get them posted. So here they are a week late. :)

It has been a really dry Sping in my garden this year, the driest in Austin since 1917 they say. That is almost an entire century! I have been watering the flowers once in a while so they actually grow, but they are still pretty small.

The Golden Leadball tree doesn't care, though. It laughs in the face of droughty conditions. Here it is in the front yard flower bed:

Closer:

There are some yellow primroses that are growing underneath it, Here they are up close. These ones have almost black centers. I don't know what variety they are, but I got them at Barton Springs Nursey last year:

The Antelope Horns are also doing really well this year. I guess they like the dry conditions:

Again with some Paintbrush. Paintbrush is partially parasitic on grass and this one seems to be doing really well next to this clump of feather grass:

The watering I have been doing has triggered some of the rain lilies to bloom:

The poppies are small this year, but blooming:

The same goes for the yellow columbine. They are much smaller than usual, but blooming:

Here they are with Gulf Penstemon (which is beginning to take over the shady garden):

The Byzantine Glads are also on the smallish side this year, but they continue to multiply for me making the 12 bucks a bulb I paid for a few of them a couple years ago seem totally worth it!:

The orchid tree is blooming, but not as full as usual, so here is a close-up:

And my Amaryllis that I can never seem to force in the winter, that have all been planted in the garden instead are blooming right now and they are spectacular!:

And an amaryllis with an iris that I got for a dollar in the clearance bin last season:

And just the iris. I think it was supposed to be blue, but again, the bulb was from the clearance bin and that is always a bit of a crap shoot. But I like it. Very pretty:

Speaking of bulbs, today I noticed one of the aztec lilies is about to bloom. I'll post a photo tomorrow if I get a chance. :)

Bluebonnets, Paintbrush, and Primrose, Oh My!

2011-03-27T16:26:00.013-05:00

The bluebonnets are in full bloom in the garden this weekend. The show is not as spectacular as last year's but I have more prairie paintbrush blooming along with them this year, which makes for a nice show:

Bluebonnets, yellow and orange Paintbrush:

Orange Paintbrush:

The Primrose are also looking quite spectacular today:

And new this year are poppy anemone Mr. Fokker. I am completely in love with these and I want more of them! They look like Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors before they open:

Upon opening, they are so velvety-soft looking:

Also new this year White Cemetary Iris:

The Eve's Necklace tree is humming with giant bumblebees that are apparently heavy enough to open up the strings of dangling flowers to get at the nectar upon landing on them. As a side note, this tree also creates perfect dappled shade to hang the fuschia under:

Closer:

The Crossvine is also in full bloom and humming with honey bees as opposed to the giant bumblebees:

Closer:

These double daffodils are blooming. I'm not sure what they are called, but they sure are pretty:

Under the Texas red oak that is puking pollen everywhere...

grow the Narcissus 'Thalia'. These have been wonderful for me coming back year after year surviving through baking heat and drought and our as of late unusual arctic winters:

Speaking of our unusually cold winter this year, I thought I had lost my Texas Mt. Sage, but I spotting leaves popping out of it just yesterday. Woo!:

Now excuse me while I go plant some new flowers in the garden and string up the Scarlet Runner beans. It's Spring in Central Texas and the garden calls!

First Hummingbird of 2011

2011-03-27T16:16:00.005-05:00

I spotted the first hummingbirds of 2011 yesterday. Well, technically the first spring hummers. We had a wintering rufous that was wintering in the garden until the 3rd week of January at which time he took back off for the west coast.

The returning hummers are a little later in arriving this year. Usually I see the first hummers around the first or second week of March. Yesterday was the 26th. I'm positive one was a ruby-throated hummingbird and the other was a black-chinned hummingbird. It's interesting that I first saw them both yesterday, but that's how it was.

I snapped a photo of the black-chinned hummer this morning. Here he is working his way around the newly-blooming orchid tree:

Red Passion Vine

2011-03-23T17:36:00.003-05:00

I have been on the lookout for a red passion flower vine for a while now. Today I stopped by Lowes garden center just to see if they had anything new and interesting in stock. And in the very back buried amongst a collection of all various types of vines was the red passion vine I have been looking for! A Lady Margaret Passion Flower vine. Yay! Here it is:

I'm so excited! :)

Why can't I just 'browse'?

2011-03-17T21:39:00.010-05:00

I live just down the road from Hill Country Water gardens and last week I stopped in to just 'look around'. Why do I do that? I know I can't leave without something. Or...a gagillion somethings. That place is dangerous! It's even worse now that they have a ton of nursery stock, too. I tried. I really did. But alas, I couldn't walk away and I left with several purchases. Here are a just couple of the nifty plants I brought home:

Fan flowers! I LOVE these! They do great as long as you water them every day (sometimes twice a day) in the sultry summer heat (mine are right next to my porch to make watering easy):

And bi-color gazania. I saw these with their silvery foliage and they called out to me - 'buy me!, buy me!' - and so it was:

After leaving the Pond place, I stopped by Lowes to 'just pick up some potting soil, I swear that is all I need there'. Wrong. It's not my fault, though! They had nifty clearance stuff! And Fuschia! God help me, they had fushia!

Every year I simply HAVE to have a fuschia. They never grow into the ginormous gorgeous fuschias we had up in the Northwest in the summer, but I still have to have one. Even if they succumb to our hot humid summers by the end of June. I'm just torturing myself, I know. I just. Can't. Help myself. Fuschia:

And I got this Dwarf Puffball plant on clearance. I'm putting it in a pot and keeping it trimmed up to to keep it small. I've seen some amazing bonsai Puffball shrubs out there, so I figure it shouldn't be too difficult to keep it a manageable size:

And then I was perusing the Yucca Do Nursery site (see where this is going? I need help.) and found some neat cactus...which I ordered because I have no self control.

I then had to go to HEB to get some pots for them once they arrived in the mail and wouldn't ya know it? HEB was having a sale and I got 2 succulents for FREE! And, AND Yucca do sent me a free plant with my order (I love that about Yucca-do. They often throw in free stuff.) So 3 free plants! Yay!

Here they all are all potted up, two of the cacti will get white flowers and one red ones:

And then (yes, there's more), I found this keen nursery online - Brushwood Nursery - that sells all types of vines and they had the Clematis I have been looking for at a reasonable price. A 'Duchess of Albany' Clematis. Well, I had to order it. And when it arrived today, it was very lovingly packaged and arrived 2 days after they shipped it! The vine is in wonderful condition! Just look:

I will definitely order from these guys again!

Now I just need my bulbs to arrive from the various places I ordered them from and all will be right with the world. Well, until the next time I go 'browsing' in a plant nursery or online that is. *smile*

Bloom Day March 15, 2011

2011-03-14T22:12:00.019-05:00

It's Spring! A-woo-hoo!! I missed bloom day last month due to lack of bloomage. Everything was frozen! But it is warm now and the plants are making up time quickly and blooming on schedule for March bloom day.

Here we go!

Lotsa Species tulips:

Yellow and red ones (Tulip Clusiana Cynthia)-

These truly do naturalize down here. Every year I have more:

So very buttery yellow inside:

White and pink ones with a glorious deep magenta center (T. Clusiana):

Lavendar and yellow ones (Tulipa saxatilis):

New this year Anemone Blanda:

Closer:

Many of the narcissus are finishing up blooming like Narcissus - Flore Pleno (I took this pic about a week ago):

But these guys are still going strong (Avalanche):

Sadly, one set of jonquils that I had planted - Narcissus - Sweetness - didn't come back but just for some sparse and fried looking leaves. It either got too hot last summer or way too cold this winter for it (maybe they started to come up then were frozen) or maybe a little of both. Anyway, those guys are toast. I'll have to re-plant that section this fall with another variety.

I have a few crocus in the garden - they never put on the kind of show for me they did back up in the Northwest (oh my, what a spring show!), but I do always have a few pop up here and there. These are Tommies:

Grape Hyacinth. I planted a TON of these by the garden path because I found a pack of 50 for 5 bucks at Lowes last fall and as I was walking along the path yesterday I smelled the most beautiful fragrance and looking around for a while, I finally realized it was eminating from these little guys! Wonderful!:

Freesia Laxa are also along the garden path. So tiny, but so pretty! They froze back in the deep freeze last month, but are making a comeback:

Oh, and my poor TX Mountaim Laurel. All the blooms froze off the front side of the shrub. I went out to look for blooms the other day and to my horror I noticed what looked to be grey bloom spikes scattered all about under the shrub. Sure enough, upon closer inspection, all the blooms were gone from the front of the shrub. Luckily, some blooms did survive being sheltered from the icy winds on the interior of the bush and along the back side very near the fence. So there will be some blooms, but only a precious few. No overpowering grape soda fragrance event in my garden this year.

The back side:

The few surviving blooms:

The flowering quince could care less how cold is was it seems. It is blooming crazy!:

A violet volunteer that finally bloomed! I think it must be the sun. This one seeded itself far enough into the sun that it actually produced a normal flower. The volunteer violets all initially seeded themselves in deep shade in my garden and all they ever produced before were cleistogomous flowers that pollinated themselves. But finally! An actual flower with petals:

And finally, the redbud is blooming:

Happy Bloom day everyone!

Damage Assessment

2011-02-05T13:52:00.010-06:00

It finally warmed up into the 50's today and I went out and unzipped the Greenhouse fearing the worst. The temps had been in the teens the past several days and the coldest day was not only plagued by bone chilling wind chills of at or below zero, but rolling blackouts. My little greenhouse is warmed by a heat lamp and when the power goes out, there is no heat. The rolling blackout occurred every couple hours lasting 30 minutes a piece on average. I was sure I had lost some of my plants.

I unzipped the greenhouse and what did I see? Green things! Not brown! The plants had survived:

The key lime, the palm, and the hibiscus all suffered a little frost damage to the tips. I just cut those parts off. The hibiscus did lose a few more leaves than the others, but otherwise it made it through OK.

The petunias, dianthus, and cyclamen look wonderful! Not a yellow, brown, or mushy leaf to be found.

The geraniums were closest to the edge of the greenhouse and the side of the pots that faced the edge were fried pretty good and mushy. These were pretty scraggly before the freeze anyway as I had them hanging outside most of the winter, so I just cut them back and they will make a full recovery come warm weather. The bougainvillea looks the worst. They lost almost all their leaves and blooms, but the wood is still green inside, so these will recover. I stored them in the garage last year with the same results. I was hoping the greenhouse would keep them leafy - which it did until we had Arctic wind chills of zero and rolling blackouts (ERCOT is SO not on my friend list this year):

I'm not sure what the temps dropped to in the greenhouse but it must have been very near or at freezing for a short amount of time (likely when the power kept going out). I think next year I will put 2 heat lamps in there instead of one so I can have extra heat if the temps dip into the teens for a long period of time. It's my first year with the pop-up greenhouse and overall, I am quite pleased. It's not the greenhouse's fault that the power kept going out on the very coldest day of the year. (I'm looking at you ERCOT).

Out in the yard, the agaves show cold damage. This is the first time I have witnessed this level of frost damage on the agaves:

The bulbine is complete mush and I'm sure I will have to replace it. I had to replace these after last year's week of record cold as well as they did not recover:

The globemallow carried through the cold with no problem at all! I thought for sure I would lose it. I didn't realize they were quite so hardy. This was a new planting of mine from last spring. I am really excited it survived so easily:

The windmill palm also shrugged off the freezing temps and wind chills. I picked it because I knew they were one of the most cold hardy palms out there and I wanted it to stay green all winter unlike all the neighbors' texas sabal palms that always seem to have brown fried palm fronds during the winter. I admit I was getting a little bit worried about my windmill palm when the wind chills were so cold as the fronds turned a blue-ish color, but once it warmed up, the fronds returned to their normal green and it is looking no worse for the wear:

In the entryway my philodendrons are looking awful. The one closest inside the entry will be fine and still has some green leaves, but the one on the outside looks really bad. This is the same result I had last year during our week long January deep-freeze and the philodendrons did recover, so I'm really not too worried about these guys. They will bounce back once it gets warm again:

Other items of note:

The abutilon in the entryway also lost all it's leaves - this is the first time I have ever had that happen. I really hope it will come back.

The Sagos are still covered - it is supposed to freeze down into the mid-lower 20's again later this week, so I am electing to just leave them covered. I did peek under their cover though, and they look to be green, so I think they will pull through.

I also have not removed the cover from the new senna I bought last year. I will wait another week to remove it to protect against the cold nights to come.

Isn't it about time for Spring? I've about had it with this Winter's crazy weather.

The week Austin turned into the Arctic

2011-02-04T09:15:00.014-06:00

My garden has been in a deep freeze all week. Temperatures have consistently been in the low-mid teens overnight, with much lower windchills when the wind kicks up - at or below zero in some cases. The days have struggled to make it into the upper twenties. The upper twenties!!! That should so not be a high temperature at the 30th latitude! I haven't been in weather this chilly since I went skiing in the mountains up north.

This morning we woke up to snow and ice on the ground. Today is supposed to make it up above freezing - 35 degrees they say. Well, that is positively balmy, now isn't it? Let me throw on my shorts and flip flops and venture outside for some garden photos this fine summery morning:

Snow:

The fountain this morning:

I have had to carry buckets of warm water out to the fountain every few hours to keep it from turning into one huge ice block. The other day when the wind chills were at or near zero and we were having rolling blackouts (don't ask - let me just say there was some very poor planning by ERCOT, our unreliable Electric Reliability Council of Texas), the very second the water stopped moving, the fountain would begin to ice over. I could actually watch, in real time, the ice building over the fountain. Here is what I have been waking up to the past couple of days:

I have to break off the ice every morning and add more warm water. The birds love that I keep the fountain going. They have been all over it the last couple of days:

Those birds better watch out though, I see tracks from their fearsome winter predator Felis catus in the immediate area:

Out in the front garden the agaves look particularly beautiful covered in the snow:

Although it has been wintery this week and snow and ice bankets the ground right now, I do spy some species tulips poking up signaling Spring shouldn't be too far away:

So much for the warmer than normal winter.

2011-02-01T21:42:00.006-06:00

2 Days ago it was 80 degrees, yesterday it was 76, today the high at my house was 28. When I went to bed at 11:00pm last night it was 67 degrees and I found myself putting my plants into the greenhouse and turning on the heat lamp preparing for the impending deep freeze. It seemed wrong somehow. Turning on the heat lamp when it was 67 degrees out.

And then it happened. At 3:00am. I awoke to what sounded like large animals trampling my roof and the wind howling. The wind was absolutely tearing through my yard. I admit I was concerned. The wind had to be blowing at least 50 mph. At least. The rain was pounding. And that sound of animals on my roof? That was the sound of the shingles being systematically ripped from the north side of the roof. But what was I most worried about? My pop-up greenhouse!! I thought for sure the wind was gonna tear that thing up and fling it far, far way leaving my plants in shambles and bits.

I fell back to sleep and I dreamt of my greenhouse blown away, all the plants all torn and crushed. When I awoke, I immediately ran to the window and peered outside. What did I see? Shingles everywhere and my greenhouse completely and totally UNHARMED!! There it stood, plants snug and safe inside. I simply could not believe it. When I was reading reviews about my pop-up greenhouse before I made my purchase, there were reports that this greenhouse had made it through 70+ mph winds with no damage. I took these stories with a grain of salt, tall tales, I said to myself. However, it did make me feel more confident about my purchase.

Last night, the little pop-up greenhouse was put to the test. It was staked down with at least 10 stakes pounded flush into the caliche and clay ground a good 7 inches deep (that was a chore, mind you). And it was roped down at all corners as well. And it stayed put. When the shingles flew away, the greenhouse stood fast. Through 70 mph winds I came to find out from the national weather service. 70 mph winds. UN-believable!

Tonight the little greenhouse has become a little igloo for my plants. The inside walls were dripping with moisture from the heat and humidity and as the sun went down a slight icy crust has formed around the edges where the freezing winds beat down, the icy layer keeping the heat in and the winds out. Will my plants survive in there? I'll find out once the deep-freeze is over, but for now the heat lamp blazes on giving the greenhouse a warm toasty-red glow.

I am also worried about my sagos. Luckily, they are on the south side of the house and are spared the biting North winds. I wrapped them up good with an old car cover. They made it through last year's week of below freezing temps and snow, hopefully they will make it through again. They are planted snug up against the south side of the house, so as long as they are covered, I think they will make it. Other plants in the yard? Those will have to fend for themselves. I'm sure I will lose some. I mean, the wind chills are supposed to be less than zero. LESS THAN ZERO. In Austin. Central Texas. Holy cow. I take back that statement I made about it being more zone 9-ish here. It's zone 8 all the way.

Bloom Day - January 15th....a day late

2011-01-16T22:18:00.009-06:00

I'm a day late for bloom day. It was raining. It's January. The blooming plants were in the greenhouse. That's my excuse.

We had our first real winter weather last week as the temps dipped into the mid-twenties at night and were in the upper-thirties during the day.

It was cold enough to ice up the fountain a bit:

But not cold enough to scare away the wintering hummer. He is still sticking around enjoying the fresh hummingbird nectar I set out in the feeder:

It was cold enough to have to bring all the potted plants, including the paperwhites, into the greenhouse. I just brought them back out today now that it has warmed up a bit along with a few other hanging flowering pots. So this is what I have for bloom day this January:

Paperwhites and cyclamen and pansies:

Closer:

The faces on pansies always make me smile:

Pink Geranium:

Dragon Wing Begonia:

And Meyer Lemon:

And that's all I've got this month. Happy bloom day everyone!

Sipping Tea and Watching the Hummingbird

2011-01-01T12:53:00.008-06:00

I sit at my table this fine first day of 2011 sipping my flowering tea and watching the hummer. He is busy this morning chasing the other birds away from the yard. The Rufous is a feisty little thing. Here he is on take-off:

The butterflies are also out and about this morning. Here is one on the Aralia blossom:

After we had a few hard freezes last week the flowers are few and far between (other than the lemon and aralia blossoms and the plants in pots that travel in and out of the greenhouse) so I have the hummingbird feeder filled up with fresh nectar. And since there are no blooms to post, this flowering tea blossom will have to suffice:

The tea is bound and tied together in a small bundle or ball and when hot water is poured over the top, it blooms. Very fancy!:

Happy New Year everyone!

Rufous Hummer

2010-12-24T12:14:00.004-06:00

I got him! I finally got a photo of our resident winter hummingbird. He is quite skittish and whenever I go outside he flies away or hides behind the orchid tree where I cannot get his photo, so this is a thru-the-window shot at maximum zoom, but here he is:

Wintering Hummingbird!

2010-12-23T12:11:00.003-06:00

We have a wintering hummingbird in the garden again this year! The hubby had mentioned he had seen a hummingbird around the last several weeks and so I put out fresh nectar in the hummingbird feeders. Today I finally caught a glimpse of him. It is, as I suspected, a Rufous hummingbird. I tried to get a photo, but he flew away. I'll keep trying to capture a photo and post it up if I get one.

Last time we had a wintering hummingbird in my garden was in 2008. If I recall correctly, that was a warmer than normal Winter as well:

http://thesuniskillingme.blogspot.com/2008/01/hummingbirds-in-winter.html

Bloom Day - December 15, 2010

2010-12-15T09:14:00.012-06:00

December bloom day. Happy Holidays to everyone! Garden holiday decorations, Texas-style:

As opposed to the rest of the country, it has been fairly warm so far this year (thanks to La Niña) and we have only had a few light freezes in my garden despite the dire warnings of hard freezes. As a result, I do have some blooms. They are a bit scraggly due to the frosts, but blooming.

Turks cap:

Rain Lily (I watered the other day as it is pretty darn dry and crispy out there):

Pink Skullcap:

Rock Penstemon:

Yellow Flax:

Autumn Crocus. (As I am viewing these crocus on my blog here, with the flax above, it occurs to me these would look wonderful planted next to each other. I am making a note of that for next year.):

Meyer Lemon blossoms (My goodness, these smell wonderful right now!!):

Japanese Aralia blossom:

And finally the christmas cactus is finishing up blooming:

Happy bloom day everyone!

I'm Covering the Sagos.

2010-11-26T21:26:00.003-06:00

I decided at the last minute to cover the sago palms tonight. It only takes me less than 5 minutes to throw a cover over them and I just don't want to take a chance that it might get a little too cold for them. They seem to do fine down to around 25 degrees, but anything less and they start to lose fronds. I would just feel terrible if I didn't take the few minutes to cover them and they froze. It looks like there is a fair chance it will dip into the low 20's tonight:

A Thanksgiving First Freeze?

2010-11-25T15:43:00.012-06:00

Will it freeze for the first time in Austin tonight? It might. There is a cold north wind blowing right now. It was warm and humid this morning, but it is cold and windy outside this afternoon!

If it freezes, it is gonna ruin the redbud's early blooming plan. Silly tree is confused!:

An indictator in my garden that it will likely freeze in the next couple of days, the aloe vera is blooming:

Every year the aloe sends up bloom stalks just to have them freeze just before they bloom:

Looks like it is gonna happen again. My other frost tender plants need not fret this year, because I got them a toasty little home. A pop-up greenhouse:

I put a heat lamp in there to keep it above freezing and I cracked one of the windows to let some of the humidity out. I'm not losing my potted palm this year!

Another plus, is that the greenhouse helps to shelter the new flowering senna that is planted in the corner to the right of it (Ignore the sandbox. I moved it since the greenhouse is occupying its usual spot right now):

I lost my big beautiful senna last year during the hard winter we had:

It was a bit heartbreaking, but I take it in stride. It's all part of gardening; sometimes things die. Here are its remains:

The corner of the garden looks empty without it, but they grow fairly quickly, so hopefully next year I will have a beautiful senna to fill the corner once again.

Bulbs, bulbs, and more bulbs.

2010-11-21T11:42:00.012-06:00

The flower bed around the water feature in the backyard lacks interest in winter/early spring except for the The Byzantine glads and couple species tulips planted in it. I, therefore, decided it needed a slight makeover....

I dug the Byzantine glads and small grouping of species tulips that had been multiplying and split them.

Here they are all mixed up. The big ones are the glads, the small ones are the tulips:

Replanting the byzantine glad bulbs:

Replanting the species tulip bulbs:

I also ordered a ton more species tulips - Clusiana Cynthia and Humulis Red Cup, along with a bunch of Blue anemone blanda. I wanted to make a river of anemone around the tulips. This looks really keen in my mind's eye. We shall see what it really looks like come spring. :)

The excavated flower bed:

Speaking of bulbs, the Autumn crocus are popping up right now:

The paperwhites are coming up:

And the Grape Hyacinths are also poking up. I just bought these and planted them 2 weeks ago. They are not the super-tough Southern grape hyacinth, but the regular kind. They were only 5 bucks for like 25 of them from the big box store, so I figure if they don't come back next year, I can just replace them. *shrugs*:

Bloom Day - November 15, 2010

2010-11-15T22:35:00.011-06:00

Finally cool weather has arrived! It was in the low 60's yesterday and it was wonderful! And it is beginning to look like Autumn outside. Well, what passes for Autumn in Central Texas, that is. The leaves are starting to turn colors, and the flowers are finishing up.

Chocolate flower is still blooming:

Blue Mistflower, too:

The shrimp plant is still blooming, although it's leaves are starting to yellow a bit:

There are a few Costa Rican Peppers to harvest yet:

The Golden Leadball tree is still full of yellow powder-puffs:

There are a few Moon flowers hanging on, having crept their way into the Chili Pequins:

The Eve's Necklacepod tree is living up to it's name:

And the Weeping Yaupon Holly is turning colors. Soon it's red berries will be gone, stripped clean by the denizens of my garden:

And Finally, some Copper Canyon daisy. They look kinda thin this year, as it has been a very dry Fall season:

Last Hurrah

2010-11-01T08:33:00.015-05:00

The flowers in my garden are starting to peter out. And since I missed last bloom day because I was sick, I wanted to post what is blooming right now before they are all gone.

Morning glory and turks cap:

Chili Pequin and cuphea:

Sternbergia Lutea (yellow autumn crocus):

Passionflower:

Rainbow and batface cuphea:

The Firecracker Vine(Spanish Flag vine)is absolutely stunning right now:

Closer:

Too bad all the hummers are gone for the season, they would have LOVED the firecracker vine. The last hummer left my garden about 2 weeks ago (right on schedule!):

Gulf muhly, mexican mint marigold, russian sage:

Moonflower:

Butterfly on Milkweed:

The Lesser Goldfinches have been hanging around eating sunflower seeds:

And here is a pic taken last month, I never got it posted, but it was so pretty I am gonna go ahead and post it up now :)

Butterfly on Pride of Barbados:

Moonflower

2010-09-17T21:25:00.007-05:00

This is the first year I have had a moonflower vine, and let me tell you it will not be the last! Love, love, love this flowering vine.

The moonflower has a thick, heady scent. Boy is it strong!

This one is planted in a pot along my back porch. The flowers are just beautiful against the dark night sky.

The flower is over 6 inches wide!

More moonflowers opening for the evening:

Hermine.

2010-09-08T21:31:00.011-05:00

So Hermine. Yeah. 12+ inches of rain. I thought this one would fall apart before it hit Austin. No such luck. This thing was still a tropical storm when it arrived in central Texas.

The storm didn't seem like it was going to be that bad - it rained all day as it crept closer and closer. The rain was steady. Occasionally there would be a good downpour or two. The eye was still intact as it passed just to the West of us moving North. And then...it happened. The sky opened up and the faucets came on. Full Blast. Like a big ol' vacuum cleaner, Hermine sucked bands of tropical moisture from the gulf and spit it back out behind itself as it moved along. Dumping rain. Buckets and buckets and buckets and buckets(really not enough buckets here). Completely drenching us for hours and hours after it passed. When it was all over, we had 12-13 inches come down at our place.

See that red blot there? My house is right in the midst of that hot mess.

Central Texas. Gardening. They DO NOT go together like peas and carrots. Oil and water, maybe. Not peas and carrots. Let's just lay this all out shall we? A couple years back, a deluge all summer, worthy of Noah himself, that brought rain that drowned half my garden followed by a tree-cracking drought for 18 months topped off with 60+ days of 100+ degree temps last summer. Then a brief reprieve with a short lived El Nino resulting in an extra-cold winter that freezes half my plants. I replant in the early Spring - then La Nina - no rain as Spring kicks off, then 100 degree temps for 30 days in the Summer, what plants I have left...die. Then. A Tropical Storm. With a foot of rain. Just for shits and giggles. 'Cause ya know, the Powers That Be apparently have a sick sense of humor. And they thought - won't that be fun?!? We haven't had one of THOSE around here in a while! Well, how 'bout a friggin' tornado next huh? Yeah! That's all I'm missing. A tornado. Bring it on! Tear my dead plants from the ground from their roots and spin them away. A clean slate might be better anyway *throws up arms in frustration*.

My garden looks like crap. Dried up, dead, and drowned. Gardening in Central Texas. What was I effing thinking? I clearly enjoy beating my head into a wall repetitively. *sigh* I guess I better start planning my garden re-build.....

Ah well. At least I have some floppy cuphea and sunflowers to show for it all:

And a bunch of Oxbloods and Rainlilies. At least THEY like to be drenched and don't mind hiding as bulbs under the ground all summer in the cracked and dry earth:

And lookie here...a bluebonnet seedling. Nature is resilient. Life goes on.

Bloom Day - August 15th - a day late...

2010-08-16T19:37:00.008-05:00

OK, so I'm a day late. It's Summer. It was the weekend. I was out playing. It happens.

Even though it is hot, I still have blooms. Here we go:

The blue mistflower is attracting the usual addicts:

Bat faced Cuphea:

Grandpa Otts Morning Glory:

And I am super excited about this one. I tried for 2 years to get these started from seed and last year's fall deluge finally did the trick. Awesome. Eryngium leavenworthii:

The Evening Garden

2010-08-13T22:27:00.007-05:00

As the sun goes down the evening flowers begin to open and the garden becomes drenched in their overpowering fragrance:

Moonflower:

Datura (this one was closing up after the sun came up, but I was still able to get a photo):

Mexican Tuberose. Their scent is strong during the day, but at night it is simply intoxicating:

Absynnian Glad. This one has a Datura-like smell, in my opinion, and the scent is very strong as night falls. Like the Tuberose, I can smell this one from the other side of the yard (40-50 feet away):

Melons!

2010-08-11T09:29:00.007-05:00

Man! has it been hot lately. One hundred degrees+ every day. At least the melons are loving the heat....

Cantaloupe 'Northern Arizona' (the milk jug is for size comparison):

Watermelon "Moon and Stars":

Painted Bunting!

2010-07-27T19:18:00.005-05:00

OMG! I just saw a Painted Bunting at the fountain in my back yard!! But he flew away before I could get a picture. Darnit! I'll be sure to keep my eye out for this guy from now on, maybe I can get his photo...

Bloom Day - July 15, 2010

2010-07-16T13:05:00.013-05:00

I'm a day late for bloom day. Meh, it happens. Here we go:

Bessaria Elegens has bell-shaped flowers and reminds me of a spring-blooming bulb, but it blooms in the summer(this bulb is native to Texas and Mexico):

Pride of Barbados is always outstanding in July:

Abssynian Gladiola. And WOW does it ever have a strong scent in the evening!:

Tropical Milkweed. Queen and Monarch butterflies are always having parties on these:

Chocolate Flower. It really does smell like chocolate! I love to go outside in the morning as the scent is the strongest then:

Brazilian Petunia. This one is NOT invasive like the purple ones, but I find it does not over winter as well for me:

Gladiola 'Atomic' is just finishing up blooming:

Mexican Oregano and Texas bluebells:

Desert Willow bloom with Texas Sage in the background:

And some white rain lilies:

Calendar Spike and the Zombie Cardinal

2010-06-30T13:37:00.005-05:00

Why are the windows in my house now tiled with Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you might ask? Specifically, photos of Spike from various months of the year-gone-past-calendar 2005 (please don't ask why I still have said calendar in my possession):

The answer is simple. Zombie Cardinal.:

How do I know this cardinal is a zombie? There is simply no other explanation for a bird that repetitively throws himself into every window in the house, and occasionally the chimney, for over a month without incurring some sort of physical damage. Any normal living creature would clearly be bloodied and beaten to a pulp by now. Not Zombie Cardinal. Oh no. He can bash himself senseless into windows all the while attempting to peck through said windows, however futile his efforts, for hours on end. From sun-up to sun-down, until those diurnal rod-less eyes of his can no longer see in the dark, he attempts to beat his way through the panes. His objective? Isn't it obvious? He needs to eat my brains by way of pecking out my eye balls right on through the sockets in order to fuel his endless defense of his territory.

I was at a loss. Darn Zombie Cardinal was waking me up at the crack of dawn every single morning. Without fail. Soon, the activity increased until last week it peaked; he was pecking and throwing himself constantly into the windows and anything else shiny on the house that apparently caused a reflection of himself. Every. Two. Minutes. 24 hours a day. INSANE. This bird was crazy!!

I shared this story with some friends, and one of them - bless her heart! - sent me a link to a similar story in Normandy, France: The Birds

The guy put up photos of hijackers in the widows to scare of the birds - and it worked! This does make sense, I thought to myself. I mean, I tried to take a photo of Zombie Cardinal, but every time I approached the window too closely, he flew off, only to return a few minutes later and begin the pecking/bashing with fervour once again. I looked around the house for any life-size-ish head shots and what did I find? Calendar Spike! Up he went. And just like magic, Zombie Cardinal disappeared. I still see him flying about the yard, but he no longer throws himself headlong into the windows. Luckily, I have no neighborhood association, so Calendar Spike stays until Zombie Cardinal is done nesting for the season.

2 Inches of Rain!

2010-06-29T15:38:00.004-05:00

Just when I thought my garden was about to go all crispy on me (3rd summer in a row - sigh), it rains! The Garden received 2 inches of rain yesterday. We were lucky. Usually the rain builds above us, then proceeds to float off East and dump rain over thataway. This time, however, the storm built directly overhead and got stuck and it rained cats and dogs! Swoot!

The cantaloupes are swelling up:

I am anticipating extra-large, super-sweet, juicy orbs of deliciousness. Eat your heart out, Freud.

Bloom Day - June 15th, 2010

2010-06-15T20:53:00.014-05:00

Lots of nifty flowers in my garden this month! It's a good thing too, since I missed bloom day last month and I feel I need to make up for it and all. Here's what's blooming:

Bat-faced cuphea:

Aztec lilies:

Bishop of Landaff dahlia (yay! a Dahlia for the South!):

Datura:

Ground Orchid:

closer:

Pink Rain lilies:

Coneflowers:

Texas Bluebells:

Rock Penstemon(Penstemon baccharifolius):

and again:

Scarlet Runner beans:

Hummingbird-attracting flowers:

Wine cups (if I keep them watered, they keep blooming):

Giant Mutant Bluebonnet

2010-04-29T19:11:00.005-05:00

And when I say Giant Mutant Bluebonnet, I really mean Freakishly Super-Ginormous, Clearly-Mutated-By-Some-Form-Of-Nuclear-Radiation bluebonnet. This is the biggest bluebonnet I have ever seen! Just look at the normal-size bluebonnets next to the big ones and you get an idea how large these flowers really are:

This photo was taken in Burnet County. A friend sent me the pic - these mutant lupine were growing on the street her mother lives on. Have you ever seen anything like this? The ginormous bluebonnets look more like giant bottlebrushes. So Cool!!

Aztec Lily

2010-04-23T08:18:00.003-05:00

Aztec Lily - Sprekelia formosissima

I just planted these bulbs last week and this one is already blooming.

I believe this one speaks for itself. Outstanding!

Bloom Day - April 15th, 2010

2010-04-15T08:28:00.012-05:00

It is a big bluebonnet year this year, so I will start out bloom day with some of this lupine:

More blubonnets mixed with other pretties:

Blue flax:

Jerusalem Sage:

Red corn poppy. (This photo is awful as the wind was blowing and it was the best I could do):

Prairie Verbena:

Yellow Primrose:

Pink primrose (I had none of these last year due to the drought, but this year the garden is covered in them):

Damianita:

Four nerve daisy and some yellow flax:

Some late Narcissus:

Texas yellow star:

Pomegranate:

Eves Necklace:

Byzantine glads:

Orchis tree bloom:

Yellow Columbine and Cedar Sage:

Chocolate Flower:

And Freesia Laxa:

Happy Bloom day!

Northern Bobwhite

2010-04-11T21:30:00.003-05:00

As I was going about my gardening today, I heard a rustling and looked to my right to find a Bobwhite busy foraging about in the garden! Neat! Apparently, these guys are considered a Near-Threatened species as they have been shown to be in significant decline in most areas.

As I recall, quail and grouse are kinda dumb birds - they let you get real close-like before they take off. This guy fit that stereotype, and he didn't seem to mind me taking his photo:

Eventually, he had enough harrassment and jumped up on the fence to get away:

The Trumpet-Shaped Ones

2010-04-11T20:43:00.011-05:00

The trumpet shaped flowers are dominating the garden right now. Here is a look at the entry-way simply drenched in trumpet shaped bloomage:

The Yellow columbines are simply ginormous this year and the pathway smalls heavily of their scent:

Closer:

With some coral honeysuckle:

Coral Honeysuckle:

Crossvine and coral honeysuckle:

The crossvine is stunning this year:

Closer:

There are more trumpet-shaped ones inside the garden gate. Here are the Snapdragon vines looking fabulous in all their hot-pinky-ness:

And Hill Country Penstemon (Penstemon Triflorus) also looking fab in their own shade of deep-pink:

More Spring Rains Bring Bluebonnets

2010-03-25T21:00:00.004-05:00

The moderate-to-strong El Niño continues as last night another Spring thunderstorm rolled though dumping a bunch of rain. It is SO nice to have rain this year after a few years of awful drought, which as a result, produced very few and very small bluebonnets the past couple of years. Oh!, but this year there are bluebonnets! Big bluebonnets!

Species Tulips, etc.

2010-03-23T21:41:00.016-05:00

Ever since moving down South from up North, I have mourned the loss of Tulips. But then I discovered Species Tulips! These are so much prettier than those big hybrids and they grow AND naturalize in the South. Outstanding!

I picked up these red and yellow ones last year at a local nursery. I'm not sure what kind they are exactly, but last year I had three and this year I have 6! Yay!:

Open:

OK, so Pam from Digging says these are Tulipa clusiana 'Cynthia'. Thanks for the ID, Pam! Here are some more photos of these open. You can see how they are all yellow inside:

New this year Tulip clusiana. I am completely head-over-heels in love with this one and will need to acquire more for next year:

Also new this year Tulip Saxatalis. I am going to get some yellow primrose to plant around this one (Actually, I am going to try and rescue some native yellow primrose from just down the road. They are widening the road and about to plow over a bunch of wildflowers. We'll see if I get there in time to save them from the bulldozers.):

Here are some naturalizing narcissus 'Thalia'. They have quite doubled since last spring:

And look at the redbud blooming. So pretty against the blue spring sky:

The Mt. Laurel is also beginning to bloom. Soon my garden will smell like grape soda:

Spring Flowers

2010-03-19T21:13:00.003-05:00

More spring flowers are blooming in the garden now, including the bluebonnets.

Bluebonnets:

Hoop Petticoats. I have had these 2 years and they only first bloomed for me this year:

The Scarlet Quince continues to bloom:

Tulip Clusiana:

Tulipa Saxatalis:

Cedar Waxwing Invasion

2010-03-18T14:25:00.008-05:00

My garden was invaded by a flock of Cedar Waxwings this morning. I heard a bunch of high pitched meep-meeping and looked out the window to see them all grouped atop the orchid tree. They came to gorge on the berries that were left on the various holly bushes in the garden.

These guys are so stylish looking I think; always appearing as if they are all dolled up to go to a masquerade with their slick looking feathers and neatly outlined-in-white, black masks:

Grouped in the orchid tree:

Wider shot:

First Hummingbird of 2010 Season

2010-03-16T19:30:00.003-05:00

Just a note that I spotted the first hummingbird of the 2010 season in my garden today - a black-chinned hummingbird.

Here's a pic. He kept flying away when I opened the door, so this is a through-the-window shot:

Bloom Day - March 15th 2010

2010-03-15T13:15:00.012-05:00

It's been a cold winter this year and my flowers are just now beginning to pop out. I've got a plethora of narcisus right now. Check them out:

A double. I really love this one:

Hoop petticoats:

Various narcissus:

Some big daffodils. I really don't like these as well as the wee wildflowery ones, but I bought some to try them out just to see how they do. Plus, they remind me of the silly, goofy daffodils in Alice in Wonderland and they make me smile. I do think they would look better in a more formal-like garden instead of my wildflowery-native-type garden:

Leucojum:

A windflower I rescued from the lawn before it was mowed over:

And some cardinals that have been visting my garden. They fly away if I step outside to take a photo, so these are through-the-window snapshots:

Happy bloom day everyone! It's springtime - get outside and plant some seeds! That's where I'm headed...

Snow!

2010-02-23T12:45:00.020-06:00

It started when I awoke this morning around 6:15am - sleet pelting hard against the windows. By 8:00 am it was coming down in ginormous flakes, covering the garden in a quiet, soft, white blanket.

This is a medium size snowflake to give you an idea how large the flakes were! The snow is awfully wet and heavy.

So far there is a tad over 2 inches on the ground and it is still snowing lightly:

Front yard:

Back yard:

Side yard:

Out the side window:

Garden Lamp:

The birds are busy at the feeder today:

Agave:

Closer. I love the way the soft snow is piled up inside the super-spikey agave:

All signs of spring I previously posted about are hiding under the snow now.

Scarlet Quince:

Weeping holly:

Texas Ash tree:

Narcissus:

Glads and Tulips:

More tulips:

Hopefully the snow will protect these blooms from the expected hard freeze tonight:

Muhly Grass:

And look an the old coneflower seedheads. They look like little frozen lollipops:

OK, I'm gonna go roll around in the snow now....because it is FUN!

So we ended up with around 2 1/2" of snow. It snowed all day. I could not believe it. Usually, if we are lucky enough to see snow fall and stick around here, it falls at night and melts by noon. Today it started early in the morning and snowed all day. I have only lived here for around 8 years, but I don't ever remember seeing anything like this. A real snowfall in Central Texas! Awesome. I guess I can finally use that snow-ice cream recipe of mine!

Signs of Spring

2010-02-21T14:12:00.015-06:00

Yesterday it was cloudy and misty, today it is sunny and 72. Spring is on its way, but we have some more hard freezes coming up next week to get through before it arrives. Nevertheless the narcissus, tulips, and hyacinth are beginning to bloom.

Spider web drenched with mist:

Various narcissus and crocus. The crocus are 'Tommies' and are new this year; so it will be interesting to see if they return in future years.:

Southern grape hyacinth. I cannot believe these made it though the scorched, baked, parched hell that was last summer, but here they are!:

New this year Yellow Species Tulips. So pretty!:

I'm sure almost all of these blooms are gonna freeze this next week, but for now they are providing me with an early spring show.

Bloom Day - February 15th, 2010

2010-02-15T21:38:00.008-06:00

So, it has been a pretty chilly winter in Austin this year. Most of my flowers are still sleeping, but I have a few beginning to wake.

Here is the big show (or very nearly the only show, more appropriately) in my garden right now - Texas Quince:

And there are a few narcissus beginning to bloom:

Campanil:

Texas Star:

Old reliable Coral Honeysuckle is just starting to break into bloom signaling that Spring is just around the corner:

And the first crocus is just opening up:

Happy Bloom Day everyone!

Bloom Day - January 15, 2010

2010-01-15T09:20:00.009-06:00

Well, it just warmed up after a record cold freeze here in Austin. The only thing I have blooming in the yard are the Paperwhites and they look a bit frazzled from the deep-freeze:

I do, however, have several things blooming that are in pots that I moved into the garage during the freeze, but are now back outside.

Meyer lemon blossoms:

Abutilon:

Red Geranium:

Pink Geranium:

Red Cyclamen:

Dragon-Wing Begonia:

And an Amaryllis:

Happy Bloom-Day everyone!

The Aftermath

2010-01-13T14:14:00.012-06:00

The weather has finally warmed back up here in Central Texas after record breaking cold and freezing temps that spanned a couple days. I covered my plants I felt were most at risk, hoping to save them from imminent death.

The results:

The Aloe Vera - Alive! I wrapped this one up tight and it survived, it just looks awfully raggedy:

The philodendrons in the entryway - 1 Alive, the other on life support,but alive:

I cut all the mushy parts off; and the one nearest the doorway, that was mostly sheltered by the brick walls, will recover:

The other one was at the outside edge of the entryway and got the brunt of the cold. I thought it was dead, but if you look very, very closely, you will see a green spike poking up from the rootball. I am crossing my fingers it comes back:

The Potted Palm: Verdict not in. It is looking not so good for the potted palm. It was wrapped up tight, but since it was in a pot, I think it still got too cold for it. I will have to wait and see if it recovers or gives up the ghost. Notice the brownish-green color of the fronds. Eeewww:

The Sagos: Alive!! I *almost* didn't cover these as they are right up against the south side of the house. I am sure glad I covered them now! If I hadn't I think they would have lost all of their fronds. I used an old car cover to cover them up. It was just big enough to cover them all:

You can see where the cold got to them on their edges, but they pulled through:

The yellow-stripey Agave (I don't know what kind it was as a neighbor gave it to me. It came from Florida): Deader than a Doornail. This one is toast. Even the pointy center part is mush. I even wrapped this baby up tight. Didn't help. Hopefully it will send up some pups from the roots in the spring:

My my lemon tree also made it through unscathed, but only because I put it in the garage! Sure glad I did! I imagine it would have been dead, otherwise.

I hope some of my other plants survived, like my pomegranates and flowering senna. I won't know for sure until spring arrives.

So, 2 years of the most extreme drought followed by a record breaking freeze. It's a miracle I still have a garden to speak of. I'm about ready to pee my pants in anticipation of what Spring has in store. Probably a record flood of some sort and some tornadoes and giant hail. It is an El-Nino year after all.

The Teens

2010-01-10T16:11:00.007-06:00

So it has been in the teens the past couple of nights and my Paperwhites that did so well in the twenties, don't so much like the teens. They are looking awfully mushy:

And I have been filling the resevoir for the jar fountain with warm water (not too hot, I don't want the jar breaking)in the evening to try and avoid the complete ice-over it got the other evening. It seems to be working:

The Lion Fountain gets warm water in its basin, too. And my poor philodendrons. They have never looked so bad! It appears that the hello-kitty sheets just were not enough to keep them warm. Hopefully they will come back from the root-ball once it warms up (fingers crossed):

At least the birds are keeping warm by filling up on suet:

Finch:

Yellow Warbler of some sort:

The Twenties

2010-01-08T09:37:00.006-06:00

It is really cold here in Central Texas today! It is only in the 20's outside. I don't know for sure how cold it was last night, but it was damn near the teens if I were to hazard a guess. I wrapped up all my plants so they would be snugly warm and brought the meyer lemon and all my hanging pots into the garage. My Jar fountain froze nearly solid. I had to chip a hole through the top with a hammer and chisel. I have never had a problem with it freezing solid like that before. Luckily the water inside the jar wasn't frozen, so it was still running, just under the several-inch thick ice cap on the fountain. I also made sure to fill the bird bath bowl with new warm water after dumping out the block of ice that I found in it this morning.

Not all is frozen in the garden, however. The Paperwhites shrug off the cold and freezing winds and continue to bloom:

The possumhaw berries are looking quite splendid with silver ponyfoot beneath. I will note that this ponyfoot here is on the east side of the house by the brick wall where it doesn't freeze down. The ponyfoot I have in the back on the North side has all frozen back except for the bit directly snuggled up to the wall of the house:

And I have a new bird visiting my garden this week; a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. He's pretty little thing:

He has a pretty red tuft on his head that he can raise up when excited, hence the name 'Ruby-crowned':

Holy Crap! Snow!!

2009-12-24T14:01:00.008-06:00

WTF?!? It's snowing outside! In Austin. On Christmas Eve! It's a Christmas miracle!! OK, so it's light snow and the ground is warm, so it won't stick, but it's snowing! Look (look close - it is really windy outside and the snow is mostly blowing sideways):

As I noted above, the wind is really tearing across the countryside today and it is freaking cold outside. The weather changes so quickly here. Just yesterday it was 73 degrees and the Redbud was thinking about blooming:

And the trees just started to lose their leaves for the winter. Yeah, in December. I know. It's weird. Shouldn't the leaves all be gone from the trees by October? Nope, not in Austin. I still can't get used to it. The leaves fall off at the end of December and start returning at the end of February or the very beginning of March. That is 2 months sans foliage. I mean, why even bother? Sheesh.

I took these photos 2 days ago when the leaves all started falling off the trees. All at once (again, so weird). Today, the wind has blown whatever leaves were left clinging to the branches off and away:

Only the orchid tree is stubbornly holding onto it's leaves today. It will stay semi-evergreen unless we have an ice-storm to freeze off the leaves. It, therefore, makes a great place for the resident birds to hide from the elements. The White-Crowned Sparrows are all huddled up in the orchid tree sheltering themselves from the winter chill:

Stay warm and Merry Christmas, and a Happy Winter Solstice everyone!!

Bloom Day - December 15, 2009

2009-12-15T22:19:00.005-06:00

December bloom day and I have blooms! Whee!

Lavender:

Copper canyon daisy:

Lemon Blossom:

and Yarrow:

That's it folks. Happy December Bloom day!

Caterpillars in the Flax

2009-12-13T21:52:00.005-06:00

There are flax seedlings all over in my front flowerbed and so I went to pull them out the other day and what did I find? Tons of caterpillars hiding in the flax seedlings! I didn't have the heart to weed the seedlings and kill the caterpillars, so I left the flax for the caterpillars to forage in. Here are just a few in the field of flax:

The caterpillars are those of the Variegated Fritillary. They must snuggle up somewhere when it freezes, because they haven't been bothered by the recent freezing mornings. Soon I will have a yard full of beautiful butterflies.

Look at me being all Martha Stewart-y

2009-12-10T07:47:00.004-06:00

First it was Lemon Curd, now Green-Tomato Chutney. And this weekend, I'm making a gingerbread house. I'm feeling very Martha Stewart-y. Here's the Chutney:

I used that Green Tomato Chutney recipe Lancashire Rose posted here. Wow! Is it good! Thanks for sharing Lancashire Rose!

All So Very Anti-climatic...

2009-12-04T21:19:00.006-06:00

All week the local weather stations have been making a big old ta-do about the weather and all this snow we may receive, and, drumroll please.....

This was the monster snow-storm:

No, really, there is snow in the photo. Click on it to enlarge, and look very, very closely. There it is! Snow flurries! Yep - we ended up getting light snow flurries for about an hour and that was it. It was all very anti-climatic.

And I had my Snow Ice-Cream recipe all ready and waiting too.

Snow Ice Cream

Ingredients:

8 cups snow
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Place snow into a large bowl. Pour condensed milk over and add vanilla. Mix to combine. Serve immediately in bowls.

Oh well, No snow ice cream and no snowman for me. Guess I'll go purchase 3 sno-cones and stack them atop each other and pretend it snowed. Sigh.

Preparing for a Hard Freeze

2009-12-04T08:52:00.008-06:00

The first Freeze of the season will be tonight and it is gonna be a hard freeze. 28 degrees they say. That means bring in the hanging plants, wrap the tropicals, and pick any green tomatoes.

I didn't realize I had quite so many hanging baskets. Sheesh. Usually I leave the geraniums and cyclamen outside if it is only around 32, but 28?, yeah they are coming inside. I clearly need to hang some more rods in the garage for them though as most of them are hanging off the ladder!:

The Meyer lemon is wrapped in christmas lights to keep it just a little bit warmer. I also will wrap it in a thick blanket and a big ol' frost cover:

And I brought in any green tomatoes as the freeze will abso-tively kill the plants tonight:

And what to do with the green tomatoes? The bigger ones will be fried up 'cause I LOVE me some fried green tomatoes!! And the rest, well, I think I am going to try making that green tomato chutney that Lancashire Rose posted here. It looks delish!

And I will wrap the Aloe Vera that is planted in the ground. It has been so warm the last couple of years that I was able to plant the aloe right out in the yard. It can't take a freeze at all, so I just wrap it up and usually only the tips will be damaged if there is a hard freeze. Plus, it is kinda sheltered by the fence and the Texas yellow bells that grew around it. The aloe is also about to bloom, so I will probably just pick the bloom stalk and bring it inside and put it in a vase. It will freeze outside, so I might as well just bring it in and see if it blooms.

Same goes for the Mexican Tuberose. They are about to bloom, so I am picking them today and bringing them in to put in a vase. They smell so nice and are so pretty:

Making Lemon Curd

2009-12-03T08:11:00.004-06:00

The Meyer Lemon tree is heavy with lemons and that means it is time for lemon curd! Yum!

Nothing beats homemade lemon curd. The stuff at the store doesn't even compare. Put it on biscuits, scones, toast, or eat it just plain by the spoonful (I dare you to make some and NOT eat it by the spoonful!)

There are many recipes out there for lemon curd, but here's the recipe I use:

Lemon Curd:

6 Egg yolks, lightly beaten
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 lb (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 Tbls grated lemon zest

Strain the egg yolks into a medium, non-reactive saucepan over low heat. Stir in the sugar and lemon juice, and cook, stirring constantly, for about 15 minutes, until mixture thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon. Do not allow mixture to boil (it could cause curdling).

Remove from heat and whisk mixture until slightly cooled. Stir in the butter, a piece at a time, until fully incorporated. Add the zest. While still warm, pour the mixture into hot, sterilized jars, cover tightly, and refrigerate until ready to use.

Makes 1 pint.

You may also freeze it up to a year.

It is SO easy to make and totally worth the time to make your own. There's nothing better. Yum!