What's Blooming Now - Blue Mist Flower 10/16/2011

Blue Mist Flower is a perennial. It will die back to the roots in the winter, but it will spring up cheerfully in the spring. Although it will bloom sporadically throughout the summer, it is a late summer-fall bloomer. This plant is very popular with bees and butterflies. I like the lacy spring-green-color leaves. I have some planted in partial shade and some planted in full sun. It tolerates both conditions very well. This plant will spread if you want it to spread, but it is also very easy to pull up.

Roses!

Heritage rose.

Iceberg.

Iceberg.

Honeysweet.

Pearlie Mae.

Pearlie Mae.

Pearlie Mae.

Lafter.

Belinda's Dream.

Mlle Franziska Kreuger.

What's Blooming Now - Celeste Fig 10/16/2010

Aren't the leaves of a fig tree beautiful? I just love these pictures. And how cute are my little figs? They are ripening at a maddeningly slow pace. I was assuming that figs ripened in August. I will have to research that.

My tiny little fig tree! Fig trees get very big, I just have to be patient. I planted some marigolds around the tree because fig trees are very susceptible to nematodes. This is a Celeste Fig tree. Celeste is a very good fig for the south.

A Weekend at the Farm 10/14-16/2010

Arrived Friday morning Beautiful weekend. The weather was wonderful.

• Deadheaded the roses.



• Sprayed herbicide in the Rose Garden.



• Lots of bluebonnets are sprouting in the gravel around the rose boxes. I dug some of them up and transplanted them to the rose boxes.



• Planted 3 collard plants in the Vegetable Garden, more than that I cannot eat.



• Planted some Early Italian Garlic in the Vegetable Garden.



• Sowed some swiss chard, radishes, spinach, and parsnips in spots where the seeds did not come up.



• Sowed Moss Curled Parsley in the Vegetable Garden around the garlic. Parsley is really difficult to grow. Not a good germinator. I soaked the seeds overnight to see if that would help. Parsley is expensive, and I like to plant a lot of it. Hopefully these seeds will grow.



• Weeded in the Vegetable Garden and sprayed herbicide on the paths.



• Fertilized the asparagus.



• Fiddled around with the herbicide sprayer. Clogged. What a disgusting job. Herbicide gets all over your hands while you try to clean the nozzle.



• Lots of green beans growing, but a little too soon to pick them. Of course, by next weekend they will be past their prime...



• Worked in the Orchard for a long time on Saturday.



• Trimmed the male grape vine, just the branches sprouting along the main vine. My male is not very robust compared to the two females. Not sure what to do about that. I'll give it one more year I guess.



• Pulled up some salvias growing around my Celeste Fig tree, laid down some compost around it, buried some oranges around it, and planted 4 marigolds around it. Fig trees are very susceptible to nematodes. So I'm trying to be very careful.



• Pulled lots of weeds in the Orchard. The bulbs are beginning to show themselves. And the wild flower seedlings are beginning to appear. This is an exciting time of year.



• Sprayed herbicide in the Orchard.



• Planted High Scent Sweet peas in one of the star points in the Star Garden. Also planted Villa Roma Navy Blue Sweet Peas in one of the star points in the Star Garden. Surrounded them with chicken wire staked into the ground - rabbits love sweet peas. They wouldn't survive the rabbit onslaught if I didn't protect them. Once they are mature the rabbits leave them alone, but when they are young, forget it! Soak sweet pea seeds overnight for better germination.



• Planted a Harlequin Glorybower (Clerodendrum trichotomum) in a pot in the Vegetable Garden. I ordered this old fashioned tree on line from Woodlanders. Not sure where I will place it on a permanent basis because it is a tree, and I need to think about it carefully.



• Planted Pearl Bush (Exochorda racemosa) in the old Hollyhock bed. I ordered it online from Woodlanders.



• Planted 'Java Red' Weigela florida in the Bulb Bed, also ordered from Woodlanders. Both shrubs are old fashioned passalong plants. I am focusing on shrubs right now because they get big!



• Cut back the Mexican leucantha. Sprinkled 6 stem segments with root hormone and stuck them in the Grass Garden and the Long Border. Hopefully they will take root! That would be a very cheap way to fill up my gardens. I got very inspired about rooting plants. I came home and cut two white single Althea stems and put them in water. I also put root hormone on a piece of Harlequin Glorybower and I am trying to root it (it broke during shipping).



• Cut back salvia.



• Drank lots of beer!



• Took several walks through the woods.
  

What's Blooming Now - Morning Glory Tree 10/13/2010

Morning Glory Tree is a fascinating plant. There are 3 colors - pink (which is pictured), white (which I have at home in Houston), and purple (which is very similar to pink, so close that I'm not really sure whether mine is pink or purple).

It is continually in bloom from spring until fall, having 100 flowers or more blooming at one time. In the picture above you can see the numerous buds clustered on the branches just behind the open blooms.

The flowers open in the early morning, and they are wilted by the time the heat starts to rise mid-morning, just like morning glory vine. Each flower forms a seed (also like morning glory vine). Little morning glory trees will pop up all over your yard due to seeds floating on the wind and settling in a comfortable spot.

The blooms are big, fat, and trumpet shaped. The blooms in the picture above are weighted down by water from the sprinklers because I took the photos about 6:00 in the morning. Normally they are trumpet shaped and have a very pretty form.

Morning Glory Tree is a host plant for all manner of insects. There are zillions of insects crawling all over the flowers and the tree limbs at all times.

This morning glory tree popped up from a seed that was stuck somehow in the wild onion. It's the strangest thing because the wild onion has been growing in this spot for 3 years, but this seed sprouted only this year! The tree has grown to 6 feet tall in the space of a few months. It will die to the ground in winter and come back in the spring. Super fast growing. The location in which this little seed decided to sprout is completely inconvenient. I will move it to another spot as soon as winter arrives.

What's Blooming Now - Lady Margaret Passion Flower Vine 10/08/10

How gorgeous is that! There are many, many varieties of passion flower vines. Each one is more beautiful than the next. This group of plants also goes by the name of Maypop. The fruits produced by these plants are edible. I have passiflora incarnata in my back yard in Houston. It is also fabulously exotic. Passion Flower vines is very easy to grow. They will die back to the ground in the winter and pop up as easy as you please in the spring, completely covering an arbor in no time. This vine is the larval food plant for the Gulf Fritillary butterfly. Gulf Fritillary butterflies are orange with some subtle markings on the top of the wings and beautiful markings on the underside of the wings. The caterpillars are really frightening looking - orange with weird pointy black things all over their hairless bodies.

One aggravating thing about this vine is that it will appear everywhere - 10 feet away from the mother vine, a vine will appear and quickly cover whatever it can. They are easy to pull up, but they come back.

A Day at the Farm 10/07-09/2010

This is Amazone rose. Its time to shine is the fall and early spring. It doesn't do much in the hot summer months. It blooms in the heat, but they aren't pretty and they fall apart almost immediately upon opening.

• Arrived on Friday afternoon. Made some pea soup for the birthday dinner on Sunday.


• On Saturday morning it was cloudy and therefore good weather to work in! We had some good rain on Saturday afternoon and Sunday. I sat on the porch and watched the rain.


• Planted some kale and celery plants. The Vegetable Garden looks good. Everything I've planted is popping up except for the spinach Not sure why, the germination period is not that long so it should have popped up by now. That's ok, I'll just sown some more seeds. Turned the bed I planted the kale and celery in as well as buried some oranges and added some compost. The goal now is to keep the nematodes away. Buried some oranges in the green bean beds. Beans are a favorite host plant for nematodes. Lots of flowers on the green bean plants.


• I planted 5 perennial agaretum "Wayside" in the Long Border.


• Planted 4 Wedelia in the Grass Garden.


• Pulled lots of weeds.


• Replanted my Japanese Roses (Kerria Japonica) that the armadillos uprooted.


• Waterd a few plants that were struggling.


• Planted the remainder of the Nema-Gone marigolds in the Vegetable Garden and the Orchard.


• Cleaned the house.


• Woke up about 5:30 on Saturday and Sunday. Sat on the porch drinking coffee and watching the day break both mornings.


• My neighbor and I agreed to trade plants. She has some double pink Althea that I really want, and she wants some of my pink Turk's Cap. Both plants are rare.