My New, Very Loud Neighbor

I may be down one giant spider, but I'm up one giant, extremely loud cicada:

This little guy (gal?) was hanging out in the Live Oak tree in my front yard this past weekend. It's about 4" long.

I'm not sure what kind of cicada it is; I sent the pics with a query to www.whatsthatbug.com, which is a
FANTASTIC website if you haven't been.  Go check it out!

So beautiful.  SO LOUD. 

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You Have Been My Friend

It looks like something - a bird, a bat - got Margaret during the night.  Goodbye, Margaret.  I can't wait to meet your millions of babies in the spring.

"You have been my friend," replied Charlotte.  "That in itself is a tremendous thing."  


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The Creepy, Creepy Circle of Life

This morning when I left the house to go to work, Margaret wasn't in her web.  Knowing that she's had a male visitor lately, I searched the garden below her web, but found neither her nor an egg sac.  I had almost given up (maybe she'd been eaten by a bird early in the morning?), but then I looked upwards, and found this:

That's a bigass spider.

You can see that her abdomen is considerably deflated
from what it was on Monday.

I watched Margaret for several minutes.  It was fascinating
to see her crawling around the sac, using her back legs to
guide silk from her spinnarets, layering it over the sac.

None of these photos are as close or clear as I'd like, but
this is the best shot I've gotten so far of Margaret's fovea(the round, flattish part of her body between her head and
abdomen, which is gray and fuzzy). 

If I start seeing words woven into her web, you guys'll be the first to know.  Meanwhile, I'm hoping I don't get a face full of spiderlings in March on my way out the door.

By the way...

No, there's not really any garden news lately.  It's 9,000º outside (July, Texas).  The vegetable garden has been baked out of existence for the year, and I didn't have great luck with it to begin with (I was sick for about two months and couldn't take care of it, and everything either died or bolted).  High summer in Texas is about keeping up with the trees and maybe the lawn, if we're not in drought (and we're currently not, for the first time in nearly ten years, thank goodness).  My yardwork and gardening is restricted, right now, to mowing the grass really quickly first thing in the morning on Saturdays before the atmosphere catches fire. 

Next month will likely be about the same, though they're projecting an early, rainy fall because of the ENSO/El Nino, so if  I get enough time ("SCA season" begins in September), I'd like to try to spiff up the front yard some and maybe do a second, short-season veggie garden in the back to replace the one that fell flat on its face in June. 


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Spider Update

Margaret, the Golden Orb Weaver (Nephila)  who was living in my roses when last I posted, has gone CRAZY.  She's moved to the archway on my front porch (though not over the doorway, thankfully), and has more than quadrupled in size in the last several weeks.  She's now got a legspan of about five inches, and her abdomen is like the size of my thumb!  She's eating a junebug a night or more, and the other day I saw a tiny male in her web, so there may be an egg sac soon!  Yay spiders!

This is a terrible picture, but, here you go:

(that's a 3" cup hook about a foot away for scale)

She's made her web in a place where photgraphing here is nearly impossible.  During the day, she's backlit by the sun, and at night, well, you can see.  But she's really brightly colored, and her web is nearly four feet across - it takes up the ENTIRE first archway on the porch! 

This one, with the plant and the bell. I took both down one
night so that a massive thunderstorm blowing in from the north
wouldn't put that iron bell through my front porch window, and
the next morning: SPIDER. 

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A Bit-of-Everything Update

Firstly:  I FINALLY GOT A JOB!!!  Seven months! Egad.

I haven't gotten much done in the way of yardwork or gardening for the past couple of months, because my asthma and allergies have been kicking my ass so severely that I've basically been couch-bound for two months.  But I'm back to it, and have a few small things to share:

In May, I found this little (1") Golden Orb Weaver spider
in my yellow roses.  I call her Margaret. She's now got a
4" legspan, and has made her home in one of the archways
on my front porch.  

Exactly a year ago, I did a post on some weeds I found in my yard - after the
last bout of severe allergies kept me on my ass for two months and my yard
had gone to hell while I wasn't looking, in fact, which is where I'm at again. I
I found the Mystery Weed again, and this time took photos and looked it up
online:  it's Pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus).  

Plants at work: Scilla violacea and a Jade Plant.  And a wee
brass Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. 

My 'Romantika' Clematis climbing the post on the back
porch.  Behind it you can see Raven's Garden, which is
just a freaking MESS.  The Morning Glories and Cypress
Vine have completely ignored the back fence and wire lines
 I gave them to climb on, and have made a little mound on
top of the strawberries I planted there.  The Cosmos are
doing alright - you can see a couple of them (orange) behind
the Clematis.  More on that soon. 

Meanwhile, I've got a LOT of work to do in the backyard.   Like I said, I've been sick for two months and everything has just gone to hell.   Yesterday I spent about three hours pulling weeds by hand in the backyard.  Today I'll mow, prune up the trees, and see about getting those flower vines off the ground, or at least also onto the fence where they're supposed to be.  I also have to clean up my tomato plants - they all fell off the stakes while I wasn't looking, and had patched out into the yard and made a great big, tangled, tomato-y mess.  I ripped them off the ground yesterday while I was weeding around them, and just threw them back into the vegetable garden, hehe.  

Updates soon. 

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Post Script: The Texas Drought

From the US National Weather Service today:

See the dark red Texas on the bottom right?  That was the year my entire garden died, and all  my grass dried up and blew away.  I wasn't kidding about the drought.  Thank all the Powers That Be, by whatever name you or I may call them, for the rain in the past couple of years, and for this year's El Nino.

The Last Day of Spring

I know, summer doesn't officially start until June 21st, but it's been in the 90s for half of May already.  It may not be summer yet, technically, but it's already feeling like it. 

Today, though, it's cool and overcast, as gigantic storms race past, mostly to the north of where I live.  It's been a rainy spring so far (thank you, El Nino!), and for once, Texas has been officially declared out of the drought that's been beating down on us for the past several years.  Who knows how long it'll last; but for now, it's a beautiful, grey, restful day.  

I took a walk this morning, which is something I haven't done for nearly a year.  I used to walk every evening, but last Summer, when the crushing heat and my asthma got the better of me, I joined a gym, and traded my daily walk for a workout in the air conditioning each day after work.  That lasted from about June to November, when I lost my job and was no longer driving by the gym every day at 6:00.  I've been active since then, but nowhere near the level I was before.  

So I took a walk this morning.  And more than the exercise, it reminded me how much I love walking around my neighborhood.  It's not an affluent neighborhood, but it's well kept, simple, and pretty.  I love getting to see everyone's landscaping and exterior decor - and it was nice to see how much my old favorites have grown and changed in the last year.  I had almost forgotten about "The Garden House", a block behind where I live, which is is beautifully landscaped, so pretty and nearly-wild-looking, that I want to roll in the beds every time I walk by.  It was that house which made me decide to get a Chaste Tree for my backyard.  

Every time I walk - today, and I remember doing it every time I walked last year - I feel so refreshed and inspired by everyone else's landscapes...and then I get home, look at my front yard, and go, "...Oh."  My front garden is looking better and better, with all the work I've been putting into it this year, and my Bluebonnet patch looks really lovely while it's in bloom (it's already done for the year), but the rest of the yard is pretty...well...not "bad", but not all that great, either.  It slopes steeply to the street from the house, and the fact that it barely retains water at all means that my grass has never done well.  In fact, the front yard is mostly made up of buzz-cut weeds and a patchy carpet of tiny, sprawling weeds that look like itty bitty ferns and are covered with tiny pink starburst-flowers growing from long runners covered with hidden thorns.  Not that I mind - you know how I love a wild mishmash of Whatever Grows Here in place of a boring monoculture lawn;  I just wish it was healthier. 

Last year I built a small ring of those concrete cobblestones I pulled out of what used to be the back patio around the small Live Oak tree in the front yard, and backfilled it with compost and mulch, to help retain water for the tree - and it's done REALLY well.  The canopy has nearly doubled in size since I pruned it back in January! Similar water-retention efforts in the backyard in the areas where the yard slopes the most have worked out really well in the past, too.  So I think I've decided to create a water-retention garden at the front of my front lawn.  

Here's what the yard looks like now: 

(Made with Icovia Space Planner)

The slope from the house to the sidewalk is only about a 10• drop, but it's enough that the whole "front half" of the yard (from the tree to the sidewalk) is pretty dry, even in the wettest weather.  In heavy rains, the soil and all the grass and weeds growing in that front half washes almost completely away.  So I think I'll do this: 

That looks like an enormous difference. It's not, really (and no the drawings aren't exactly to scale, but they're close enough for me to get an idea of how things look).  It's a 16" border at the end of the lawn, on both sides of the driveway, which I'm hoping to plant with Columbines, more purple Irises (to echo the flower and color scheme in the front garden bed), and whatever small greenery happens my way as I'm developing and implementing this plan.  I'm also planning to fill the traffic strip, between the sidewalk and street, with similar plantings, to create a pretty little walkway between flowers (HOA be damned. They don't like it when we plant our traffic strips, but since that area is technically city property, they can't stop us, either. The only thing the city says about it is "be ready to have it dug up without notice if we ever need to", and I'm fine with that).  

The plan also calls for more cobblestone pathways to be laid near the driveway to provide more walking space, since I have a roommate now, and therefore two cars in the driveway.  For the first time in eleven years, I'll actually need to buy more cement and make NEW stones!  I've actually finally used up all the stones from the old patio (in various garden borders, tree circles, and some low areas in the backyard where, for right now, they're helping keep the soil and grass in place as the grass finishes growing into the spots where Raven used to dig).  

It'll be awhile before I can get to work implementing this.  I'm still unemployed (six months, you guys!!), but I'm hopeful that that situation is going to be ended soon.  Sometime in the next couple of weeks I need to make a few runs to the dump to stock up on mulch; and my compost bin is nearly ready to be emptied out - I have roughly 9 cubic feet of compost just about ready to go (YAY!!), which is more than enough to cover the lawn-side beds on both sides of the driveway - maybe not the traffic strip, but, we'll see how it all goes. 

Anyway.  As soon as I can get more cement for the stones, and make a nursery run, I'll get started on this.  I'll let you know how it goes. :)

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Some Pink Things

Loropetalum foliage in the morning light, front garden

The first rose on the new pink double rose bush in the front
garden (no cultivar name, generic plant from Waldemart)

:)

Aside

I really love the way my Chaste Tree grows.  When I planted it in 2011, it was about a foot and a half tall.  Now it's up to ten feet, and will reach twelve or more by the end of this year.  How can I tell?

See the long, thin branches sticking practically straight up from the top?  The rest of the overall form is fairly rounded, but every Spring, a few whip-like branches streeeeetch out higher than the rest of the tree, and throughout the remainder of the year, the rest of the tree catches up.  It actually tells me how tall it's about to get.  

Hee. 

*         *         *         *

I did three new things with the Chaste Tree this spring.  Firstly, I finally caved and lopped off the "extra" trunk that it had in previous years: 

2013, at two years old

See the little guy on the left?  When the tree was small, it contributed to the whole plant looking fairly balanced.  But as the tree has grown, that extra trunk on the left side grew unevenly, ending up tilted far to the left and much weaker than the rest of the tree.  It also isn't attached to the rest of the tree - I think this may have originally been two saplings in the same container, and I didn't realize it when I planted it.  Anyway, I cut it off to allow the main tree to grow, and it looks far more balanced and sculptural now.  

The second thing I did was to remove the little ring of stacked [cement] stones that I placed around it in 2012, to keep a certain black fuzzy dog from digging it up.  In the picture above, there was a good 3-5" of space between the trunk of the little tree and any one side of the stone ring (you can see the whippy branches on top in this picture, too; the tree doubled in size in 2012 and in 2013!)  But this year, the trunk of the tree has gotten so wide that a couple of the stones were nearly touching it.   Time to let the tree free! 

Lastly, I nabbed a little Texas Gold Columbine plant on my last trip to The Natural Gardener, and planted it a few feet away from the base of the Chaste Tree, to sort of anchor it in the growing landscape (pun intended) and to add more color and more native plantings to the yard.  You can kind of see it in the first picture - a little blob of green with a couple of those stones placed around it to keep it safe while it gets established.

It's part of a larger plan, but before I launch into what should really be its own blog post...

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Backyard Progress In Pictures

Some stuff:

Most of the backyard, as seen from the west side behind the Mulberry tree

Morning Glory seedlings, yay!  I don't remember if they're blue or purple.

I love Yarrow, as long as it isn't the Yarrow taking over the front garden. 

Another view of the whole (mostly) yard from the other side of the tree, from the SW corner. I stood in dog shit to take this. 

The Mexican Orchid Tree, with a pair of little lavenders flanking it. 

The Chaste Tree, with a wee columbine in front of it, Yarrow and compost bin behind. 

The first flowers on my Citronella geranium, potted, on the back porch. 

Cosmos and Cypress Vine seedlings! Squee! 

new leaves on the Chaste Tree (Vitex agnus castus)

One of the wee lavenders near the Orchid Tree (Lavandula dentata)

More soon.

News From the Front Yard

Texas Bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) in the front yard

Slightly less exciting when you see them from a distance,
LOL.  But the patch is growing!  

Magenta African Daisies (Osteospermum) and red Cyclamen in the front bed

My yellow roses, now five years old; and my purple irises, some of which have grown under-
neath the rose bush and mingle with it. :) 

Leafminers on my culinary sage. 

More African Daisies.  Have I mentioned that I LOVE the camera on my new phone? Wow. 

The whole front yard scene - again, less exciting in its entirety.  I'm working on it. :) 

That big bush by the electrical box (and let me tell you how utterly overjoyed I've been about its
presence for eleven years...) is the only plant that I still have from the original builder's plantings
in front of the front porch.  I think the very first thing I did after I moved into the house in 2004
was to remove ALL of the builders' plantings, five each Nandina (which I detest) and these
things.  I potted them all up and put them on the curb with a sign that said "FREE PLANTS"

 - all except for this guy.  And in eleven years, this is all the growing it's done.  It has little dirty-looking white flowers in the spring and early summer, smells like oven clearner and gym socks, and I can NEVER remember its name.  I tried googling for it, but nothing comes up when I search for "fugly generic bushes nobody actually plants intentionally."  Except for the four people who took the FREE PLANTS within like two hours after I put them on the curb. Suckers! 

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More Work In the Back Yard

Today's list of completed chores:

• run to the dump for more mulch
• mulch the rest of the garden beds I've recently built in the yard
• plant the two lavenders and the columbines I purchased last week
• clean off the back porch

I still have a couple of herbs I need to pot up, which I imagine I'll do this evening or tomorrow morning.  

I was so pleased with myself for mowing the backyard and getting the gardens going.  Then my weed-eater died (after I was finished, thankfully).  I don't own a mower;  I "mow" the entire property with my weed-eater.  SIGH.  Thankfully, one of my costuming clients has offered to pay me for a new dress with a new weedeater, hehe.  Let's hear it for the barter system, folks!  

More soon. 

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Another Big Backyard Gardening Day

Today, I have

1. Finished raking up the yard clippings from yesterday
2. Pruned all the trees in the backyard
3. Cut down the Esperanza bush in the yard so it can grow afresh from the roots (which it does every year). 
4. Finished Raven's Garden in the northeast corner by the back porch
5. Dug out and new veggie garden in the same old veggie garden spot, and planted it
6. Dug out half the remaining stones from the old patio and moved them to create a short wall around the new veggie bed
7. Visited The Natural Gardener with friends, and brought home (only a few) new plants, and a bunch of seed packets. 

To wit: 

Backyard, east:  Chaste Tree (Vitex), compost bin and yarrow
in the corner (I put sunflower seeds all around it today), some
pallets just sitting around collecting dirt, and a small landing
of flat stones filled in with dirt and mulch (part of a long path
that will eventually run from the porch to the compost bin)

Backyard, west:  newly-pruned Mexcian Orchid
Tree (Bauhinia) just barely leaving out, Daisy and
huge Mulberry tree in the background, with free-
range bbq pit and lawnmower corpse. 

Backyard, northwest: the new veggie garden,
in the old spot, surrounded by short wall made
with old patio stones.  Chives and Daffodils
visible now (left over from the old veggie garden);
this morning I also planted Yellow Pear and
Roma tomatoes, and Tam Mild and Mucho
Nacho jalapenos, as well as Kentucky Wonder
and Scarlet-something kidney beanson the trellis
 panels. 

L-R: Remnants of the old patio under the Mexican Orchid (with
Shelly), then removed, then stacked around the veggie bed. And
yes, I was singing "I Fought the Law" the whole time I was doing
this ("Breaking rocks in the /hot sun...")

Orange Mint (top) and Pineapple Mint (side)
in the old strawberry jar on the back porch. 

Raven's Garden: only the blue fencing around
the outside will stay; the panels stuck randomly
in the ground behind it are to keep the other dogs
from jumping in there and digging up the fresh
soil.  There's yarrow around back, and a mound
with strawberry plants in the center under the extra
fencing.  I also spread seed for "Bright Lights"
and "Sensation" Cosmos, as well as blue and white
Morning Glories and red Cypress Vine around the
fence.  (And the baling wire panel fencing wrapped
around the post, for my 'Romantika' Clematis) 

A very silly concept sketch of what the garden
will look like later this summer, made with Ribbet

Helpers! 

And I STILL have two lavenders and a Columbine to put in the ground (where??), and an Angel's Trumpet, a cilantro, and some comfrey to pot up and stow on the porch...as soon as I clean up the back porch, which is kinda still a dumping ground (I've been working on it slowly, right now it's mostly full of tools, abandoned yard shoes, and a junk table that needs to go out on the curb for bulk trash day - although for now it's coming in really handy as a makeshift potting bench!) 

AND I bought some new houseplants (a parsley-leaf Aralia and a couple of wee succulents) and a Persian Shield (Strobilanthes) to put into the front garden.  Tomorrow I need to run to the dump again for another giant tub of mulch, before I go much further in the yard. 

At the moment, though, I would give my left arm for a hot tub to sit in.  I'm pooped. 

Hair by Mother Nature

Spring Doesn't Start 'Til I Do

I've finally gotten started on the backyard for the year!  I did a bit of work a few weeks ago before I left for my big SCA trip in Mississippi, but the BIG work is all in the backyard.

Since the Martian Death Fungus of Aught-Ten and the horrific drought of '11 and '12, I've kind of let the yard go.  It needed time to recover.  The few things that survived (my Mulberry, Vitex, and Bauhinia trees,  my 'Romantika' Clematis, a couple of Daffodils, and a whole bunch of Garlic Chives and Yarrow) have been doing well on their own, but they're all badly in need of pruning and shaping.  Last November I spent a couple of weekends crawling around on the ground pulling what felt like millions of Hemlock and Ragweed plants out of the ground one at a time (to make sure I got the taproots; controlling them with mowing wasn't helping at all, even though it works great for annual weeds).  Since then I haven't mowed the grass once.  The Bermuda grass the house came with in '04 has finally all been replaced with wild, native grasses and groundcovers that do MUCH better in the heat and sun, and I let them go wild for a few months to establish a good hold on the earth and reseed themselves as they saw fit.

This morning I spent about three hours out there mowing half the yard, then raking up all the trimmings and tossing them into the compost bin, layered with half-composted mulch I picked up from the city recycling center yesterday for free.  I cleaned off the back porch (which had, I'm embarrassed to say, become sort of a dumping ground for things I took out into the yard, mostly tools and things, and never brought back into the house), and then I grabbed a roll of baling wire fencing from the garage and wrapped them around the post on the back porch for that Clematis to climb up onto this year.

A New Kind of Dog Garden

I'm heartbroken to say, my eldest dog, Raven, died last week on the 19th.  He was fifteen years old, and riddled with all manner of Old Man Problems.  He collapsed while I was in Mississippi on my trip, and my roommate, bless her, took him to the emergency vet while I drove back the next day as fast I could.  I met him at the hospital as soon as I got back into town, where I got to spend a few final hours snuggling him and brushing his fur, and then we said our last goodbye.

I had had a feeling that he was nearly at the end of his time before I left for my trip - and I almost didn't go.  I think we all hope it will happen peacefully in their sleep.  Knowing that that might happen, I made arrangements for some friends to come and help my roommate out if it happened while I was out of state, and before I left, I dug a plot for him in the backyard, in his favorite napping spot by the back porch.  Instead, he ended up at the vet, and they took care of him for me there.

Amongst the plants I purchased today were "Sensation" (pink and red) and "Bright Lights" (orange) Cosmos flowers.  I started growing Cosmos around the fence line in the backyard in '07, and ever since then, Raven loved to burrow into them, dig himself a little dirt bowl, mat down some of the stalks, and make himself a little nest in there.  He also LOVED strawberries - so much so that although I always grew lots of them, I never got to eat any, hehe.

The first new garden I'm going to build in the backyard, then, will be a garden for Raven.  His collar will go into the place I dug for him a couple of weeks ago, and the whole area will be filled with his favorite flower, and his favorite fruit, in his favorite place to nap.  :')

<3 

Veggie Gardens Yay! 

Next up will be the creation of a new vegetable and herb garden.  The veggie garden will be in the same space as the old ones - why mess with a good thing, right?  The soil there is still in fantastic shape, and the grass hasn't even taken over the space fully yet, so it'll be easy to clear it out again and top it off with compost from the bin.

Today's haul from It's About Thyme includes (from left to right, above): 

• "Yellow Pear", Roma, and "German Johnson" tomatoes
• "Tam Mild" and "Mucho Nacho" Jalapenos
• "Texas Gold" Columbines (Aquilegia chrysantha)
• Citronella Geranium (Pelargonium 'Citrosum')
• "Goodwin Creek" Lavender (Lavandula 'Goodwin Creek Gray')
• French Lavender (Lavandula dentata)
• Comfrey (Symphytum officinale)
• Catnip (Nepeta cataria)
• Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum)
• Orange Mint (Mentha citrata)

Most of this will be going into the "vegetable" plot this year.  Once I figure out what to do with the old patio area (once covered in cobblestones, now covered in grass), and where to put a new, dedicated herb garden, I'll expand it, but I'm trying not to make too much work for myself all at once.  I've missed gardening the way I used to, but the SCA keeps me extremely busy these days, so I don't want to overload myself by biting off more than I can chew. 

The Orange Mint and geraniums will be going into pots on the back porch;  the catnip will live in a hanging basket (to keep neighborhood cats and possums out of it.  Possums looooove catnip!)  I also purchased an Asparagus Fern for the house.  

And now, I'm headed back out to the yard to make some gardens!   I'm hoping as I finish mowing the yard, I'll find my long-handled loppers, so that I can start pruning my trees.  Where the heck have those things gone??  

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