Autumn November 1, 2021

 

Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods,

And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt,

 - and now the power is felt

Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods

Than any joy indulgent summer dealt.

- William Allingham

A Day at the Farm October 29, 2021

 

Quick turnaround trip.  Up Friday during the lunch hour, right after Airbnb people left.  Back home on Saturday afternoon.  Max, Julia and friends stayed Saturday and Sunday and went to the Roundtop Antique Festival.

• There had been heavy winds all week long, and all my Mexican sunflowers in the Rose Garden - 10 feet tall and in full bloom - had toppled over.  So I picked up all the branches that had sheared off the trunk and cut away everything that I could.  I ended up with a massive pile of debris.  
• I pulled up 4 really big zinnias in the front bed - loaded with blooms, but with spotty crispy vegetation.  
• We don't have any more guests scheduled through the rest of the year so it's time to clear out all the beds of the rest of the ageratum, etc.  Time to expose the bare soil so that the wildflower seeds can germinate and begin their winter growth.
• I can't believe how many monarch butterflies are out in the Star Garden.  I suppose I'm supposed to feel a bit guilty because I guess they should be well on their way to wherever they winter, but I have all my tropical milkweed out there blooming, covered with larva and zillions of eggs soon to be hatched.  And all the snakeroot, white mist flower and blue mist flower are in full bloom right now.  Butterflies are crazy for that stuff. 
• Saturday.  41 degrees outside.  Feels like winter.  Daylight savings is next weekend.  I don't like the shortened days.  All that darkness. 
• Last week I dug up and potted some Swamp Sunflower for a native plant swap on Saturday afternoon that I am attending.  When it throws up its bloom stalk there is nothing but the stalk coming out of the dirt, no leaves along the bottom or anything.  So it doesn't look like anything good at all right now.  No one will probably want it.  So I walked around all the gardens looking for something else to take to the swap in addition to those.  But, I'm so stingy I didn't want to give anything away!  Well, I will write a glowing description of swamp sunflower on a sign, maybe then people will want it.
• I put some pine needles down under one of my Mexican Buckeye trees in Mom's Garden where a big patch of weeds was emerging.  That will kill them.
• Turned the compost piles.
• Chatted with Max, Julia, Justin and Bella for a bit when they stopped by on their way to the Antique Fair.
• I dug up 4 plugs of Wedelia where I have been trying to eradicate it, and I planted them under a rose in the Star Garden where I want a ground cover.  I'll probably live to regret it.
• I watched butterflies for a long time.  And I watched a Monarch drying its wings that had just emerged from its chrysalis. 
• Headed to the plant swap and then to Houston.

A Day at the Farm October 25, 2021

Spent the night and headed home the next day after work.  I came up to prep the house for our guests that arrive on Wednesday.

• All I did when I arrived on Sunday afternoon was do some watering.  In particular I wanted to water my Kidneywood next to the Vegetable Garden and my Guajillo tree at the edge of the Shade Garden.  I planted both of them a week or so ago, and the last time I was here I forgot to water them. 
• Before work I mulched the Kidneywood and the Guajillo tree.  The Guajillo tree is very small, only about as tall as my knee cap.  That's okay.  I can wait.  I just have to remember to water it occasionally. 
• During lunch I worked in the Rose Garden pulling up basil plants.  They have gotten big and shrubby, so it was a bit of an effort.  I sowed moss verbena everywhere that I pulled up basil.  Moss verbena is a ground cover-type plant, and it looks pretty growing underneath the roses.
• I had a partial packet of carrot seeds, and I sowed carrot seeds in the Vegetable Garden since I didn't get good germination at all from the previous sowing.  I think I didn't plant them deep enough.  
• Arranged all the sprinklers.  I won't be back for a week. 

The Water Garden October 23, 2021

 Also known as Mom's Garden and the White Garden.  Here are some of the plants blooming now.  

Below, this is an artemisia given to my by Connie Gwyn.  I just love it.  Unfortunately a huge Nicotiana decided to seed right on top of it, and I didn't have the heart to pull it up.  So the artemisia is being a bit smothered right now.  

The two photos below are trailing white lantana.

Below, this is Colonial White Verbena.  What an amazing verbena.  It has not stopped blooming all spring and summer.  I am definitely going to try more types of verbenas next spring to see if they all perform this well.

Another picture of Colonial White.

I went off the mark when I planted Australian Violet, but it has a lot of white in it.  This ground cover is very special, and it also has not stopped blooming since the spring.  It is a solid carpet of blooms non-stop.

Below, another picture of Australian Violet.

Below, Ice Cap rose.

The three photos below are white Black Eyed Susan Vine.  I just noticed that I ended up with at least one yellow flowered plant in the seeds I sowed.  I'm not happy about that.  With my luck those will be the seeds that end up coming back next spring.  And they don't really begin blooming until the fall when it becomes too late to pull them up because they have wound their way so completely around their support.

The four pictures below are of an amazing morning glory called Pearly Gates.  I took these pictures late in the day.  They stay open all day long.  I have never seen that happen in a morning glory, and I have grown many varieties.  I am extremely impressed with them.  And they are very large flowers, almost as large as Heavenly Blue.

The two pictures below are Indian Peace Pipe Nicotiana.

A Day at the Farm October 23, 2021

 

Arrived after work on Friday, left for Houston on Saturday afternoon to do dinner with friends.

• I left the sprinklers off when I left the last time we were here, and I wanted to come up and turn them back on.  Plus, I just like being here!  When we are in Houston I am just staring at the clock wondering what in the heck I'm going to do to fill up the time. 
• My parsley seeds that I sowed a week or so ago have all sprouted.  I am making ready my larval nursery for next spring.  Parsley likes cold weather.  They will thrive all winter, and then they will be ready for butterflies to lay eggs when spring comes.
• My Country Girl mums in the Rose Garden look gorgeous right now.  And my Texas aster is still going strong. Unfortunately my sugar snap peas look really bad.  They are not thriving at all.  And my carrot germination was poor at best.  Strange.  I'm going to sow more carrots in the morning.  I don't think it's too late for carrots that I will harvest in the spring.
• I bought a tall Retama tree at Buchanan's on Monday.  Bert drove it up here, and he couldn't believe how thorny it was.  It's common name is Jerusalem Thorn.  I am planting it in a place where no one will have a chance encounter with its vicious thorns.  The leaves of the Retama are very special.  And the summer flowers are show stoppers.  I bought one from Anne Thames some weeks ago that is very small.  Despite the fact that they grow quickly, I wanted another one.  I saw a big one at Buchanan's and bought it. 
• I planted the Retama.
• I spent quite a bit of time in the Star Garden pulling up ageratum.  It's really hard to get rid of that stuff.  While I was pulling it up billions of seeds were flying off it.  I raked up a truckload of pine needles from the trails.  I used all the pine needles in the Star Garden surrounding roses, altheas and perennials so that wildflowers aren't allowed to spring up too close to them.  I left several areas clear, and I sowed anise hyssop and moss verbena in those spots.  The wildflowers will start germinating soon - poppies, Tickseed, brown eyes, purple phacelia, Love In A Mist and others.  All of that took quite a bit of time.  
• Headed home to Houston about 2:00. 

Country Girl Mums in the Rose Garden October 23, 2021

 Country Girl is a very old passalong plant.  It has been in gardens for many decades.  I don't know if they can or should be pinched in order to retain the shape of the new mums that are in neat little mounds.  But without pinching, the flower stalks are very long and tend to flop over.  The color is the most delicate lavender, the palest lavender color. 

Time at the Farm October 10 - 14, 2021

 

These are Country Girl mums. a little beaten down from the rain, but still pretty.

We both got to the farm on Sunday morning.  Saturday night all the family had dinner in Ouisie's private room for the October girls birthdays.

• I watered my carrot bed because it looked dry.
• Moved some sprinklers around for the morning watering.
• I dug up my Texas Kidneywood and moved it to the Hot Border that runs along the side of the Vegetable Garden.  It was not going to make it in that clay.  The clay had turned hard as a rock, it was like the plant was in a steel coffin.  Added some compost and watered it in really well.
• I laid down some compost around the Chinese Hat that I planted in the Star Garden last week.  
• I deadheaded basil for a long time in the Rose Garden while I did some spot watering.  The variety I have growing everywhere is Sweet Thai basil. I sowed it two, maybe three years ago.  Now it comes back prolifically from seed.  The flower heads are about a foot long, they bloom one tiny flower at a time that begin blooming at the bottom and continue blooming all the way up the stalk.  The bees are insane for the flowers, and I grow it for them.  This variety has a powerfully strong anise flavor, and I don't like to cook with it. Each plant will throw up many dozens of flower stalks.  Deadheading is a project.
• Went over to Ray and Debra's to check on their cat while they are out of town.  I walked around her gardens.  They looked so pretty.  She walks around mine while I am gone, so it's not a question of being nosy!  It's fun to see what other people are growing and to see their creative ideas.
• Nancy and Lisa got me a really cool rain gauge for my birthday and Bert and I looked around trying to decide where to put it.  It can't be in a sprinkler zone, and it can't be under a tree. 
• Monday.  Worked.  It rained the night before.  We don't know how much because our rain gauge is not set up yet!  But the rain barrels are full.  Cool morning, feels like fall. 
• I ordered 2 Louisiana iris called Cajun White Lightning last year and they finally arrived.  They are for the water tank in Mom's Garden.  During lunch I put them in a pot and set them in the water.  I had some pickerelweed growing in there that Debra gave me.  But it was purple so it was always a temporary thing.  I ordered the iris out of season last year, so the guy finally mailed it to me - a whole year had passed!
• I started cutting back the Pringle Aster.  It is on the wane.
• I clipped Four O'Clocks and other plants leaning into paths in the Star Garden.
• After work I went out and worked in the Vegetable Garden.  There must have been some heavy wind last night because all the red amaranth I had growing in the Vegetable Garden had toppled over.  I have got to think of an effective support system for those really tall plants I grow!  I cut all the gorgeous seed heads off them and dropped them on the ground.  I peeled off all the big leaves and threw them in the compost.  The tall, stripped down stalks went into one of my erosion spots.  I turned over the soil in a large area of bed in the Vegetable Garden and buried all the seed heads.  They have not formed seeds yet.  They are just soft red green manure.  Next spring that soil should be rich and ready to plant.  
• Tuesday.  Worked.  It threatened rain all day, but the rain never came.
• During lunch I drove to the Antique Rose Emporium and bought a Beverly rose and a Climbing American Beauty rose.
• After work I planted the Beverly where the Perl d'Or used to be.  I surrounded it with my compost.  I have been turning my compost pretty regularly trying to break it down.  This was pretty chunky, but I used it anyway to side dress the rose.
• While I was in the Rose Garden I cut back several salvias.  The purple berries of the Fruity Pebbles lantana were dropping into my hands when I touched them, so I gathered a bunch of them and threw them into the Noisette bed.  
• I walked down the Boardwalk and clipped plants away that were leaning in.  Lots of rotten boards on the Boardwalk.  Bert replaced a lot of boards last spring, but there is more to do.  Wood has gotten so expensive since Covid.  Not sure when we will get back to that task.
• I set up my armadillo traps again.  And now I wait! 
• Wednesday.  Worked.
• Checked my traps.  One of them was sprung, but the armadillo got away.
• I cut back 2 of my leggy Nicotiana plants in the Water Garden and planted 2 of my tiny New Jersey Tea plants.
• Raked in the Greenhouse Gardens and started a new compost pile with the leaves.
• Drove to Anne Thames nursery and bought a Pyramid Bush, a Texas Kidneywood , a mat forming Fleabane of some sort, and a Chile Pequin.  Chili Pequin (I just learned) is a native shade plant.  I am going to plant it in the Kitchen Herb Garden which gets shade and dappled shade.  Anne's prices are amazingly low.
• I cut back more Pringle Aster in the Star Garden.  I came upon 2 chrysalises hanging on branches of the aster which I carefully avoided disturbing.
• I dug up 3 clumps of swamp sunflower for Anne's native plant swap on the 30th.  I did it now to try and give them a little time to recover.  I put them in the Vegetable Garden under the goat wire arbor so they could get some water and a little shade while they recover.
• Planted the Fleabane next to one I already have growing in the Water Garden.
• After work I spent about 2 hours trying to finish up since we would be heading back to Houston on Thursday.
• I planted the Kidneywood in the large area at the front of the Rose Garden. I plan to plant a Retama in the far corner.  I was going to plant my last two tiny New Jersey Tea bushes in there as well, but I can already see a bunch of Tall Poppy Mallow coming up in there, and I know they will get smothered.  I fertilized and mulched around it.
• I planted the Climbing American Beauty on the mattress spring arbor at the front of the Rose Garden.  Fertilized and mulched around her.
• I planted the two Tea bushes in the front bed where there was a large empty area.  I had to move some clumps of spiderwort, but no worries there.  I also planted the Pyramid Bush (Melochia Tomentosa) in there.  Mulched, fertilized and surrounded all of them with chicken wire.  The armadillos like that front bed.
• Lastly, I planted the Chili Pequin in the Kitchen Herb Garden.  I plan to get 3 or 4 more to plant in there.  That should look pretty.  I'm not having any luck with herbs in there.  Too much armadillo activity I guess.  Fertilized and surrounded it with chicken wire.  
• I put some chicken wire around the Tea Plants I planted earlier in the day in the Water Garden.
• It's October, but it's hot.  I was sweating.  That was it for the day.
• Thursday.  Worked.  
• I used up the rest of the fertilizer I had on hand.  Fertilized a bunch of my roses in the front bed and the Rose Garden.  That stuff gets pretty stinky after a few days, so I kind of hesitated since we have Airbnb guests coming next week.  But it's great when the ground is wet and even better when it's raining.  Thursday it drizzled all day.
• Headed home to Houston after work.

Green and Gold October 13, 2021

 Nature's colors are amazing!

Zinnias in the Front Bed October 10, 2021

 I thought these dark, vivid pink zinnias looked pretty today.

Monarch Waystation October 10, 2021

 My monarch waystation sign came in the mail.  Bert hung it on the front fence.  I'm very proud of it (even though anyone can buy one).  

Blooms in the Rose Garden October 10, 2021

 Below, this is Cypress Vine.  This comes up from seed every year.    Beautiful ferny foliage with red flowers.  There is also a white flowering form and a pink flowering form.  But I have never seen seed  packets of the white or pink form sold separately.  It is either sold as red only or a mix of red, pink and white.

Zinnias in front of Bermuda's Kathleen rose.

Below, this is a hedge of ageratum and trailing purple lantana.

Below, lantana and gomphrena.

Below, Henry Duelberg salvia, lantana and basil.

Below, 3 varieties of lantana and salvia.

Mexican Sunflower October 10, 2021

 Mexican Sunflower gets about 10 feet tall.  Without support these plants will fall over eventually, and one by one the limbs will shear off the plant, hanging on to the main trunk by a thread.  If left alone the fallen limbs will live and bloom.  But it is basically a very unruly perennial.  However, it is hard to find a flower more loved by butterflies than this one, so it is worth the frustration.  I have finally found the perfect spot for it.  Years ago Bert erected some cedar fencing around a bed in the Rose Garden.  The enclosure was originally intended to prop up a noisette rose.  The rose has since died (the cursed voles!), and all that has been growing in that enclosure are some perennials.  Last year some Mexican Sunflowers popped up there, and I let them grow.  They stayed upright because of the support around them.  They re-seeded (with some help from me - I dead headed and threw the seed head down in there last winter) this year.  And again, they are staying upright.  They looked pretty when I drove in this morning.  They are fall bloomers, and their beautiful show is just beginning.

    

Day at the Farm October 7, 2021

 There are 8 monarch caterpillars on this plant.

Here is one at the very top of the plant.

Here are two more.

Another one, hiding under a leaf.

Here are two eating the same leaf.

This one was near the bottom of the plant.

I drove up the evening before and worked from here on October 7.  My birthday.  Sixty years old - ugghh.

• What a beautiful day.  Sunny and cool.
• I put more Sevin dust on the collards, mustards and cabbages.  The mustards are getting hole-y.
• I sprayed herbicide in the Star Garden, Rose Garden, and the Orchard.
• I planted a Texas Kidneywood just on the outside of Mom's Garden.  I was very surprised to find that the spot where I planted the Kidneywood was solid clay.  I have never, ever found clay on this place no matter where I dig.  I thought twice about planting the shrub there because it was so clay-ey, but I did it anyway.  I had it in my head that that spot was the place I wanted it to be planted, and I couldn't veer from it.  I sure hope it does alright.
• I spent some time looking for monarch caterpillars on my milkweed plants.  They are everywhere.
• Watered here and there. 
• Sowed parsley in the broken wheelbarrow in the Star Garden.
• Sowed a bit more kale in the Vegetable Garden.
• Headed home about 5:00.  Dinner with Max and Julia.