One of the most difficult tasks for the beginning gardener is to remove healthy plants. I’m so grateful for anything that is happy to grow in my garden that I’ve been known to let all sorts of plants considered rank weeds by others, flourish here. As long as it looks green and lush and fills in the blank spaces, I’m content to live and let live.
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Gardening is a discipline as well as an art. A garden is a finite space in which plants compete for the choicest locations.
February 18th, 2002
If This Plant Offends Thee, Pluck it Out
Crocus tomasinianus.
February 10th, 2002
Crocus tomasinianus ‘Whitewell Purple’
First flowers of the year opened on the Tommie crocuses today. These are the tiny crocuses with the huge name. They are tiny, even smaller than the Crocus chrysanthus ‘Blue Pearl’. I think that you must have to have a thousand of them before you’d even notice them.
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The Rose Bible.
Rayford Clayton Reddell.
Chronicle Books. San Francisco. 1998.
February 3rd, 2002
Defoliating Roses
In a couple of weeks, we will begin pruning roses here in Austin (zone 8). To prepare, Rayford Clayton Reddell suggests that we defoliate the rose to encourage the growth of new eyes (from which new roses will grow). With the roses defoliated, it is also easier to see how the rose should be pruned and a good time to spray them.
This idea makes a lot of sense in Austin. Almost none of my roses have lost their leaves from last year. These leaves are tattered, bug-eaten, and in the case of a couple of roses, beginning to suffer from black spot and mildew.
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Dr. Leda Horticulture, aka Elizabeth Churchill, is a rosarian who worked for eight years at nurseries in the San Francisco Bay Area. She recently retired and moved to a beautiful old Victorian in southern Louisiana. If she told you how much room she has for new roses, you would hate her.
February 2nd, 2002
Dr. Leda’s Rose Tips
Words of humor and wisdom from Elizabeth Churchill.
The trees grow and each year produce more leaves for the gardener to rake.
January 20th, 2002
It’s Not My Imagination
It’s not just my imagination; there really are more leaves than ever this year. I realized that the red oak tree is now three times as tall as when I moved here eight years ago. Then it was just a little taller than the privacy fence.
More signs of the coming spring. I saw two tips of Tulipa clusiana peeking their noses up in the meadow.
Time to think about planting the vegetable garden.
January 19th, 2002
Planning the Vegetable Garden
There’s nothing like receiving a gardening catalog to stir up a gardener’s blood. As soon as I began to leaf through the 2002 catalog from the Territorial Seed Company that came in today’s mail, I felt urge to go out and clean up the mess of last year’s garden. Yes. I’m terribly behind. I’ve been so busy on other gardening projects that the vegetable garden has been neglected, almost since we came back from England last summer.
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Catalog Review: Territorial Seed Company
January 19th, 2002
Territorial Seed Company
Each year it’s a toss-up whether I will order my vegetable garden seeds from Shepherd’s Garden Seeds or the Territorial Seed Company. Usually Shepherd’s wins because by the time I decide what I want to order, it is to late to wait for a shipment, and Shepherd’s seeds are carried at several nurseries in Austin.
But this year I will probably try the Territorial Seed Company. I’d prefer to support a smaller seed company rather than another White Flower Farms subsidiary. I don’t have any complaint with Shepherd’s. They introduced me to my favorite tomato, Carmello, and my favorite basil, Genovese.
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Grand Primo narcissus.
January 18th, 2002
Narcissus tazetta ‘Grand Primo’
I posted a new plant profile on the Grand Primo daffodils that are blooming right now.
Plant Profile: Consolida ambigua (annual larkspur)
January 10th, 2002
Consolida ambigua
I’ve spent the last couple of days weeding some beds and transplanting the self-sown larkspur in them. The larkspur plants are about 4 inches tall. I’ve read in several places that they are difficult to transplant but I have never found that to be true. They do have a long tap root, so you have to be careful when digging them out. They don’t come up in bare earth; they seem to prefer the mulched paths and beds. This habit suits me as it is easier to clear out a bed, add some wood ash and superphosphate and then replant them about eight inches apart than it is to let them seed in place and then thin them. And if you want them to grow to any decent height, you have to thin them.
Related
For more information and photos, see the Zanthan Plant Profile.
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February, 2000. Viola cornuta ‘Sorbet Lemon Chiffon’
January 6th, 2002
Viola cornuta Sorbet Series
Although the bluebonnets, larkspur, and love-in-a-mist, are all green and growing, about the only flowers in bloom this week are the violas. Violas are a miniature relative of the pansy. Both are popular winter bedding plants here in the south. I prefer the more delicate viola.
Violas tolerate both cold and warm weather. Here in Austin they bloom constantly from whenever you plant them in mid-fall until late April or May; that is, whenever the temperatures rise above 94.
The viola series I find most often at Austin nurseries are from the ‘Sorbet’ series. I especially like the pale yellow ‘Sorbet Lemon Chiffon’ and the pale blue. Although these sometimes reseed, F1 hybrid will not come true from seed.
2002-03-27. Viola cornuta ‘Sorbet Yellow Frost’
Notes
Violas need dark to germinate.
- Viola cornuta (tufted pansy)
- Viola tricolor (Johnny Jump-up, heart’s ease)
- Viola x wittrockiana (pansy)
In 1998, the University of Georgia’s Horticulture Garden rated violas by series and color class.
