African Hostas March 25, 2017

African Hostas multiply very rapidly.  Spring is their season.  When they emerge after winter their leaves are spotted with liver-colored spots.  Then they send up shoots of white (insignificant) blooms that the bees really love.  The spots disappear eventually and the leaves are solid green.  They are very cute.  Because they multiply so rapidly I have them growing everywhere - the Greenhouse Gardens, the Medicine Garden, and in a big bed behind the house which I fenced off because the armadillos were constantly turning it over.

 Bert stuck our old teapot and coffee pot on a stand and made a little sculpture in this bed.

Weekend at the Farm March 25-26, 2017

These are the first of many larkspur blooms.

It rained on Friday evening, but it was beautiful weather all weekend.

• The daylilies I ordered online from Roots and Rhizomes arrived last week, so I spent all day Saturday planting them in the Orchard.  It was a 48 Tetraploid Mix of pastels (it was a good deal, but I don't know the name of any of them unfortunately).  Planting 48 daylilies took me all day.  Digging the holes, filling each hole with water to get some good moisture in there, planting them, covering them with soil and watering them in real well.  I also bought a pack of 6 red tetraploid daylilies whcih I'll plant tomorrow.  While I was in the Orchard I weeded, and I had a truckload of mulch so I mulched wherever I weeded.  I was working near the bee hive, but the bees never bothered me a bit.
• Sunday I loaded the cub with mulch six or seven times and worked in the Boardwalk beds.  I cleaned up the area where the peach gingers are growing and mulched it out.  And I cleaned out the area where the butterfly gingers are growing and mulched the area.  There were lots of leaves to clear out (I keep some of the leaves in there to rot, but I rake out most of them when I have mulch to lay down).  I was clearing out the leaves with my hands around my Spanish Bluebells and - boom - copperhead.  I saw it just in time.  Bert shot it - I can't have those things so close to the house.
• I cut back the dead debris off some of my Pam Puryear Pink Turks Cap along the Boardwalk.
• Watered all the plants in pots around the pool and in the Star Garden.  
• Watered in the Rose Garden and some of the beds in the Star Garden.
• Weeded, weeded weeded.
• I planted a pack of 6 red Tetraploid mixed daylilies from Roots and Rhizomes, also in the Star Garden.
• Sprayed herbicide in the driveway, the Rose Garden, the Vegetable Garden, the Shade Garden, the Medicine Garden, the Greenhouse Gardens, the Orchard, and the Star Garden.  Whew!  Well, I won't be back for two weeks or more, so I needed to get that done or the weeds will be too tall to kill before the Crawfish Boil.
• Headed home Sunday evening.  

Clyde Redmond Iris March 25, 2017

These iris spread so fast I don't know what to do with them.  I have stuck them all over the Star Garden, the Rose Garden, I have them growing in a bed at the entrance to the Orchard, the Long Border, etc.  I run hot and cold with these iris, but right now I'm loving them (but it's tiring having to dig them up when they get crowded and find homes for them).  

Peggy Martin, Climbing American Beauty, Climbing Pinkie March 25, 2017

Peggy Martin is trained on a piece of chain link and American Beauty and Pnkie are trained on conveyor belts that have been secured in the ground with cement.

Peggy Martin is just beginning her bloom cycle.  She is a once blooming rose - she may spit out a few more blooms throughout the year,but not enough to call her remontant :

Climbing Pinkie will bloom throughout the growing season, but the spring is always a wonderful time for roses.

Climbing American Beauty is not having a great year, I'm afraid I didn't treat her very well last year - not very generous with the water.  But she hung on.  She's blooming, but I've seen some better years.  This is a once-blooming rose, great smell.

Here are the two climbers that are growing on the conveyor belts.  These are both relatively young roses, Cl American Beauty was planted three years ago, and pinkie was planted a year ago, maybe two.  I expect amazing things from these two roses as they mature.  I plan to join the two conveyor belts together with chain and train the roses across the chain some day.

Moss Verbena March 25, 2017

The Moss Verbena is in full bloom right now.  It spreads by seed and it will root along the leaf nodes.  I started mine with seeds, and now it is all over the Rose Garden and the Orchard.

Johnson Amaryllis March 25, 2017

I have these amaryllis growing in six or so spots in my Rose Garden and my Star Garden.  I look forward to them every year.  They don't last long!

My Observations of the Weekend March 25-26, 2017

The Sweetness daffodils in the Daffodil Border are on the wane, but they were so pretty for about a month.  Once they have completely stopped blooming I will cover the area with leaves I've been raking up into a pile behind the Vegetable Garden to suppress the weeds.

The Johnson Amaryllis are in full bloom in the Rose Garden, so pretty.  I remember very well the amaryllis blooming in my mother's garden in Houston.  She had a big group of them in one of the front beds, and in the spring they made a big show. I have Johnsons planted in several other beds, and although their stalks have come up the blooms have not yet opened.  I've always found it interesting how the same plants can act so differently depending on where they are sited, water differences, etc.  Lycoris bulbs that I dug up from an old house in Pasadena bloom much earlier than bulbs that were sourced from my zone 8b area.  I've read that eventually that timing difference fades.

Several months ago I started some seeds in flats, two of the varieties were Catmint and Nicotiana.  I got them mixed up and thought the Catmint was what survived.  But I can see now that the Nicotiana survived (they look completely different, I'm not sure what took me so long to realize!) which I'm thrilled about.  I love Nicotiana.  Naturally, thinking it was Catmint, I planted it in the wrong place, but I will happily enjoy the inconvenience of walking around it all summer just to smell that wonderful scent.  I also sowed some directly in the ground in the Medicine Garden, and it has sprouted.  In Texas, because we have such a long growing season, sowing seeds directly in the ground rather than starting them indoors is preferable, but I enjoy having something to do during the winter months.

The Rose Garden is ablaze with flowers - the purples of Clyde Redmond iris, moss verbena, Homestead Purple Verbena, penstemon, and Verbena on a Stick, roses of pink, yellow, and red, bright yellow coreopsis, red amaryllis, yellow daffodils, red phlox, white Ox Eye daisies, and bluebonnets.  It's something to see right now!

Weekend at the Farm March 17 - 19, 2017

I drove up on Friday morning to go the the herb sale at Festival Hill in Round Top. 

• I bought three Lions Tail, six Sweet Violets, a pineapple sage, two Clary Sage, and two Genovese basil.
• I stained the Boardwalk with green stain.  Bert was mowing around the bee hive and stirred them up.  I got a bee sting on the top of my head, and later I got stung on my hand.  Even though it was hot, I put on the bee suit to finish the painting.
• I passed a very restless night on Friday because of the swelling and itching, and Saturday night was even worse.
• The wasps are out in droves, I sprayed pesticide on 10 small nests under the eaves of our house and several in the greenhouse.  In the summer the first thing we do when we arrive is check for wasp nests.  I received some Jersey Supreme asparagus in the mail last week, so I prepped two beds and planted that.  I also received some Masquerade seed potatoes in the mail, so I planted those as well.  I didn't cure them (as usual), I just stuck them into a prepared bed.
• At some point during the weekend I turned my foot wrong, and I could hardly walk on Sunday.  But two Aleve and a Benadryl did the trick and I forged ahead.
• I planted two Buddleia Lindliana in the Long Border and three John Fannick Phlox.  I watered in the Long Border and in some of the beds in the Rose Garden.  Did some mulching too.
• I planted six Sweet Violets in a moist shady spot in the Medicine Garden.
• I bought two white Philippine Violets to replace the ones that I thought were dead.  But when I started digging the dead ones out it appeared to me that were going to make it, so I planted them in a shady spot in the Star Garden.
• I planted to the two basils in the Kitchen Herb Garden and the pineapple sage in the Medicine Garden.
• I watered the pots in the Star Garden.
• I planted three Autumn Fern in the shady part of the Star Garden.
• That's about it, but this blog post was a lot longer and then it disappeared.  So this is the abbreviated version.

Repurposing March 19, 2017

We have finally sunk to our lowest level in yard art:

Climbing Pinkie March 19, 2017

Before and After - The Boardwalk March 19, 2017

The Boardwalk used to be painted with red stain.  Bert power washed the whole thing last weekend, so I decided to re-stain it, this time with green stain.  Painting outside is pretty cool - you don't have to be careful at all, no prep necessary.

Before:

I am standing at the top of the Boardwalk.

 Here I am standing right where that section leads off to the left.

 After:

Below, same thing - I am standing at the top of the Boardwalk

Here I am standing approximately in the middle by the section that goes off to the left:

Weekend at the Farm March 11 - 12, 2017

  The first poppy of the season:

Rainy and cloudy weekend.

• I had 12 yards of mulch delivered on Friday.  Bert was already here to take delivery because we took Buddy to the vet to get his remaining 4 teeth pulled.  Just joking, but he did have 4 more teeth pulled, and with the 14 he had pulled several years ago, he is gumming a lot of his food. 
• I worked in the Vegetable Garden all morning on Saturday.  I had mulched most of the beds at the beginning of winter, so I decided to turn all of it under.  I planted 5 tomato plants.  This year I planted 3 under the goat wire arbor.  Once they set fruit I'm going to cover the arbor with netting and try to keep the squirrels and birds off my tomatoes.  Every year Bert and I try something new to keep the animals off our tomatoes.  Nothing ever works.  This is our latest idea.  I didn't have enough room to plant the other two under the arbor.  I re-mulched around the tomatoes.  Everywhere I had mulched last winter has so many earthworms!  More than I've ever seen before.  It was obviously a good thing to mulch in the Vegetable Garden last winter.  I sowed French Filet bush green beans and patty pan squash in some of the beds, same routine - I turned under the mulch and re-mulched after I planted the seeds.  I also sowed some fennel in one bed (for my beloved butterflies to lay their eggs on).  I planted an Ichibahn eggplant in one of the plastic feed buckets that Albert gave us.  And in the other 6 buckets I sowed zinnias. On the small goat wire arbor I sowed some Blushing Susan vine seeds.  They aren't edible, just pretty.  I mulched around some Mexican Sunflowers that came up from seed that fell off the plants last fall.  The Vegetable Garden looks excellent right now, I spent four solid hours in there and used four truckloads of mulch.  We're off to a good start.
• I decided to re-purpose my old rusted wheelbarrow, so I filled it with compost, soil and mulch and planted a Dancer eggplant, a marjoram, sowed some green beans and squash seeds in it. I'm using it as a planter.  I parked it in an empty spot in the Star Garden where it will get a bit of water and sun. 
• I sowed a few seeds of patty pan squash in a pot in the Star Garden.  I'll wait for the strongest one and pull up the rest of course.  
• I have four shoes in the Star Garden that I've planted some sedums in.  Two are doing fine, but two needed to be re-done.  I dug up some sedum from the garden, filled the shoes with new soil and planted the sedum.  
• Next I filled the cub cadet with mulch and drove down to the Boardwalk Gardens.  They really need to be cleaned up.  I pulled weeds, raked and mulched around one of my White-by-the-Gate Camellias.  It's a large area. I did the other one a few weeks ago.  I cut back my red Turks Cap in the area and mulched part of that.  I managed to do two truckloads before I tired out for the day.
• I pulled all the dead canna vegetation out of the bed at the entrance to the Orchard.   I pulled the weeds around the Victoria Falls iris in the same bed. 
• Sunday I got started bright and early in the Orchard.  I planted 15 echinacea down there:  6 Cherokee Spirit, 6 Ruby Star, and 3 Wild Berry.  I also planted 2 Evolution Salvia.  I weeded and laid down mulch in places that looked like they were going to get weedy.  I also scratched-in lots of Cactus zinnia seeds.
• I tied up the Erhlicheer greenery in the Orchard so it won't flop over and smother my salvias.  You can't cut back the greenery, you have to let it die back on its own.
• Zelda and the kids stopped for lunch on their way back from Austin.  
• After they left I loaded up the cub cadet with mulch and worked on the Boardwalk gardens for a while.  I continued mulching down the hill toward the Orchard entrance.  Still a long way to go.  I will need to figure out a way to re-route the water before I tackle they other side of the Boardwalk.  The running water will just wash it all away if I do nothing.  
• I fed the bees some sugar water.
• I used a truckload of mulch in the Medicine Garden.  While I was working in there I cut back some Turk's Cap and dug up some columbine that was growing in the paths.  I transplanted six or so plugs to the bed in front of the greenhouse.
• I spent a little time in the Rose Garden deadheading roses.  Then I transplanted six or so plugs of Verbena Bonariensis from paths to beds.
• Tied up the Erhlicheer greenery in the Star Garden that are planted amongst my Dwarf Flowering Almonds.
• I mulched in one of the beds in the Star Garden where tiny little baby weeds were beginning to show.
• Whew!  That's it.  Drove in to work on Monday morning.

Views of the Rose Garden March 12, 2017

George Tabor Azalea March 12, 2017

My azaleas looked really pretty this weekend.  I love the light pink color, and because I only have a couple of them they seem really special to me when they are in bloom.