{"id":2413,"date":"2009-02-15T20:11:15","date_gmt":"2009-02-16T01:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/gardenlog\/?p=2413"},"modified":"2020-02-14T19:41:56","modified_gmt":"2020-02-15T01:41:56","slug":"february-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/monthly-comparison\/february-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"GBBD 200902: Feb 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carol at May Dreams Gardens<\/a> invites us to tell her what’s blooming in our gardens on the 15th of each month.<\/p>\n

Feb 15, 2009<\/h3>\n

\nAustin is now in its 18th month of drought. We are currently the most drought-stricken area of the country. However earlier this week we got almost an inch of rain over two days and the plants (including the weeds) have responded like young children on Christmas morning. They’re running wild.\n<\/p>\n

\nAustin’s had quite a few days this last month with high temperatures in the 70s and even the 80s. Sometimes it would freeze overnight and then shoot up to the mid-70s by afternoon. Although other Austinites have had killing freezes hit, Zanthan Gardens is close enough to the heat sink of downtown Austin that it has flirted with freezes but not succumbed. Several flowers have cold damaged leaves but continue to bloom: the butterfly weed, the lantana, and the Mexican petunia.\n<\/p>\n

\"ruellia
The leaves of the Mexican petunia are bronzed with cold-damage but the plants keep flowering.<\/i><\/p>\n

\nAlso the big vines, duranta and Port St. John’s creeper continue to bloom from last summer. In a more typical Austin winter these freeze down to the ground but are root hardy. On the one hand it’s nice to have continuous flowers; on the other, the plants look shabby with last year’s ratty growth. I’d sort of prefer to have a fresh spring look. At least I feel more tolerant of the bright pink flowers of the Port St. John’s creeper in the spring; they seem so wrong to me in the fall.\n<\/p>\n

New for February<\/h4>\n

\nI know Kathy @ Cold Climate Gardening<\/a> finds it interesting that not only do we Austinites grow paperwhite narcissus outside in the ground but that sometimes they bloom at the same time as the roses. Here’s an example.\n<\/p>\n

\"Narcissus
Paperwhite narcissus ‘Grandiflora’.<\/i><\/p>\n

\nIf it weren’t for Carol @ May Dreams Gardens and her Garden Blogger Bloom Day, I would never have taken a closeup of an arugula flower or noticed its incredible markings. I can’t see them with the naked eye.\n<\/p>\n

\"arugula\"<\/p>\n

\nJerusalem sage has been very dependable throughout the drought. I haven’t lost any plants and I also find it easy to propagate by sticking cuttings in the ground. This year it’s blooming more than a month earlier than it did in 2007 or 2008.\n<\/p>\n

\"Phlomis<\/p>\n

\nMexican plums are the first trees to flower in my garden. I think I have two different varieties because one I bought from Gardens always blooms two weeks before the other two I bought from Barton Springs Nursery.\n<\/p>\n

\"Prunus<\/p>\n

\nSpiderwort used to be one of my favorite wildflowers. It’s very aggressive, though, so now I try to restrict it to the more “woodsy” parts of the yard.\n<\/p>\n

\"Tradescantia<\/p>\n

\nA relative of spiderwort is setcreasea (aka purple heart or wandering Jew). In the north, people grow it as a house plant (I think) but in Austin we grow it outdoors. It will freeze back. I usually pile leaves on it before a freeze. I haven’t done that this year and it looks a bit ratty but it’s keeps growing and blooming. I have the purple one with a bright pink flower and also this green one with a pale pink flower.\n<\/p>\n

\"Setcresea\"<\/p>\n

\nThe leatherleaf mahonia and redbuds started blooming since the last GBBD, but I didn’t manage to get photos today. The rose ‘Ducher’ (which often blooms in December or January) put out a couple of blooms but neither was very photogenic.\n<\/p>\n

Between GBBDs<\/h4>\n

\nSeveral flower bloomed and faded in my garden between GBBDs and so didn’t show up in the inventory for either January or February.\n<\/p>\n