The Long Border in Winter

This is the Long Border. It is alive with seedlings. I lost several anchor plants last summer - two buddleia, a rose, and possible a mallow. They will have to be replaced.

The list of plants or seedlings in this garden are:

Poppies

Gold Yarrow

Larkspur

several varieties of Crinums

Artemisia

Blue Spruce Sedum

Sea Star Sedum

Broken Colors 4 o'clocks

Walkers Low Catmint

Perennial Ageratum

white Lantana

Tickseed

Purple Coneflower

Hollyhock

Cut and Come Again Zinnias

Verbena Bonariensis

Santolino

several varieties of Salvia

Ox Eye Daisy

Johnny Jump Ups

White Butterfly Buddleia

several Rose shrubs

A Weekend at the Farm Feb 3-5 2012

Dianthus are reliable winter bloomers. I am thinking about building a winter garden. I will grow Chrysanthemums, dianthus, winter daffodils and whatever else I can think of that is perennial and blooms in the winter.

We got some really good rain this weekend. 3 inches in the rain guage. It was cool and cloudy all weekend.

• I cut back the tuber vervain in the Master Bedroom Garden and finally was able to pull away the chicken wire that I laid down last year. Tuber vervain has purple flowers in the summer. It is perennial and spreads by underground runners and seed.



• I pulled up a lot of weeds and threw them in the compost pile.



• I flooded the flower bed where I have lost a lot of my Dianthus from voles eating the roots. The earth fell away just like it did with the roses when I did the same thing. There was a huge, gaping hole. I filled it with mulch.



• I threw down seed from my Goldsturm Rudbeckia that I collected from my plants in Houston last fall. I threw them all in the bed I flooded with water.



• I planted a Tiger Lily in that bed as well that I purchased from Arbor Gate last weekend. So excited about it!



• I planted a Triumphator Lily in the bed where the Philippine Lilies and Ox Blood Lilies are planted, also purchased from Arbor Gate last weekend.



• Read a Grisham book.



• Sowed a bunch of seed that I purchased from Richters last year. Aconite, Henbane, Cnidium, Horehound, and Bai Zhi. Sowed it all in the Barbados Cherry shrub beds.



• Picked some asparagus from the garden that had popped up. Early due to the unseasonably warm winter I guess.



• Picked some kale from the garden and made kale chips using a recipe that my mom gave me. Just tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper. Cooked in the oven for 15 minutes at 300. They were very good!



• Walked over to the neighbor's property and checked out their progress. They have been doing some clearing. They were not there. We were being nosy.



• Took several walks.



• Pruned a few roses. I have a lot of roses to prune, plus I need to prune the fruit trees and the wisteria. Time to get started!



• Left early Sunday to get back for the Superbowl.
  
  
  

Sea Star Sedum Makes Its Appearance

I am delighted to see the Sea Star Sedum coming back. I don't know if it was the dry conditions of the 2011 drought that made it disappear, or if it dies back in the heat. But, it is a very good reseeder. Let the flowers go to seed and you will have little volunteers springing up everywhere the following season. I was even able to dig up little patches of it from the path in front of the flower bed. The tiny little seedlings are in the foreground of this picture and there is also a little patch of it growing in the top right of the picture. That is a gold yarrow seedling in the middle of the picture.

These are Tickseed seedlings. I just stuck this photograph in because they are so cute!

More Sea Star Seedlings.

The First Erlicheer Daffodils of Winter

The Erlicheers are beginning to bloom. Erlicheers are winter bloomers. I often refer to them as spring bloomers, but they are actually considered winter bloomers. February is their normal time to bloom. I planted 100 bulbs the autumn before last. These are planted in a flowerbed that surrounds an oak tree. That was a perfectly fine spot to plant them because the oak tree is leafless during their bloom time. These are very good bulbs to plant under deciduous trees for that reason. The flowers will be long gone by the time the tree leafs out. And the greenery will yellow and disappear in the spring time.

Erlicheers have a very intense smell. I absolutely love it! But my husband considers it to be a very obnoxious scent, and he doesn't like me to cut them and bring them into the house.

The Erlicheers are loaded with buds! Along the front of the bed are Ox Eye Daisies that were growing wild in the lawn. I dug them up out of the grass and planted them in the flower bed. They put on a fine show in the spring.

What's Blooming Noew - Zeolite Calendulas

The leaves and petals of Calendulas are edible which is why I have them growing in the Vegetable Garden.

They grow very easily from seed. The seeds are large. I really like to know the size of seeds before I order them! Some seeds are like dust, so if I knew how small they were I would order a lot more packets of them. Unfortunately that is not information that seed companies offer. Calendulas like cold weather. Seeds should be sown in the fall where I garden (in Brenham, TX).
I suppose they can be sown in very early spring as well, but if they are planted in the fall the plants will be very large and floriferous when spring comes along. Another plant that likes cold weather is the Nasturtium. I planted Nasturtiums last spring, and they grew very quickly and bloomed profusely before the hot weather set in. So perhaps Calenduals would do the same. I'll have to experiment. A gorgeous bud.

Reseeding Feverfew

Feverfew reseeds. I don't actually know if Feverfew is a reseeding annual or a perennial. Mine was healthy and bloomed profusely, then after it bloomed, it died. All the flowers dropped their seed, and here I am in the winter, and it is coming back from seed. We had such a horrible drought in Texas in the summer of 2011 that I'm not sure what a normal growth pattern is for Feverfew. Also, I have voles. They attack the roots of plants, so maybe voles got the mother plants!

Above is a flower bed full of Feverfew seedlings. The leaves and the unopened flowers (it blooms in the spring) make a tea that will alleviate migraines. It is a very useful medicinal herb.

I just discovered there is a double Feverfew. The flowers look like pom poms. I want some!

The First Crocuses of Winter

These are Crocus Tommasinianus. I planted 100 of them last fall.