March 15th, 2010
GBBD 201003: Mar 2010
Grape hyacinths
Carol at May Dreams Gardens invites us to tell her what’s blooming in our gardens on the 15th of each month.
March 2010
The redbuds are Austin’s harbinger of spring but in 2010 it seemed they would never bloom. More than three weeks later than normal, on March 6th, I started seeing redbuds around town. After that, Spring cut loose. It was as if the other flowers had to wait for the diva to take center stage before making an entrance. Tazetta daffodils that are usually in flower in January bloomed alongside jonquils and large-flowering daffodils. The larkspur, which typically blooms a month after the bluebonnets, began blooming almost a week before.
Despite the devastations of record drought and freezes, the garden springs back.
Between GBBDs
Two stems of ‘Ice Follies’ daffodils came back after a couple of years of not blooming. I thought I’d lost them for good. I had divided them over the year and at one time had 8 groups.
Complete List for March 15, 2010
The list of all plants flowering today, March 15th 2010, at Zanthan Gardens. This is the fourth March I’ve participated in Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Compare: March 2007, March 2008 (most floriferous), March 2009 (18 months into the drought).
- Commelinantia anomala
- Consolida ambigua
- Coriandrum sativum
- henbit
- Iris (unnamed blue)
- Iris albicans
- Kalanchoe daigremontiana (Mother of Thousands) in pot
- Leucojum aestivum
- Leucojum aestivum ‘Gravetye Giant’
- Lobularia maritima (white)
- Lupinus texensis (including a pink opening today)
- Muscari neglectum/racemosum
- Narcissus jonquilla ‘Trevithian’
- Narcissus tazetta ‘Grand Monarque’
- Narcissus tazetta ‘Grandiflora’
- Nemophila insignis
- Nothoscordum bivalve
- Pisum sativum ‘Progress #9’
- Pisum sativum ‘Wando’
- Prunus mexicana (big tree finished, 2 small trees at height)
- Rhaphiolepis indica
- Rose ‘Ducher’
- rosemary
- Sophora secundiflora
- Tradescantia
by M Sinclair Stevens
March 15th, 2010
Happy March bloom day, MSS! You have a rose already?
This March 15th date isn’t working out for my garden. A few Thalia daffodil and Iris albicans have opened, but my redbuds, bluebonnets, Texas mountain laurel, cilantro, etc are barely budding with no blooms. Maybe I’ll wait a few days.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Everything has really started opening up just in the last week or two. Usually I have more roses in bloom by now. The Tulipa clusiana still has no buds. Rose ‘Ducher’ has always been my winter rose, usually blooming in December or January. So I think everything is a bit behind. I don’t mind it at all because I’m so far behind in all the things I have to do in the garden.
March 15th, 2010
Isn’t it amazing how plants will bounce back? I don’t have nearly the variety you have going on up here in MO. Glad everything didn’t die in your drought, that had to have been tough to get through.
I’ve lost so many plants over the years that my strategy is to use a lot of self-sown annuals. Every year is fresh and every year is different and it hurts less when I lose stuff. I’m working harder to develop a foundation (good bones) that will make the garden look like a garden in the seasons when my annuals aren’t flowering. It’s a very slow, evolving design. — mss
March 15th, 2010
That’s a beautiful Muscari. I don’t usually like them because their foliage always looks so ratty here by the time they bloom. I’m glad spring has finally come to Austin. You all earned it.
I agree absolutely that Muscari can be ratty. Last year I dug up a bunch of them when I was building new beds in the garden. I only replanted clumps of the very largest bulbs. I don’t know whether it was that or Austin’s unusually rainy winter but this year they look stunning. — mss
March 15th, 2010
I’m amazed at the challenges you continue to face gardening in Austin, Texas. You really do have a tough, unpredictable climate there.
I like how you described the redbuds as the divas…
I think everyone in Austin has been looking around anxiously for the redbuds and the Texas mountain laurels to bloom. (Or maybe it’s just me with my lists of bloom dates going back 15 years.) It really has felt like nothing else was going to flower until the redbuds put in an appearance. Now that they have, everything else has crashed the stage. — mss
March 15th, 2010
You have much more blooming in Austin than we have here in Round Rock. You wouldn’t think it would make a difference, but it seems to. Do you cultivate henbit, or have you given up and list it as blooming just because it is? I have been fighting it as well as chickweed. I wouldn’t mind it, but they both seem to want to smother everything else in the garden. Our Redbuds are starting their bloom-fest, but last week, I was calling the Bradford Pears the Divas.
I don’t cultivate henbit. I merely tolerate it. However, with all our rain this winter, huge stands of it look more attractive than normal. The butterflies are drawn to the flowers. I’m very intolerant of chickweed and goosegrass. With the type of garden I have, (mostly populated by self-sown plants) it’s a thin line between weed and wildflower. — mss
March 16th, 2010
I’ll bet that the henbit is really happy to be included in the list of blooming plants. When I see a patch in someone else’s garden I love it but it is so bossy. Thank goodness it is raining today.I need a break from all the back breaking work.
Henbit is thuggish but it dies off quickly in the heat. Of course, this year it is rampant. I weed out a lot of it but some always escapes. I let it flower in the earliest part of the year before other things come into their own because the butterflies appreciate it. — mss
March 16th, 2010
You were so worried! And look at your list. This is truly an amazing year. My clusianas just opened today so I bet yours will be out this week.
March 17th, 2010
I knew that at Zanthan Gardens I would find out what’s been happening in Austin over the past week and a half, which is how long I was out of town on a family vacation to Florida. I feared when I left that I would miss spring; only the neighbor’s Bradford pears were starting to bloom the day of our departure. I hope the redbuds will hang on a little longer so I can appreciate them.
Florida’s spring was knocked back by the cold snap too. It looked more like fall than spring along the highways.
March 17th, 2010
Love the vivid color of your Muscari – I planted yellow ones, so it’s nice to see the purple ones. I’m sure your garden is beautiful right now with all those blooms. I see you have a Prunus Mexicanus blooming – does it have an upright, vertical canopy, or is it open?
March 17th, 2010
You Austin gardeners have had some bad gardening luck lately. Here’s to a better summer of your gardens.
I don’t have any blooms in mine yet, still a couple of weeks to go for me.
March 18th, 2010
I agree with Mr McGregor’s Daughter. I tend to stray from this plant due to the foliage looking the way it does (when I have planted Muscari)but it turned out beautifully for you!