Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve written about the garden. I appreciate people writing to say they’ve missed my updates (thanks Pam and Rantor). I really don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s as if the gardening fever has run its course. Is that possible? I thought that once the bug had bit, you were a gardener forever. And for the last ten years I’ve spent several hours a day in the garden and almost as much time again writing or reading about gardens.
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2004-10-29. Out of control. The Pandorea ricasoliana devours the path around the garage, the yuccas, and a persimmon tree.
October 29th, 2004
Overrun
2004-09-18. The Stump Garden with Oxblood Lilies.
September 18th, 2004
Picture Perfect
This picture lies. I wish the garden really were as cool and inviting as this picture makes it look. But it isn’t. I took this shot of the oxblood lilies about 10 on Saturday morning. It was only in the mid-80s, but very muggy–the kind of summer weather that makes you retreat inside to a cold lemonade. I had just mown the lawn the night before, and with our rain last week it’s greened up. But the telephoto lens compresses the focus, making tha garden seem more compact and comely than it is.
My neighbor’s yard is a mass of lantana right now and I benefit because the butterflies it attracts wander over to my yard. They seem fond of the garlic chives. I have some lantana, too. But I have too much shade to suit it and it rarely blooms.
Oxblood lilies, the soul of Zanthan Gardens. 2004-09-16. Austin, Texas.
September 16th, 2004
Week 37: 9/10 – 9/16
Dateline: 2004
If fall is the South’s spring, then oxblood lilies are our daffodils.
About three inches of rain which fell the other day have brought out the oxblood lilies en masse. A few had bloomed earlier when I watered the lawn near them. But those were just teasers. The garlic chives have been blooming since August 12. The hyacinth bean vines are flowering. I think they do best in the fall. The sago palm is putting out new fronds. I’m relieved since this is the first time since I transplanted it into the garden. Mostly I’m working inside the house right now, and just admiring the garden from within.
It’s in the 90s and muggy again this week after some cool dry weather last week. So it doesn’t feel like fall anymore. But we really needed the rain in the city. The last few storm systems to the northwest (which dumped 10 inches around Marble Falls) didn’t bring us any rain.
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The morning temperatures have dipped below 70 and the humidity is low, making for pleasant garden mornings. The more I clean up the leaf litter, cut back the overgrown plants and weed, the more I start thinking of new garden plans.
August 31st, 2004
Dietes vegeta
Gardening has its fashions. One year it was pentas. Then it was Tecoma stans. This year commercial landscapes all over Austin, planted Dietes vegeta, the butterfly iris. The long graceful spears are attractive even when the plants are not in bloom. But when they are bloom, it’s magic; single flowers flutter above the leaves.
Seduced, I bought a gallon pot of some at Home Depot several months ago. Since I was going to be away at the worst part of summer, I decided not to plant them then. Today I finally got around to it.
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How long does your garden look nice without you?
August 14th, 2004
My Garden Without Me
Our third day of wonderfully cool temperatures in a row has got me out nosing in the garden again, tidying up here and there.
During my week stay with my parents in Las Vegas, I continued to be very much impressed with the xeriscape designs along the streets and medians as well as the very small, but well-landscaped yards. Two-thirds of Las Vegas didn’t exist when I lived there as a teenager. The desert is bull-dozed as new development is laid like a giant grid in the valley and the landscaping is newly installed, a bit crisp, clean and artificial like the houses. All the neighborhoods are sheltered from the major streets with cinder block walls. Most of the newer developments also include a wide (not greenspace but) planted space between the street and the walls. The design of these xeriscape spaces is delicately fluid and much more attractive than either mown grass or decorative rock landscapes of my past.
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The garden looks trashed, like a house the morning after a big party.
August 6th, 2004
Home Again Post-Vacation Blues
When I arrived home at 4 this morning, I slipped out into the moonlit garden even before disturbing the sleeping boys with my “I’m home”. Plants looked bigger, the grass was longer, and the paths a little overrun with weeds.
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2004-07-10. Iris ‘Strictly Ballroom’.
July 13th, 2004
Forgetfulness and Garden Journals
I was surprise when AJM pointed out a bearded iris about to open last week. Our season for bearded irises is April and I’d have sworn I’d never seen one blooming this late. Must be all the rain. Looking at my garden journal, however, I see I was surprised when this same iris bloomed in early June, 2002 and then again on July 15, 2002. Well, this is why I write things down.
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My tastes aren’t really this black or white. So I’ve had to annotate my responses. What I like and what I can do are very different things. Learning to work with the conditions you live in is the easiest way to successful gardening.
July 11th, 2004
Bandwagon
A quiz from Bookish Gardener.
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2004-07-07. I’d placed a stone path here at the bottom of the hill next to the garage and interplanted it with monkey grass to slow down the runoff during heavy rains. What had once been a gravelly desert landscape is overrun with vines this year.
July 8th, 2004
Jungle Fever
Returned from San Francisco to find a jungle. Flying between Houston and Austin, I saw swollen rivers brown with runoff and sheets of standing water in the fields. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it this green in July. It had rained through last Thursday and the temperatures continue in the low 90s; that is quite temperate for us this time of year. Compared with the dry, cool air of San Francisco, though, arriving in Austin was like stepping into a sauna.
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I knew stuff was happening without me.
June 6th, 2004
Memorable Weather
Typical for the day in Austin, Memorial Day brought on the weather. We hit our first 100 degree day of 2004 (a bit of a surprise since we only hit 90 a few days before). Then it began pouring rain, then hail (bean-sized). Then the sun shone and it continued to rain and hail.
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