Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

Dateline: 2018

Another week of 100°F days. Such a disappointment after the nice rain two weeks ago. The plants were all ready to spring into fall bloom. Many have but many others have shriveled in the bud. This must be how it feels to gardeners in more temperate northern climes after the first spring crocuses bloom, when the promise of spring is subsequently crushed by the worst blizzard of the season.

Both the wild and the cultivated Mexican petunia (Ruellia) burst into bloom. They had looked so bad before the rain I was thinking of cutting them back. I’m glad I procrastinated. Likewise the datura. The crape myrtle and vitex have new flowers. And the zexmenia just began rebooking (8/26).

I divided and replanted my first clump of oxblood lilies this year. I think the entire clump came from a stray bulb dug up and dropped by a squirrel. The bulbs were terribly twisted, deformed and tiny, but three have buds. So I started looking at the other clumps for bulbs and, yep, the oxblood lilies are waiting for the next big rain and some cooler temperatures.

The garden is ready for fall and so am I. But the forecast remains the same: an unvarying string of days in the hundreds.

Dateline: 2014

2014-09-01. Technically taken in Week 35 but it looked the same in Week 34. Brown is the new normal. 2007 was an unusually wet year.

Waited-for rains didn’t materialize. We got a sprinkle here and there; just enough moisture to make this week extraordinarily oppressive. The Allium tuberosum are bursting into bloom. Otherwise we’re still impatiently waiting for rains to signal the beginning of fall.

The retama is dropping seedpods like crazy. I really don’t like it and wish I hadn’t planted it. The old and major portion of the Mexican buckeye has turned completely brown almost overnight. However, new shoots coming up from the roots seem okay. I didn’t much like this tree either.

Dateline: 2010

When August 25th rolls around I begin looking for rain. It rained so much that last week in August 1974, my first week in Austin that I had to buy an umbrella when I went home for Labor Day. We didn’t get any rain on the 25th this year and only a trace on the 24th (which evaporated almost as quickly as it fell). However the “cold” front that brought that trace of rain dropped temperatures from our highest all year (107° on the 24th) to a bearable 96° on the 25th and a downright pleasant 93° on the 26th. This broke the 12-day string of triple digit temperatures, for a couple of days. The heat will be back next week. Still we appreciate these whiffs of autumn, a sense that we are at the beginning of the end of summer.

After a cool start to summer, August has become very hot and the plants are showing stress. The ground is baked dry. Even the weeds in the meadow look more weedy than like wildflowers, so I mow them back. Despite the heat a surprising number of plants are blooming. The Chinese chives flowered quite early this year and there are a lot of them. The ever dependable clammy weed is everywhere as are all three types of ruellia. The rose of Sharon is still blooming well and the coral vine is covered with bees. Pipevine swallowtail caterpillars have chomped up the Dutchman’s pipevine. I covered it with floating row cover in the hopes of saving the caterpillars from the paperwasps.

I lost one of the columbines I was trying to grow in a pot until it was cool enough to plant it. Also the ‘Ducher’ rose looks suddenly very bad. It went from being huge and healthy to losing all its leaves almost overnight.

My fall tomato starts are doing very well. The cosmos seedlings are getting their true leave. I transplanted 4 ‘Chocolate’ morning glories that I grew from seed. Only the zinnias I planted from seed have a been a disappointment. They flop over horribly and something is eating them up.

Dateline: 2007

What a difference a year makes! Or rather, what a difference rain makes. In sharp contrast to last year Austin’s received almost double our average rainfall and our lakes are overflowing. We haven’t had one day in the 100s this August, or this year. Highs have been below average, mostly in the low 90s, and even the high 80s. Are we complaining? Absolutely not.

School started today and the schoolhouse lilies (aka oxblood lilies) are blooming. Fall is here and all is right with the world…or at least in my garden.

Dateline: 2006

2006-08-26. Gee. I didn’t think you could kill monkey grass.

Back to school and hurricane rains. Well, usually. This is the anniversary of my first week in Austin and how it rained that week! It was my first impression of Austin and I loved it. Skip ahead to 1996 and we had a high of 82. In 2003 we had so much rain that the oxblood lilies were already blooming. And then, there’s 2006…

100+ degrees, 29 days and counting. Last measurable rain: July 29th, .01 of an inch at Camp Mabry. (July 5th at Zanthan Gardens.)

Special Weather Statement
Statement as of 9:58 am CDT on August 26, 2006
Near record heat will continue…

The August heat wave will continue through the weekend… with near record high temperatures forecast across most of south central Texas. Heat indices will range from 105 to 110 degrees during the afternoon and early evening hours.

Elderly people should remain in air conditioned locations during the hottest part of the day through Sunday. Do not leave pets or children unattended in vehicles. People who need to remain outdoors for extended periods of time are urged to take frequent breaks and drink plenty of water.

Thursday (8/24) Lake Travis dropped to 650 feet, 15 feet below it’s August average. The lake is losing a foot of water a week due to drought.

Triple-digit temperatures and the lack of rainfall have the Edwards Aquifer days away from a critical level drought.

The Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Water Conservation District said well levels are just about an inch from the critical mark and 40 feet from the average.

I pulled up the gladiolus corms today. They never bloomed this year and the leaves had gone brown. There was little left of the corms. Most had rotted. The dirt was as dry as dust–and this in a bed that I water and is mulched.

I also dug up four ‘Bangkok Yellow’ canna that were very sunburned. I’ve been meaning to do this for weeks and if I manage to save them at this late date it will be a miracle.

Hope springs eternal? I planted two hyacinth bean vines that I sprouted from seed this week.

Dateline: 2001

Sunday August 26, 2001
They promised us a cold front with rain and at 7:15 pm it arrived with a flash of lightning that blew out all the power in our neighborhood. The rain started hard and ran off, but here’s hoping that some of it sank in. It hasn’t rained since we were in England and the clay had dried and hardened so that it when it does rain hard and suddenly we get flash floods. But no matter. We got about 3 inches of rain in 45 minutes. And we might get more tomorrow.

This is a record daily rainfall. Before the rain the high was 102, our 19th (and last!) day of 100+ this month (40th day for the year). The weather report predicts we might get a low of 69 tonight…and tomorrow it will only be 90. Fall is here!

It’s 10:30 and the power just came back on so we’re checking out the computers.

Dateline: 1999

Monday August 23, 1999
Although Hurricane Bret brings no rainfall to our house (I watch the rain move from east to west at about West Mary), the cloud cover breaks the heat wave. After two days of 104 temperatures, today it is only 92.

Thursday August 26, 1999
The heat is back and temperatures reach 100 again. The tantalizing hope of rain that Hurricane Bret brought has not been realized. The datura, the cosmos, the black-eyed Susans, the sunflowers, everything except the globe amaranth, is wilted or browned or dead.

The persimmon is losing a lot of leaves. Even the wisteria is turning brown.

Dateline: 1998

Sunday August 23, 1998It drizzled all day yesterday. The high was only in the eighties. Very gloomy in a lovely way–we breathe a sigh of relief.

Austin got more than half an inch, but tropical storm Charly dumped almost 13 inches on south Texas. This morning we had a Texas-style downpour.

We are unable to get dirt for the new section of the meadow as I planned. Instead, I finish setting out the tomatoes and Cinnamon basil. As usual, I have more seedlings than I have space for.

Dateline: 1996

Thursday August 22, 1996
A 50% chance of rain. I can’t remember when it’s been more than 30% for months. It actually looks like a rainy day, with the sky blanketed in thick, low, gray clouds.

Saturday August 24, 1996
More rain. The creeks are up. AJM and I walked down by Shoal Creek just south of 38th Street.The creek was raging and was over its banks in a couple of places. We saw two snakes.

According to the paper, we set a record low high temperature for today: 82 degrees. (The previous record was 85 degrees.)

Sunday August 25, 1996
Cooler in the evening. Rains off and on. I got at least three inches, just today.

At 1:00 we go to fix AJM’s bike and collect rocks for the wall. Pours rain on the drive up the Mopac. Almost impossible to see AJM in his car ahead of me.

Returning home, I see Shoal Creek pouring over the water break as it flows into Town Lake. This is so impressive that I take JQS to see it.

For those of you who think we don’t have seasons down south in Austin, look at the photo. The golden brown grass, the dusty, dull green of the live oak, the rich blue of the sky, and fluffy white clouds–all colors that evoke August in Austin. It might not be as flashy as some seasons elsewhere but this is us.

Dateline: 2018
Summer’s hold on us is at an end. We finally got rain last Saturday (8/11) and, almost overnight, the garden is transformed. Sure, temperatures remain in the high 90s the rest of this week. But it ain’t the 100s. The dust is gone. The ground is soft enough to pull weeds. The crunchy grass on what’s left of the back lawn is greening up. And I’ve started planting my carefully saved white bluebonnet seeds.

Amazing how so many plants respond enthusiastically to the rain. Things like the yellow salvia and the wild Mexican petunias and the datura which I was considering cutting back last week are looking great. One datura is actually in full bloom. Some of the wild cleome that hadn’t completely gone to seed is a gauzy cloud of white.

2018-08-14 Rainlilies ‘Labuffarosea’. A passalong from Annie in Austin and still going strong.

2018-08-31 Update. Anticipation was short-lived as the last 17 out of 18 days hit 100°F or higher. The one exception being 8/30 which was a cool 99°F.

Dateline: 2014
August is a pregnant month, heavy and expectant. After an unusually wet and cool early summer, August 2014 seems very evocative of my first August in Austin forty years ago and emblematic of all those in between. This week the dry and dusty days of early August have turned humid, the air almost too heavy and oppressive to breathe. And yet, I can’t keep out of the garden. Even in the continued 100 degree heat, I sense a turn in the season, or perhaps I only expect one. I prune and turn the mulch pile and grind up leaf litter and straighten and order. Anticipation.

After four years of neglect, I begin dividing and replanting oxblood lilies, too. I think I’m dismantling the garden but once I begin digging up bulbs my own interests revive and I find that I’m as curious as I am acquisitive. This means I must sort through my systems and try to figure out the lineages and histories of each clump.

Very little is blooming: a stray flower on the clammy weed, prairie verbena, rose of Sharon, and Mexican petunia. A few wild sunflowers that look pitiful but that I leave because the small birds attack the seedheads each day. I no longer have a front lawn nor much of a back one. I don’t water at all, except the potted plants. Metaphorically my Austin garden is on the cusp of winter, waiting for spring.

One of my neighbors, walking by, stopped to chat as I was working and said she liked that about my garden: that she could see the seasons change in it and that it rested in the heat of August and the cold of January before it burst forth again. A garden that emphasizes change and time. That’s what I like about it, too. I planned it so purposefully.
Now I dream of other future gardens.

Dateline: 2006
Wednesday (8/16) was the hottest day of 2006 in Austin, 104 degrees. That’s not a record breaking high. What’s unusual is not the quality of the heat; it’s the quantity. In August so far 16 out of 20 days have been 100 degrees or hotter.

For those of you new to Austin, no, this is not normal August weather. Non-gardening residents, as they race from air-conditioned house to air-conditioned car, shrug their shoulders and think, “It’s August. It’s hot. Whaddya expect?” Well, I expect summer to be winding down.

We gardeners are out in the world and we’re taking notes. Although it’s not impossible for us to have 100+ degree days even in September (Austin’s all time record high was 114 degrees in September 2000–the most miserable summer in my memory), Austin’s average number of triple-digit days is ten. Ten! That means some years it’s less than ten. I’m just thankful I didn’t live through the summer of 1923. In that record-setting year, the thermometer topped 100 on 71 days.

Can you imagine that on August 14, 2003 the high was only in the low 80s after a front bringing heavy rain pushed through? Did I get out my sweater that day? This week in 1998, I was enjoying temperatures in the 80s and days of drizzling rain.

I’m usually dividing bearded irises and cleaning up and getting revved up for fall gardening. This year I’m lucky if I can stay outside long enough to get the potted plants watered.

Shout Out
Kathy Craig, at Cold Climate Gardening, mentioned that in upstate New York, the Color of August is Yellow. In Austin, the color of August is brown.
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