Armchair Gardening

How many people read this blog, anyway? Like two? Well, if either of you has been wondering why I stopped posting, here it is: 

On May 14th, I broke two bones in my right foot (for my fellow nerds: extra-articular calcaneus fracture; it's cuboid neighbor basically got its top sheared off), and hyperextended the ligament that wraps around the outside of my ankle.  As much as I'd like to be able to say it's a cool cycling injury - because I was out on a ride when it happened - it actually happened while I was off the bike posing for a group picture.  And yes, I finished the ride after it happened, because I didn't know it was broken.  I thought, "Well, you stepped in a hole, dork.  But the motion of the pedals should limber up that sore foot, right?  And I'll just ice it when I get home."  But by the time we got to downtown Austin I couldn't put my foot down at stoplights and had to switch feet; by the time we got back to the shop I couldn't walk anymore.  I drove home, slowly and carefully, and in a lot of pain, and then my roommate took me to the ER.

For the past four weeks, and likely the next four as well, I'm stuck in a big, velcro space-boot, wheeling around on a little blue knee-scooter.  That part is pretty cool.  The crutches I started out with were destroying my hands; the scooter is fast, comfy, versatile, and has a dinky little basket on the front which has been a life-saver at work.  The scooter feels something like being on a bike and a skateboard at the same time, which has been a bit confusing to my reflexes (do I bunny-hop over this extension cord on the floor, or ollie it?)

This means no gardening for me, aside from sitting in a chair or on the couch, thinking about gardening.  Thankfully, it's been raining about once a week for the past month; but with warmer and drier weather setting in, I'm thinking about that sprinkler I never got around to buying a few months ago.  Sure, I could wrap a trash bag around my leg and water by hand - but I can't really stand up that long.  Popping down the street to the nursery isn't as easy as it was: I have to pack the scooter in the car, take off the boot to drive, put it back on when I get there, unpack the scooter, then traverse the parking lot and store without bumping into anyone and without being able to carry much in my basket...all the while knowing that if any one were to harrass or attack me while I'm out on my own, I couldn't defend myself or run away.  Not that I'm exactly Van Damme on my best day, but still - knowledge of your own vulnerability is, well, it's pretty much the human condition anyway, isn't it?  So, whatever.  Shut up, brain.

Anyway.

Even if I haven't been doing much lately, I hate to leave you without any pictures.  Most of these were taken during the last storm, so, just know that in these pictures, I'm wearing a trash bag on my right leg:

First flower cluster on my first Plumbago

I love the way this Oak looks in the rain

This ball moss, all decked out in dead leaves and raindrops

My friend Star brought me a basket of
Petunias when I broke my foot   <3

I can't get over how cool the bark is on this Lace Bark
Elm in the front yard.  I love this tree. 

Raindrops on roses leaves is one of my favorite things.
This Caladium was in my bag of "White Christmas"
Caladiums, but I think it's a different kind.

I bought this gal in May, shown here on a trail near my house which I only
discovered two days before the ride during which I broke my foot...which
was only my 5th ride on it.  I cannot wait to get rolling again.   

See you both next time.

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.

Small Steps, Into An Early Spring

Last week, three things happened:  a Texas Mountain Laurel in my neighborhood burst into bloom, I noticed that many of the trees around were budding and beginning to show new leaves, and a friend texted me a picture of a bluebonnet by the side of the road, fully open.  In early February.  I've lived in Austin all my life, and I've never seen a bluebonnet open before March!  The grasshoppers and katydids are already out and about; and it makes me wonder what the junebug population at this new house looks like. I detest those things.  More than anything, though, it all makes me worried for this summer - how bad is it going to get this year? La Nina is over, and NOAA tells us that we're in kind of a stable place for the moment, but how long will that last? When will the next El Nino pattern begin, and how severe will it be?

Well, whatever happens, for the time being it meant that I got to get my front garden up and running several weeks earlier than I'd planned.  While I'd intended to dig and prep the beds over the winter when it was cold, and let them sit for a while, I never got around to it (too much else to do, and too cold!)  So I ended up doing it all over this past weekend.

Thankfully, the soil in the front beds isn't bad at all - it was planted, once, and while it was then ignored for many years, it was full of good, black soil, a bit of red clay, and underneath it all, the remains of somebody's old rock garden, full of sand and red pumice.  No wonder it drains so well in the rain!

This was taken in December, but until Saturday it stayed about the same - though many more leaves had collected in the beds.  Between these two front beds, and what had blown into drifts on the driveway, I filled up my 96-gallon yard waste bin to capacity with JUST leaves.  Holy crap!

I broke up the soil here with my garden claw, and mixed in a blend of compost, planting mix, and peat moss; and covered the whole thing with hardwood mulch.

I'm hoping, by the way, since there are no gutters on this house, that the mulch will be proof enough against the rain that sheets off the roof, especially in the corner behind the post.  It's supposed to rain frogs tomorrow, so I guess I'll find out.

The next day, I started by disinterring all of the plant scraps I'd harvested from the old house, and which had been heeled into a plastic planter box all winter.  After cleaning them all up and dividing what could be divided, I ended up with 2 garlic chives, 3 pink crinums, and 15 irises! I have no idea which irises are which, by the way - some are light purple, and some are the purple-black "Before the Storm" that I've grown for years.

I also went plant shopping, for the first time in years.  I'd missed doing that, so much!  The nursery folks didn't bat an eyelash, but there was a gentleman at the Lowe's I visited who seemed to be enjoying the sight of a crazy lady petting all the leaves and smelling everything.  Maybe he thought I was stealing things.

And so, for the first time in over twelve years, I got to build a garden, and populate it, completely from scratch - from the ground up, if you will.  (I know, I had to dig deep for that one).  Where my front and back yards were in full sun all day, every day at the old house; the front yard here is almost entirely dappled shade, and the front beds only see a touch of full sun, for a bare three hours a day:

 

I reserved those spots for a couple of lavenders and columbines.  Everything else in the beds are part-full shade, which is an area of gardening I've never really gotten to work with before, so we'll see how it all turns out. 

Here's a direct view of the front entrance.  I matched up plantings right by the sidewalk - chives and azaleas, and blue ceramic pots that need to be planted (there's a fern thrown into one for now, but it isn't staying there).

Except for those matched plantings, everything else in the beds is pretty much only arranged by sun requirements.

New beds look so empty! I did a ton of work over the weekend, and yet this looks like not much is happening.  I can't wait to see it in a few months when everything's huge and fluffy. 

Most of the flower colors here are purple, aside from the pink azaleas.  They won't be up for a while yet, but the empty places in the bed are full of white caladiums, to fill in around the feet of the taller things, and to bring a little light to the shady places.

Back in the corner is a Bird's Nest Fern which is about 2' across.  I've had it in a pot for several months in this corner, and it seems to love it here.  I've wanted one of these every since I saw Paul James with one on his show.  It's surrounded by Japanese Holly Fern, and hostas.  I love hostas, but I haven't been able to grow any for nearly a decade and a half!

The Tree of Things I Don't Know Where To Plant:
A rosemary that was once a Christmas-tree shape, now pruned into a ball wad; and my Earth Box, which is now full of baby Columbine plants that will one day go into the back yard (?).



I'll be back in a couple of days with a list of all the plants that went into these beds, and plans for whatever thing is next.

Cat tax.

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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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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@_@

I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING.

That's not a camera trick.  I'm not holding the yardstick like a foot in front of the plant between the plant and the camera.  HUGE flowers, omg!  YAY!




Yeah, that's all I've got.  I'm a terrible blogger.  Look at the flowers again!

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Bloomin' Trees

The Mexican Orchid Tree (Bauhinia) in the backyard, which is getting in need of pruning already this year:

And the Chaste Tree (Vitex), also in the back, and also badly in need of pruning - I promise that this is a tree, and not just a giant ball of leaves, hehe:

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Bit Late

Some late-blooming Easter Lilies, planted exactly a year ago this month - they were potted, Easter leftovers.

from above, in the front garden.  These are planted directly in the center, in the back of the bed by the front porch rail. 

a little green Crab Spider in one of them

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Spring Bloom!

And hey, yesterday was Bloom Day, which is apparently an internet thing on the 15th of each month - I only missed it by one day!

Some pics from this morning in my front bed:

A white-flowered semperflorens Begonia

Australian Indigo (Indigofera australis)

"Lorrie's Irises" - given to me by my friend
Lorrie a million years ago. 

"Before the Storm" Iris (I. germanica)

More "Storm", and some Purpleheart
Tradescantia

White Yarrow buds in front of my white rose

A white, single-flowered rose

Texas Bluebonnets (Lupinus texanum) by the electrical box

The front garden bed itself. 

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