Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

I returned from my recent visit to Las Vegas with a newfound love for cactus and succulents. I couldn’t resist bringing home a golden barrel cactus but the only one I could find that would fit into my carry-on luggage was this novelty plant from the discount plant table at Lowe’s. Although I originally intended to remove the plastic eyes that had been glued on to create “My Peeps, Cactus Buddies”, many people wanted to see a photo of it. So I decided to make Mr. Peeps (as I’ve named him) my Spring Fling mascot.

Mr. Peeps loved the first stop on our Spring Fling tour: the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. There he found all sorts of cactus and succulent cousins to hang out with. It also gave him a glimmer of hope that he might be able to survive in Austin’s humidity.

However, when the Garden Bloggers visited the private gardens of James David and Gary Peese I was forced to leave Mr. Peeps in the car. I told him that the tropical climate of the garden wouldn’t suit him but the truth is that these gardens are just too upmarket for a lowly plant from the Lowe’s discount table.

During the cocktail hour given by Pam/Digging, Mr. Peeps may have had a few too many Mexican martinis. The next thing I knew he was cavorting in Pam’s stock tank pond swooning to the mariachi band.

I know some of you other Garden Bloggers made friends with Mr. Peeps. If you decide to post any photos of him during Spring Fling, leave me a comment and a link.

Friday dawned with a heavy downpour. So much for the promise of fine Texas weather that we used to lure all the northerners and midwesterners down for Spring Fling. Pam/Digging had arranged for the four of us to visit the beautiful gardens of Jenny Stocker. Go see her photos. They’re amazing. As was the garden. As was Jenny.

The official start of Spring Fling, our dinner party at Matt’s El Rancho, felt like a giant family reunion, even though this was the first time most of us garden bloggers had ever met. And yet we knew each other. For years we’ve shared the daily joys and sometime tribulations of our gardens. Talk immediately turned to weather, soil, seeds started, plants failed, and plans realized. Although we spoke the same gardening language, we often did so with different accents. Some say to-may-to; others to-mah-to. (Lirope? Basil? Crinum? Cercis?) Carol spoke botanical Latin while Annie held firm to the ecclesiastical pronunciation of her youth. And let’s not even mention my inability to pronounce the name of any rose I grow; they’re all French.

Being bloggers as well as gardeners, most of our conversations included references to each other’s posts, all that accumulated detail that made us feel like old friends–old friends who in many cases had never seen the other’s face, or knew the other’s real name, or occupation.

Gardening has always had a tradition of friendship through correspondence. One of the most famous, between Elizabeth Lawrence and Katherine White almost did not survive their meeting in person. Among the garden bloggers, however, I sense an immediate comraderie. This experience is so beyond what any of us envisioned when Pam tossed the idea out at us last December.

I’m running on pure adrenaline right now. Must dash off for the real beginning of Spring Fling.

The year we met, I planted bluebells for AJM to remind him of home. I know that when I was an ex-patriot, that I really missed the sheets of bluebonnets that signal spring to a Texan.

Now the bluebells I planted weren’t the wildlings of English woodlands, Hyacinthoides non-scripta; they were the larger, garden variety from Spain, Hyacinthoides hispanica. As it turned out, for many years Spanish bluebells were the variety preferred by English gardeners because the flowers are larger and form on both sides of the stem, and because the plants more vigorous. Apparently too vigorous. In recent years, concerns about invasive aliens interbreeding with the natives have raised alarms in England. The beloved native is threatened by a Spanish army breaching the garden walls.

This is not a problem in Central Texas so I grow my Spanish bluebells without guilt. They grow very well here, die down quickly after they bloom, and come back reliably without being aggressive.

Spanish bluebells in Texas.

I finally got to see English bluebells in their native habitat when we drove down to Oxford and the Cotswolds a couple of years ago. Impressive. Sheets of blue. Just like bluebonnets!

English bluebells in England. I don’t know if the color is really that much deeper or if it’s just a trick of the light.