The Best Rose for Southeast Texas

This is the shrub rose Mlle Franziska Kruger. It was introduced in 1880. It is a winner! I took these pictures last week, and (although some of them are spent) as you can see, it has about 100 blooms on it. What is special about this shrub rose is - this is Texas! It's July! It's hot, damn hot! We're in a horrible drought. And yet here is this pretty, antique rose blooming its heart out. I have over 50 varieties of rose growing on my farm, and this one is superior to all the others. It is a prolific bloomer.

It should be in every rose growers collection.

A Weekend at the Farm 07 / 22 - 24 / 2011

Still no rain. Came up on Thursday evening.

• Watered plants. It's a fight for survival. Everything is so dry.


• Sprayed herbicide on the driveway, in the Vegetable Garden, in the Rose Garden, and the Orchard.


• Fertilized lots of plants including the veggies, the Blue Mist Flowers, the Nicotiana, the Rudbeckia Maxima, the Tansy, the Butterfly Pea Vine, the Lavender, the Oakleaf Hydrangea, the Red Turk's Cap, the Barbados Cherries, the Pine Cone Gingers in the Shade Garden.


• Cleaned the oven.


• Cleaned the bathrooms.


• Cleaned the ceiling fans in the bedrooms.


• Poured orange oil and water in the Veggie Beds.


• Weeded, weeded, weeded.


• Sowed Lady in Red Salvia seeds and some Colorado Yarrow seeds in various beds in preparation for fall.


• Moved some Butterfly Weed seedlings that self sowed in all the wrong places.


• Saturday night we went with the neighbors to the street fair in Brenham. There was a live band, and they closed off the streets. Everyone brings chairs and hangs out. It was lots of fun. Kids, dogs, etc. Everyone is really friendly. Small town Saturday night.


• Deadheaded zinnias.


• Moved a Salvia that wasn't thriving in the place where it was planted.


• Cleaned up the Greenhouse. It gets pretty dirty in there, lots of dirt and mouse poop.


• Raked the paths around the Greenhouse.


• Swam in the pool everyday for hours.


• Watched the birds for hours as they bathed and ate bird seed. Painted Buntings, Bluebirds, Tit Mouses, Cardinals, Chickadees, Hummingbirds, Woodpeckers. All so pretty.


• Took long walks in the mornings.


• Watched some deer drinking out of the bird bath. One of them was a young male with little antlers.


• Ate lots of arugula from the garden. Picked some peppers and eggplants.


• Spread mulch in the Daffodil Bed. Trying to deter the armadillos! They keep turning up my bulbs.


• Cleaned the bird baths.

Cranberry Star Caladiums

Caladiums are very useful, colorful plants. You can tuck a few bulbs here and there between plants for a little color in a shady place or you can plant them en masse for a really impressive show of color. I started these plants from bulbs. The white color stands out in the dappled shade. Caladiums will return the next year, but they will not return strong. I've wondered if I dig them up and store them through the winter whether they would do better. All the years I've grown them, I've never tried it.

A Weekend at the Farm 07/16-17/2011

My spunky Cairn Terrier, Rocky, was the hero this weekend. He rooted out an armadillo and trapped him under the boardwalk. My husband went out there with a gun and saw him through the cracks in the boards. He stuck his gun between the boards and shot him easy as you please. Sounds cruel. But, armadillos are destructive. I don't have a path that isn't littered with dirt from their digging. I don't have a rock-lined flowerbed that isn't askew from their rooting around. My bulbs are always dug up and gasping in the sun when I arrive on Friday evenings. They make a mess.

• Still no rain although it looked cloudy for a while on Friday and there was a 30% chance of rain on Saturday.



• Poured orange oil and water in the beds in the Vegetable Garden to kill nematodes.



• Watered.



• Weeded.



• Threw down hollyhock seeds in the Grass Garden that I brought from the garden in Houston.



• Spent a lot of time watering in the Rose Garden with the hose. The roses are stressing. I deadheaded and fertilized in there as well.



• Planted a flat of parsley in the Long Border.



• Swam in the pool.



• I have lots of baby arugula in the Vegetable Garden, so tender and flavorful. Made a nice salad for dinner Saturday night.



• Didn't do much of anything else.
  

A Weekend at the Farm 07/08-10/2011

This is Obedient Plant, also called Dragon Head Plant.
Hot and dry. The drought goes on.

Sprayed herbicide in the Rose Garden, the Long Border, the Orchard, around the pool, around the flowerbed edges, and the paths in the Greenhouse Gardens.

Watered some plants that are really struggling.

Weeded various beds.

Weeded the two Bulb Beds and mulched the Bulb Bed against the shed. When it gets closer to autumn I will plant some large plants in there.

Cut away dead vegetation on plants that are partially dead from lack of water.

Planted some zinnia seeds and sunflower seeds.

Swam often.
Worked a long time in various gardens. The Orchard was a mess. I pulled up all the Bachelor Buttons and laid them down in the Orchard to give them time to throw off their seeds. Also laid some of the plants down along the fence line in the Rose Garden so they could throw off seed. I pulled up lots of dead plants in the Long Border (annuals that have gone to seed) and pulled weeds. I need more anchor plants which I will buy in the fall. No need to plant anything right now unless you want to waste your money.

Rocky was outside barking like crazy early Sunday morning, and I saw him chasing an armadillo across the front porch, down the driveway, over a fallen log in the Shade Garden, and into the woods. I had no idea that armadillos could run so fast! It was something to see. I yelled, "Rocky has an armadillo!". My husband came running, roused out of a dead sleep, with his gun, but it was too late. Lucky armadillo.

Sprayed fungicide on the zinnias.

Pulled up all the tomato plants and cucumbers and turned the soil over in 4 beds in the Vegetable Garden. The tomatoes had pretty extreme nematode infestation. I soaked the soil in the four beds with orange oil and water and also buried lots of lemon slices in the soil. I ran out of orange oil before I was finished, but it was a good start. I have lots more beds to turn over - the spring garden has run out of steam. I guess I could plant okra now. Okra loves the heat. But instead I will let the earth rest for a month and plant for fall. I will buy more orange oil this week and take it up there with me next weekend.

What's Blooming Now - Butterfly Pea Vine 07/02/2011

Butterfly Pea Vine's scientific name is Clitoria ternatea. Looking at the bloom is obvious why that particular name is attached to it! In zone 8b where I garden this vine is a reseeding annual. It will not come up from the roots in the spring. It is in the pea family, and the leaves look like other members of the pea family. After the flower blooms a pea pod full of seeds will grow. Once the pod dries the seeds will fall to the ground and they will reseed in the spring. If you want to encourage more blooms the green pods should be snipped off and not be allowed to dry out. This is a mannerly vine. It is good for a trellis. It does not require a huge amount of "leg room" such as an arbor. Vines are good additions to the garden because they give you vertical interest. They pull your gaze upward. This clear, beautiful blue color is not common in nature which makes this vine even more special.

What's Blooming Now - Blood Lily 07/01/2011

I bought 9 Blood Lilies (Scadoxus multilforus) three years ago. This is the first bloom I have ever gotten. Of course, look at the inhospitable conditions in which I am growing them. It is a very unusual looking flower that grows straight out of the ground with very little greenery appearing beforehand. The greenery, such as it is, has only just appeared. It is very, very late in the season for bulbs to break dormancy, at least here in Texas. Really strange.