The Last Day of Fall

It's going to be a while before I have spectacular gardens to show you.  I'm still deep in the process of cleaning up and fixing up the new house.  But something happened recently that took me completely by surprise:

Fall color!  No, no, see, I didn't have that at my old house.  Sure, the Mulberry turned a little yellow before it shook off all its leaves at once like the Whomping Willow at Hogwart's, but the Chaste Tree and Mexican Orchid just kind of died and defoliated.  The little live oak out front was evergreen - in fact, 99% of the trees in that neighborhood are evergreen oaks, so, no - no fall color for me for the past twelve years.  In fact, Austin in general hardly has any, at least, not on the scale that you see pretty much everywhere else in the country.  The whole city just seems to blacken and die in November, except for the oaks.  How boring.

This neighborhood, however, is brimming with color. I know what I'm doing, more or less, and I don't recognize half the trees I see around me most of the time, living here.  (Which is neat!)  This red-orange fellow above is some sort of plum tree growing on the property line between my house and my neighbor's.  And the Lace Bark Elm in my front yard carpets the entire lot with this: 

Which, yeah, it's messy, but it's beautiful.  Plus, look at this trunk:

Is that not amazing? It feels really weird.

Here's the whole Elm - still somewhat green, and with green live oaks behind it.  (You can see, a little, how big my yard is in this picture.  You're looking at less than half of it).

But enough about trees...wanna see my front garden?

Impressive, no?  Okay, so it's been fallow for several years. The soil is good - it's had leaf mould from the elm every year, so it's richly composted.  I had grand plans of tilling up the whole thing and mulching the heck out of it, then loading it with plants before the cold set in (see the bag on the porch?), but then...the cold set in about a month early.  The day I took these pictures it was a gorgeous, sunny, 65º day; but then it dropped to 25º  that night and hasn't risen out of the mid-thirties since.  Oh, well.  There's still plenty of time to get the beds in shape before Spring.

 

This, meanwhile, is my actual "garden".  Or rather, pieces of it:  irises, lilies, chives, and Australian indigo salvaged from my old house and quickly heeled into a box planter to await a time when I could put them into the front bed.  Looks like they'll be there a bit longer - at least until I can get another sunny weekend with a temperature that at least starts with a four.

Meanwhile:

With Confused Heart

I've tried to write this post several times over the past two months, and I think I'm finally ready to say this without breaking down:  I sold my house, and moved away.  I'm fine with it all, for the most part.  I never went through any weird nostalgia and regret phases - it was purely a financial decision, and I was SO ready for a change.

But the gardens...oh, the gardens!  My front bed, my "gift garden", populated for twelve years by plants given to me by friends.   My American White Mulberry, planted for me by the birds, grown from a wee stick to a ragged behemoth half the size of my house.  My Mexican Orchid Tree, given to me by a botany professor at the University of Texas ten years ago, which I can replace exactly nowhere.  The corner in the backyard, in Raven's favorite spot, where I buried his personal effects and planted his favorite flowers [to dig up and sleep on top of].  All gone...not yet, but I know it will be.  I'm sure once the new owners find out what a pain in the ass it is to maintain the Mulberry and the Mexican Orchid, they'll both be ripped down without a second thought.

I didn't even manage to save any of my bedding plants - I'd planned to devote an afternoon to bagging up an armload of things to take with me to plant at the new place - the black irises, the Amaryllises that my friend Lorrie gave me, the pink Australian indigo that I planted practically the first year I moved in and which once comprised about half of that front bed. The black Clematis 'Romantika' that I grew in a pot since I was 23 years old, and transplanted to the backyard in 2004 when I moved into the house.

It wasn't like the move happened out of nowhere; but it did happen fast, only two months between decision, and move, sale.  Before I moved 100% of my attention had to be on packing, and fixing up the house to put on the market.  And because I moved into a fixer-upper, 100% of my time since October 1st (the date I moved in) has gone to fixing up that house, and trying to arrange furniture and get things put away around an ever-changing schedule and constant parade of repair-people and contractors.

All of that being said...

Things are settling down a bit.  There's still a LOT to do at the new place (if you're interested, you can read about that here at my other blog). But things are calm enough now that I'm starting to turn my eye toward the new landscape...or rather, toward the inviting and promising lack thereof.  The new place, a rental, comes with carte blanche from the owner (a friend of mine) as far as the interior and the landscaping are concerned.  It's on an enormous corner lot filled with mature oaks and elms, as well as a pear of some kind,  and a Crepe Myrtle that, sadly, isn't getting enough light to thrive, sandwiched between two massive oaks, and will likely have to come down before it hurts somebody. The back yard is small, but there's space enough for a small vegetable and herb garden, and it's got a huge patio that's just begging for a container collection.  So, we'll see.

I was going to end this post with pictures of my beloved trees, which I'll never see again.  I've been missing them terribly, but in the past few days I feel like I'm getting over that loss.  But I grabbed a neat snapshot in one of the oaks the other day, and so instead, I leave you with this: 

HOPE.

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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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.

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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This Crazy-Ass Winter

Man, it's been weird this year.  Consistently so, but still weird.  Every three days we've been going from freezing/below-freezing temperatures, along with ice and sleet and even some snow, to balmy, breezy, early-early-Spring days.  It's getting a bit annoying.

That said, last weekend was made up of those balmy early-early-Spring days, and I took full advantage of it.  I cleaned up the front and back yard for the first time this year, edging and mowing both yards.  I cut down dead branches and foliage on all of my bushes and two of my trees, to ready them for new Spring growth that will come [hopefully] in the next month.

The oak in the front got a special pruning job.  I absolutely adore the way many mature Live Oaks in Austin are limbed-up to create statuesque trees with soaring foliage high above; and in the last few years since I've come to accept my poor little Charlie Brown oak tree, I've decided that it will become one of those.

                                                          before                                                         after                                                      2013

Here's a photo of the tree last Spring, when I started shaping it and cleaning it up.  I got rid of all the small branches that hung down, leveled off the bottom and opened up some space at the bottom.  Earlier this Winter, I began opening up the inside of the tree as well, removing a few small branches, and all of the tiny sprouts that were making this tree look like...well, like a wad of tree on a stick.


Last weekend I did some more shaping, getting rid of most of the small, horizontal branches near the bottom of the canopy, and opening up the inside of the tree all the way up, to make the canopy less dense, and allow for more light to pass through it:

Feb 2014

It's a good start!  I love how TALL this tree looks now, with it's canopy up top instead of bundled up around the trunk like cotton candy on a cone.  I was careful not to disturb the mockingbird nest in the very top, too, in case they decide to come back this year.

This is just one example of where I'm going with this tree.  These are Live Oaks in a south Austin neighborhood in which I used to live.  Some of them are a bit TOO open for me - but I love the tall, forest-y feel of them, the openness, and the dappled shade they cast when opened up like this.  The ones dotting the landscape around my office building have been done the same way, and I just love it.

Special thanks go out to my friend Antares, who lent me her long-handled tree pruner for this job.  That thing is awesome!





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It's Time For Another Round of What's! That! Plant!

No, seriously, what the hell is this?

Here it is on my desk at work, planted in some plastic cups.   I liberated it from the landscaping.

NO, I didn't STEAL it from the landscaping - it was a "volunteer" plant, not supposed to be there, not a single other one on the building grounds.  It would have been cut down by the landscapers, if they ever bother to show up again.

Soft, floppy leaves with serrated edges.  Medium, regular, plain-ol' green.  No fuzz or hairs or spikes or anything.

Nothing interesting on the undersides, either.

Pairs of opposite leaves;  the pairs alternating from each other.  I don't know what that's called.

There's some axillary budding here - it looks like they're going to be more leaves?  But I can't tell yet.

Also the stems are a bit...not really fuzzy...they look almost as if they've been dipped in very fine sugar.  But it doesn't look like something that's happened to the plant, it looks natural to it.

There are new branches/leaves sprouting opposite each other, from the "trunk" of the plant;  as well as bark forming on the lower/oldest portions of the trunk and branches.


At first I thought this was a Hydrangea, but I'm confident it's not.  When I looked into trees, I thought maybe a Texas Ash...but it's not.

What IS this?










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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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Not that I'm complaining, but...

Does it seem to anyone else like it's been raining for two weeks straight?   I sure haven't gotten anything done in a while, outdoors.  Mowed the grass once or twice, but that's about it.

I still haven't planted the mint or the Mandvilla I brought home two weeks ago;  the vine is fine, but the mint is really not happy in its little plastic pot.

All the rain - not just lately; it's rained at least once a week all year so far! - sure has done wonders for the lawn in the backyard.  The whole thing is green and fluffy, and there's only one bare spot left, and it looks like it's growing in fast.  Yay!

TO-DO:

• plant the mint in the east side yard near the foundation.  
• Plant the Mandevilla in the corner of the front garden so that it can grow up the post and the downspout. 
• Prune ALL the trees, front and back, before it gets too hot.  Not big pruning, which is best done in the Winter while trees are dormant; just removal of a couple of branches that are dragging, and suckers growing up from the base of a couple of them. 

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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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A Weekend of Gardening: Trees

Trees
I also pruned up the Chaste tree and the Mexican Orchid tree over the weekend, and planted the Elm tree that I found in the front bed into the back yard:

Elm tree dug up and waiting to be re-planted. 

Elm tree in its new home. 

the yard and Orchid Tree before!  D: 

yard and Orchid tree after! 

Raven lounging in one of the holes he likes to dig to sit in!  (Argh).  This was *before* all the yardwork,
obviously.  It doesn't look it in this shot, but that little Chaste Tree he's sitting under is as tall as me now! 

WHEW!!!  I seriously put like 18 hours in on the yard this weekend, all told.  And before you think you're finished reading?  There's more.  Tomorrow.


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