Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

Carol at May Dreams Gardens invites us to tell her what’s blooming in our gardens on the 15th of each month.

June 15, 2009

The good news this June is that Austin got rain last Thursday. Almost 2 inches of rain fell at Zanthan Gardens. Other Austinites were not as lucky and had to contend with hail, power outages, broken windows, and funnel clouds. The bad news is that Austin is already experiencing 100°F temperatures. To put it in perspective, we are almost 15 degrees hotter than Las Vegas. Back in the 20th Century (“I remember…” she said, waving her cane in his face), June was a fairly pleasant month in Austin. We’d get lots of rainfall (June was our third wettest month.) Temperatures typically didn’t start soaring into the 100s until late July or August. Then we’d have only six to eight weeks of misery to get through until the hurricanes brought rain just as school started.

Apparently the new norm for the 21s Century is to start being miserable around Mother’s Day and continue until Halloween.

This photo is misleading. Taken a couple of days after the rain, what’s left of the lawn has perked up. (There is no lawn in the front yard anymore–just bare dirt until I can do something with it.) Everything looks refreshingly green. The whole reality is that it’s 100°F and feels like a jungle. You daren’t stand in the sun. The only a spot of color is from the small clumps sunflowers and purple coneflowers at the fence. In the center of the picture is section of the yard I’m filling with the 12 cubic yards of dirt I bought last week. It will be a terrace to connect the back porch with the garden house.

New for June

Every year when the spring flowers die down I think it would be nice to have something to extend the season. If we have a normal rainy June (like 2007), then it’s wonderful. But if we have a hot, dry June (like 2006, 2008, 2009), then I find it’s far more trouble than it’s worth during the season when I’m busy cleaning up the spring garden and feeding, cutting back, and mulching the shrubs and trees.

Zinnias

This year I tried zinnias again. I bought two packets of seed: a red and white striped one from Select Seeds, ‘Peppermint Stick’ and a pure white one from Renee’s Gardens, ‘Polar Bear’. The ‘Polar Bear’ gets only morning sun, looks healthier, but hasn’t bloomed yet. The ‘Peppermint Stick’ is in a less established bed (that means the dirt isn’t as good), gets full sun, and has put out two flowers. The first was red and white like a peppermint stick.

This is the second one. I hate this color.

Zinnia elegans ‘Peppermint Stick’

Sunflowers

I had better luck with the sunflowers. I bought two packets from Renee’s Gardens, ‘Van Gogh’ and ‘Chocolate Cherry’. I planted them both in my seed starting bed on April 9, 2009. I was able to transplant the ‘Van Gogh’ out and they did really well. The ‘Chocolate Cherry’ were smaller seeds and smaller plants. They got leggy in the shade before I could get them transplanted. They didn’t survive my trip to San Francisco in the last week of May.

Marigolds

Carol at May Dreams Gardens sent me a packet of white marigolds, ‘Kilimanjaro’. All of the seeds sprouted but half of them damped off. A dozen survived for me to transplant then half of those were felled by pillbugs. I have five plants left and I’m still waiting anxiously for them to flower.

#Fail

I also tried out Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Psyche White’ and ‘Rose Bon Bon’. I planted both in the meadow where they were smothered by the spring plants and didn’t get enough water when they were young. I’m going to have to seed these earlier and transplant them, or start them in their own bed. Or try growing them in the fall. Ditto the Nigella hispanica ‘Bridal Veil’. Actually I planted those in the seed bed in February and they didn’t do much. Same with the Amaranthus caudatus planted in March and the Thunbergia alata which never sprouted at all. The Rudbeckia hirta ‘Irish Eyes’ are struggling and haven’t flowered yet.

Plumbago

My favorite summer perennial is plumbago because of it’s cool pale blue flowers. I came close to losing a plant I’ve had since the mid-1990s but, with some extra attention, it seems to be making a comeback and began blooming around the first of June.

Rebloom

I’ve been shearing back the shrubby plants; the coral bean and the Zexmenia are responding with new growth and flowers. I’ve also pruned and fed the roses, the crape myrtles, the vitex, the white mistflower, and the butterfly bush.

Going Strong

Some plants do take the heat and don’t require a lot of water. The oleander is still covered in flowers. The purple coneflowers that Pam/Digging passed along to me are doing much better this second year than last. The coral vine (Antigonon leptopus) is a carefree plant that loves this weather and the bees love it.

Finally there’s this little beauty, which Annie in Austin has tentatively identified as a South African foxglove.

The leaves are gray-blue, furry (like a datura), and the flowers have spots (rather than stripes). Does anyone else have a thought?

Just Let Me Die

The list below might look long but there are a lot of hangers on from spring. The merciful thing to do would be just pull them out. I deadheaded and watered a bluebonnet just to see if I could get it to bloom until today, which it did. It looks pitiful. The few remaining larkspur are just dried flowers in the landscape. I’ve been cutting back the Jerusalem sage which is flopping and wilts every day in the heat. So do the datura and brugmansia. The latter, which Annie in Austin gave me, is blooming but the flowers blast…they don’t have the strength to unfurl. The sweet alyssum, which I sheared back, makes a nice little clump but it’s just barely flowering. I was amazed to see some covered with flowers at The Natural Gardener. Not only do they have drip hoses, excellent soil, and lots of mulch, but someone was watering them with a spray wand. Someone else told me that they water every day and foliar feed the plants once a week.

If that’s what you have to do to get flowers to bloom profusely in 100° heat, well, count me out.

Complete List for June 2009

The list of all plants flowering today, June 15th 2009, at Zanthan Gardens.

• Abelia grandiflora (2009)
• Antigonon leptopus (2009)
• Asclepias curassavica (fading) (2009)
• Brugmansia (from Annie in Austin, 2 flowers both blasting) (2009)
• Consolida ambigua (2009)
• Cosmos sulphureus (2009)
• Crinum bulbispermum (2009)
• Duranta erecta (overwintered) (2009)
• Echinacea purpurea (from Pam/Digging) (2008, 2009)
• Erythrina herbacea (2009)
• Helianthus annuus ‘Van Gogh’ (2009)
• Hesperaloe parviflora (2009)
• Hibiscus syriacus (2009)
• Ipomoea tricolor’Flying Saucers’ (2009)
• Kalanchoe daigremontiana (Mother of Thousands) (2009)
• Lagerstroemia indica ‘Catawba’ (2009)
• Lantana montevidensis (2009)
• Lavandula heterophyla ‘Goodwin Creek Grey’ (2009)
• Lobularia maritima (2009) ‘Tiny Tim’
• Lupinus texensis (fading) (2009)
• Malvaviscus arboreus (2009)
• Meyer lemon (rebloom) (2009)
• Mirabilis jalapa pink (fading) (2009)
• Nerium oleander ‘Turner’s Shari D.’ (2009)
• Nierembergia gracilis ‘Starry Eyes’ (2009)
• Phlomis lanata (fading) (2009)
• Plumbago auriculata (2009)
• Proboscidea louisianica (2009)
• Retama (2009)
• rose ‘Blush Noisette’ (2009)
• rose ‘Ducher’ (2009)
• rose ‘New Dawn’ (2009)
• rosemary (2009)
• Rudbeckia hirta (2009)
• Ruellia (overwintered) (2009)
• Ruellia wild woody type (2009)
• Sedum album (2009)
• Setcresea (both purple and green) (2009)
• Zephyranthes grandiflora (2009)
• Zephyranthes (white) (2009)
• Zexmenia hispida (from Pam/Digging) (2009)
• Zinnia elegans ‘Peppermint Stick’ (2009)

Typically, a twitter storm is when mob outrage (or less frequently adulation) pulses through the Twitterverse. Twitter’s 140 character limit almost guarantees that emotion, not reasoned argument, is what trends. Whether it’s moms mad about a Motrin ad or Amazon users angry that ratings have been disabled on any book with perceived gay themes, we pass our passions along, and then our friends pass them along, and pretty soon the hive mind is buzzing with our indignation.

On the evening of June 11, 2009 a storm that had been brewing north of Austin since late afternoon developed into a supercell, “a system producing severe thunderstorms and featuring rotating winds sustained by a prolonged updraft that may result in hail or tornadoes.” The storm flipped small planes and mobile homes in Burnet, spawned possibly two tornadoes, and dumped hail in the same northwest corridor along Highway 183 which was just recovering from the worst hail storm in Austin’s history last March.

While this was happening, at my house, just south of the river, there was no indication a storm was on the way. At 8:30 PM the air was heavy and still. I was working at my computer unaware. Although it had been overcast until mid-afternoon, I wasn’t really expecting any rain. Remembering that some was in the forecast, I decided to check KXAN First Warning Weather and saw that a big red blob (indicating heavy rain) had entered Travis County. I immediately thought of Annieinaustin who’d suffered extensive hail damage in our last big storm. I flipped over to Twitter to see if it was raining where she was. A disappointing silence. But barron who lives northwest tweeted…

A few moments later, another north Austinite, punkgardener, wrote…

Well, something was happening. I flipped back to KXAN. The radar showed that the storm was in Travis County moving south towards us. Was there really a chance of rain for us? I sighed and figured it would probably skirt the downtown heat sink and we’d get nothing. At 8:44 PM, I received a call from Annieinaustin. She was offline and taking shelter in an interior room. They’d gotten some hail although not as large as in the March storm.

Looking north from my window I could see a wild lightning storm. I decided I’d better shut down my computer, too. Before I did, I posted an update tweet for her.

Then the fun started. I stood on my back porch, watching the storm move in and checking Twitter on my iPhone. Tweets started popping into my Twitterstream from all over Travis County. They expressed pensive moments wondering if the storm would leave some parts of Austin high and dry. Exultation over rain. Dismay over hail. Concern over the safety of friends and their gardens. Reports of power outages. Yes, maybe we sounded like a bunch of chattering tween girls on a class field trip but there was a real camaraderie in this shared experience. Rain in Austin in this drought is a pretty emotional experience, even without the drama of hail and tornadoes. We needed to share and we needed to know how our friends were doing.

Austinites weren’t the only people interested in our storm. Gardening friends in Indiana, Indygardener, and Oklahoma, reddirtramblin, cheered the rain on for us. They know how we Austin gardeners have been suffering in this drought.

As the storm moved on, we began checking for damage and comparing our rain gauge totals. This morning, I received one wistful tweet from mycornerofkaty wishing that the storms had made it to Katy, TX.
Read the rest of this entry »

During my visit to San Francisco, I returned to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park.

Gardeners visit gardens not just to ooh and aah but to find inspiration and maybe learn a few useful tricks that we can apply in our own gardens. Most of us, I think, attribute a sense of calm to Japanese design. I turn to my own garden to ground and soothe me. So it’s natural to wonder what makes a Japanese garden serene.

Having lived in Japan, I’m always curious about Japanese gardens (especially in Western countries) although I have no desire to replicate a Japanese garden in my central Texas back yard. I’m not looking to bring “a touch of Japan” into my garden in a decorative or superficial (I mean surface, here, not frivolous) way. However, I think the underlying principles of Japanese design can be applied without mimicry or parody. After all, the original Japanese gardens celebrate native plants and local materials. I think what particularly attracts me about Japanese design is how the essential nature of each element is revealed and revered.

Space

Music has been defined as “the space between the notes”. Although I love the muss of English-style cottage garden during Austin’s cool springs, when the weather turns hot and humid, that style make me feel claustrophobic.

In Japanese gardens, foliage is often removed from plants both to reveal the beauty of the trunk but also to provide glimpses of what lies beyond. I love this peek-a-boo effect, a tension between mystery and revelation.

The resulting airiness provides a sense of relief during our muggy summers when I feel the need to let me and the plants have some room to breathe.

We avid collectors have the tendency to stuff plants in wherever they will fit. A Japanese garden demonstrates that negative space, empty spaces, are important to the overall design. This concept is harmony with the Texas landscape which is all about space. A single oak tree silhouetted against the horizon is emblematic of our oak savannah.

Strolling

Japanese gardens can be viewing gardens, where the composition is framed though a window or arch, or strolling gardens. In a strolling garden the view shifts as you walk, emphasizing how gardens are constantly changing as we move through time and space.

The strolling garden is arranged so that you always wonder what’s around the next bend in the path.

Although Japanese and Italianate gardens both emphasize well-clipped shrubbery instead of flowers, they organize the plants in almost antithetical styles. Italianate gardens favor straight lines, geometric layouts, and repetition. To me, the plants line up like soldiers on parade. Japanese gardens prefer sinuous lines, naturalistic layouts, and focus on a specimen plants. The plants are distinct individuals but they are organized so that they flow into each other, echoing shapes and weaving patterns, harmonizing like dancers.

Layered Views

As a child I was fascinated with dioramas and how you could use glimpses through layers of interest to create different views as you changed perspective.

No matter where you look the plants form a pleasing composition but they are also arranged in a way that makes you want to crane your neck and see what’s behind them.

Texture

Coming from a brown, drought-stricken land, I am happy to drink in all this green. Most people when they start out to garden envision flowers or veggies. To create a garden that focuses on neither sounds a bit boring, doesn’t it? Why not just leave the lawn? But like fellow Texan Allen Lacy, I often dream of a lying In a Green Shade

I’m never going to find these saturated greens in Austin, but I can work harder to emphasize the shape and texture of our native plants. Central Texas gardeners certainly have a lot of choices when it comes to texture and great architectual shapes. At the Springs Preserve in Las Vegas, they arrange golden barrel cacti as if they were clipped box shrubs.

Intimacy

I know lawns are out but I love this one. Perhaps it isn’t actually a lawn since you can’t walk on it. It’s just grass used as a ground cover.

What really draws me to this spot is the way the stones are arranged around the water feature as if they just came to be there. This space is highly structured but it also feels natural. There’s a rhythm in the way that the little island of stones around the water feature echoes the shape of the island in the white gravel sea. There is something intimate and secret about this place. I feel like I’ve stumbled into a fairy circle.

Reflection

I have one water feature in my garden but it just sits alone and disconnected. I’m going to have to think about how to use its reflective surface to emphasize something beautiful growing over it. The ideal would be a Japanese maple but I’d prefer a Texas native, something that would evoke a rare Texas oasis.

Neatness

The one aspect integral to the Japanese style that I’ll never master is neatness. Neatness is not my strength in any provence of my life. Well-defined paths, tidily mulched beds, trimmed bushes and trees result in a sense of control over the chaos of nature which I think is part of the human impulse. We seek to organize our environment and such organization brings a sense of calm. And when things are all hemmed in, there is a delightful moment when they spill over again. Flowers burst into bloom. Vines tumble over a fence. Leaves fall. The garden is still only in photographs.

Carol at May Dreams Gardens invites us to tell her what’s blooming in our gardens on the 15th of each month.

May 15, 2009

Fading bluebonnets. I’m not going to take photos of all the other dried and withered flowers that are “blooming” today.

Farewell, enchanted April. Hello, withering May. I used to think of May as the calm, deep green month. The meadow flowers had gone to seed but the lawns and more tropical plants burst forth in restful shades of leafy green. May used to be one of Austin’s rainiest months. In the last few years, we keep getting late July weather in early May. My pleasure in the garden has evaporated like the sweat on my brow. I’m already into countdown mode, wondering how many days until the fall rains. (The last two years we haven’t had much in the way of fall rains either.) As the drought continues into it’s third summer, each year finds me threatening to pack my bags and move into a high-rise downtown condo earlier an earlier in the season.

Still there are some pleasures. Two old favorites opened a flower today.

The ever-faithful (and only remaining) LA lily.

A gladiolus that I bought many years ago which stopped flowering until today.

And the vitex, which has never bloomed well because of the shade is putting on its earliest and best show ever.

Vitex castus-agnus.
The vitex is now out of favor in Austin and considered an invasive plant. Not ten years ago it was being pushed as a wonderful small flowering drought tolerant tree and marketed as “the southern lilac”. (Carol, you can start laughing now.) I guess the marketing ploy demonstrates how desperately northerners miss their lilacs–and with good reason, I understand–but you’d have to really stretch your imagination to consider a vitex any kind of substitute.

There are some other new flowers for May but really this end of the season in my garden. All my focus is on collecting seed and clearing out the meadow annuals and on trying to keep the squirrels off the vegetables. Tomatoes, tomatillos, and yellow wax beans are producing right now. The herb garden is doing well, too. I have the quartet: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Also French and Spanish lavenders, French tarragon and Mexican mint marigold. However, there’s nothing there to share on GBBD.

Speaking of marigolds. I’m still anxiously awaiting the day that the white marigolds Carol sent me will bloom. Five plants remain from the 24 I started from seed. I’m hoping to see at least one flower.

Between GBBDs

Several flower bloomed and faded in my garden between GBBDs and so didn’t show up in the inventory for either April or May: the bearded iris ‘Incantation’, Cosmos bipinnatus ‘Rose Bon Bon’ (the C. bipinnatus did not do well at all but some C. sulphureus has self-sown), Nigella damascena ‘Mulberry Rose’, and Dutchman’s pipe vine.

There are several flowers that are still blooming but didn’t have flowers today. The rose ‘Mermaid’ opened a flower yesterday and has buds for tomorrow, but none for today. The white mistflower has gone to seed but will bloom again if I cut it back. Ditto for the datura.

Complete List for May

The list of all plants flowering today, May 15th 2009, at Zanthan Gardens. I’ve also noted if the plant was blooming on GBBD May 15th, 2007 or 2008. The list looks long but is misleading. Most plants only have one or a few flowers left.

• Abelia grandiflora (2009)
• Antigonon leptopus (2009)
• Asclepias curassavica (fading) (2007, 2009)
• Asparagus densiflorus ‘Sprengeri’ (2009)
• Boerhavia coccinea (2009)
• Brugmansia (from Annie in Austin) (2009)
• Centaurea cyanus ‘Black Magic’ (one faded flower) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Commelinantia anomala (one flower) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Commelina communis (2009)
• Consolida ambigua (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Coriandrum sativum (2007, 2009)
• Cosmos sulphureus (2008, 2009)
• Crinum bulbispermum (2007, 2009)
• Dahlberg daisy ‘Golden Fleece’ (2009)
• Duranta erecta (overwintered) (2008, 2009)
• Echinacea purpurea (from Pam/Digging) (2008, 2009)
• Engelmannia peristenia/pinnatifida (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Eschscholzia californica ‘Mikado’ (fading) (2008, 2009)
• Hesperaloe parviflora (2008, 2009)
• Hibiscus syriacus (full bloom) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Ipomoea tricolor ‘Flying Saucers’ (2009)
• jalapeno (2009)
• Kalanchoe daigremontiana (Mother of Thousands) (2009)
• Lagerstroemia indica ‘Catawba’ (2009)
• Lantana x hybrida ‘New Gold’ (2008, 2009)
• Lavandula heterophyla ‘Goodwin Creek Grey’ (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Lilium LA Hybrid ‘Spirit’ (one flower) (2007, 2009)
• Lobularia maritima (2009) ‘Tiny Tim’
• Lonicera japonica (2009)
• Lupinus texensis (fading) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Malvaviscus arboreus (2008, 2009)
• Meyer lemon (rebloom) (2007, 2009)
• Mirabilis jalapa pink (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Nandina domestica (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Nerium oleander ‘Turner’s Shari D.’ (2008, 2009)
• Nierembergia gracilis ‘Starry Eyes’ (2009)
• Oenothera speciosa (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Opuntia ficus-indica (2009)
• Orchid (from Dawn) (2009)
• Oxalis crassipis (hot pink) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Phaseolus vulgaris ‘Pencil Pod’ (2009)
• Phlomis lanata (2008, 2009)
• Polanisia dodecandra (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Proboscidea louisianica (2009)
• Retama (2008, 2009)
• rose ‘Blush Noisette’ (2007, 2008, 2009)
• rose ‘Ducher’ (2008, 2009)
• rose ‘New Dawn’ (2007, 2008, 2009)
• rose ‘Red Cascade’ (2007, 2008, 2009)
• rose ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Ruellia (overwintered) (2008, 2009)
• Sedum album (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Setcresea (both purple and green) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• tomatillo (2009)
• tomato (2007, 2009)
• Trachelospermum jasminoides (fading) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Tulbaghia violacea (society garlic) (2009)
• Verbena canadensis (lavender wilding) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Vitex agnus-castus (2009)
• Zexmenia hispida (from Pam) (2008, 2009)

I check out garden books from the library every week. It’s rare that I open a book and just know I have to own it. Such was the case with Amy Goldman’s The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table: Recipes, Portraits, and History of the World’s Most Beautiful Fruit. I’ve been browsing it for less than a day and I’ve already ordered it from Amazon.

I wish I had read it a couple of months ago when I was In Search of the Perfect Tomato. At the time I was frustrated by my inability to find concrete information on various tomatoes. After awhile the catalog descriptions become mind-numbing in their sameness. How many ways are there to describe a tomato anyway? Besides catalog descriptions are written to sell a product. I wanted direction and objectivity from the garden blogosphere. Hanna @ This Garden is Illegal writes wonderfully detailed review of her tomato tastings but she is in the minority. My frustration is at an end. Now I have Amy Goldman’s The Heirloom Tomato.

In this book, Ms. Goldman evaluates tomatoes the way a wine reviewer writes about wine. She considers size and weight, shape, color, soluble solids (to get an objective measurement of sweetness), flavor, and texture. In looking at the plants themselves, she describes plant habit, leaf type, yield, and date to maturity. She explains her criteria in more detail before launching into the tomato descriptions.

Before I could settle into the text I was distracted by Victor Schrager’s tomato “portraits”. After feasting with my eyes on his photographs, I could understand why one might not stoop to calling them mere photographs. The Heirloom Tomato has page after glossy page of tomatoes arranged by size, shape, or color on milk glassware in the modern equivalent of a Renaissance still life painting. There are single tomato portraits, too, but I really appreciate contrasting the qualities of the many heirlooms featured. A tomato can be so much more than a smooth, round, red globe.

AJM actually picked this book up at the library, honing in on the final chapter “Recipes”. With our mere seven plants, I doubt that we’ll ever have the excess harvest required to think about eating tomatoes any other way than fresh off the vine. So I skipped back a section to the tomato descriptions. Whenever I read any reviews, (travel, wine, movie, books) I always look at things I’m familiar with first in order to calibrate the reviewer’s tastes and biases against my own.

So it was with great pleasure to turn to the very first tomato description and discover that it is of a cherry tomato I picked last week ‘Black Cherry’. Ms. Goldman approves of my choice: “This tomato tastes like plumstone fruit without the stone.; it bests any bigger black plum or beefsteak.” As if to demonstrate these descriptions are not just catalog marketing, on the same page she says of ‘Yellow Pygmy’, “…looks cute, but no one has ever accused it of being palatable.” That’s what I like! A touch of bitter to temper the sweet.

I have a couple of quibbles about the book design. The tomato descriptions begin with the data for each tomato followed by Ms. Goldman’s more subjective evaluation or some historical tidbits. The data section has headings in small caps but the data itself is in italics…of a very small size. Her description is in a standard font face. Those italics are very difficult to read. In some instances, the italicized part of the tomato entry is more lengthy than Ms. Goldman’s notes on it. All those italics make painful reading–they obscure the fascinating information. One thing I gleaned, though. Heirloom does not seem to be restricted to old varieties, just open-pollinated (that is, not hybrid) varieties.

Two other book design quibbles. In the section table of contents, the most important information is black small caps and italics against a dull green background. And it’s centered-space. This must look nice as design but it is unusable as a table of contents. The main text of the book could use a lot more subheading. Even I, who am very text-oriented, found the unbroken text a bit much. Ms. Goldman’s writing is well-organized into paragraphs and sections, but the book layout doesn’t reinforce this.

I continued reading “The Heirloom Tomato” backwards. In the early chapters Ms. Goldman explains how she grew 1000 tomato plant (two of each variety) for two years in order to write this book. The chapter on how to grow tomatoes, from seed, to seedling, to hardening off, to care and feeding, pruning and picking, and finally gathering seed for next year is a wonderful resource for new and longtime tomato growers alike.

Bottom line: Highly Recommended
This is a book that I not only just bought for myself but that I see myself buying as a gift for others in the years ahead. Now to check out Ms. Goldman’s books on melons and squashes.

An Aside
In the description of ‘Black Cherry’ Ms. Goldman indirectly references a quote thus, “If one of the greatest services a man can render his country is to add a useful plant to its agriculture…” Do you know who said that? I do. But only because I had read it somewhere else just last week. Is this such a common quote in garden writing that it requires no further explanation…that all of you just naturally know the reference? Or would you just assume that it was a phrase of the author?

I had a question recently on gathering bluebonnet seeds: how do you know they are ripe? It’s pretty easy to tell. When the shells turn brown, tap the shell. If you hear the seeds rattling inside, they are ripe. However, wait too long and the shell will explode when you tap it, throwing seeds everywhere. Lying in a field of bluebonnets on a hot May day, listening to seedpods pop is a classic Texas summer pastime.

Ripe bluebonnet seeds open with a pop and a twist to disperse their seeds.

If you want to start bluebonnets in a new spot, you can cut whole ripe stalks (like the one above) and let them seed themselves in their new home. This is the easy-going natural method of seeding, great for wild areas. It might take several years to get a good stand going. That’s because bluebonnet seeds have coats of different thicknesses. Some wear thin and sprout the first year. Others take several years. This is a survival tactic to ensure that all the seeds don’t sprout at once, only to be lost to bad weather.

Bluebonnet seeds ripe versus unripe. The green ones are NOT ripe and will rot if you try to plant them.

People tend to want all their seeds to sprout together, so commercial seed providers sometimes wear down the coat with an acid bath. People who gather their own seeds gently sand the outer coat down a little, just enough for water to soak in. I don’t do any of these things. Don’t need to. After a couple of years of growing bluebonnets, I’ve always had too many sprouts each fall. Individual plants (which contain multiple flowers) grow like small bushes to about 18 inches tall and two feet in diameter. In a small garden, you don’t need very many. I deadhead them to encourage more flowers and only let the best go to seed.

When you’re ready to clear out the bluebonnet plants, don’t pull them out by the roots. Cut them off at ground level. The roots are covered with nodules containing nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Not only are bluebonnets beautiful, they enrich our soil.

The same seed-saving advice holds true for larkspur (pictured above), nigella, and poppies. Wait until the pods are brown and the seeds are hard enough to rattle when you shake the pods.

If you have meadow plants in your garden, letting them go to seed means letting the garden look a bit messy for a few weeks. You’ll quickly understand why the word “seedy” means shabby and squalid. The payoff is a hundreds of free self-sown plants next year.

A lavender blue bearded iris opened this week and I had to go through my files of photographs to identify it. Everyone is under the misconception that I keep great records. In contrast, I feel like I never write down the precise bit of information that I want to know later. When did I transplant this iris? Where did I move it from? What is it? Why didn’t I label it or jot down a few notes?

In my files I found several photos of ‘Incantation’. Some taken with my digital video recorder in on April 21, 2002. Another set taken with my first digital camera on April 24, 2005. These showed the distinct veining on the falls and the bit of bright orange on the throat of the otherwise white beard.

Bearded iris ‘Incantation’. April 24, 2005.

This year ‘Incantation’ opened on April 25th. I have only one rhizome left which has sent up one stalk with three flowers. I originally bought three rhizomes from Schreiner’s in 1999 for $7.50 a piece (not factoring in the discount). They bloomed in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, and now 2009. I thought I’d lost them to rot completely. I transplanted them again last fall and only one survived. It has been smothered by bluebonnets most of the spring and I was completely surprised when the flower stalk popped up last week.

Here’s my original impression from April 20, 2000.

First flower. Well-proportioned with standards the periwinkle blue of some of the larkspur. It blends very well with the larkspur but what I really need is contrast. This is the trouble with liking one color and buying every flower that is that color.

I think I was wrong. I look at the photo at the top of this post and now I think that’s just perfect.

Carol at May Dreams Gardens invites us to tell her what’s blooming in our gardens on the 15th of each month.

April 15, 2009

Carol may dream of May, but at Zanthan Gardens the month worth waiting and working for is April. More flowers are blooming right now than any other time of year. Austin had a little rain in March and that brought our drought-stricken garden to life. I can’t begin to photograph everything that’s blooming right now or even all that’s new from last month. So I just took a few photos of my favorites and put the complete list at the end.

I like small and airy flowers, “fairy flowers” Dawn called them. We went shopping at The Great Outdoors together last week and I couldn’t resist this Dahlberg Daisy, Thymophylla tenuiloba. I much prefer it to the larger, coarse-leafed Engelmann daisy. I also bought Spanish lavender, Lavandula stoechas which has huge showy bracts.

Dahlberg Daisy ‘Golden Fleece’.

The duranta has been flowering non-stop since last year. Our winter was so mild that it didn’t freeze down to the ground as it typically does. I took this photo primarily so you could see the mass of larkspur behind it. I really like jewel-toned purples and violets.

Duranta erecta in front of larkspur.

I can’t resist a blue flower either. The bluebonnets and the baby blue eyes had it rough this year and are fading fast. The Spanish bluebells sent up only two flowers. The promising news is that La Niña weather pattern might finally be at an end. Maybe Austin will have a normal summer–you know, where we have only 13 100° days, not 50+. The yellow bearded iris is an heirloom iris that came with my yard. It’s very common in Austin and if you know what it is, tell me.

Unidentified bearded iris (maybe Iris flavascens) in front of bluebonnets on the left and baby blue eyes on the right.

I recently featured ‘Strictly Ballroom’ but I couldn’t resist a final photo. I think this is the last flower. I’m glad it made it to Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

bearded iris, Strictly Ballroom.

Is it cheating if you buy flowers on GBBD? After a trip to the periodontist this morning I stopped by Barton Springs Nursery and bought this Louisiana iris and a Nierembergia gracilis ‘Starry Eyes’. AJM has wanted Louisana irises since he saw them at an Austin iris show even before we had a pond.

Louisiana iris, Full Eclipse.

I try different sweet peas every year. This year it is ‘Knee-hi Mix’ a variety for containers. After planting a container I had some seeds left over so I planted them next to a trellis by the front door. The ones in the ground are now as tall as I am and have been blooming since March 6th. The ones in the pot finally started blooming last week. I prefer scented sweet peas and these aren’t very…except for this one with the broken color. I’m trying to save seeds but today also marked the appearance of the inch worms and, of course, they decided to nibble on the only flower I was interested in saving seeds from.

Lathyrus odoratus ‘Knee-hi Mix’.

Love-in-the-mist is one of the plants (like cilantro or baby blue eyes) that I let self-sow to use as filler in the meadow. This year, I’m glad to see the white ones making a comeback.
Love-in-a-mist.

Every rose except ‘Red Cascade’ is blooming today and even it has buds. ‘Mermaid’ is a vicious climber with huge flowers that glow in the moonlight. After years of growing in the shade it found the sunlight and is now doing its best to climb up and strangle a rose of Sharon tree. I love it so much I can’t help but indulge it.

rose ‘Mermaid’.

Although my original ‘New Dawn’ rose died last fall, I did manage to strike a rose from it several years ago and it is in full bloom this week.

rose ‘New Dawn’.

I did a close-up shot of Confederate jasmine last year so this year I wanted to show it how I usually see it–a huge mass of white. Confederate jasmine is an evergreen perennial vine which can handle Austin’s heat. The main reason to grow it, is its intoxicating scent. I never get tired of it. When it’s blooming, I always wish I’d planted more.

Confederate jasmine.

St Joseph’s lily is another heirloom bulb that you see all over old Austin neighborhoods. It looks like a giant amaryllis and is in the same family. St. Joseph’s Day is March 19th but it didn’t start blooming in my garden until April 3rd.

St. Joseph’s lily. Related to amaryllis rather than a true lily.

April 15, 2009

Complete List for April

The list of all plants flowering today, April 15th 2009, at Zanthan Gardens. I’ve also noted if the plant was blooming on GBBD April 15th, 2007 or 2008.

• Allium neapolitanum (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Aloe barbadensis (2008, 2009)
• Asclepias curassavica (overwintered) (2009)
• Asparagus densiflorus ‘Sprengeri’ (2008, 2009)
• Brugmansia (from Annie in Austin) (2009)
• Centaurea cyanus ‘Black Magic’ (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Commelinantia anomala (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Consolida ambigua (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Coriandrum sativum (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Crinum bulbispermum (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Dahlberg daisy ‘Golden Fleece’ (2009)
• Datura (from Diana which overwintered) (2009)
• Diospyros kaki ‘Eureka’ (Japanese persimmon) (2007, 2009)
• Duranta erecta (overwintered) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Engelmannia peristenia/pinnatifida (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Eschscholzia californica ‘Mikado’ (2008, 2009)
• Eupatorium wrightii (from Pam) (2009)
• Hesperaloe parviflora (2008, 2009)
• Hippeastrum x johnsonii (St. Joseph’s lily) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• iris bearded ‘Strictly Ballroom (2009)
• Iris flavescens (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Iris x fulvala ‘Full Eclipse’ (2009)
• jalapeno (2009)
• Kalanchoe daigremontiana (Mother of Thousands) (2009)
• Lantana montevidensis (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Lantana x hybrida ‘New Gold’ (2008, 2009)
• Lathyrus odoratus (2007, 2008, 2009) ‘Knee-Hi Mix’
• Lavandula heterophyla ‘Goodwin Creek Grey‘ (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Lavandula stoechas (2009)
• Lobularia maritima (2008, 2009)
• Lonicera japonica (2009)
• Lupinus texensis (fading) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Malvaviscus arboreus (2009)
• Mirabilis jalapa (2008, 2009)
• Nemophila insignis (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Nerium oleander ‘Turner’s Shari D.’ (2008, 2009)
• Nierembergia gracilis ‘Starry Eyes’ (2009)
• Nigella damascena (2008, 2009)
• Oenothera speciosa (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Orchid (from Dawn) (2009)
• Oxalis crassipis (hot pink) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Oxalis pes-caprae ‘Scotty’s Surprise’ (fading) (2008, 2009)
• Oxalis triangularis (both purple and white) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Phlomis lanata (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Polanisia dodecandra (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Retama (2008, 2009)
• Rhaphiolepis indica (end of the season) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• rose ‘Blush Noisette‘ (2007, 2008, 2009)
• rose ‘Ducher’ (waning) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• rose ‘French Lace’ (2007, 2009)
• rose white Lady Banksia (my neighbor’s but droops over the fence) (2009)
• rose ‘Madame Alfred Carriere‘ (2007, 2008, 2009)
• rose ‘Mermaid’ (2009)
• rose ‘New Dawn’ (2007, 2008, 2009)
• rose ‘Prosperity’ (full bloom) (2008, 2009)
• rose ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison (2007, 2008, 2009)
• ruellia (overwintered) (2009)
• Sedum album (2008, 2009)
• Setcreasea pallida, both colors
• Solanum jasminoides (potato vine) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Spiraea bridal wreath (2007, 2008, 2009)
• tomatillo (2009)
• tomato (2007, 2009)
• Trachelospermum jasminoides (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Tradescantia (spiderwort) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Verbena canadensis (lavender wilding) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Viola cornuta (2007, 2008, 2009) ‘Sorbet Coconut Duet’
• Vitia sativa (common vetch, a pretty weed) (2007, 2008, 2009)
• yaupon holly (2007, 2009)
• Zexmenia hispida (from Pam) (2009)

Chris from Organic Compost Tumbler sent me a UCT-9 compost tumbler to review.

April 3, 2009: The Results

About 2 1/2 months has passed since I loaded up the “World’s Best” Organic Compost Tumbler. At first the material in the tumbler was quite light and the tumbler was easy to turn. In the last couple of weeks, the material has become denser, reduced in mass to just the bottom half of the tumbler and so the tumbler has become more awkward to turn. I took these as signs that the compost was ready.

When I looked inside it looked very similar to my own open-pile compost. There were still some sticks in it but the oak leaves, kitchen scraps, and pine needles had broken down.

In the case of compost tumblers, half empty is definitely half full.

I decided that the compost was ready. If I waited for the big sticks to break down that the other smaller stuff would rot away to almost nothing. Also, I needed compost for my vegetable garden and I needed the compost tumbler for all the trimmings from the spring garden cleanup.

My first question was how do I get the compost out? I wanted to dump it into a wheel barrow or bucket, not just on the ground but it’s impossible to put anything under the compost tumbler and turn the stuff out. I ended up dumping it on the ground but now I realized that if I’d found some plastic sheeting, that would have solved my problem.

The compost filled the bottom half of the tumbler or two of these galvanized tubs…sorry that I don’t have a better way to measure the amount.

The compost apparently had not heated up as much as was expecting because avocado and mango pits had not broken down (and some were sprouting), nor did section of Turk’s cap stems (which I had cut into 3 to 4 inch pieces). However, there was no evidence of smaller seeds or garlic sprouting–which I have a problem with in my open pile. I do not interpret this as a fault of the Organic Compost Tumbler because (see below) successful composting depends a great deal on the mix of materials. Although I had chopped the larger pieces down and turned the tumbler almost every day, the mix was a bit on the brown side and initially too dry.

A mix of fine compost and some larger chunks that I think need to break down more.

The result, then, was very similar to what I get out of my open compost pile–with one important exception. It wasn’t crawling with roaches, pill bugs, or earwigs. This made sifting it so much more pleasant. I use the fine compost on my vegetables when planting them or as top-dressing. I use the coarse compost as a mulch or throw it back on the pile as “starter” for the next batch.

Bottom Line

Do I like the Organic Compost Tumbler?
Yes. I don’t think the end product is much different than my open pile. But making the compost is a much more convenient. It’s so much easier to tumble the composter than it is to turn an open pile. And it looks nicer and it doesn’t attract pests (not only roaches, earwigs, and pillbugs but raccoons, rats, and opossums.)

Would I recommend it?
Yes. I think a compost tumbler is useful for people in urban or suburban neighborhoods who don’t have room or which there are restrictions on compost piles. It won’t produce all the compost you need nor will it be able to consume all the kitchen scraps and garden clippings that you produce. But it is a start.

Since receiving the Organic Compost Tumbler for review I’ve kept an eye out for other types. The prices are about the same but this is the sturdiest one I’ve seen. And it’s made out of recycled plastic.

Would I buy it myself?
I am considering buying one or two more…as budget permits. One is simply not enough to handle my composting needs. I used up the entire contents of my first batch in about two hours and wanted more. I have already filled the compost tumbler up: this time with chinaberry and hackberry tree sprouts. I’m looking forward to seeing whether a different mix will compost hotter and faster. I’ve learned my lesson about making sure it is damp (but not too wet). And I will probably “harvest” the mix as soon as the tumbler feels heavy and awkward to turn.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today ‘Strictly Ballroom’ is the lone reminder of my former obsession with bearded irises.

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