White Snake Root October 20, 2012

Snake Root is a fall blooming annual.  It will die after the first frost, but it is a heavy reseeder.  I started several years ago with one plant.  Now I have dozens of them all over the Shade Garden.  If they spring up in a good spot I let them stay.  If they spring up in an awkward spot, such as in front of another plant or in the path, I pull them up or spray them with herbicide.  Snake Root is very poisonous to animals that graze such as cows.  It's pretty, though.

Bottle Tree Alley

So, we are mostly finished with our bottle tree alley.  My husband and I both agree that the trees would look better with more bottles.  We will order one more box of blue bottles. 

This path through the gate leads to the Rose Garden.

Toad Lily October 20, 2012

Toad Lily (what a poor unfortunate name) is a fall bloomer.  The flowers are very exotic looking. 

It likes full shade.  I thought it had completely died last summer during the drought because there was no green on the plant at all by July, but here it is looking very healthy.  Toad Lily will die back each winter after the first freeze and return in the spring.  It likes a lot of moisture.   

Fall Zinnias!

These zinnias were all seeded from the spent flowers that I deadheaded and threw on the ground earlier in the summer.  All of these pictures were taken in the Orchard.  There is a continual flurry of activity with hundreds of butterflies and bees nectaring at the flowers.  It is something to see!

That white box is the bee hive in the background.

My Butterfly List - Brenham 2012

This is a White Striped Longtail.

What a year for butterflies, both in sheer numbers and in variety.  At any one time in the Star Garden and the Orchard there were a hundred at a time.  The little fellows above were very entertaining.  Yes, they are brown, but they have a distinctive white stripe on the underside of their wings and very long thin back wings that look like a tail.

The rest of my list for 2012:

• Zebra Swallowtail - I only saw one, but it gives me hope for next year.
• Pipe Vine Swallowtail 
• Black Swallowtail
• Giant Swallowtail
• Sulphurs of many varieties
• Zebra Longwing - I have been particularly excited about these.  There are so many of them, and normally they are rarely seen in these parts.
• Gulf Fritillary
• Julia
• Variegated Fritillary
• Bordered Patch
• Red Admiral
• Painted Lady
• Buckeye
• Monarch
• Queen
• Skippers of many varieties   

A Weekend at the Farm October 20-21, 2012

Arrived Friday evening.

• Zinnias and butterflies were the stars of the weekend.  Gorgeous!  I couldn't get enough of them.
• My husband finished the bottle tree alley this weekend.  We both agree that it needs some more bottles.  We thought we had enough, but they still look a little bare.  It looks good, though, very colorful.  My husband thinks we're one broken-washing-machine-on-the-porch away from being white trash, but I love it!  Very southern.
• I trimmed lots of plants that were getting unruly and spilling over into the paths / blocking the paths.  I pulled up lots of zinnia plants that were leaning over and lots of salvia that was looking ratty.  Whatever wasn't too hard and pithy I threw in the new compost pile.
• Sprayed herbicide in the Rose Garden.
• Worked in the Orchard for quite some time.  Pulled up zinnias, seeded more zinnias, pulled weeds, raked here and there.  
• I staked the blackberries.  I did that pretty clumsily.  I hammered a five foot piece of rebar into the ground, gathered all the long, trailing vines, bunched them together and tied them to the rebar with a velcro tie.  We'll see how it does, and I'll take it more seriously if I have to, but first we'll see if this works.  I needed to get the vines off the ground or they will tip root.  Plus, I can't weed or spray with herbicide if they are trailing all over the ground.  
• Picked bags of green beans and okra.  Took a gallon bag of green beans over to the neighbors.
• Weeded, weeded, weeded.
• Adjusted the sprinklers.
• Watered all the new shrubs.  Watered the Yuletide Camellias.  All the camellias are loaded with buds.  Watered the Fringe Tree.  
• I pegged my Madame Isaac Pereire rose.  This is a good rose for pegging.  Pegging is a technique that encourages lots of blooms.  When the branches are fastened to the ground (the branches of this rose are very long - shorter than a climber, longer than a shrub rose) the bud eyes will "break" and branch out with buds.  Madame Isaac Pereire is a once-a-year bloomer, so I want the most action I can get!i
• I planted a Caerulia Blue Passion Vine against the new arbor that my husband erected last weekend out of goat wire.
• I planted lots of kale in the Star Garden.  I've no idea why I bought so much kale.  3 Winterbor kale (this is the dark green curly kale), 5 Siberian kale (5 - Good Lord!) and 3 Vates kale.  All this kale because Central Market has a really good kale salad. 
• Spread some lettuce seed in the Star Garden - a mix of Marvel of Four Seasons, Lolla Rossa, Redina, Red Oakleaf, Red Salad Bowl, Ruben's Red, and Rouge d'Hiver.
• Sowed Zeolite Calendulas in the Star Garden.
• Planted 3 Osaka Purple Mustard Greens in the Long Border. 

A Weekend at the Farm October 12 - 14, 2012

I believe this is a Bordered Patch butterfly.  I tried for a long time to get a photo with its wings spread out, but I never could do it.  I also saw a Julia butterfly this weekend.  Julias look similar to Gulf Fritillaries, they are orange, but they have no black markings on the wings, the undersides of the wings have much more subtle markings than the Gulf Fritillaries do, their wings are longer.

Went up on Friday after the Bulb Mart.  Went to a wedding in Conroe on Saturday night, returned to Burton that night.  A lot of driving!

• Planted 60 Rolf Fiedler Ipheion bulbs in the Rose Garden that I bought at the Bulb Mart.
• Planted a Pink Vitex agnus castus, also from the Bulb Mart, in the Star Garden.
• Planted a red Passiflora coccinea from the Bulb Mart under the arbor that leads into the Long Border. 
• Planted 9 Galactic Gold Bearded Iris at the entrance to the Star Garden and 3 in the front bed.
• It rained a lot this weekend.  We got some good rain.  It rained at some point during the week also.  I was worried about my newly planted shrubs from Woodlanders, but they were fine, the rain was helpful.  My husband and I woke up before day light on Sunday and sat on the porch and watched the rain in the dark until it became light.  
• I finished my Circle Drive landscaping project on Saturday.  Looks great.  Had some rock left over and repaired a few spots near the front of the house.
• I used the last of my compost that was in the compost enclosure that my husband built while I was planting the plants I bought at the Bulb Mart.  But I have a long pile of rotting material outside the enclosure against the Vegetable Garden fence.  So I scooped it up and threw it into the enclosure so it doesn't completely rot out the fence.  It was one big fire ant pile.  Very tricky to fork it all up into the wheelbarrow and dump it into the compost enclosure.  I got more than a few ant bites.  But mission accomplished.  The pile has been totally turned over which it needed. And it has been moved into its proper spot.  Of course later that day I started a new pile along the fence...
• Watched butterflies.  
• Pulled weeds. 
• Sprayed herbicide in the Orchard on Saturday before the rain.  Hopefully it had time to absorb into the leaves before the rain began.  I'm sure its fine.
•  Picked okra and green beans.  I've got a bunch of both!  Gallon baggies full of both.
• Came up on a small snake while rooting around in the green beans.  He was wound around one of the plants.  I cut off his head with my scissors and kept on going.  No problem!  Texas women kill their own snakes.