Plant List: Backyard/Patio

Because I'm trying to keep up with my plants, and because I have a blog and you get to look at whatever I write, my backyard/patio now contains:

Planted in the ground: 

Rosemary, unknown variety, bought as a "Christmas Tree" topiary, January 2017,  and pruned into a "ball" (lump, wad, what have you)

Container Garden, Patio: 

Blue Plumbago (Plumbago auriculata)
Jasmine, pink-flowered (Jasminum polyanthum) - this was moved from the front yard
Fernleaf Lavender (Lavandula pinnata)
Serrano pepper (Capsicum annuum)
"Yellow Pear" Cherry Tomatoes (2)
"Patio" tomato
Columbine, "Harlequin Mix" (Aquilegia vulgaris) - from the box that was in the front yard
Onion Chives (Allium schoenpprasum)
Lavandula dentata - a bright green variety I can't remember the name of, and there was no tag :c
Thai Basil (Ocimum basilicum)
Lime Mint (Mentha spp.) - I think.  It smells like Lime Mint, but it wasn't labeled.


* If you haven't tried Yellow Pear tomatoes, you must.  They've got a mellow, warm flavor, perfect for adding to savory things.  They're awesome in Greek salads, and on bruschetta. My favorite way to eat them, though, is right off the plant, warm from the sun, while working in the garden.

A pink columbine, part of the "Harlequin Mix" that moved from the
Earthbox planter into their own separate containers last weekend.

Critters & Columbines

So, the bare-root Columbines I planted in the Earthbox last month are doing well:

February 22, 2017

March 19

glamour shot

I'm looking at revamping my whole patio space in the backyard soon.  I loved having an herb and flower border surrounding my patio area at the old house, and I was thinking about doing something similar in the new house.  These columbines are going to anchor the "doorways" that will lead through the border into the yard, I think.



Here's the patio itself...well, most of it.  It makes a great "before" shot, doesn't it?  Full of leaves and those hateful, crunchy, little Live Oak flowers that carry that infuriating yellow pollen that sticks to everything this time of year.  Also shown:  a bunch of junk I hadn't cleaned off before taking this pic, muddy yard shoes, and a wee House Finch:

 

Don't see the bird?  Here:

Hee.

In the front yard, all of the Caladiums I planted in February have been removed by the @#*!! squirrels:

LEAVES.  STAAAAHP.

Did you miss it?  Look again:

 

Little bastards.


Also, meet Frances: 

Frances is a Funnel Web spider (Agelenidae) who lives on my front porch and prevents people  ringing the doorbell.  Frances is harmless - not related to the Australian Funnel Web spiders you hear about that are trying to kill you.  (I think maybe everything in Australia is trying to kill you).  She likes to collect dead bugs.  She normally cleans out her web every few days, but she's really let it go lately.  Bad Frances.


It's going to be a big weekend in the backyard.  I'm hoping by Sunday evening the whole thing will have been completely transformed.  Also, The Zilker Garden Festival is this weekend.  I haven't been in a few years, and I'm so excited about it! 

More soon. 

Two Favorite Flowers

Columbines 

me, 2017

My grandparents lived in White Rock, New Mexico, which is a little bitty village about 40 minutes up the mountain from Santa Fe, near Los Alamos and about a thousand little ski resorts.  We drove up there several times a year when I was a kid, most often in the spring and summer.  I spent countless hours there wandering the little streets, gawking at all the alien trees and the huge mountains, and touching and smelling all the flowers that were planted within arm's reach of the sidewalks and streets.

One of the houses a couple of streets over from my grandparents' house had columbines.  And I mean, they had hundreds of plants, all over the yard and in the traffic strip, so that walking past that house you were surrounded by columbines in every color and shape.

Best of all was a tiny, cheerful sign with flowers painted on it, which said, "Pick some!"  I did, on every walk, and every walk ended high atop the tallest slide at the local playground, watching the evening thunderstorms roll in over the mountaintops, with fistfuls of graceful, cheerful columbines piled in my lap.

Clematis

 

also me

While I love all Clematises, especially Sweet Autumn, 'Romantika' is my absolute favorite, simply
because I have gotten to know one of them, and it's been a constant friend for nearly twenty years.

I bought it when I was 22, and grew it in a container where it clambered around an upside-down tomato cage for nearly six years, moving with me from apartment to apartment.  When I bought my last home in 2004, I planted the vine in the ground for the very first time, and there it stayed for twelve years, wrapping itself around the post on my back porch each year, each year growing longer vines and larger flowers.

I could always count on 'Romantika' to come back bushier and brighter, every time it was cut back for the winter - or if it got out of hand and I had to shear it back to the ground to start over, which I did at least twice a year.  This plant above all others, I wanted to bring with me to the new place - it had stuck by me for so long, longer than people, or places, or any other possession. It was part of me. So I cut it back one last time, intending to dig up the root ball once it recovered and started growing again; but it never did.  I was heartbroken to see it finally go, especially at a time I was letting go of a place I had anchored to and wanted desperately to keep a little bit of it with me.  I hope to find a new one soon (the original came from Joy Creek Nursery in Oregon). It won't be my same old friend, which sheltered me from the rain on the back porch, hosted many families of lizards and birds, and shone a thousand different shades of green in the morning sunlight -- but it'll be just as beautiful to look at and sit under.