Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

After our slight freeze over the weekend, temperatures are back in the mid-70s during the mid-week. Then they’ll plunge to freezing again before Christmas. December in Austin is not the endless succession of balmy days some northerners imagine. It suffers from a multiple personality problem, or should I say a multiple seasonality problem. Autumn. Winter. Spring. December can’t decide what it wants to be.

Far from putting my garden to bed, I feel like I’m up all night with a demanding child. I seem to spend a great deal of time covering plants up for a cold night only to turn around the next day and uncover them as temperatures soar. I never think I have many potted plants until I’m trying to cram them in on my back porch. It’s too dark to leave them there over winter so out they must go again every couple of days. This year I have pond plants to bring in as well. Pulling them out of the cold pond water the afternoon before the forecasted freeze was just as fun as it sounds. I couldn’t have done it without AJM’s help.

So when I read about people in four-season climes putting their gardens to bed, I suffer mild envy at the thought of a looking out my window at a seasonal blanket of snow while baking Christmas goodies or sitting in front of the fire poring over catalogs for next year. This grass is always greener, eh? (even when it’s under two feet of snow). Instead, I spent all afternoon yesterday and will spend most of the rest of the week transplanting bluebonnets and larkspur. This is not a complaint! Yesterday was a perfect, gorgeous day: clear, sunny, mild temperatures (mid-70s).

2007-12-18. Bluebonnets pop up in the paths and everywhere I don’t want them. However, they are very easy to transplant when the seedlings are small.

The freeze killed of the Cosmos sulphureus, finally, and spurred me on in cleaning up and planting out the meadow. As usual, transplanting anything means I spend 98 per cent of my time digging out perennial weeds and 2 per cent of my time actually putting in plants. While doing this, I realized a couple of things.

1. I like watching things grow.
This might seem obvious because I’m gardener. I’ve tried to make the distinction before between gardening and having a garden. Some people manage both but I’m definitely in the camp of the former. Most of the year, my garden is not much to look at. I’m a plant person, not a designer or landscaper. I like plants for themselves and I’ll put them wherever I think they’ll grow best disregarding any overall structure to the garden. I prefer my garden to look “natural”, as if it had grown of its own accord. (Maybe that’s why I shy away from garden ornamentation.) I rarely buy very large plants, although after seeing the impact they make in other’s gardens I’m coming around. Gee, I even feel guilty buying packs of winter annuals like violas and pinks. I buy them in bloom and they stay in bloom for months; aren’t they just one step away from plastic flowers?

My feelings about gardening are the antitheses of Dianne Benson’s, described here in her book “Dirt”.

“…my version of gardening most certainly does not include starting anything from an infinitesimal seed…Why should we gardeners feel obligated to the revered seed method of starting everything from scratch to create our pictures? Mine is the fast-lane, quick-gratification approach…”

Ugh!

Transplanting the larkspur makes me deliriously happy. I love witnessing the slow transformation of the meadow over the next five months. That’s what gardening is to me. Cultivation. Transformation. Process. Growth. When I grow something from a seed or a cutting or a division, I feel a true sense of accomplishment.

2. My “meadow” isn’t a meadow.
The first garden I tried to make here was a meadow garden. I romantically envisioned it covered in buffalograss and filled with Texas wildflowers and bulbs. This “natural” space would evolve over the years and once established with self-sowing flowers wouldn’t require much from me. Needless to say, reality is much different. As the shade encroached the meadow space, the buffalograss has died out but not completely. Because bulbs are interplanted, it’s a challenge to spade up the plot and replant it. (Yesterday, I gave in and dug up 24 rainlilies just to get out some nasty horseherb.) Nor can the grass ever be mowed (weeds mostly) because there is almost something growing in it. The entire plot has to be hand weeded.

2007-12-18. Replanted larkspur. The difficult part to keeping the meadow is tucking plants in between the bulbs and buffalograss while trying to dig out the horseherb and spiderwort.

The real reason that it’s not a meadow is that it is not as self-sown as it looks in the photo at the top of the page. I learned that self-sown flowers come up too thickly and are also crowded with weeds like henbit and goose grass. The easiest way to thin them is to dig them up, toss the weeds, and replant them.

2007-12-18. The meadow today, a sunny December day with temperatures in the mid-70s. I don’t plant anything along the back chain-link fence because I like the illusion that the garden goes on and on.

Although the flowers are not in bloom, this is one of my favorite times of year in the meadow. It all looks so fresh and tidy and full of promise. The fading summer flowers are cleared away, the leaves raked, the weeds pulled. I like the drifts of buffalograss interspersed with freshly planted (and soon to be mulched) earth. As all-consuming as the garden is, deep down I’m glad I don’t have to put it to bed for the winter.

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

This is the special southern edition for all you who are under snow this weekend. Actually GBBD came just in the nick of time here in Austin. Our high temperatures this week have gone from the 80s to the 40s to the 80s to the 40s, eventually ending the week with two average days in the 60s. Forecast for tonight, however, is our first freeze of the season before we resume highs in the 60s. I’m not too worried. Zanthan Gardens is very close to downtown Austin which forms a heat sink. We also got some rain last night; temperatures fluctuate less sharply when the ground is moist. (Remember, the ground never freezes in Austin). The temperatures might dip to freezing for a few hours but I suspect only the tenderest plants (like the basil) will be in any danger. I’ll bring the potted plants in and cover up the strawberries in any case.

I had my doubts whether or not the David Austin rose, ‘Heritage’, would last until today. It did! It opened four days ago. ‘Heritage’ has the nasty habit of dropping its petals before the flower has faded. I’m glad this one stayed opened long enough to make it to GBBD. One of the great thing about winter roses in Austin is that the flowers last several days. In the summer they typically open and wilt in the heat in the space of a few hours. All over Austin roses have been in full bloom this month, especially the heirloom rose ‘Mutabalis’.

Most of the roses have buds on them which might freeze. The rose that’s been in full bloom all month is the lovely white China rose, ‘Ducher’. This is my second instance of this rose. I lost one last year to rose dieback. This one is planted on the opposite side of the the yard against the north fence. In my experience, ‘Ducher’ has always bloomed best in the winter so I moved it against the north fence where it could get plenty of winter sun. ‘Ducher’s’ flowers have a lemony rose scent. I particularly like how twiggy and full the bush is. The new foliage always has a nice red tint to it which makes it pretty even when it’s not blooming.

Also new for December are two sunflowers which I planted in September to provide some fall color. This yellow one is ‘Goldy Honey Bear’ which is supposed to be 4 to 6 feet tall but which has grown only to a height of 13 inches. Remembering that sunflowers often grow in waste spaces, I planted them to hide some of the garden house construction detritus. Apparently caliche and rock forms a poorer soil than even sunflowers can handle. The entire packet of seeds produced only two flowers which look more like dandelions than sunflowers.

I had better success with ‘Moulin Rouge’ which was planted in long-established garden loam.

Making a bid for spring before winter has even started is the first paperwhite. I’ve been watching this bud all week and if it opens more fully in today’s sunlight I will post an update photo this evening.

All the hardy annuals I planted last month–the sweet alyssum, pinks and violas–have established themselves nicely and continue to bloom. The paperwhites have sprouted up among the violas, as have a lot of larkspur seedlings. And the leaves are still falling off the trees. So this bed is a mix of seasons, which is appropriate for December in Austin.

• Aster ericoides (fading and looking very weedy)
• Cosmos sulphureus (some very short ones, only a foot tall)
• Dianthus chinensis
• Dolichos lablab (a few flowers among the ragged leaves)
• Duranta erecta (both flowers and berries)
• Helianthus annuus ‘Goldy Honey Bear’
• Helianthus annuus ‘Moulin Rouge’
• Lantana montevidensis
• Malvaviscus arboreus
• Lupinus texensis (first flower)
• Lobularia maritima
• Podranea ricasoliana (in full bloom all month, although I find the pink a bit jarring in autumn)
• pepper, jalapeno
• rose ‘Blush Noisette’ (fading)
• rose ‘Ducher’ (full bloom)
• rose ‘Heritage’ (one bloom)
• rosemary (a few flowers now that the pecan leaves have fallen and it’s in sun again)
• Rudbeckia fulgida (one flower)
• Solanum jasminoides
• Tradescantia pallida/Setcreasia (purple heart)
• Tradescantia–unknown white
• Viola cornuta ‘Sorbet Coconut Duet’

This has been an extraordinarily beautiful week in Austin. Like the week before, a cold front blew in at the beginning of the week dropping temperatures almost to freezing. This was the same front that dumped so much snow on the Midwest but here in Austin we were left with some of the most perfect days of the year. After the front blew through, the skies were a brilliant desert blue which provided the perfect backdrop for the sudden coloring of the leaves. Many trees have partially dropped their leaves but the ones that remained finally were tinged with color, not the brilliant colors of northern climes–with burnished golds, deep russets, and glowing ambers. As we near the solstice, the color of sunlight is also golden, infusing the garden with honeyed colors. These are December’s colors in Austin.

2007-12-05. ‘Moulin Rouge’ sunflowers have finally opened.

I spent the entire week transplanting seedlings in the meadow garden. The self-sowers pop up everywhere but so thickly that they need thinning. My method is to dig them all up, replant the bed, and move the rest elsewhere. As such, my meadow is not really a meadow but drifts of planted wildflowers. The larkspur always sprouts when the nights are in the 40s and the days in the 70s. I was relieved to see some bluebonnets finally sprouting, too, although they are very late coming up (probably from the lack of rain in September and October).

2007-12-05. The Japanese persimmon provides autumn color for southern gardens.

By the end of the week, the winds had shifted to the south, bringing warm moist air up from the Gulf of Mexico. Although the cloud cover makes the scene above look gloomy, it’s warmer than the clear days early in the week. Forecast for today, 83F/28C degrees. Then back to cold and rainy next week.

Dateline: December 1, 2010

Camp Mabry had its first official freeze (32°F) early this morning but frost nipped Zanthan Gardens last week. Although the Gold Rush Currant tomatoes are still alive and opening new flowers, the pecans and cedar elms have given up their leaves for the year. The days are cool and the garden is flooded with light. Quickly, quickly I’m sowing all my annuals. If I do it before leaf-fall, they just get smothered.

I was over at Pam/Digging‘s the other day picking up some purple coneflower that she graciously shared after dividing. Her front garden looks all new and tidy after the removal of the vitex. She explained that she had dug everything up and rearranged it. She said it casually, as if she were rearranging the knickknacks on a table. My mouth dropped in awe. “I can’t imagine moving big plants around.” “Really?” It was Pam’s turn to be surprised. “I would have thought you did it all the time.”

Not I. I love digging up bulbs or dividing irises. I have no problem transplanting self-sown annuals like larkspur and bluebonnets, even though they both have long taproots and aren’t supposed to like being moved. I mulled over it awhile and realized that my hesitancy does not spring from a fear of replanting a plant. It’s the digging it up that bothers me.

Many of the plants I grow are adapted to Texas’s droughts and soils by having a long taproot. Such plants, like Texas mountain laurel, are notoriously difficult to transplant successfully even when they are quite small. I prefer to sow a lot of seeds and hack out any plants that come up where I don’t want them to trying to transplant larger plants. Moving something that’s growing happily (or even unhappily) seems too risky. If it dies, I’m out a plant I’ve nurtured for three or four years. (Like my beautiful Fatsia japonica that had grown for ten years by the old shed.) Once a plant is rooted in place, rooted it remains until it dies or I chop it out.

My other problem is the soil itself. Take your spade out in my garden any day, even after a rain when the ground is fairly soft, and see if you can plunge it in more than six inches. Despite the truckloads of amendments (which rot away quickly in our hot humid summers), the ground is unyielding. It’s not just a problem of heavy black clay or rock, although I struggle with both. The real problem is with tree roots. In this regard, I hate the cedar elms particularly. They grow a matting root system close to the surface which persists years after the tree is dead. And then there’s the roots of English ivy, bindweed, poison ivy and smilax to contend with.

Can’t get a shovel in the ground for all the roots!

When I go out to dig a hole in my garden, I have to take more than a spade. My arsenal includes a garden fork, a post-hole digger, loppers for big roots, pruning shears for small roots, a bag for rocks, and (if it hasn’t rained in awhile) a pick-ax. I don’t have to be cautioned against the old practice of double digging. I’m lucky if I can get down more than a foot. I can show you the tines of a broken garden fork still stuck in the spot it broke off thirteen years ago. For large plants, I usually dig down a foot and then build a little planter that’s raised off the ground a foot.

Even under a mulch, tree root suck all the moisture and nutrients from the soil, leaving clumps of hard black clay.

I have considered the idea of using horticultural cloth to line new holes so that the roots won’t invade. I think that this would work best in places where I plant annuals or bulbs. I can’t see how it will work for larger plants, especially ones with long taproots. It seems almost like planting in pots in the ground. Won’t the plants be restricted by the cloth? To be effective, I think I will have to dig out a very large section, line it, and then fill it with trucked in soil. This is what I plan to do with the bog garden. Digging out the section, however, is taking a very long time.

Have any of you used horticultural cloth to block weeds? How did you use it and what were your results?

Another question–are there any gardening techniques that you shy away from? I remember being amazed, last year, by the number of people who said they wouldn’t grow plants from seeds. And then there are those gardeners who hesitate to take up their pruning shears. I never realized I had an animadversion to digging up plants until I talked with Pam.

Today Americans celebrate our national holiday of giving thanks. One symbol of this harvest festival is the cornucopia, the horn of plenty overflowing with the fruits of the harvest.

That first Thanksgiving, native Americans shared a bountiful harvest with European settlers who were starving. They also shared their knowledge of the American flora, teaching the settlers how to grow corn, squash, and beans. Sharing the harvest–sounds like garden bloggers.

I’m grateful that you’ve chosen to share your gardens with me through your photos and your writing on your own blogs and your comments left here. I’ve learned about stringing up tomatoes, the possible danger of pecan leaves, how to adapt a power drill into a bulb-hole digger, and where to look for locally grown food. More importantly, I get a chance to peek into your gardens, celebrate your successes, and suffer with you through your disappointments. I feel lucky to have gardening friends all over the world. And, largely thanks to the efforts of Pam/Digging (Austin’s Garden Blogger booster), I’ve met a lot of new gardeners right here in Austin. Not only do I always have a blast when we get together, but I’m often the recipient of wonderful passalong plants. Your generosity is my horn of plenty, the cornucopia running over. My garden truly grows because I know you.

Special thanks this year:
* Pam/Digging (for sharing plants and her clever garden designs and for getting the Austin Garden bloggers together)
* Annie in Austin (for sharing plants and knowledge and wisdom and heart–her writing is the tops and she’s just as wonderful person)
* Yolanda Elizabet @ Bliss (for pure inspiration and gentle humor)
* Carol @ May Dreams Gardens (for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day and Garden Bloggers Book Club)
* Stuart Robinson @ Gardening Tips ‘n’ Ideas (for the Gardening Blog Directory)
* Angelina @ Dustpan Alley (for exploring the politics of eating locally and sharing her adventures in canning and preserving and for writing that is brutally honest)
* Kathy Purdy @ Cold Climate Gardening (for giving me a thrill the day I read her “Today’s Gardening Quote” and saw she’d quoted me. It was great to finally meet in the flesh after years of knowing each other online.)
* Steve Mudge (who doesn’t have a blog, yet, but who usually leaves a comment)
* to all of the former lurkers who jumped into the conversation

Three years ago I replaced my old gas mulching mower with reel mower. Overall I’ve been pleased with it. I enjoy the quiet whirl of its blades as I mow and am happy not to mess with gasoline or breathe fumes. Keeping these benefits in mind I’ve tried to overlook how difficult I find mowing St. Augustine grass with it. St. Augustine is a running type grass with coarse blades that stick out in all directions. The reel mower is more suited to a fine-bladed grass which grows straight up. In the summertime, it’s best to cut St. Augustine very tall to conserve water. The blades on the reel mower couldn’t be adjusted as high as on the old gas-powered mulching mower.

Looking my evaluation of the reel mower in my original post, I see that the problem I tried to ignore and couldn’t is that I really need a mulching mower. My yard doesn’t have much lawn left but it is covered in large trees. I relied on my old gas mower to mulch the leaves into the lawn. Cedar elm leaves are small and break down quickly when mowed over. Later in the season when the red oak leaves fell, I’d rake them into piles and run the mulching mower over them before putting them in the compost pile. Without a mulching mower, trying to keep the garden looking tidy in autumn is a losing battle.

So this week I bought a electric mulching mower, a Black & Decker Lawn Hog from amazon.com. I chose the model without the flip handle as I don’t have the kind of lawn that can be mowed by walking in neat straight lines. Amazon.com delivered it the day after I bought it and although I’ve only used it twice and am pretty happy with it.

Many people in the amazon.com review found avoiding the extension cord annoying. Certainly it’s something to be constantly aware of when you’re mowing but I didn’t find it any more difficult than vacumning. In fact, using the electric mower feels more like vacumning than mowing.

ADVANTAGES
* quiet (Not as quiet as the reel mower but much more quiet than a gas-powered mower. It’s no louder than my vacumn cleaner.)
* easy to start (Pull the handle, it comes on. Release the handle, it goes off.)
* mulches
* no gas fumes
* easy to adjust the height from very low to very high

DISADVANTAGES
* heavier than the push mower (This is not a problem while mowing but it makes it harder to get it up the steps to the lawn.)
* very long length (The length of the mower from the front wheels to the back wheels is much longer than I’m used to and makes it slightly more difficult to maneuver.)

If anyone wants a reel mower, let me know. I even have the blade sharpening kit that goes with it.

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

A cold front blew in last night, dropping temperatures 20 degrees but not bringing any rain. Today is sunny and windy. It’s hard to take photos in the wind. Zanthan Gardens is looking like it’s ready for a new year. Leaves are dropping just enough to litter the lawn, paths, and beds and yet not enough to open up the yard to sunlight. The trees, perennials, and even grass looks tired and worn.

I’ve been planting out winter annuals these last couple of weeks and that’s where almost all the new flowers for this month come from.

The violas are one of my favorite flowers. I don’t really like their larger cousins, the pansies, maybe because pansies are ubiquitous in commercial plantings around Austin. I hate the way they are typically set out in as if they were floral color dots, all different colors and lined up in unnatural rows and columns. I prefer the diminutive violas. I like to plant them in winding drifts so that they look like they just sprung up on their own.

I also like sweet alyssum, Lobulari maritima. I need to buy a lot more of it, though. In years past I’ve made containers out of rotted logs and the sweet alyssum looks very pretty draping down over the logs.

Pinks, Dianthus chinensis, are another common winter annual here in Austin. If the summer isn’t too hot, they will last and last. I managed to keep one group of so-called annuals growing for over 4 years. They finally died out so I decided that 2007 was a good year to plant out some more.

Among the vegetables, the jalepeno pepper is still going strong.The summer squash continues flowering but I don’t have much hope left for it because the plants look so sickly and ragged. On the other hand, the bush beans have finally decided to grow and are flowering like mad.

I don’t have any roses in bloom at the moment. ‘Ducher’ had been in full bloom last week but all the flowers faded by today. ‘French Lace’, which has been struggling all year, finally died. ‘Blush Noisette’ has buds that look like they will open tomorrow or the day after.

• Antigonon leptopus (only a few flowers left)
• Asclepias curassavica (mostly gone to seed)
• Cosmos sulphureus (some very short ones, only a foot tall)
• Aster ericoides (in full bloom)
• Commelina communis or C. erecta (weedy dayflower)
• Curcubita pepo (straightneck summer squash)
• Dianthus chinensis
• Dolichos lablab (suddenly flowered again after going to seed)
• Duranta erecta
• Lantana montevidensis
• Malvaviscus arboreus
• Oxalis crassipies
• Plumbago auriculata (still many flowers)
• Lobularia maritima
• Podranea ricasoliana (finally blooming all along the north fence)
• Rudbeckia fulgida
• Solanum jasminoides (new this month)
• Tradescantia pallida/Setcreasia (purple heart)
• Tradescantia–unknown white
• Viola cornuta ‘Sorbet Coconut Duet’

Well despite massive losses to the squash borer, we finally managed to eat some summer squash from the fall garden. I harvested three squash between four and six inches long. Together they weighed a bit more than 3/4 of a pound. AJM wished he’d known how much squash there was as he would have made his favorite pasta dish with summer squash, cherry tomatoes, pine nuts and olive oil. There are a few more squash out there so he might still have a chance.

‘Early Prolific Straightneck’ is open-pollinated, an heirloom vegetable which was an All America Selection in 1938. According to the seed packet, (from Botanical Interests), ‘Early Prolific Straightneck’ can be “…harvested very small for ‘baby’ vegetables. Can be steamed, grilled, sauteed, eaten raw in salads, made into relish, and made into bread. If left on the vine, (it) will grow so big that it will effect the orbital spin of the earth.” If this squash lives up to its marketing at all, it’s well worth growing. Because we ended up with so few squash, I let them grow a little larger than I like. I prefer to eat them very small when there aren’t too many seeds.The flavor was very good and the texture firm and creamy. I’m definitely going to try to grow ‘Early Prolific Straightneck’ again, maybe in the spring.

So far, my one night harvest ended up being 3/4 of a pound. The seed packet was $1.89. I’ll have to price summer squash at Central Market to see if the economics pan out (Update: summer squash at CM is $1.49 a pound.) The flavor was excellent. And I know there are no pesticides or anything nasty sprayed on them. And no fossil fuels were used to transport them to my kitchen.

Garden History

I’ve included the temperature ranges and rainfall to compare fall vegetable gardening in Austin to other times of the year and to other locations. Even for Austin 2007 has had a warmer than average fall. I find it difficult to keep seedlings going in early September when Austin temperatures can reach into the high 90s and even the 100s. It’s also been very dry. It rained once, about an inch, on October 22nd when a cold front dropped temperatures 20 degrees.

2007-09-09. Planted 3 seeds to a hole as directed. (45 days to harvest). Highs in the mid-90s, lows in the high 70s. Planted in the new berm made out of dirt dug excavated during the construction of the garden house. This “dirt” is mostly rock mixed with clay and caliche. I added three bags of Texas native hardwood mulch.
2007-09-16. Almost all the squash came so thinned and transplanted thinnings.
2007-10-23. As the first squash are beginning to form, plants are attacked by squash borers. They bore into all the existing fruit turning the squash into mush. I pick off the fruit and cut out all the borers I could and mounded dirt up over the vines where I cut off leaves. Some plants survive but about one-third don’t. Highs had climbed into the low 90s but just dropped to the mid-70s before the squash borer attack.
2007-11-13. First harvest. (65 days). High temperatures in the mid-80s, lows in the mid-60s. Almost no rain during the entire growing period so I had to provide supplemental water.

Dateline: 2010
Temperatures have been quite chilly in the mornings, dipping to the high 30s and low 40s. Our coldest morning of the fall was Saturday (11/6) when our first freeze warning was issued. I didn’t even hear about it until after the fact but temperatures fell only 38 at Camp Mabry and 39 at Bouldin. After 10AM, it warms up to the 70s. The days are sunny and very clear with brilliant blue skies. Great weather for digging out horseherb and dividing the yellow heirloom irises. The bog garden is taking shape.

It continues to be very, very dry and I spend a lot time watering bluebonnet seedlings. I haven’t even started the larkspur yet. I’m waiting for the leaves to fall.

Some leaves have fallen from the cedar elms and pecans but I’m still waiting for some sunshine. The red oak in the back has had a bumper crop of acorns this year. They grind up well in the mulcher/grinder. The red oak in the front has dropped fewer nuts but those are twice as large. I find how different they are interesting.

Both ‘New Dawn’ roses have had excellent fall bloom this year. The ‘Red Cascade’ rose is also the best it’s ever been. Even ‘Mermaid’ (which I’m trying to hack back until some semblance of control) has a flower or two. Four years ago this week I bought my replacement ‘Ducher’. It was wonderful this spring and then it died of cane dieback, too.

We picked some cilantro for chicken tortilla soup (11/7). I haven’t planted the winter vegetable garden yet.

First flower: cat’s whiskers (11/7).

Dateline: 2007
At the beginning of the week it seemed that November weather had indeed arrived–cool, cloudy, dark, and gloomy. What lovely weather for snuggling under a blanket with a cup of tea and reading gardening books. The high temperature Tuesday (11/6) was actually 69F, but that was at 3AM. The temperature dropped during the day so that it was colder at 4PM (59F) than at 3AM (69F). Also it was a drop of almost 20 degrees from the previous day. As the week progressed, the sun came back and the high temperatures were back in the mid-80s. Warm air is blowing up from the Gulf, so the air is quite balmy. This is one of the features about Austin weather that I like. We have one or two days of cool weather so that we can work ourselves into a holiday mood and then it warms up again so that we can get some real work done.

Other signs of fall: the cedar elm leaves began falling in earnest. I’m going to have to buy a new mulching mower this week. The leaves on the Japanese persimmon and the ‘Catawba’ crape myrtles are changing color. The paperwhites began to nose up and by the end of the week, I saw some Narcissus tazetta x italicus sprouting. I better get those bulbs in the fridge planted. The banana plants are starting to yellow and I’ll need to wrap them up soon. The aloe vera by the front walk has some cold damage. I’ll have to bring the potted ones in. And this year, finally, one branch of the weeping yaupon holly has red berries.

I did manage to plant out some violas. The lettuce and swiss chard are up but the raccoons and squirrels keep digging in my seedbeds. More nasturtium is up. A lot of cilantro is sprouting but I’m still waiting on the larkspur, bluebonnets, batchelor buttons, and love-in-a-mist. We need rain for those to sprout. In fact, looking at last year’s photo, I can’t believe that the four o’clocks were still blooming this time last year. I tore those out last month with the tomatoes and cypress vine, all of which were dry and weedy looking and long past flowering stage.

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Here’s a couple of photos of the new flower I discovered in my garden last week. It looks a bit like a miniature tradescantia except that the flower sticks up on a thin stem. The flower is less than 1/4 inch (1 cm) in diameter and the stem about 2 inches (5 cm) long. The plant is a little more than a foot (30 cm) tall and a bit sprawling.

Should I be welcoming this stranger into my garden or weeding it out as fast as I can?

Annie, this isn’t the same white flower I’ve admired in your front lawn under the trees, is it? Seems to me the flowers on your plant are larger.
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