Garden Blogger's Bloom Day: April 2016

I've been surprised to see so many of my Salvia blooming this Spring: I don't remember that from prior years? Might be due to our non-Winter Winter, or just my bad memory.

I didn't capture pictures of all of them, just the one that surprised me the most:

Salvia Van Houttei

My Blue Elf Aloe bloomed faithfully as it does every Spring, although my Aloe striata (if that's really what it is) hasn't bloomed since we moved here 2 years ago. Not enough sun?

Blue Elf Aloe

These Aloe striata(?) at the base of the Yucca were magnificent in my old garden. What gives?

My Iris have seemed hesitant this Spring...but Dashing and Polished Manners have popped up everywhere! (I'd swear I bought more variety from Schreiner's??)

Dashing Iris

Polished Manners Iris

My Patio Peach is coming back! Fingers crossed I get little peaches this year (like I did last year) and they survive to be eaten (unlike last year - this time I won't leave the gate open and let the deer eat them).

Peach blooms with Valentine Rose

And I saved the best for last: my Canna Wyoming is blooming!

Canna Wyoming, on a salad bed of Salvia

I'd had them in the front garden, and the *#@$%! deer ate the blooms before I ever got to enjoy them. I moved a few to the back, and even though it's shadier I'd say they're definitely happier. I know I am!

In other exciting news, my passalong Castor Bean has bloomed! I'll need to move it to the new side bed outside the fence so Daisy doesn't eat the seeds, but for now we're both pleased about where it is and what it's doing. (Me and the plant; Daisy doesn't much care.)

Castor Bean bloom!

Happy Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, everyone! Tremendous thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting this every month! I can't wait to see what's blooming for everyone else.

YAY SPRING!!

Operation "No Mo' Grass", Phase I: sod removal and limestone paver path

I've been contemplating (for what seems like forever) removal of the St. Augustine on the left side of the house, and planting lots of drought-tolerant stuff.

The tipping-point was my trip to Phoenix back in February: I was stunned by the beauty of the cacti, agaves, and aloes.

An elegant and sculptural Palo Verde on the grounds of our hotel

The Desert Botanical Garden

Organ Pipe cactus

Octopus cactus (Stenocereus alamosensis)

Argentine Giant cactus (Echinopsis candicans)

Unknown cactus

Aloes and lavender on the hotel grounds

Unknown aloe, with 'Blue Flame' in the background?

Aloes at the Desert Botanical Garden

Blue Glow agave, lining the driveway to the hotel.

Agave 'Blue Glow' collage

I came home to Austin wanting to re-create all of it in my sunniest, hottest spot.

My sticking point has been the drainage situation: you might recall that it's the side of the house where all the water runs from the back yard to the street (see posts here and here). I didn't want to plant a bunch of really cool xeric stuff only to watch it rot.

I mentally debated a dry creek bed leading from the gate to the street, but then someone explained to me that I'd need to pull all the rocks out every 5 years or so, re-trench it sorta-kinda, and put all the rocks back? Um, no.

I finally decided that maybe if I put down big, wide, flat pavers the water could just run over those and I'd never have to worry about sediment build-up on/under them. Not sure if that's sound logic, but it's the logic I went with because it gave me justification for buying big, wide, flat pavers.

I pinned by brains out on Pinterest to get design ideas (what the heck did we DO before that??), emailed my landscaping guy like 30 times with different paver patterns (okay, three times), and then, with my tax refund check in hand (virtually speaking), it was time.

Before:

Getting rid of the stupid floppy hated shrubs

During:

Daisy inspecting their work

After:

My only regret is choosing 1/2 inch granite to fill in between the pavers. It. Goes. Everywhere.

I'm a little nervous that it's too high to really direct the water to the street, but I guess we'll find out!

Phase II: plants!

One Drizzly March Day

I love the way the garden looks when it's overcast or rainy: no harsh shadows, and the colors seem more intense. I took these shots on Wednesday when it thought about raining but never really did (at least not in South Austin):

Valentine roses

Chocolate Mimosa

Patio peach tree

Acanthus mollis 'Hollard's Gold'

My favorite area in the garden (so far)

Yucca rostrata, aloe, iris, catmint, Berggarten sage, pennisetum

Maybe 'Dakota Smoke' iris?

Blue elf aloe,  with the photobombing iris

Happy Spring!

February 2016 Foliage Follow-up

When I was patrolling the back garden beds this weekend I saw some unexpected bright green, so I went over to inspect and this is what I saw:

Carex oshimensis 'Everillo'

How cute are those little fuzzy things?!? Those are my Carex oshimensis 'Everillo' - I ordered 5 from Plant Delights nursery back in July and they had been looking sort of scraggly, so I figured they'd either get it together or be replaced come Spring. I guess this is their way of saying they want to stick around!

And these aren't even my Yuccas: I took these shots while walking the dog in the 'hood:

I LOVE the variations in greens and blues. Most underrated plant evah.

HUGE thanks to Pam Penick of Digging for hosting Foliage Follow-up every month, and giving us all the opportunity to highlight garden beauty beyond blooms! She's kicking off this Spring with a garden talk based on her new book The Water-Saving Garden. It's Saturday 2/27 at 10am at The Natural Gardener, and it's FREE so check it out!

A plant that makes Winter worth it

It's no secret that I loathe being cold. Snow is lovely...in a photograph. I even get fussy when the AC is cranked up in the summertime. Before I found gardening and specifically this plant, the only redeeming quality of Winter was that it killed mosquitoes and weeds. (Both of which suck, to be clear.)

Teucrium fruticans 'Azureum', aka Bush Germander 'Azure', makes the cold weather worth it.

I first posted about it back in 2010 when my plant was about 2 years old, and my love for it is still as strong as it's ever been.

Now I feel like a proud parent, too: back in 2009 I had some friends who admired them in my old garden and were looking for xeric plantings. (David referred to it as "the boxy plant". No idea why, but that's what we call it to this day.)

It's a little dicey to recommend plants to people, because you can't control anything about how they execute the planting, watering, etc. I gave them 3 as a gift, figuring no one had anything to lose. Not surprisingly, the Bush Germander 'Azure' have fulfilled every promise I made:

Teucrium fruticans 'Azureum', with 3' tall outdoor torch in the foreground for scale.

Blooms! Crazy numbers of blooms!

It starts to bloom intensely blue flowers in mid-to-late December, and continues until early February. It's evergreen and silver/gray, NEEDS full sun, and once established it takes complete neglect in stride. (For reference, my friends have zero irrigation.) It gets to be 5-6 ft wide, about 4-5 ft tall, in a semi-fountain form. Bees love it, deer don't seem to care about it, and it doesn't seem to have any disease problems.

I planted some in our new yard when we moved in (Feb 2014), and while this is a lousy shot you can see the size this past August as compared with now:

(Opposite side, same plant)

They always seem to get a growth spurt just as Winter hits. The new growth gets a little gangly, so I shape them lightly after they're done blooming. It isn't particular about about that either: I usually pull the new growth up into a "ponytail", and cut. It flops back and retains that rounded shape until the next Winter growth spurt.

They do require watering (weekly for the first month) to get established if you plant in the Spring, but once they're established they're pretty drought-tolerant. (In a related story, if you dig one up and try to transplant it...good luck. I've done it successfully, but I can't recommend it for your back health or the plant health. I seem to recall it had an extensive spider web-y root system, a *#$%! to dig out. It was touch-and-go for about a month in its new location, and then it went back to being impervious to sun and heat.)

I've never understood why anyone uses Russian Sage, Texas Sage, or even the more common variety of Bush Germander when this is a much more attractive option. It's harder to find at local nurseries but not impossible: last year I found lots at Hill Country Water Gardens. It's always available online at Digging Dog Nursery.

2015 in Review, or "Let's list all the plants I've killed and other poor decisions"

Let's cut right to the chase: I made some excellent decisions this past year, and there are some I'd like a mulligan on.

The biggest one, and the one that falls into both categories, is painting the kitchen cabinets. I love the colors and have zero regrets about doing it, but I regret two things in the doing:

1. I should have gone with Sherwin Williams Pro Classic. If you weren't witness to the angst real-time, here's a recap. Benjamin Moore Advance is just thin/brittle, and chips too easily. I saw it in my old house when I painted the door frames, but I assumed it was due to the paint underneath it. Nope. I have 2 extra cans of both gray and white that I won't be using, and that ain't cheap.
2. A liquid deglosser is not as good as sanding the surface. I needed to believe that it was because I wanted to save time and I didn't want a house full of dust, but it's simply not comparable. There are a few small chips in the paint where something struck the surface, and the wood shows right though, telling me that the primer really didn't adhere.

And now for the longer list: plants I've killed. I took some risks this year: there were bound to be casualties. There were also a few mercy killings. And maybe a few "this bores me" killings. R.I.P. to:

• Salvia leucantha 'Santa Barbara' (they were in the front, and just stayed spindly and stupid)
• 'Lafter' roses (ditto)
• Yucca rostrata (technically two of them, mentioned at the end of this post)
• Lamb's ear 'Helen von Stein'
• Aralia cordata 'Sun King
• Salvia x 'Elk Phoenician Purple'
• Apostle Walking iris
• Melianthus major 'Honey Bush'
• Tasmanian Tree Ferns
• Hydrangea 'Ruby Falls'
• Hibiscus 'Midnight Marvel' (just the one that I stupidly put in a pot, the other is fine in the ground)
• 'Regal Shields' Elephant ears
• Smoke Bush tree (it bores me)

And now for a list of surprising successes:

• Giant Spider Lily: despite the worm incident, they're tough and tropical looking
• Hibiscus 'Midnight Marvel': I don't think it's well-sited, but I can fix that
• Brugmansia 'Double White': this thing is a rock star, producing blooms even now
• Canna 'Flambe': my love for these is no secret
• Justicia fulvicoma: I didn't post about these because I only bought 2 as an experiment back in October, but so far so good
• Variegated Flax Lily: I grew to love the variegation, and I'm now re-evaluating my overall stance on this topic
• My Japanese maple: a qualified success because it didn't thrive but it didn't die either!

Plans for 2016:

• Bananas trees! I inherited 2 from a neighbor after the Halloween storms, am optimistic they'll take over that spot in the Spring.
  
• Two big-as-I-can-afford Texas Mountain Laurel. It's criminal this property has zero.
• Finish the DG install in the backyard
• Overhaul the side yard/address the drainage issue (see Pinterest ideas here)
• Tetrapanax in a planter! I reeeeeaaally want one but can't risk it spreading uncontrollably, so I got a Cor-ten steel planter for against the far back fence, and I'm going to let it go crazy there.
• More Yucca 'Lonestar', Brugmansia, Oakleaf Hydrangea, 'Berggarten' Sage, and Giant Spider Lily!
• Tiered planters: I haven't fully fleshed this out yet, but I've always wanted something tiered in my garden, and it's also an opportunity to create optimal drainage situations for agaves, cacti, and other plants intolerant of my backyard's clay/mud.
• Expand the beds in the front yard. Nothing radical, I just noticed one day that they're a little skinny and should be fuller/rounder.
• Maybe a tree swing for the back?
• Paint the front door, replace the lock
• Gutters and rainbarrels

What are your plans for 2016?

Closing out the year, gardening with a dog

We got a dog, and I've [willingly and positively] allowed that to suck up any downtime I have, so I've neglected my blog. And vacuuming. I've been blogging a lot in my head, though, and even taking some pictures for blog posts, like Bloom Day and Foliage Follow-up (both of which I had grand ambitions for and missed by a mile). So that has to count for...absolutely nothing, I get it.

She's very sweet and we named her Daisy:

We adore her! She loves the cat (sometimes too much) is great with the boys, and is working through some fear issues around grownups. She's about 1 year old and lived on the mean streets of Austin for part of her life, so it hasn't all been roses for her. And speaking of roses...

Before we got a dog we made a list of pros and cons, and I feel like we did a pretty good job going into this with our eyes wide-open. That said, there were a couple of gardening-related surprises, as you might have guessed:

1. My favorite surprise: I've developed an appreciation for some of my neighbor's yards. When you walk by them 15 times in a week you start to notice things (especially if your dog wants to sniff everything). Future posts planned....
2. When she gets excited she likes to run fast. Back and forth. A lot. She has unintentionally shredded a few low-lying plants, like my Philodendron 'Hope' and some of the strappy-leafed Giant Spider Lily. Nothing that can't be replaced, or won't come back in the Spring. (The Hope philodendron were disappointing anyway, and I was thinking about replacing them with Oakleaf Hydrangea.)
3. She also likes to dig when she gets excited or bored. She's easy to redirect and she only digs in bare ground areas (no plants so far), but yeah. This is a manageable one - we just don't leave her outside unsupervised (she wants to play with us anyway, not alone) or we give her a bone to chew. She loves it when I'm outside with her, raking the many many MANY leaves. That makes one of us. (Although I did get a leaf vac as a gift for my birthday, woohoo!!)

And speaking of gifts [I am the QUEEN of segues in this post], I also got the fire pit I'd been coveting!! Thanks mom and dad!! We picked it up the week of Christmas, and used it for the first time on the weekend immediately after:

Here's another angle, because it's awesome:

And here's us using it!!

Ryan and the boys

I don't know what I'm doing here - marshmallow roasting gang signs?!?

As predicted, I ate half a bag of marshmallows, and burned at least 97.6% of those.

I need to make a cover for it so we can use it as a coffee table in the summertime, so that has gone on my long list of winter projects. And there will be more on that in 2016, but for now:

Farewell to 2015, and Happy New Year!!