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The more rain we get, the more garden plans I come up with

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 3:46 am

It started just before 5:30 a.m. this morning, Sunday, Sept. 17th. Thunder that rattled the windows a couple of times, a few lightning flashes and rain...beautiful, wet, heavy rain. When I got up there was almost an inch in the really large rain gauge out back.

Today is my second favorite kind of day. Heavy overcast all day and several really good soaker rains. It ended just about 6:30 p.m. leaving 1.5 inches on my yard. We met Lisa,Kenny and the boys at The Flying Fish for Kenny's birthday supper and I let him know that only someone important could get me to leave the house on a precious rainy day.

Tomorrow will be too wet to work out back, that's okay since I broke the handle on my garden fork last Friday and have to buy another one before I can start working on the expansion plans I have been thinking about.

The rainy day gave me the time to get my gardening notebook caught up. I know, I tend to get a little carried away with organizing things sometimes, but this way when I have a question about the care and feeding of one of my plants I can go to the notebook. I started it last year when I began planning on applying for National Wildlife Federation certification.
I have printed out info sheets on all the plants I have out back, except the annuals that won't last the winter and will print new ones for the herbs and annuals I actually buy next spring. And I have info sheets on plants I hope to get next year. I have them in the notebook by yard sections, even have some different types of gardens in the planning stages for next year.
For instance, around the wishing well I will build next spring, I am going to have plants/flowers that correspond with the birth month of close family members. There will be honeysuckle climbing on the well for June (Lisa and Amanda), Larkspur in blue for July (Randy and grandson Nicky), Red Carnations (or dianthus if necessary) for January (Randy's Dad), Daffodils for March (Randy's Mom), Rain Lily's for April (Me), Daisies for May (my Mom), Asters (Texas (Fall) Asters)for Sept (Kenny) and a Dwarf Burford Holly for December (oldest grandson Austin).

I started printing out pictures of plants for the secret garden and the herb garden and the new garden out front. Even printed out info sheets on plants I want but have no idea where I would put them.

This blog entry has been viewed 643 times


New life out there and it's not even Spring

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 9:32 pm

I have been stopping at the various garden centers lately to see what they have on sale. I have gotten 8 perennials that are still in good shape and were 50% off. Since our first freeze normally doesn't happen before mid-November, they have plenty of time to establish themselves and have a head start come next spring. This week I have brought home two Blanket Flowers, a Plumbago, two Lipstick Autumn Sages, a Scabiosa, a Mandevilla and a Hyssop. Last week it was four chrysanthemums whose buds are still so tightly closed I do not know their color, 4 petunias, three Lavenders and three Sweet Potato Vines.

I was getting the newest 8 perennials in the ground this morning and noticed that the Fig tree is setting fruit again. I was looking forward to having figs for jam and maybe extra for drying but didn't think there would be a chance of it happening in Sept or October since the tree was under such stress this summer, it lost all it's fruit before it had a chance to ripen.

One of my early spring posts included pictures of the maroon colored glads that started life as a bag of 10 for $1.00 at Dollar General. This morning I was digging them up so I could move them to the back fence later and just lost track of how many bulbs were there. Some were smaller than a piece of aquarium gravel, there were several dozen about the size of a sweet pea and the sizes went up from there to 2"-3" across. I know I didn't find them all because when I planted the Blanket Flower plants in that spot I kept finding more of the teeny-tiny ones. It will be interesting to see if they come up next spring. I still have the patch of pastel colored Glads to dig up tomorrow too.

The wheelbarrow (now planter), held Thyme, Petunias and a Phlox this spring and early summer. All of that died and has given the Purslane a chance to come back yet again and it is covered in buds. The wheelbarrow was filled with it three years ago and it just keeps coming back.

Tomorrow I will be digging up the Iris bulbs. I am thinking of moving them to the space in front of the rose bushes. Dividing them should give me plenty for a couple of nice full rows. The Fig tree is taking over their home and I can't see several of them when they bloom.

I do not yet see buds on the dwarf Hollyhocks, but the new growth has just about taken over that bed again.



This blog entry has been viewed 681 times


But on the bright side of this past week.....

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2006 5:03 pm

I have been able to do some cleaning up in the flower beds, pulling up the dead plants- not perennials, just some vegies and herbs that didn't make it thru August.

Found out that the Sweet Autumn Clematis I have had out back for 3 years will finally be blooming this autumn, it is covered with tiny buds. Really looking forward to that.

Pulled up the dead zinnias and daiseys I had left to go to seed. There are several new zinnias coming up and there is a really long, tangled Cypress Vine in that bed too. It is now climbing up one of the ladders I painted last spring. I never realized that Cypress Vine seeds were so prolific, haven't had one sucessfully flower out there in two years but the seeds from that last blooming plant still come up in unexpected places all summer long.

One of my Basil plants is coming back now that the weather has changed.

I also did some plant relocating out there. One Lavender was getting too much water where it was so I potted it until next spring. Found a small Snapdragon under the Lemon Balm so it is now potted until spring too.

This blog entry has been viewed 589 times


There is at least one of these, maybe two

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 9:08 pm

Isn't she pretty? She is a Common Whitetail Dragonfly perched on the lighthouse nestled in the Lantana.
I think I have seen two out there. I zoomed in as much as I could, took this picture then I hoped to take at least one step closer but she caught wind of my plan and zoomed away.


Have you seen the ugly little bugs dragonflies come from? I had never thought about that until I was looking thru pictures on a website trying to ID this one. Nowhere near as cute as some of the caterpillars butterflies come from.



This blog entry has been viewed 635 times


I know I said I wouldn't do it

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2006 7:33 pm

But I gave in and bought some plants this morning.

I used to have two Feverfew, a young Rosemary and a large pot filled with red geraniums on the front porch but no amount of watering during August could keep them alive.

I took Amanda to college this morning and stopped by Calloway's Garden Center on the way home. Not much variety this time of year, but a lot of the plants were 50% off....not the ones I wanted mind you, but a lot of others.

I decided to get three different Lavenders and another Rosemary. I like to keep Rosemary by the front door.
Couldn't find geraniums so I have a large Fernleaf Lavender in the large pot, with three Sweet Potato Vines to fill in around the edges. The other Lavenders are Sweet Lavender and French Lavender.

If we get any winter weather, I can take the pots into the backroom for protection. Then next spring I will transplant them into the garden.

I am thinking about going on a garden center shop hop this weekend to find some end of season bargains and get more perennials. We have probably three more months of weather warm enough for things to establish themselves before any chance of cold temps.



This blog entry has been viewed 610 times


It Was my Turn

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 10:33 pm

Frank's rain dances finally paid off for my yard. Around 2 we got 1/4" in the large rain gauge, around 2:30 we got another 1/4" of rain....then a little after 4 the massive, dark clouds moved in again and we got another 3/4" of rain. For a total of 1 1/4" of rain....more than we have gotten on my yard since May 8th. There are still thunder rumbles out there but it has gone far north of us now.

The rain barrel is full and will be used on the Fig tree tomorrow. This wonderful wet stuff came too late for about half my plants but I think I can hear a lot of singing and dancing from the survivors.

This whole area still needs at least 16 inches and a return to normal rain fall to end the drought, so I do not hold any false hope that the situation is improving but at least for now my yard has rain.

The massive High Pressure system that had been hanging over us since early May has disappeared so there may be more rain in the area thru tomorrow.

The high temp for today was only 96, so the streak of consecutive 100+ temp days ended yesterday at 19. So far it looks like the total number of 100+ days will have also ended yesterday at 42, putting this year in 7th place for number of 100+ days. And the most important stat of all is that the rain today ended 111 days with no more than 1/4" of rain on my yard.





This blog entry has been viewed 831 times


I guess there's always next year

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 11:19 pm

Watering the garden for two hours every other night is all I can do out there until sometime in Sept, with water rationing and the cost of water going up and the ground is hard as a rock.
So I spent this afternoon going thru gardening books, a couple of websites planning some new garden areas for next year.
If Frank's rain dances work for my yard that would be ideal, otherwise I will get up around 5 to start the sprinkler and maybe by 6 the ground will be workable, at least until the sun dries it out again.

My daughter has a lot of bricks she wants gone from behind their shed and I have plans to make a wishing well from them. The top part that holds the bucket and the roof are going to be made from an old fence panel we have. I want to make the well big enough to stand two or three cinder blocks on their end inside, then I can set a large pot on top of them to hold flowers. I am thinking some blue Wave Petunias with a couple of Sweet Alyssum or other small white flower in there...that should give it the look of water flowing over the sides.

Around the well will be a circle, approx 10' in diameter and divided into quarters. Each quarter will have a different color palette and some plants will have to be shade tolerant and some sun tolerant because of where I plan on putting it. The yellow quadrant will have Patchouly, Snapdragons, Coreopsis and Blanketflower. The Blue/purple section will have
Tansy, Thyme, Hardy Plumbago, Blue Phlox and purple Verbena. The Red section will include Pennyroyal, Sweet Woodruff, Wine Cups, Red Sedum. White/Silver section will have Mint, Parsley, Lambs Ear, Dragon Lily.

And since I have read in several places that ants hate Tansy, it will be planted all around the yard next year.

And I am going to create a truly secret/hidden garden under the large hackberry tree in the back corner of the yard. I need to clear our almost all the wild plants growing there and some things I planted a few years ago will be moved. Leatherleaf Mahonias for one wall, Oakleaf Hydrangeas for another wall, an arbor at the entrance and assorted ground covers, hostas and mints in the full shade and some shade grasses along the fence on two sides to block the view from the alley and the neighbors yard.

And behind my long wood bench, between my makeshift potting shed and the picket fence I am going to clear out the wild strawberry and move a honeysuckle I found there the other day. Then scatter seeds for shade loving wildflowers to hopefully bloom next spring.

We still need to take down the 30 year old peach tree and someday, I hope I hope I hope, I will have collected enough old exterior doors to build me a hideaway shed out there.

This blog entry has been viewed 671 times


Summer Sucks

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 3:48 am

I say this every year, afterall living in Texas where there is more sun than rain can be the pits sometimes, and especially in the last two years.

I have not been much of a gardener since early May because of the lack of rain and the spiders in the yard. In the past two months, my yard has gotten a total of 1/2 inch while many areas around us have gotten multi inches.

Just a few blocks from us on Tuesday, July 4th, other yards got between 1/2 and 1 inch of rain. My rain gauge would have measured 1/8th inch if I added some to it.

If anyone knows of a tried and true, preferrably organic, method of killing spiders I would love to hear about it. Other than stomping on them, I mean. I can do that but they are a sneaky lot, most of the time I do not realize I have a bite until it starts itching more than any mosquito bite I have ever had and a large blister forms on the top of the bite.

I am whining I know, but I am also stuck in the house until sometime in the late fall.





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Plants I have loved and lost

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 6:07 pm

This is day 43 of no rain. Houston is flooding and parts of Dallas got multi-inch rain Saturday night and my yard go a scant 1/8th inch. Some might say that some rain is better than no rain, but in the case of my yard that doesn't hold water...bad pun attempt. My garden beds are covered with mulch so anything under 1/2 inch just gets the top of the mulch wet and evaporates in the sun, the plants get nothing except the sprinkle might dust off thier leaves.

There are cracks in the ground and most are 6 to 8 inches deep.

So far I have lost:
Snapdragons, they were so big and bushy last year. I bought new ones before I realized that last years plants had reseeded...but they are all gone.
The eyeball plants I found last spring, they never really had much of a chance since the rain stopped about the time I put them in the ground.
The summer squash, got two small squash and then the plants started die-ing.
The zinnias, marigolds and daiseys have given up no matter how often I water them.
The Green Cotton Lavender is growing weaker.
The patchouli plants, all the leaves have dark edges and are curling up and they have barely doubled in size from the 6" pot they came in almost 4 months ago.
The hardy Hibiscus have stopped setting blooms, usually they bloom from June thru Sept.
The Dusty Miller are stunted, haven't grown since I planted them.
The HorseHerb is suffering, it will probably come back next spring...it did this last year in the drought too.
The cucumbers are just about history. The vines are only about 2 feet long, they put out a few blooms but the cucumbers are deformed and very bitter...they needed rain in May to finish producing in late May and early June before the heat of a normal summer killed them. That didn't happen.
The dwarf hollyhocks which normally do not bloom until about this time of the year and go thru July, Bloomed in May and are pretty much only good for birdfood now, the little sparrows love to hop from stem to stem picking out the seeds.


This blog entry has been viewed 618 times


FRED is now Certified

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2006 6:26 pm

I received my certification notice from the National Wildlife Federation today. FRED is now a Certified Wildlife Habitat. Yeah, I know...that and $4 will buy me a cup of Starbucks coffee...but I am excited.

When filling out the application I had to list all the creature feeders, habitat locations, trees, shrubs and flowers. And I sent copies of the pictures Randy took from the roof so they could see the whole thing. And they liked it.




This blog entry has been viewed 594 times




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