Time at the Farm August 29 - September 5, 2021

 

This is a picture of some hurricane lilies that just popped up.

• Arrived Saturday evening after Koy's birthday party.  Everything is dry.  There has been no rain.  And it all looks like that typical out of control August absolutely everywhere.
• Saturday evening all I did was water several places that were gasping. 
• I didn't fall asleep until 4:30, at least that's the last time I looked at the clock.  My insomnia is getting worse.
• Sunday morning, up early.  I went out to the Orchard to check on the grapes.  As I suspected would be the case, there were no grapes left on the vines except the sort of 'phase 2' grapes that are still small and green.  I weeded in there a bit while I was down there.
• I watered station 11 along the Boardwalk manually because the automatic sprinkler is on the fritz.
• I spot watered in the Mom's Garden.
• I spot watered in the Rose Garden.
• Messed with the compost - added some water because it was dry and added more greens and browns, tossed it around.
• I cut back plants in the Vegetable Garden that were leaning into the paths.  I pulled up some dead sunflowers.
• I spent some time in the Rose Garden.  I pulled up leggy zinnias.  I cut back my Indigo Spires completely.  I left some of it intact last weekend because the bumble bees were going crazy for it., but on Sunday I finished cutting it down to the ground.  Threw the seed heads in the beds.  Smoothed soil that armadillos wrecked.  Weeded.  
• I spent time in the Star Garden cutting away plants leaning into paths and weeding and watering dry areas.  I sprayed herbicide in the Star Garden in all the paths close to the house.  The pale yellow (beige actually - yuck) Celosia was loaded with seed.  I cut lots of it off and spread the seed in the Rose Garden.  It is a good summer plant no matter what color it is.  There is a red variety that comes back from seed every year in the Vegetable Garden.  The flower heads are always small and, as much as I feel neutral about the pale yellow variety, it makes a better show than the red.  But I plan to spread seed in the Rose Garden from the red variety very soon - late next week the seed should be ready. Celosia is a big-time host for nematodes.  That is its downfall.    
• Sprayed herbicide in the driveway near the house.  
• The boneset in the Meadow and along the trails is in bloom.  They bloom white flowers, and the butterflies love them.  The Frostweed is mostly in bud, but I gathered seed on a few seed heads that bloomed early in August.  I spread it in various beds in the Circle Drive and the Star Garden.
• I spent about an hour at the kitchen table teasing Basketflower seeds out of their fuzzy seed heads.  That was quite a chore.  I already did a bunch of that some weeks ago, but it's so tedious that i never finished.  I threw all of it out in the lower section of the Meadow.  It has the best chance to germinate down there since it is a bit of a moisture lover.  I also had a bag of Indian Blanket that I gathered at Connie Gwyn's house.  I put all of it in a kitchen towel and hit it a bunch of times with a mallet in order to break up the seed heads.  I sowed that as well.
• My luffa gourds are thriving, and I see 4 more out there.  No doubt, this has been a very fun plant to grow, a very fun activity for me.  The nematodes (so far) don't seem to be affecting the plant.  Maybe they are resistant to nematodes, I will know when I pull up the vine next month.  It is also still blooming profusely, and a major plus - the flower buds are really unique.  I walk out there several time a day just to look at it.
• I dumped all my debris is a new erosion spot that I am working on.
• Some of the pots of seeds that I left in the Vegetable Garden were, interestingly,  turned over.  That was probably a raccoon.  A squirrel would not have done that - they are too petite when they move around.  I had 100% germination of my Mexican Buckeye seeds that I sowed two weeks ago.  All 6 seeds came up, two seeds in each pot.  I cut away one from each pot.  Nothing has come up from my Heliopsis seeds, but they seem to take a while to germinate.  And some of those pots were laying on their sides not getting any water or sun.  The Feverfew seeds that I sowed in Houston last week have sprouted - very exciting!  I sowed them in peat cups.  Feverfew is an excellent medicinal herb.  It can withstand our winters, so I wanted to get some started, and I will set them in the ground in a month or so.  I sowed seeds in 36 peat cups.  Some catastrophe or another will befall them, so I am confident that I will not be trying to find homes for 36 plants.  But they will be a great addition to my Medicine Garden.  Bees do not like Feverfew flowers.  They will not nectar at them.  But there are other pollinators out there getting the job done.
• Monday.  Worked.
• Before work I went out and weeded in the Star Garden.  I also pulled up some leggy zinnias and cut plants away from paths.  
• Bert fished a dead rat out of the pool.  Living in the country...  It is a constant assault from nature.
• During lunch I went down to the Orchard and worked in the fig bed.  I cut back blackberry canes that have taken hold in there thinking that I will move them during the winter.  Maybe I will end up yanking them up, we'll see.  I pulled up spent Verbena on a Stick.  I deadheaded coneflower and spread the seed.  I cut down Jujube suckers.  And of course I weeded, weeded, weeded.  It was incredibly hot, and I didn't have sunscreen on, so I gave it up after that. 
• The wild ageratum along the trails is blooming, very pretty.
• I checked on the seed heads of the ironweed  that I spotted along the trail.  I want to throw the seed into the Meadow.  But it is still not ready.  
• Gathered seed from my Giant Rudbeckia to pass along or perhaps to seed my Meadow.  It is native. 
• My Veilchenblau climbing rose died.  That is the third rose I have planted in that same spot that has died.  It's very frustrating.  It bloomed beautifully this last spring.
• After work I went back down to the Orchard and did some more weeding.  I sprayed herbicide on the paths.
• Tuesday.  Worked.  
• Before work I went down to the Orchard to do some raking and weeding.  I spent most of the time on the long blackberry bramble at the front of the Orchard.  I pulled up lots of salvias that reseed there.  I don't need a mess of non-blackberry plants in there even if they are flowers.  Once I pulled those up I was able to clear out a lot of crab grass. Right when I was finishing up I came upon a copperhead (a small one).  It was up in the blackberry canes, not on the ground.  I am wondering if they climb up when they experience a lot of disturbance on the ground, because that is the second time I've seen one up in the blackberry canes when I have been weeding around them.  
• During lunch, down to the Orchard to pick up the piles of debris from the morning.  Dumped them in an erosion spot.
• Over to the shady un-irrigated section of the Star Garden.  Did a bit of clean-up in there, but mostly it just needed some water.  
• So, a EUREKA moment:  I set a trap in front of a fresh armadillo hole in the Star Garden (he made a den right in one of my flowerbeds, the little bastard).  I set it with the trap door facing out - I didn't know if he was in the hole or not, I was betting he was not - but he would make his way back there to the same hole eventually.  What I have read, and what I have observed, is that they come back over and over to the same holes.  So if he was in the hole I would know because he would have to push the cage out of his way to get out.  I checked it the next morning and the cage had not been moved.  I came by a few days later and there he was - trapped in the cage.  He was trying to get into the hole and walked right into the trap.  They are so blind.  Yay!  I got one.  Bert drove it to the top of the road and let it go.  Far, far away from my gardens.  I am of course totally STOKED about my success.  We have two cages, so I put each of them in front of different den holes.  I am going to try and catch some more armadillos.
• After work I went out to the Vegetable Garden and prepped a bed with lava sand, cottonseed meal and molasses.  Mixed it all in and sowed 3 rows in a 4x4 bed of sugar snap peas.  I'm trying to see if I can get a fall crop.  I'm going to sow one more bed in a day or so.  It's so damn hot, hard to fathom that I'm planting cool season seeds right now.  But with 7 - 10 days to germination and 60 days to harvest, we are halfway through November.  That puts us close to the first hard freeze.  I'm going to sow some in my buckets as well.
• Wednesday.  Worked.
• Before work I went out to the Shade Garden and cut plants away from the paths.  It looks really good in there.  The toad lily and snakeroot will be blooming soon.
• Checked on my armadillo traps.  Nothing.
• I cut the stems and spread the seed of my Giant Coneflower in the Hot Border.  I didn't do them all because some of the seed is not quite ready.  But I made a big pile of stems.  The stems are about 5 feet tall.   
• During lunch I prepped another bed with the lava sand, cottonseed meal and molasses.  I seeded 3 rows of Sugar Snaps in a 5 x 4 space (which was alive with earthworms, very cool).  Did the same in one of my feed buckets. While I was in there I did some weeding and scooped up some of the gross fungus and threw it over the fence.  The morning glories are getting a bit brutish, so I made a note to go back in there and get them back in line. 
• Sprayed herbicide in the long path in the Star Garden.  It looks like I missed that one completely.
• Sprayed herbicide on the Rose Garden paths.
• After work I spent time in the Rose Garden pulling up leggy zinnias, throwing the seed heads in the beds.  I spread Polar Bear zinnia seed from a package I had on hand.  And I did some weeding.  
• Thursday.  Worked.  I can't believe it is already Thursday.  Time flies here.  
• Before work I checked my armadillo traps.  Nothing.
• Went out the the Rose Garden and worked for an hour.  I pulled up all the zinnias - or tried to - I have a lot of zinnias.  I will sow more seed soon.  Threw the seed heads in the beds.  I planted 4 Fruity Pebbles lantana that I had dug up out of paths and put in pots some weeks ago.  I dug up more of them from paths and potted them up in the empty pots.  Cut them back so they don't have to struggle and put them in the shade of the arbor.  I did some weeding.  I spent some time cutting basil away from other plants wherever it was crowding things.  All the basil came back from seed dropped the previous summer.  There are probably 40 huge plants out there.  This particular basil throws off really long seed heads, and the bees are crazy for it. Deadheaded coneflower.  I surrounded my new plantings with chicken wire.  I need to get in there and rake next and it will look pretty good in there.
• Friday.  Worked.
• Before work I raked the Rose Garden.  Pulled a few weeds.
• Checked on my armadillo traps.  Nothing.
• Throughout the day I spot watered in the Rose Garden and fertilized.
• During lunch I raked in the back of the Star Garden.
• I pulled weeds in the path underneath my double orange daylilies.
• Weeded, weeded, weeded.
• After work I spent time in Mom's Garden cutting back verbena, spot watering.  I pulled up spent zinnias.  I cut away unruly morning glory and moonflower vine.  I wanted to cut back the salvia, but it was really desiccated, so I watered it instead.  
• I transplanted 3 of my Mexican Buckeye tree seedlings into bigger pots.  
• Weeded in the Vegetable Garden for a bit.
• Weeded in the Star Garden for a bit.  Watered here and there.
• I see some Oxblood lilies are beginning to pop up in the Greenhouse Gardens.  
• I watched the Meadow for a while.  I see lots of native grasses in flower.  So pretty.  Switchgrass, Indian grass, little bluestem and various paspalums.
• Bert and I drove around the property for a long time looking at everything and generally just sightseeing and commenting on all the beautiful native growth along the trails.  I showed him the native lobelia growing in a low place on the property.  Beautiful purple flowers with a flower stalk 4 feet tall. 
• A very short rain in the afternoon lowered the temperature quite a bit, and we enjoyed the "cool" evening air.  
• Saturday.  I drove over to Jeff and Amy's property to walk around and look at the grasses that were blooming.  It is a stunning prairie restoration.  Really gorgeous.  But I figure the grasses growing on her property are all really good, native grasses.  And so when I see them growing on my property I can assume they are good grasses.  Therefore I can gather the seed at the end of the season and spread them on my small prairie restoration project.  Also, if I see similar grasses growing on the side of the road, I can gather them and sow them.  Last year I gathered up a bunch of seeds from the road that I thought were pretty and sowed them all over my Meadow.  Turns out it was Bahia grass (very bad invasive grass).  So that's why I am trying to be cautious.  After I left their place, I came back and walked my own Meadow.  There is no question that over the past - I think 4 years - since I have had my Meadow, there are many, many more stands of native grasses. They probably have just gotten to the level of maturity that I have begin to notice them.  No doubt most of them were already in the seed bank when we had the space cleared.  I have gathered seed over the years from both our property and the road sides, and I have spread it in the Meadow pretty faithfully.   But I think the vast majority of my grasses likely showed up on their own.  Crabgrass is my biggest enemy, and I need to work really really hard to eradicate as much as I can.  That's not an easy chore, and I find it to be a really daunting challenge.  Last winter I spread a pound of Maximillian sunflower seed and I didn't get a single bloom.  Not one.  The seed wasn't from around here.  It was from Fredericksburg.  That makes a difference regarding success.  But not one plant!  It might take more than one season for it to get tall enough for me to see it or for it to set blooms.  I'm patient.
• The hummingbirds are plentiful now.  They all dart around the feeders.  Bullies despite their tiny size.  They spend as much time chasing each other away from the feeders as they do drinking from the feeders.  And of course they are all over my flowers.
• Sunday.  Up before daylight.  Checked my armadillo traps.  Nothing.
• Straight out to the Vegetable Garden.  I pulled up some large basil plants and all my zinnias.  I did some weeding.  I prepped a large area (molasses, cottonseed meal and lava rock) right at the entrance to the garden and sowed a row of turnip seeds and two rows of kale seed.  And I prepped another bed next to my eggplant and sowed some lettuce seed.  Pulled up lots of dead sunflower stalks - what a terrible year for my sunflowers. Fertilized the asparagus and my eggplant.  
• Bert and I drove in to town to get a new sprinkler for the Rose Garden.  It wouldn't come out of error status.  Lucky break that I was here to notice it.   
• When we got back I worked in the Vegetable Garden for a while raking up fungus and throwing it over the fence.  Lots of pieces of decomposed granite in what I threw over the fence.  I will probably hear from Bert about the gravel in the grass when he mows. I did some more weeding.  Looks good in there.
• Watered in the Greenhouse Gardens and Mom's Garden.
• I swam in the pool and tried to enjoy part of the day in a relaxed manner, but I don't know how to do anything but work!  So I climbed out of the pool and went inside to make some soup.
• I cut back the Four O'Clocks near the back door and found an armadillo den in the middle of them.  Errgh.
• As it turns out, I can relax.  I went back into the pool then took a nap.  
• Watered in the Rose Garden with my new sprinkler system.
• Monday.  Labor Day.  Blake and the boys came up for a visit.  Molly stayed home with Mr. H.  She failed potty training, and frustrated Blake wanted to take a break from her little mini me.
• I checked my traps.  Nothing.
• Turned the compost pile.
• I spent about 45 minutes in the dining room bed cleaning it up.  I cut back all the Texas Pink phlox and the Rudbeckia.  Weeded.  Pulled up as much wild petunia as I could.
• Weeded in the Star Garden.  
• I used long pieces of rebar to stake my Pringle Aster.  The bamboo stakes weren't doing it.
• Took a long nap.  
• Tuesday.  Vacation.
• I staked some red amaranth in the Vegetable Garden.
• I spent the whole day cleaning nooks and crannies in the house.  The maid will get the big stuff.  I watered everywhere that was dry in preparation for being gone next week.  Airbnb folks arrive on Friday.
• Drove home in the late afternoon.

Succulents September 1, 2021

 I have written many times that I love sedums and aloes.  They are drought tolerant and unusual-looking.  They come back every year very well.  I don't give them any protection from the cold.  They're great around the pool because there is no irrigation. So I can leave them in the baking sun for a week at a time with no water, and they are fine.

 

At the Farm August 13 - 20, 2021

 

This althea is out in the Rose Garden.  So pretty.  It has bloomed all summer.

Arrived Friday evening after work.

• I watered the pots in the Medicine Garden, around the pool and in the Star Garden.  Watered in a few gasping places in the Rose Garden.  This is first time I have come back after a week and some of my plants were stressed.  What a great summer it has been.  I don't think it has hit 100 degrees one time, and rain has been plentiful.  
• Saturday.  I worked in the Greenhouse Gardens and Mom's Garden for a while.  Watered, weeded, cut away moonflower and morning glory vines.  I raked throughout the garden.  Much improved.  
• I weeded in the Vegetable Garden.  Straightened up tomato cages and trellises.  Cut away Four o'clocks leaning into the garden.  Pulled up a few dead sunflower stalks.  
• I am not at all happy with the grey stripe sunflowers that I sowed this year.  They are not sturdy and the flowers are not huge like I was expecting.  I almost wonder if they sent me the wrong seed.  They have been a big disappointment.
• This has been an interesting year for the amaranth.  I always wait until the tomatoes are pulled up to sow amaranth seed.  I find that if I grow it too early in the season the bugs ruin the leaves.  I followed my same pattern this year, but the bugs have really gotten to the leaves.  A lot of rain and a cold winter - who knows why?  But it is definitely different from usual.
• Took a truckload of debris to one of my erosion spots and dumped it.
• I only got 2 Mexican Buckeye seeds to germinate from the 6 or so pots I started three or four weeks ago.  So I gathered more seed from my trees and stuck them in the soil.  I will keep trying.  Several of my Heliopsis seed have sprouted in the pots I started last week.  Yay.
• I went down to the Orchard and picked muscadine grapes.  They are so maddening.  They don't come ripe all at once.  It's a chore to get a large enough number to make jelly.  There are zillions on the ground from animals or from getting ripe and falling.  But I can't seem to collect enough to make a difference.   There are still hundreds on the vines, so I will watch them like a hawk this week.  
• I cut away grape vines that had no grapes and were getting in the way.  I cut out some blackberry canes growing up into the grapes.  I am going to try and transplant them this winter, so I didn't yank them up.
• Out to the Rose Garden.  I planted 4 Cerise Queen yarrow in the Bermuda's Kathleen rose bed.   I saw a big stand of them blooming at the Arbor Gate a month or so ago, and I was so impressed with the show they made.  I'm going to give them a try.  I've never had much luck with yarrow even though it can be considered invasive.  Not for me.  It's usually one of my failures each season that I plant it.  I didn't have any water on the Bermuda's Kathleen bed last week, and all the Ox Eyes I pulled up and stuck in the dirt there all died.  No big deal.  I put the spiny red balls of unripe castor underneath all the yarrow.  I also planted a Pink Buttons Polygonum ground cover on the other side of the rose where it stays somewhat shady there between the tree on one side and the tall rose on the other.  They aren't particularly showy, and I don't know how well it will come back next year, but I'm giving it a try.  I also planted one next to the Greenhouse a moth or two ago, also a shady spot.  It is going gangbusters.  But I've never grown it before to see how well it will come back after a winter.    
• I pulled up lots of spent zinnias and threw the seed heads in beds.  I cut away basil leaning into paths.  Trimmed back oregano spilling into paths. 
• I bought 3 red bidens plants because I was intrigued.  Pirates Pearl is in the bidens family.  So I'm curious if I will like this variety too.  The foliage is purple-y, there are no blooms on any of them yet.  I pulled up a bunch of zinnias and planted them in the Carefree Beauty bed.  Castor parts underneath all.
• I planted 2 New Gold lantana in the Rose Garden - one in the bed around the old dead tree and one of them in the Old Blush bed.  Castor parts underneath.
• Planted 2 red firecracker plants in the Rose Garden, one of them at the entrance in the Carefree Beauty bed and one of them in the Bermuda's Kathleen bed, castor parts underneath.  
• I gathered seed off my heliopsis and sowed them in pots.
• I moved all my pots with seeds over to the Vegetable Garden where they won't be disturbed.  I had all of them in the front flowerbed so they would get water, but when I arrived on Friday evening many of them had been turned over by armadillos scratching around.  I don't know why I didn't do that in the first place.
• The Meadow Pinks are still blooming their hearts out along the trails and in the Meadow.  They are so sweet. 
• We drove around at dusk, but only saw one lightening bug.  They come out when it is darker, but we are already in bed by then.  When you work all day you're tired by the end of it.
• Sunday.  I set up a sprinkler on my zone 11.  It is on the fritz.  I'll have to get someone out here to figure out why.  
• Picked grapes.
• I spent the morning in the Star Garden weeding and culling.  I pulled up lots of leggy zinnias.  I removed ageratum crowding my Texas tarragon.  I pulled up ageratum crowding my altheas and my Mexican Turks Cap.  I took a truckload of debris to an erosion spot and dumped it.  I used to hate unloading my plant debris, I would always wait to see if Bert would do it for me.  But now that I have a goal for it, I enjoy doing it.
• I spent some time in the Vegetable Garden weeding and general tidying.  That nasty slime fungus has spread through most of the paths.  I hate that stuff.  Herbicide does not deter it.  Maybe I'll try a fungicide on it.  I haven't thought of that before.
• We had a soft rain in the afternoon, but it lasted for a long while.  What a great summer of rain we've had.  The beautyberry shrubs in the woods are all turning purple.  Most summers the leaves on the shrubs are withered and the berries don't have a good showing,  This year everything is still green and lush.  And usually by this time the wild mulberry trees have dropped most of their leaves, a defense mechanism to get them through dry weather.  But the trees are all still intact.  Such an interesting summer.
• When the rain stopped I went out and cut back all the Colonial white verbena in Mom's Garden.  It had grown way out into the paths.  I threw all the debris into the compost pile because it is tender green stuff and mixed in some oak leaves that I raked last fall.
• Went out to the Rose Garden and pulled up leggy zinnia.  Threw all the flowerheads in the beds.  I pulled up stuff that was crowding my lantanas and other plants.  The roses look pathetic.  I still can't believe much less understand why all the roses took such a hit after that freeze.  Roses shouldn't suffer from cold like mine did.  I will replace some next fall and winter.  I carried several armloads of debris over to my erosion spot near the Rose Garden.
• Monday.  Worked.
  
• During lunch I went out to the Daffodil Border and trimmed the trailing purple lantana away from the Daffodil Border.  I only want it on the Rose Garden side, I don't want it taking root in the Daffodil Border.  I also weeded where required.  Weeds aren't bad in that border because I mulch so heavily with leaves in the fall.  But there are always some.  
• After work I deadheaded zinnias in the Rose Garden and did some spot watering.
• Lots of Gulf Fritillaries, Monarchs, Sulphurs and Giant Swallowtails in the gardens.  Where are the Julias and the Zebra Longwings?  Will I ever see them again?  I will know they are rare and special when they do return, and I will rejoice most heartily.  I believe one of my most valuable lessons in life has been understanding that many of the things I witness in this special place are once in a lifetime.  And, I should mark them down because they won't ever happen again.  This season, it has been the frogs and toads.  Never, ever have I witnessed the frog phenomenon that we are seeing this season.  Frogs!  Every step I make is a frog experience this summer.  Frogs, toads, toads.  All of them are dirt-colored and trying to avoid my boots or my ruthless hands as I pull weeds.  Quite remarkable.  
• Tuesday.  Worked.
• Before work I worked in the Shade Garden.  I cut back snakeroot, ferns, bloodroot, camellia and gingers that were leaning into paths.  I cut to the ground the colocasias and sweetspire that were growing in the paths from underground stolons.  I hated to do it to the colocasias, but they would really fade if I tried to move them now.  They will keep coming back until I dig up the little bulb-things.  So they aren't lost forever.  I raked the paths.  I missed a couple paths, and I will have to go back in there again, ran out of time and had to go to work. 
• Sprayed herbicide here and there in the pool area, on the path from the back to the pool, the driveway and the Rose Garden.
• During lunch I finished raking the paths in the Shade Garden.  Dumped the debris in an erosion area.  
• Raked in the Star Garden and cut away plants leaning into paths.
• Picked grapes.
• Bert found a deer caught up in barbed wire on the far edge of our property.  We went out there to help the poor animal.  Bert cut away the barbed wire while the poor thing was struggling to get away.  I guess her leg was broken, and it was bloody.  She limped away.  She will suffer, but she is free.  I wish I had not seen such a sorrowful thing. 
• After work I sprayed herbicide in the Vegetable Garden paths.  
• Watered here and there in Mom's Garden.
• One of the university teams, this one doing a study on lizards, is camping over by the fort overnight.  They look for lizards during the day and at night.  So we told them they could camp.
• Wednesday.  Worked.
• Before work I took my coffee outside to move the sprinklers in the Rose Garden.  While I was there I cut all the oregano trailing into the paths in the Perl d'Or bed.  I cut off most of the flowers by doing that, but it looked a mess.  This oregano variety has most unusual-looking hot pink flowers, and the bees love them.  But a good shearing should encourage more growth.  Not that the oregano in that spot needs encouragement.  It loves that bed and has taken over.  I planted it because I had a real problem with dayflower in there.  I was hoping it would crowd out the dayflower.  And that seems to be working - so many of my plans don't work out, so I am very pleased.  I left the pile of debris right there to clean up later.  I want to go back there later today and rake some spots.
• I drove around looking for Frostweed to see if any of the seeds were ready to harvest.  I want to put some in the wild areas of my gardens.  It is an interesting tall perennial plant that produces white clusters of flowers.  Nothing too showy there except that it flowers in August which is always good.  But it will grow well in sunny or shady spots.  The most interesting thing about this plant is that the stems burst in a freeze and look like ice sculptures. You have to look for that early in the morning, they have disappeared by mid-morning.
• Picked grapes.
• Pulled up some wild petunia in the Star Garden.  It is a booger to pull up, very tenacious roots.  Mostly I just cut it away below the soil line.
• During lunch I did some clean-up in the Star Garden.  I pulled some weeds, and I pulled up some ageratum when I saw it was crowding something. Smoothed over soil where armadillos rooted it up (that would be a full time job if I was determined about it).  I cut the scraggly tops off of cannas.  And I did some more cutting on my Giant Rudbeckia.  Last time I cut them back, I cut them to a low level to get another (less significant) bloom cycle.  Now I am beginning to cut the stalks to the ground.  Soon they will start putting on their beautiful grey-blue growth.  I deadheaded some roses.  I cut or pulled up more wild petunia.  
• But mostly I watched butterflies.  Monarchs, Queens, Gulf Fritillaries and Giant Swallowtails were abundant in the Star Garden.  I have yet to spot a Julia, but I look for them ever day.  Sadly, I haven't seen any longtails or snout butterflies or zebra longwings.  But I am keeping a watchful eye.
• I went out to work for a bit in the shady part of the Long Border.  I pulled up a little aster pest.  I cut back some Indigo Spires salvia, pulled some weeds, pulled away some Cypress Vine crawling across cannas,  I cut down some cannas.  I pulled out some ageratum that was moving in on my altheas.  I cut back a bunch of messy Montbretia greenery.  You aren't supposed to cut back the greenery of bulbs.  You should allow the greenery to wither, however Monbretia are so aggressive that I cut them without concern.     
• In the afternoon we had a good steady rain for about 30 minutes.  Lots of thunder, poor Rocky dog was not happy.  Temperature dropped several degrees.  A great, great August so far.  I didn't harvest any honey this summer.  But if I can get motivated, I will harvest honey this fall.
• The college students left in the morning.  They sent me a note of all the species they identified - interestingly enough, they did not come upon any snakes.

-Green Anole 

-Six-lined Racerunner (whiptails) 

-Little Brown Skink 

-Texas Spiny Lizards 

-Gray Treefrog 

-Fowler’s Toad 

-Gulf Coast Toad 

-Narrow mouth toad 

-Leopard frog

-Cricket frog 

-Cliff chirping frog 

• Thursday.  Worked.
• Before work I picked grapes.
• During lunch I drove in to Burton to take a look at an althea to see if I wanted to take cuttings.  I took a couple of cuttings - it was a pretty double pink with a dark pink eye visible.  On the way home I gathered some Canadian Rye seeds on the side of the road.  I was actually looking at the Texas Vervain going to seed in this one particular spot right on the edge of town, but the seed wasn't ripe.  The Canadian Rye was nearby, so I gathered a bunch of that.  When I got home I spread it in the Meadow.
• I went down to the Orchard to do some weeding, but I got off task almost immediately.  I gathered seed off my Mexican Hat and went over to the Meadow to throw it in there.  I started stressing about the abundance of camphor weed (which is just starting to bloom), and I began pulling it up.  Of course, it's like spitting in the ocean, there is so much of it, but it made me feel better.  I tossed it all in a pile in the Meadow where it can rot and enrich the soil.
• I stuck my althea cuttings into soil.  I used the pot of soil that in which I put a recent cutting of oakleaf hydrangea.  It didn't make it.  The other one I potted up recently looks half dead, but it might make it.  Two out of the four oakleaf hydrangeas that I have tried to root have died and one looks peaked. 
• Collected Nicotiana seed and spread it around the Greenhouse Gardens.
• The Hurricane Lilies are popping up.  The Texas autumn begins.
• Friday.  Worked.
• Before work I set up all my sprinklers for the coming week while I will be in Houston.
• Moved my cuttings to the Vegetable Garden.  I'm hoping that they will get shade underneath the goat wire arbor that is covered with Grandpa Ott morning glories.  I've never watched that area closely enough to see if it is shaded all day or just part of the day.  Cuttings should not get any shade whatsoever.
• I sowed a few more Heliopsis seeds in a pot and put it in the Vegetable Garden.
• Added leaves to the compost pile from my big pile I raked last fall.
• Packed up and headed to Houston during the lunch hour.  Dinner at Nino's for Dad's 88th birthday.  I have Cleo for the weekend - a special weekend just with her.

The Shade Garden in August 8.19.21

 Below, gingers and snakeroot.  Snakeroot blooms in the fall.

Below, coralberry (a native with purple berries - this grows in the woods on our place), ferns, snakeroot, azaleas, sweetspire

Ferns - I think ferns are the poster child for a woodland garden.  I love them.  They look so cool and pretty and inviting.

Below, beautyberry, acuba, and ferns.  I have many beautyberry shrubs growing in the Shade Garden.  I didn't plant any of them.  They grow wild on our property and they just showed up in here.  They grow into a large shrub quickly.  The berries are just beginning to turn purple in the garden but they are already completely purple along the trails.  

Chinese Bloodroot, snakeroot, toadlily, and Japanese Acuba

This white butterfly ginger growing here in the Shade Garden is really interesting.  I don't recall planting it.  I thought I only had the peach colored gingers in this garden.  But this season for the first time, it bloomed.

Impatiens, ferns, Giant Ligularia, camellia, gingers

Sawtoothed Japanese Aucuba - I bought 2 of these many years ago.  They had very large red berries on them.  The nursery should have informed me that you need a male and a female to get the red berries each year.  I've never gotten another red berry.  And I don't like them enough to try and find a male.  Very slow growers/

African Hostas and Illustris colocasia

Illustris Colocasia and snakeroot

African Hostas, spider lilies and Rudbeckia Maxiam

Red Turks Cap, snakeroot and purple stemmed colocasia (can't remember the name of it)

Sweetspire, holly fern (an evergreen fern) and Illustris colocasia

Ferns

Beautyberry and Althea August 17, 2021

 The beautyberry and double red althea looked pretty together this morning.  Although called double red, the color of this althea is more of a purplish pink.

At the Farm July 29 - August 8, 2021

 

This is a little native vine that grows all over the property here called Butterfly Pea vine.  There are usually just one or two flowers blooming at a time.  Not super showy, but I love the shape with the little puffed piece at the end.

It is my week to work from home.  I took Friday as vacation and drove up by myself on Thursday evening.  Bert joined me after golf on Friday. 

• Thursday evening I watered a bit in places that looked really dry. Filled the water tank in the Water Garden.
• I went down to the Orchard and checked on the grapes.  Not ready.
• The sweet autumn clematis is loaded with buds and blooms.  It looks really beautiful.  I didn't catch much of the wonderful scent.  Once all the blooms are open it will be wonderful. 
• Friday.  I didn't feel well, so I didn't do much.
• I spent some time in the Water Garden tidying up.  I cut down all the white zinnias and threw the seed heads in the beds.  The moonflower vines were winding all around them, and there were lots of vines creeping along the ground.  I cut all the low-growing vines away which made things look much more organized.  Sprayed a little herbicide. I watered where I cut down the zinnias because the Pirates Pearl was struggling underneath all that mess.  
• I spent a little bit of time in the Rose Garden.  I planted 3 Fruity Pebbles in the Ducher rose
  bed that I potted up last week.   I started to mulch around them from my tiny pile of mulch leftover from my last big load, but it was so hot that I couldn't go on.  Retreated inside for the rest of the morning.
• Drove in to town and bought more herbicide, some bamboo stakes and a new sprayer.  All of a sudden my old sprayer would not build up pressure, so I needed to get a new one.
• Sprayed the driveway and here and there in the Star Garden.
• In the evening I went back outside and moved some Fruity Pebbles lantana in paths over to beds.  Mulched around them.  
• I put some more stakes in my chicken wire barriers to hold them up better.  Looks like the armadillos were just walking over the chicken wire where it was leaning down low.
• Spot watered in the Rose Garden and the Water Garden.  
• Weeded as I walked.
• Saturday.  I started in the back.  I cut all the Black and Blue sage down to the ground.  That's a big area and it's completely covered in that sage.  I doubt I'll get a second flush before the first freeze because I waited a bit too long to get out there. Maybe, we'll see.  I pulled some weeds although there aren't many in that bed.  Pulled up some of the white Four O'Clocks that have gotten a foothold in that bed.  Actually, I planted them there deliberately, but I no longer like them.  I have been trying to eradicate them for a long time.  Those gigantic bulbs are hard to dig out. I made a huge effort a couple of years ago to dig out all the bulbs, and I got most of them.  But now I just yank out the plants before they have a chance to bloom and set seed.
• I filled the cadet with all the woody debris and drove over to one of our worst areas of erosion.  I laid it down in all the ruts.
• Next, to the Rose Garden.  I needed the wheelbarrow and it was in the Rose Garden partially filled with compost I didn't finish laying down the day before.  I planted 3 white lantana, stuck a few castor seeds near them, and mulched them.  Dumped the remainder of the mulch here and there.  I sow castor seeds throughout my Rose Garden to deter voles.  Perhaps it's my imagination, but I think it is working.  
• Inside for some breakfast then back out again.
• I sprayed herbicide in another area of the driveway and a few spots in the Rose Garden.
• The Giant Swallowtails are abundant right now.  Yesterday I saw a Buckeye.  And I have seen many Monarchs.  August is the really good butterfly month, and I am looking forward to the show.
• I emptied all the potting soil from the big pot in the Star Garden over into the the wheelbarrow in preparation for moving it over to the pool area.  It just made it lighter for me to haul over there.  I want to open up that path by removing that pot that partially blocks a path and by shortening a bed.  That will open up that space and make it easier to walk through.  
• I spent about 20 unbearably hot minutes untangling the hoses in the Greenhouse Gardens.  What a spaghetti mess.  And so heavy rolling them up and weaving them in and out of each other. But!  Job well done. 
• I worked for a couple of hours in the moist shady part of the Star Garden.  One side is irrigated and stays pretty moist.  The other side of the Star Garden is shady and dry.  I pulled lots of weeds.  I decided to cut back the Indigo Spires.  I'm kind of over it with Indigo Spires.  It is not in the right spot, that's for sure.  Mystic Spires is a much better selection, more compact.  Maybe this winter I will dig it up and move it to a sunnier location - there are a half dozen or so clumps.  That's good, woody material, so I dumped it in an area with some really bad erosion where all the roots are exposed across the trail and deep ruts are underneath.  Bert asked me to do it, so sounds like he's on board with my erosion control idea. I pulled weeds all around that area.  I didn't get finished, but I was pretty done-in.  
• Watered along the path in the Medicine Garden.  
• Watered the pots around the pool. 
• Inside during the hot part of the day. 
• For a brief moment, not long enough to pour sweat, I walked around outside in the Medicine Garden and around the pool.  Everything was verdant and lovely in the late afternoon sun slanting down through the oaks and throwing cool shade across the herb gardens. I filled my lungs with the earthy smell and was filled with a sense of well being.  
• In the early evening I went back out and cleared out the Kitchen Herb Garden.  And I kept going and finished weeding the rest of the back beds.  They span the length of the house.  I had not ever pulled up the brown eyes back there, and they were crispy brown things, easy to pull up.  It looked really good when I finished.  I dumped the pile in one of my erosion spots.  Done for the day - into the house I went.
• Bert and I drove around the property looking for lightening bugs, but we never saw any.
• Sunday.
• I cut some of the white verbena in Mom's Garden and put it in water.  They already have roots in the joints, so I probably can just plant them in the Rose Garden, but it's so hot to be doing anything like that now.
• Straight out to the Orchard.  There was one bed at the back of the Orchard that I never cleaned out after the berries were done (and a few spots here and there, but mostly this one).  I spent about an hour cutting dead canes, pulling them out of the bramble, folding them up and loading them in the cadet.  With all that open space I was also able to weed in the path where crabgrass always takes hold.  I raked out all the dried leaves from the dead canes.  I wrapped the fresh new green canes around each other to get them out of the paths.  I pulled up or cut away a few canes in the back of the Orchard that were growing along the fence line.
• Weeded in the Orchard here and there.  I've already done a big mid-summer clean out in the Orchard, so not much was required, maybe 30 minutes.
• I pulled up lots of small blackberry vines that were sprouting in my iris bed at the entrance to the Orchard.  Pulled some up growing amongst my gingers.  
• Weeded along the lower portion of the Boardwalk.
• I got my oil can of poison and spent about 30 minutes painstakingly putting dots of poison on the large leaves of Mexicali rose wherever it was growing in the wrong spot.  This very invasive plant makes pretty flowers in late summer, but you pay dearly for them.  It goes everywhere by underground runners.  It grows up amongst my Turks Cap, my gingers, my sweetspire (which can also be a big pain) and everything else that grows along the Boardwalk.  I can't use a sprayer to kill it because it would hit plants that I like.  So I dot the leaves with poison, just a tiny dot so that it will be gone before it reaches the end of the leaf and will not drip onto the ground.  When I first got this plant from an online order - one tiny unassuming little plant - I planted it along the Boardwalk, and as soon as I had an offset I moved one to the Shade Garden.  I'm so thankful the one I moved to the Shade Garden died.  Ughh, I would hate trying to control it there too.
• All together I was out working in that area about four hours.  Went in for a rest.  I lost one of my long leather gloves while I was out there.  I retraced my steps but never could find it.  Very disappointing.   I can't do anything related to the blackberries without both gloves.  
• Bert moved the big pot over to the pool area.  I re-filled it with the potting soil in the wheelbarrow.  I planted a spider aloe, 2 sedums called 'Rock 'n Low Boogie Woogie'  (you can see why I can't remember the names of these sedums that I plant), and 2 half-dead sedums that I pulled out of 2 dried up old boots.  I had them planted in boots for most of the summer which was kind of cute, but the boots are coming apart.
• I fertilized all the pots around the pool.
• Weeded in the Vegetable Garden for a short time.  I only went in there to look at my 3 luffa gourds that I am very proud of.  Some animal will get them before they are ready.  I don't get to harvest anything cool, the damn animals destroy it before it's ready.  It's almost as if they know what I love the most and go after that.
• Monday.  Worked.
• I planted 2 little gold snowflake sedums in a pot that I dragged from the Star Garden over to the pool.  
• Grey and rainy.  Maybe I will go ahead and plant my little verbena sprigs today that I put in water.
• I weeded the bed by the pool with the thryallis and the alocasias.  There are a lot of tiny baby thryallis in there.  I used some of my last little pile of compost to cover the areas that I weeded.  Ran out of time only part done because I had to go to work.  I'm thinking about putting some wedelia starts in there.  I can dig them up from the Star Garden where I am constantly trying to get rid of that ground cover.  But the area by the pool seems perfect for a groundcover.
• I saw a Variegated Fritillary on Sunday.  It was out in the Meadow.  Today I saw several Gulf Fritillary and a Queen.  The Monarchs are plentiful today as are the Sulphurs and Giant Swallowtails.
• I drove around the property looking at my two small precious stands of Ironweed to see if I could collect any seed.  But it was too soon. 
• After work I did some weeding in the Star Garden.
• I spent some time in the Long Border in a space where the weeds were getting tall.  I have avoided that spot because there are a pair of cardinals nesting in the cypress vine trellis.  I'm wondering now if they left because it got increasingly difficult to fly out of there.  The cypress vine grows quickly and has already completely covered the trellis.
• Tuesday.  Worked.
• Before work I finished laying down mulch in the Thryallis bed next to the pool.  I tried to avoid mulching over the little Thryallis seedlings.  The soil in that bed is dense with roots because it was built around a cedar tree (and a few oaks, but the oaks don't create that root web).  That bed will never support much of anything that likes rich soil. I doubt the little seedlings will make it,  but it certainly gives me the idea to collet the seeds and pot them up. I just googled how to sow thryallis seeds and they will (of course) self sow, but if I want to pot them up the seeds should be green.  That is interesting.
  
• I began clearing out the corner of the Rose Garden but ran out time.
• During lunch I finished weeding and clearing out the corner of the Rose Garden.  I had a Fortune's Double rose in there, but it died during the February freeze.  I assume it was already stressed or it wouldn't have died.  I seeded that area with wildflowers last winter and had that show last spring. But now it is completely empty.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  Maybe a little flowering tree.  I need to be able to get in there to weed.  Fortune's Double was very lovely, and I would have been very happy to have its once blooming flowers there for the rest of my time on earth.  But it was a booger to weed in there.  Fortune's Double was my thorniest rose.  Now that it is gone and I can consider my next move, I want to be able to access that area.  A small flowering tree and some pavers all around it might be the solution.  The reason for the pavers is so that I don't have to do so much crawling behind the plant.  A fence on one side prohibits me from getting to weeds by anything but crawling back there.  So wide flat pavers will reduce the area back there that can get weedy.  
• After work I spent about 2 hours outside.  I spread a 50 pound bag of cottonseed meal on most of my hydrangeas and altheas and roses in the Shade Garden, the Water Garden, and the Star Garden. As I went along spreading fertilizer I weeded.  I cut to the ground most of the wild petunia growing in the Star Garden.  I cleaned up in places where the armadillos tore up the beds.  Hand watered my new white lantanas and my Fruity Pebbles transplants in the Rose Garden. Hauled a truckload of debris to one of the erosion spots along the trails.
• Wednesday.  Worked.
• Before work I weeded in the shady irrigated part of the Star Garden.  The armadillos have really messed it up.  Some of my large lilies have been unearthed. 
• Lunch.  I did some weeding in the Star Garden.
• After work I cleaned up here and there, ended up with a truckload of debris and dumped it in an erosion spot.
• Thursday.  Worked.
• At lunch I potted up red lantana seeds that I collected off a plant in Houston in four pots with soil and vermiculite.  I don't know if they will sprout, but I'm giving it a try.  I potted up 3 White Colonial verbena that I cut a couple of days ago and have been keeping in water.  The ones I put directly in the ground day before yesterday are gasping, so I put these in soil, and I am keeping them in shade for a few days.
• In the evening after work I took 2 cuttings from my oakleaf hygrangeas, dipped the cut in rooting hormone and put them in potting soil and vermiculite.
• I collected seed off my Heliopsis and scattered it in other beds in the Rose Garden.
• Deadheaded zinnias and threw the seed heads into the beds.
• Friday.  Worked.
• Before work I dug up 4 Fruity Pebbles lantana growing in paths in the Rose Garden and put them in pots.  I will keep them in shade for a couple days before I set them in the sun.
• Dinner at Manuel's.  When we got home we took a drive around the property looking for lightening bugs.  We saw only one.
• Saturday.  I started out with the goal of raking in the gardens.  But I got off the track almost immediately and just began weeding.  
• I spent a lot of time in the irrigated shady part of the Star Garden.  I decided to clean up the flowerbed edges where I had allowed various lilies to take root next to beds.  So much so that you couldn't even really tell where the flowerbeds ended and paths began.  I ruthlessly pulled up Ox Eyes and penstemon and rain lilies and Phillippine lilies.  I saved the bulbs to plant later.  I dug out the rock edging that had sunk down in the ground after many years and re-set it.  I moved some woodland violet clumps that were spilling over the bed edging and re-planted them in the large Bulb Bed and over in the Medicine Garden.  I cut back branches of pink Turks cap that were sticking out in the paths as well as branches of pink vitex and spicebush.  I dug up most of the cedar logs that I use as edging and reset them.  And, as always, weeded, weeded, weeded.
• I took all the Philippine Lily bulbs which were pretty mature and good-looking, and re-planted them in the Medicine Garden.  I used all the small chicken wire enclosures already in those beds to surround then and protect them from the armadillos until they get re-established.  First I yanked out all the pathetic Nicotiana that were in the cages.  Another failed project.  I carefully raised that Nicotiana from seed late last winter and early spring.  Then I planted them in the Medicine Garden and surrounded them with chicken wire.  They never did much of anything. Here I am in late summer yanking them up.  Just another gardening failure.  Oh well!
• Bert and I drove around the property, this time it was completely dark.  Lots of lightening bugs.  They are such a wonder of nature.
• Sunday.  Our last day here.  I started the day again with the goal of raking, but I soon got distracted.  I went down to the Orchard to breathe in the scent of my clematis one last time and to take pictures of it again.  I picked some muscadine grapes.  They ripen maddeningly slowly. I wanted them to ripen this week while I was here, but no luck.  Now, I don't want them to ripen until next week when I am here again.  It's always a race to beat the deer and the raccoons to the bounty.
• I went to the Rose Garden to do a bit of watering, and I got so disgusted with the Bermudas Kathleen rose bed that I started clearing it out.  It wasn't really weedy, but it was completely turned over from the armadillos.  Also, I had allowed lots of Ox Eye daisies to start growing out into the paths.  I pulled all of them up.  I was resigned to just tossing them, but they came up in nice large clumps with lots of soil, very easy to re-plant in the bed in a better spot. I re-set them in the same bed.  I rooted out some day flower.  I sowed some zinnias.  Then I pulled up all the chicken wire barriers and set them back in more securely now that all the plants were gone from the edges.  
• I sowed zinnias in several more spots throughout the Rose Garden.  I pulled up spent zinnias.  
• I trimmed back the purple trailing lantana all along the edge of the Rose Garden, and while I scooted along the ground doing that, I cleared out the adjacent bed of the annoying ground cover weed (it is native, but I don't care - I don't like it).  Pulled up young Mexican Torch sunflower seedlings.  I have selected a few to grow, but I'd have a forest if I allowed all of them to grow. The ones I am allowing to grow are inside the cedar barrier that Bert made.  Perfect for those giants that will eventually want to topple over.
• Set the sprinklers so that they will hit all my newest plantings while we are gone for the week.
• I planted the 15 or so rain lilies that I uprooted when I was working in the Star Garden the day before.
• I moved on to the Medicine Garden.  I raked the whole garden (finally - I raked something).  Trimmed here and there, weeded here and there. Watered all the pots in the Medicine Garden - sedums, alocasia, aloe, and comfrey.
• Watered all the pots around the pool.
• I put new sprinkler heads on the hoses in the Greenhouse Gardens, the kind that allow you to change the shape of the water.  I like those best. 
• I replaced a hose on one of the sprinkler heads in the Orchard that I noticed was broken.
• Dumped two truckloads of debris in erosion spots.  
• Put away all my fertilizers, tools, stakes, poisons, and soil amendments.  Headed home to Houston.

Coneflower and My Heartbreak August 8, 2021

 Last summer I had magnificent displays of coneflower.  They take 2 years to come to bloom, so it was a long wait and well worth the wait.  But I thought once I had gotten them established so successfully that every year would be a beautiful display.  No.  They all but disappeared in the Star Garden where I was so very proud of them.  And the display was weak in the Orchard where I had several magnificent stands of of coneflower the summer before.  Hopes dashed again.  I suspect but do not know for certain, that the voles did them in.  Echinacea has a tap root.  Tap roots are very delicious fare for a vole. But coneflower is still here and there in the Orchard.  I expect that now I will always have some.  But perhaps never as dazzling a display as I had that one wonderful summer.