Tuesday, June 29, 2010

What's Blooming Now - Lady Baltimore Rose Mallow 06/29/10


The blooms of this mallow are beautiful. Mine is a bit leggy. Maybe next year it will be more compact. These plants get about 4 feet wide and just as tall. The blooms droop pretty quickly in the heat, and they only last one day. If you pick the blooms very early in the morning they can be brought inside and they will stay open and pretty all day.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

A Weekend at the Farm 06/2627/10



This is a Dame de Coeur rose.

This weekend I didn't work too hard. Too hot!

Gathered up some eggplants and tomatoes from the Vegetable Garden.

Moved some Evergreen Viola from a neglected flowerbed over to the Shade Garden.

Sprayed herbicide in the paths in the Vegetable Garden, the Shade Garden, the Rose Garden, the Star Garden, and the Infinity Garden.

Pulled weeds. Lots of weeds!

Turned the soil in one of the beds in the Vegetable Garden and planted burgundy okra. The world needs more okra.

Swam in the pool and listened to rockabilly on the radio.

Fertilized in the Vegetable Garden.

Something big - I assume it is an armadillo - has dug a big hole/den in my Greenhouse. I need to get him out of there, but I'm scared to mess with him. Damn armadillos!

Watered my fruit trees and the shrubs in the Greenhouse Garden.

Deadheaded my roses and my bee balm.

Sunday my husband and I packed a lunch and took the dogs to Lake Livingston for a swim and a picnic. I think we were the only people in the park. Too hot for sensible people to be spending time outside.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Foliage in a Shade Garden




Shade gardens have a quiet and verdant beauty. They don't have the startling impact that flowers of red, yellow, orange, and blue have. But shade plants have a wonderful array of textures and patterns that combine to make a memorable and contemplative space.


Monday, June 21, 2010

What's Blooming Now - White Wedding Zinnia 06/21/10


Gorgeous and pure white.

What's Blooming Now - Bailey Red Rose 06/21/10

Bailey Red flowers are singles. It is one of the few rose shrubs I have with single flowers. Why have singles when you can have doubles? But I was intrigued with the pretty, prominent yellow stamens of the flowers. And Bailey Red grows very big hips that turn a pretty orange in the fall.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

What's Blooming Now - Black and Blue Sage 06/19/10

Black and Blue Sage is a great salvia. Salvias are deer resistant plants. Deer don't seem to like to eat any of them. And there are so many varieties of salvias. If you have trouble with deer you can grow nothing but salvias and still have an enormous amount of variety in your garden.

This salvia is root hardy. It comes back very strong each year and multiplies well. What a wonderful and rare blue bloom color.

What's Blooming Now - Honeysweet Rose 06/19/10


A Weekend at the Farm 06/18-19/10

This is a single bloom of Strawberry Seduction Yarrow.

I gathered lots of tomatoes, eggplants, the last of the parsnips, and the last of the carrots.

Planted some more okra. It's the only thing that will grow in the heat that I'm aware of.

Weeded and weeded and weeded.

Watered the fruit trees and the shrubs by the Greenhouse. It'll be a challenge getting them through the summer.

Fertilized the roses in the Rose Garden with fish emulsion.

Fertilized everything in the Long Border with a slow release organic made from chicken manure. Yummy.

Sprayed herbicide in various places.

I had an appointment with a landscaper to get an estimate for some work I want done down the slope behind the house. He didn't show up. Irritating.

Took a walk in the morning.

Watched butterflies.

Swam in the pool. The water is already hot.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The Rose Garden in Late Spring

In a Texas summer, roses, even antique roses - the truly time-tested work horses, are not great performers. The flowers get progressively smaller as the heat rises. There are also fewer blooms. But, considering it is the middle of June (with temperatures already in the 90s), my rose garden looks pretty good. A steady fertilization schedule helps sustain blooming because hot temperatures deplete the soil of valuable nutrients. Of course, the hotter it gets the less motivated I become to haul heavy fertilizer around!

Zinnias - The Work Horses in the Summer Garden



Monday, June 14, 2010

Snakes

This weekend my husband spotted two snakes mating - right next to our pool. They were writhing around all wrapped up with each other. Even though they are not poisonous he shot them. They're just creepy. I don't want them around.

Two rat snakes mating. They were only a few yards from the pool out back.

Two less snakes in the world. I won't miss them.



Garden Art - Scarlet Wave Canna and Agapanthes

Cannas are like works of art in the garden. This Scarlet Wave Canna bud is very exotic-looking.


Beautiful agapanthes.

Colocasia 'Nancy's Revenge'




Nancy's Revenge is a colocasia. Their leaves point down to the ground from the point where the stem and the leaf join together. Alocasia leaves point skyward from the point where the leaf and stem meet. That is the difference between the two species.
Colocasias are bulbs. I planted these in April of this year. They return every year, and the plant gets bigger every year.

Colocasias are beautiful There are so many varieties. When lumped together their common name is Elephant Ears. That does not do them justice because the colors and patterns are so wonderful and varied that they deserve to called by their real names. Nancy's Revenge has enormous leaves, that is this particular colocasia's claim to fame.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

What's Blooming Now - Raspberry Wine Bee Balm 6/13/10

This is a bee balm bud.
This flower is not fully open. Soon wonderful multiple levels of tubular petals will fan out all around the center. Bee balm has very complex flowers.




Raspberry Wine Bee Balm is just coming into bloom. It is going to be a beautiful show.



I bought one plant the spring before last. It did not bloom the first year at all. This spring it was popping up all over the flowerbed where I had it planted. I had to pull up a lot of it because it was taking over. I also dug some of it up and moved it to another flowerbed. It is very aggressive. I have Bartlett's Bee Balm growing next to it. The Bartlett's is in full bloom right now, almost on the decline, in fact.
Bee balm is a medicinal herb, one of the most colorful and attractive herbs. Taken as a tea (pick the leaves and dry them before the plant flowers ) bee balm will ease colds, respiratory problems, and fevers. It smells wonderful, and it is often used as an ingredient for potpourri.




What's Blooming Now - Limerock Dream Coreopsis 06/12/10




Limerock Dream Coreopsis has such sweet flowers! I don't know much about this plant. This is the first year I have grown it. I planted it in early spring. Only time will tell how well it comes back after the winter. A strong return is important to me. I have such a big place and so much space, strong perennials a very important to me.


Saturday, June 12, 2010

A Weekend at the Farm 06/12-13/10

This is Big Daddy Hydrangea.


Spotted a Painted Bunting today. They are so pretty! There was an inch of rain in the rain gauge. We always need rain.
  • Staked my zinnias.
  • Staked my Raspberry Wine Bee Balm and my Pringle Aster. Pringle Aster will get woody by late summer so it is best to stake it while the branches are still green and pliable. You can count on Pringle Aster to fall over if it is not staked.

  • Picked lots of tomatoes. I lost about 10 of them to the stinkbugs, unfortunately. Caprese salad tonight.

  • Pulled up some of my purple carrots for dinner. Also picked the blue popcorn (seeds my son gave me for Christmas). Bell peppers, jalapenos, and eggplants also went into the basket. Time to eat fresh veggies!

  • Deadheaded my roses. The Rose Garden looks good. There are lots of roses blooming. I can see the beginning of black spot, though. I'll have to spray tomorrow.

  • Weeded, weeded, weeded.

  • Sprayed my zinnias for powdery mildew.

  • The armadillos are being very uncooperative. They dug up my Bluebell bulbs, my Blood Lily bulbs, and some of my Elephant Ears.

  • Worked in the Vegetable Garden for a bit. Between last weekend and this weekend there was a tremendous spurt of growth in all the vegetables. Some of the tomato plants had fallen over, the bean vines were climbing all over the eggplants, and, of course lots of weeds.
  • Fertilized with fish emulsion some of my roses, elephant ears, asparagus, hollyhocks, many plants in the Star Garden, my blueberries, and everything around the pool.

  • One of the sprinklers on a timer broke with the valve open instead of closed. Hard to say how long the sprinkler had been running - a long time it looks like.

  • Drove into town on Saturday to get more bamboo stakes, fungicide, fish emulsion, and a new sprinkler timer.
  • Sprayed the roses with black spot early Sunday morning. I need the fungicide to dry before the bees begin foraging. It would not be good if they carried it back to the hive.
  • Cleaned the birdbaths.
  • My husband killed two snakes by the pool. They were writhing on the ground together mating. I'd never seen anything like it, fascinating.
  • Swam in the pool and sunbathed.
  • Took a long walk around the place.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

What's Blooming Now - Whirling Butterfly 06/06/10




This is Whirling Butterfly with some Silver Frost Sedum groundcover that I just planted growing next to it. Whirling Butterfly is a good middle-of-the-border plant because long stems grow up and wave in the breeze. The bottom of the plant is pretty inconsequential so it is best to have something growing in front of it to cover it up. This garden is very narrow so unfortunately I cannot have anything in front of it covering up its "feet". Perhaps I'll move it someday to the Long Border which is considerably wider and therefore allows me to have low, medium, and tall plants layered together. It spreads pretty quickly. I had a very small plant last summer which I dug up from my garden in Houston. This year that same plant is about three feet wide.


Belinda's Dream


Belinda's Dream looked really pretty this weekend. It is my favorite rose, an outstanding shrub rose and the subject of more of my photographs than any other rose in my garden.

Monday, June 7, 2010

The Long Border in Late Spring

A View of the Farm in Late Spring 2010

What's Blooming Now - Veronica Speedwell 06/06/10

Veronica Speedwell is a true blue flower. Very pretty.


This is an unopened flower next to a spent one that is going to seed.

What's Blooming Now - Thyme 06/05/10

There is an old saying: To know humility one must weed the thyme.
And it really is a bear to weed amongst the thyme because it forms a thick mat. You will feel humbled by the experience which is why I would never make thyme-covered paths. It sounds wonderful - stepping into something that sends up such a wonderful scent when you crush it under your feet. But one would be a slave to the weeding! It actually sounds right up my alley - I love a gardening challenge. But not this one.
This thyme grows as a ground cover underneath a yellow tulip tree. The bees love thyme when it is flowering.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

A Weekend at the Farm 06/05-06/10

A beautiful morning.

It's really getting hot!
  • Max spent the night and helped me build a large flowerbed around a tree this morning. It's about 10x10. It would have been a huge chore without him. Together we finished it in about 3 hours. I plan to plant some more bulbs. Love them!
  • Swam in the pool and listened to old-time country music on the satellite radio.
  • Deadheaded my roses.
  • Watched the butterflies.
  • Planted 10 packages of zinnias on Saturday. (Some of the places I planted zinnias last week are not going to sprout, I think. Not getting a good enough soak with the sprinkler, not worth readjusting everything.) Sunday morning I saw that 3 of the areas in which I planted seeds had been dug up by armadillos. That's why I plant so many.
  • Fertilized my gingers and lots and lots of other things with my recycled water (water I capture in my rain barrels) and fish emulsion.
  • Picked some eggplants and fried them in bread crumbs for lunch. Also made a tomato, olive, caper, Parmesan salad with the grape tomatoes in the garden.
  • Turned the compost pile.
  • Cleaned the birdbaths.
  • Weeded, weeded, weeded.
  • Staked some plants.
  • Watered the fruit trees and the shrubs by the Greenhouse.
  • Harvested parsnips, tomatoes, and carrots.
  • Sowed okra seeds.
  • Sprayed herbicide on all the paths in the Rose Garden, the Infinity Garden, the Shade Garden, around the pool, and the driveway.
  • Smelled the roses.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

What's Blooming Now - Striped Beauty Canna 06/02/10


I planted these Striped Beauty Cannas around the pool this spring. Cannas spread, some think they spread aggressively, but that's ok with me. I have plenty of room here, and eventually I can dig some up and move them to other spots. The lower flowers wilt and die first. The flowers remind me of ladies dressed in ball gowns that have dragged the train of their dresses in the water. The leaves of this beautiful canna are variegated stripes.
I'm lucky the leaves look so good! Canna vegetation is the larval food source for the Brazilian Skipper butterfly. Unfortunately, the Brazilian Skipper isn't very pretty. He is a brown little fellow. And he can make quick work of a canna turning it from a tropical treasure to a natty-looking plant. But all butterflies are good butterflies, so I will let nature take its course.
Canna also seem to be very tasty to deer. I had some buds on some cannas in my Long Border, and they were eaten completely off. Canna buds are really big, about six inches long or more. So that was quite a deer snack.

What's Blooming Now - Larkspur 06/01/10


I love larkspur. They are beautiful flowers, and the greenery is pretty, delicate, and fern-like. It's important that the greenery is pretty because they grow from seed - I've never seen plants sold in a nursery - and they grow all winter and into spring before they finally bloom. So it's good that the greenery is attractive on its own. Here in the South the seeds can be sown in September, October, and November. And, of course, the plants reseed, so you can also just let the seed fall to ground naturally when the plants die off. Once the seed has fallen just pull up the brown plants. They aren't perennials. They are reseeding annuals.