Austin Pond Tour 2009

Posted on July 22, 2009 by Meredith

The 2009 Austin Pond Tour was this last weekend, July 18-19. It was my first time going on the tour, and I’m so glad I set aside time for it, though I didn’t get to go to all the ponds, just mostly ones on Saturday. Such beautiful water features across Austin! I was most impressed. Some were engineering feats, others were just plain huge, and still others kept the “Keep Austin Weird” motto fully alive. I took hundreds of pictures of the gardens I visited, which is way too many for a blog, so I’ll give you a highlight. It’s still a lot of photos — sorry!

I really appreciate the Austin pond owners opening up their yards and giving us all so much of their time to let us visit their ponds. I think every yard was incredible, and though I can’t show all the pictures here, nor did I get to visit every home on the tour, I truly wish I could share a glimpse of all the wonderful yards we saw. The night-time shots, as expected, didn’t turn out, but if I could share with you the wow factor presented by those ponds, I would.

I found that I was particularly drawn to the owner-built, whimsical ponds, so you’ll see more pictures of those in this selection.

These last photos are all from one home. Believe me, I’m not even showing you half of the cool stuff at this place. 🙂

Wave goodbye! Thank you again, Austin Pond Tour home owners and volunteers!

Pumpkin Army Bases, Day 15

Posted on July 20, 2009 by Meredith

I think I need a better name than Pumpkin Army — this veggie gardening endeavour just gets bigger and bigger. I’ve now added corn to the plan. Alas. This is what research does for you! It also gets you: trellises!

I’m back from camping. It was good fun — and nice to have a change of pace. I’d like to say that all my plants survived my absence, but I’m happy that most of them did (mourning the rest). The seedling army grows.

And of our three swallowtail caterpillars happily munching away before we left, we found one chrysalis, so we’ll try to monitor it for butterfly-ness. Of course, it’s in a place that is very hard to get a picture, and it’s also in a place that the butterfly will have a hard time getting out of without our help.

Though my DH didn’t quite get to all the plants, he certainly tried, and it was nice to return home to additional hoses and hand sprinklers so that I don’t have to drag hoses around to water those plants far away from civilization, my house. (It’s not that I hadn’t thought of it, I just was trying to avoid spending the money!) In addition, he made great progress on the raised garden beds, which means I will soon have the cantaloupes happily planted.

The jack-o-lantern pumpkins are going to be spread around the yard and will have to brave possible trampling by dogs, scary because the vines are so important to the size and quality of the pumpkins. I’ve got three jack-o-lantern pumpkins in the ground now, with more to come, maybe. I put them in little mounds, and for now I surrounded them with rocks to help the dogs avoid them. One of them is near some other plants, so I’ll have to guide the vines other directions, as best I can. It will have to do — those vines are growing so fast that I wanted them in the ground as soon as possible. I’ll get some marigolds and radishes near them for bug repellents. It’s apparently not the right season to grow radishes, but if they’ll keep the bugs away, I’ll try!

The cantaloupes will be in a raised garden bed, grown vertically on a trellis. All in all, we’ll have three raised veggie beds (for now, haha). The cantaloupes will be in one, along with corn and some marigolds, and sugar pumpkins will be in another, with some more corn. The third bed will be prepared for yummy fall planting goodness. The third bed was made for me by my kids this weekend, their first project working with drills and saws and whatnot!

To prepare the area, we dug out the grass. It was dead, so other than dealing with the hard soil, it was no loss and only somewhat of a pain. Then, with the frames in place, I mixed in compost into the existing soil. I expect some plant roots to extend into that soil, so I wanted to enrich it somewhat. How hard was the soil? Casualty, one shovel.

For the main bed soil, I decided to follow “Mel’s Mix” for square-foot gardening. I talked with the folks at Natural Gardener before doing this, and they had various suggestions (including Mel’s Mix), but nothing really any better or worse. The other option I considered was mixing compost with more of my clay soil, but that would have involved more digging. Forget that! Once I got the stuff home, I read on the bag about dust concerns with the vermiculite, and I felt a little concerned that I’d made a bad choice, but a little more research online made me feel better.

In mixing the soil, I felt a lot like Hermione in front of a big cauldron at Hogwarts. It was fun mixing it, I admit. I did add in some bonus clay soil from a pile in the yard, for good measure. It’s that secret ingredient in my special sauce.

Because someone at NG told me that peat moss can be a pain to get wet at first, I decided to wet down the soil well and plant tomorrow. Sure enough, I had to work with the peat moss in a big soup of mud to get it to soak in the water. Then I really did feel I was creating a magical potion! Tomorrow will be a good planting day. First I’ll get the trellis wires in place and the grid. Then in will go the cantaloupes and marigolds and some corn seeds.

Side story… While I was digging the soil for the frames, I found a weird, soft little tube. At first I thought that it was, pardon me, some old dog poop. But then it split open, and a spider carcass fell out. Squeal. And then lots of little spiders came out and crawled over the spider carcass. Shriek! While I was wondering whether they had eaten the spider, more horrors awaited me… the legs of a gigantic spider appeared. And they MOVED. And more baby spiders crawled out and over the legs… By now, I’d made loud enough noises that the kids came running over. And finally the whole spider slid out, and it was the biggest spider I’d ever seen in my yard. Yes, tarantulas are even bigger, but I haven’t seen one as a resident yet. Despite my startled reaction to the sudden appearance of this spider and her babies, I find her beautiful. Can you see some of her babies in this picture?

It turns out this spider is a female trapdoor spider, and she creates a silk tube-like burrow for hunting purposes, laying eggs, and feeding young. I felt some major guilt about disrupting this little family. But once the babies left the tube, all I could do was scoop up (with the shovel) some of the dirt they crawled upon and get them to a prepared garden bed instead of letting them get buried under the dirt I was lifting and turning. The mom spider went to a shady spot, because she looked so shiny and that “carcass” I saw was probably her molted exterior. Or perhaps her mate, eep!

Hopefully they’ll survive. Guilt, guilt. Live, spiders, and go eat my pest bugs!

Speaking of horrific creepy-crawlies, check out this bug I found in Oklahoma. At first I saw beautiful wings and thought it was a really unique and large moth. But then I saw the head and its enormous pincher-like mouth. My guess is it’s not a moth! This bug was more than 3 inches long, front to end. Imagine this bug about the size of a house. It’s got B-movie horror written all over it! Edit: I googled and determined that this is a female dobson fly. Takes some of the fun out, knowing the name, doesn’t it? 🙂

We saw a pretty cool leaf butterfly of some sort there, too, and many spiders. This picture didn’t turn out as well as I’d like, but I like the overall effect of the image.

The Oklahoma state parks seem to be very nicely managed and maintained, more so than some of our Texas ones. I loved that they had litter bags to help people keep the trails clean. My only complaint was that they didn’t offer any recycling options for bottles or cans anywhere. We kept our recyclables and brought them back to Texas with us. Green points earned!

I loved the bark of the pine trees at Robber’s Cave.

All along the highways and in the state park itself, the beautiful but very invasive mimosa silk tree could be seen. I have a close-up of the flower, but I felt too guilty about admiring the beauty to post it. Bad invasive, bad!

At least it’s prettier than the invasive Chinaberry all over Austin.

The Austin Pond Society Pond Tour was this weekend. I have lots of pictures to post over the next couple of days!

Raising a Pumpkin Army… Day 6

Posted on July 11, 2009 by Meredith

Day 6… Separating the Seedlings

Now that I’ve gotten over the shock of discovering that once again I stuck myself into an enormous project I’m not ready for, I’m moving ahead full force. Because that’s how I roll, baby! My pumpkin army will help me conquer the world! Muahahaha!

The pumpkins, cantaloupes, and endurance sunflowers are all growing like mad. Today I separated almost all of the seedlings into individual pots, which was quite a chore given that I only have so many available pots — I used the last of my cups, too. I heartlessly thinned out a few that looked at me funny (ok that’s a lie, because it really is painful for me to decide which ones have to go). In all I think I sent 4 little pumpkin plants to their doom, but they will serve another purpose in becoming compost. It means I still have about 20 pumpkin seedlings growing, LOL (I was afraid to count the cantaloupes). I recognize that I can’t possibly grow them all, but I’ll choose the best of the best after my camping trip this week. If any survive my husband’s attempt to water the seedlings in my absence, they are sure to be hardy little boogers.

The current plan is to put some plants in the ground and some in raised beds with trellises. It will be quite the experiment for this newbie vegetable gardener. I happened upon the wonderful blog of Engineered Garden, and it’s this type of trellis we plan to build, at least for the cantaloupes. Actually, I’ve asked my DH to build them for me while the boys and I are camping. If he succeeds, I should be able to get most of my babies planted next weekend. These seedlings are growing so fast, I hope I don’t miss the best window for planting.

Knowing that I’m camping for a week and leaving my plants (seedlings plus the rest of the garden) during a Texas heat wave in the care of my husband, who is NOT the gardener of the family, is a bit scary for me. I think it will take me two hours to write out the whole watering process I go through. But it will be good for him. If I teach him anything, it will be how to deep water, an important skill to have. I worry most that he’ll not notice all the plants around the place. He will also have to fill all the birdfeeders and take care of the pond, dogs, cats, hamster, fish, and our neighbor’s turtles — all while working a full-time job. See why I worry?

I’m sad that our swallowtail caterpillars will go to chrysalis while we are gone — we won’t get to see how big they’ll get before they transition. But if they form their chrysalises nearby, and we can find them, maybe we’ll get to see them emerge as beautiful butterflies.

And I’m going to miss Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. But most of my plants have given up their blooms in hopes of sheer survival in the heat (thankfully we have a few left for the butterflies). But here’s a new one I’ll post — one of my other Flame Acanthus has finally started blooming, and I was happy to see it was the vibrant red variety. My other Flame Acanthus has orange blooms.

See you next week!

Growth of Epic Proportions

Posted on July 9, 2009 by Meredith

There are several alternative titles to this post, namely:

“What Was I Thinking?!!”
“If I Knew Then What I Know Now”
“If Everything Is Growing, Why Is My Brain Shrinking?”
“It’s a Fact: Size Matters”
“Honey, I Blew Up the Garden”
“Jurassic Park Dinosaurs, Meet Your Match”
and “Why Me?”

Obviously, even the list is growing.

You see, I’ve done it again. I got a creative, eager bug (no pun intended), an idea quite simple in concept, and then I once again found myself in the middle of a major ordeal.

The pond is an example. I found free rocks and came up with the idea of a pond. Months of back-breaking work later, we finally finished the project. Simple idea. Ordeal to deliver.

Here’s another one – my first and only mosaic (Edit: Okay, this is no longer true). That’s the Pennybacker bridge here in Austin – also known as the 360 bridge. Took me about two months to make. I really need to learn to stop undertaking big projects I know practically to completely nothing about doing. Oh, but then I’d have to stop gardening. Moving on!

Even my “simple” act of finding a wonderful man to marry and raise a family with… Did he tell me ahead of time that he came from a family of 10+-pound children? Guess where I learned that whopper? In the hospital, after having giving birth to our first child, a 10 lb-4.5 oz whopper of a boy with the biggest feet the nurses had ever seen. (Currently he’s in a size 13 shoe and not even a teenager yet).

Ah well, at least my son has become an excellent soil digger, when he’s not complaining about the work and the heat and… I digress. But that kid fits nicely into today’s blog saga about crazy gigantic growing things. (The bed in the picture is in progress, btw – eventually the bricks, outlining the shape, will go away and we’ll have plants + decomposed granite path.)

Last week my youngest son (since you might be wondering, he was more than 9 pounds at birth) and I decided that we wanted to grow our own jack-o-lanterns this year. The same day, he helped me scoop out the seeds of a cantaloupe, and we decided we’d try to grow them, too. After all, I had some empty beds I was waiting to plant until fall, anyway, and some I needed an excuse to work on. Besides, I wasn’t worried – my last purple coneflower seeds and two rounds of sunflower attempts didn’t work, so my chance of getting any seedlings from such fresh cantaloupe seeds and potentially old pumpkin seeds was surely low.

Oh, and while I was at it, I thought, I’ll try two other types of sunflower seeds. Oh, and look, here are butterfly flower seeds! Oh, and white swan coneflower seeds! Oh, and look at the cute little swallowtail caterpillars on this fennel. I’ll buy some fennel, and some parsley so the caterpillars can have a yummy salad. And I get to try out my little garden bar I just bought off of craigslist for a new potter’s bench! Woot, what a good gardener I am!

I planted the seeds on Sunday. I ran out of little planters and resorted to cups I’d had in the cabinet for years. And I finally found a use for the hundreds of chopsticks we’d accumulated over the years from the occasional take-out – labels! But to my horror — within two days -TWO DAYS – of planting my seeds, I already had sprouts.

And not just little tiny barely-poking-out-of-the-ground seedlings – these seem to be sprouts ready to take over the planet. I swear they are growing before my eyes!

So I rushed to Google exactly what I’ve gotten myself into with the pumpkin and cantaloupe and other plants. Oh my – 15- to 40-foot pumpin vines? One plant needs 100 square feet of space? Noooooooo. The package said nothing about that. Honey, we a bigger garden bed – about the size of the whole backyard! And we have a big yard, mind you. Suddenly our simple idea has led to yet another huge project.

The sunflowers shocked me by growing as well. The Endurance sunflowers, listed as “Rare” – popped out on Day 2 with the pumpkins. The Maximillian sunflowers are also sprouting. I thought my butterfly flowers already were, but I was confused – it was another sunflower. According to the package (and the white swans), they have another two weeks or so before I need to worry about them. At least they’ll give me time to get the monster vines in the ground. (Did I just hear a butterfly flower seed open in response?)

And my cute little caterpillars? Doubled in size overnight. They are running out of fennel, and they seem to have no interest in the parsley. I see more tiny little baby swallowtail caterpillars have also hatched (and are growing!). I’m going to have to hunt down some more fennel or try carrot tops or something. Argh.

Don’t be fooled by the parsley — that cat is on fennel!
And what is this little white mop-like creature? ~~I hope it’s a good guy, not a little pesty thing. If you can ID it for me, I’d be grateful!~~ Note: It’s a good guy, though not native to the states: Mealybug Destroyer (Cryptolaemus montrouzieri). Eater of aphids and mealybugs and other little pests!

Well, that’s how it grows, I guess (bad pun intended, lol).

I really think I need a new blog category to accommodate this and all future entries about my horrible inability to think ahead. Today’s post will be the first in “What was I thinking?” category. I should also add that I’m horrible at chess. And apparently when I endearingly called my son Pumpkin in his younger years, I was way more on target than I thought.

Fresh Popsicles, July 4 and Chocolate Berry Yumminess

Posted on July 4, 2009 by Meredith

Happy July 4th! We walked in a parade this morning and enjoyed some fresh watermelon at a family-fun celebration. Tonight was a feast with some friends and some fireworks. For dessert, I brought homemade fresh popsicles. The rocket and star popsicle molds seemed perfect for the July 4 popsicles! By the way, I LOVE the new pop molds I bought. The ability to take only one popsicle out at a time is just incredible (and they are food safe!).

Red, White, and Blue Popsicles (makes 12)

Fresh or frozen blueberries

Lemonade (I used a 12-oz frozen lemonade, made with 3 cups of water instead of 4)

2 bananas

1/2 cup vanilla rice milk

1 package frozen (or fresh) organic strawberries

EDITED 7/4 — changed order to blue, white, and red (opposite of picture) to let the lemonade (with the blueberries) better fill the layer

This is a 3-stage process to get those red, white, and blue colors to really pop (no pun intended). In the bottom 1/3 of the popsicle mold, drop a few whole blueberries, then pour lemonade around them to fill the layer. The lemonade is clear, so the whole blueberries really show off their blue color. (If you blend them, they turn a red-purple color– not so blue). Freeze lightly. Next, blend the two bananas with the rice milk and add to the popsicle molds, filling the next 1/3. Again, freeze softly. (Note: I was worried about freezing the popsicle stick in place, so I didn’t put it in until the final layer was added.) For the final layer, blend the strawberries with about 1 cup of lemonade (add more or less lemonade to taste, depending on how sweet or tart you want your red portion). Fill the remainder of the mold, then place in stick (if the other layers are a little hard, run the stick in hot water). Freeze overnight.

The combination of tart and sweet was remarkably tasty. The layers worked really well together. Next time, I’ll try to play with a more creamy version, such as yogurt. But my friend wanted tart, so I worked with lemonade.

A couple of days ago, I made these chocolate-berry popsicles, recipe found at The Green Baby Guide — she modified a vegan recipe she found. Very delicious! I highly recommend that you add the fresh strawberry slices — SO good.

Chocolate-Strawberry Popsicles

Toss the following ingredients (*except the strawberries) in a blender, puree, pour into molds, and freeze.

12 ounces of firm silken tofu (make sure it’s silken tofu made especially for desserts)

1/2 cup maple syrup or brown sugar (I used maple syrup)

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup rice milk, coconut milk, or cow’s milk (I used rice milk)

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch sea salt

4 strawberries, washed, stemmed, dried and sliced into quarters *(put these in molds and pour chocolate mix to surround berries before freezing)

I plan to experiment with more along this line — doesn’t a chocolate-raspberry combo sound incredible?

Ibis Blooms and Pond Fish to Avoid

Posted on July 2, 2009 by Meredith

Here’s a lovely tree I bet everyone will want to have. Just look at the size of these beautiful red blooms!

Allright, allright, they are scarlet ibis nesting in a tree in the San Antonio Zoo. Yesterday I herded my own little pack of wild animals among exotic plants and creatures from all over the world. I had great intentions to go from the zoo over to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens, but somehow the day slipped by and we were still at the zoo. By the time I realized that I wasn’t going to make it over to the gardens, I’d wished I’d taken more pictures of the beautiful plants that graced the zoo. Still, I did manage to get a few.

Like this banana plant. I hope they treat the apes and monkeys to these yummy treats when they are ripe enough!

This bamboo was gigantic enough to unfortunately invite some graffiti from zoo visitors. While I hate to see such careless destruction on the part of passersby, I found the bamboo an interesting setting for urban art and lettering.

I did find that the zoo was pretty good about labeling the various Texas native plants around the park, but the exotics weren’t so well labeled, at least not the ones I was particularly interested in, of course. Oh, I really liked this plant, whatever its name might be.

This is a very vibrant shrimp plant — I’m not sure of the variety. My young (and red) shrimp plants still aren’t blooming. I hope that they’ll be busy bloomers in their second year, if not this year.

The lion’s tail, also called lion’s mane, is very striking. This was the first time I’d seen one in person.

The zoo has opened a butterfly center, which was delightful. Many different species of butterflies fluttered all around us, enjoying nectar and orange slices. The monarchs were quite willing to pose.

It was a zoo trip, so I can’t resist throwing in a couple of other animal pictures. Apparently I developed a rapport with some of the park residents. Like this komodo.

Lorikeets are great pollinators in their native region.

I really don’t know why the piranha kept looking at me like this. It was quite… unnerving. I can definitely say that I’m glad they aren’t in my pond!

On a similar note, back on the home front, I’m also glad that I chose NOT to put a killifish in my pond. I came home to discover that the killifish we had is the culprit behind my disappearing fish in my indoor aquarium — I found this out because it had my last neon tetra sticking out of his mouth (after it apparently devoured all the rest). Needless to say, he’s off to a new home with bigger bullies than he is, and the rest of my fish can be at peace. I had planned to add a local variety of killifish to my pond. HA! No more. I didn’t bother to take a picture of the killifish before I grabbed that net and got him out of there! Sorry! Look it up — and then don’t buy one!

On the plus side, we did get a bit of rain here in Austin. I did a little happy dance.

And I found a surprise little bloom in my pond. I really need to learn the name of this plant sometime. Now that it’s blooming, it doesn’t look like the plant(s) I thought it might be. Ah well, the bloom will be the identifier when I next visit the pond center. It’s a Pickerel Weed — thanks, Bob!

Tropical Popsicles vs Summer Heat

Posted on June 27, 2009 by Meredith

This record-breaking Texas heat wave is trying to do us in. We get about an hour in the morning in which we can garden or exercise – it’s pretty hard to do both. In the evenings it’s still hot, but at least it’s shaded, so you can get another hour to be outside, but you’ll be attacked by ravenous blood-sucking Texas-sized mosquitoes. Finally I decided that if I can’t garden the way I’d like to, I should figure out ways to help my family stay cool. So I’m going to experiment with making a variety of fresh-fruit popsicles – I’ll post the recipes after my family tries them and gives them their taste bud approval!

This isn’t a precisely measured recipe – modifications can be made based on what you have. If you can, use organic ingredients, especially the strawberries (conventional strawberries absorb a lot of pesticides –if you can’t get organic, wash them well with a vegetable wash to remove as much pesticide as you can). And yes, I added some greens to the recipe. I’m all about sneaking in the veggies – you can’t taste them or notice them in the fruit-loaded popsicles. What can I say — I’m a mom! The strawberry tops are loaded with nutrients, so keep them in!

If you don’t have popsicle molds, you can use cups or ice-cube trays. I just ordered from Amazon these amazing popsicle molds – they are BPA-free and you can pull them out individually, which is incredibly fantastic. You can choose from stars, rockets, jewels, or traditional shapes. I’m thrilled — though the boys chose the rockets over the jewel rings, go figure.

This recipe is tropical — the next recipe will be chocolate — wish me luck!

Tropical Popsicles

Makes about 8 popsicles

1 large mango – cut up a bunch of small “chunks” to add to the popsicles later; set those aside. Put the rest in blender (about 1 cup to 1.5 cups in blender) (if you prefer, you can skip the chunks and put it all in the blender to make completely smooth).

11 medium to large strawberries, with their green tops on – put in blender

Another 3 strawberries, cut into chunks (add the green tops to the blender)

4 tablespoons fresh lime juice

3 tablespoons agave nectar

Several baby spinach leaves

Ultimately the fruits and veggies amount to about 5.5 cups in the blender BEFORE mixing – so work with what you have. Blend the main ingredients thoroughly until smooth, then pour into the popsicle molds (or paper cups, or whatever you are using). Sprinkle in the chunks of mango and strawberries and push them in with the popsicle stick. Freeze until frozen – enjoy!

Texas Heat Wave and Planting

Posted on June 23, 2009 by Meredith

What’s the first rule about planting in the Texas summer, especially during a heat wave?

DON’T.

But here’s my dilemma. The boys and I wanted to get a little plant for the bees because it’s Pollinator Week. So we went down to Natural Gardener and selected a little pincushion flower. Why? Because it had a happy little bee already on it! (We didn’t take the bee home.) Is it native? No, I don’t think so. Is it drought hardy? I really hope so. Basically I broke all sorts of rules yesterday (it was the gardener mom in me — the kids were excited about a plant, and then so was I). Because after choosing the pincushion (and a rudbeckia), I headed back toward the cashier, turned the corner, and found…

Dutchman’s Pipevine! This beautiful little vine is not available that often in the nurseries, and not only had Natural Gardener just gotten some in for the first time this year, the vines were big, beautiful, blooming, and covered in little eggs. Dutchman’s Pipevine (Aristolochia fimbriata) is the host plant for a gorgeous butterfly called the Pipevine Swallowtail. Natural Gardener is known for having tons of these plants in their butterfly garden — they are usually covered with munching little caterpillars, and Pipevine chrysalises can be discovered in unusual places all over their garden. Many Austinites covet these plants, and I am no exception. Just look at this gorgeous flower. No, it’s not native. See, another rule broken.

And the plants already have many little swallowtail eggs on them.

Here’s a caterpillar picture I took last year.

I bought one last fall, and it has survived some of the worst my household and environment can do to anything. The dogs dragged it all over the yard from the start, and in tears I re-planted the little remaining root in the front, and I babied it over the winter and amazingly it survived. During that time it got completely smothered by falling leaves off my roof. I gingerly removed them. Then in March we got hit with a terrible hail storm with golf-ball sized hail. It survived. I thought it was done for when the roofers dropped tons of roofing material onto that bed. smooshing the plant. When I got all the debris off, all the leaves were gone. But I left the root in, and lo and behold, that little baby sprouted new leaves and looks better than ever. Small, but alive.

Back to the heat wave. We are having one of the worst Junes ever — 100-104 degrees Fahrenheit — usually we are mid-90s about now. Is this the time to plant? Absolutely not.

But at my house, if you want a plant to survive, you either:

1) Don’t buy it.

2) Get it in the ground fast with a good dose of water, and then some more. Otherwise, the dogs will drag it across the yard or eat it, or the sun will bake it on the porch.

So, yes I bought the plants because they are so hard to get and were stunning. Yes, I planted them (with lots of mulch). And yes, I’m prepared to baby them like you wouldn’t believe. I’ll set up a tent for extra afternoon shade if I have to. I will love them, and pet them, and name them George!

Austinites, if you have been wanting Dutchman’s Pipevine, too, I suggest you get down to Natural Gardener today!

Here are my other two flowers — the pincushion and the rudbeckia.

Stay cool and out of the sun, Texans — unless you are out there creating shade with your body to protect your precious new plants, like I will be!

Bee happy! It’s Pollinators Week! June 22-28, 2009

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Meredith

What’s all the buzz about? It’s National Pollinator Week here in the United States. It’s a time to spread the word about the desperate plight of our flower-visiting, pollen-spreading friends. Because of pollinators’ declining populations, many farms and flowers are already in trouble! Missing native plants, too many pesticides, and diseases have all contributed to drastically reduced numbers of bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.

That’s a queen butterfly on Gregg’s mistflower (Conoclinium greggii) — the butterflies, especially queens and monarchs, go crazy for Gregg’s mistflower. I had hoped to get some pictures of bees visiting my flowers, but they were camera-shy (there were some yellow-jackets, though, but they were a little TOO friendly, if you know what I mean). At least my trusty butterfly and hummingbird friends came out for pictures. Ignore the lawnmower cord and ugly ground in the background.

How can you help? If you have a garden, especially an organic one, you are probably already doing tons to help the populations of bees and other pollinators. But Pollinators Week for me is an excuse to go out and buy a native plant just for the sake of the wildlife, so as soon as I finish this blog entry, the boys and I are going to Natural Gardener to pick out something new. And we are determined not to let it die in the hot Texas sun (maybe a shade plant, lol). Not sure what to get? Enter in your zip code for an eco-regional planting guide on what plants are helpful in your region.

A kidneywood — bees love this plant! Well, they will, once it’s big and blooming (it’s a tiny little thing right now). Whenever I pass a larger kidneywood, bees are swarming all over it. I can’t wait!

Plant something new in your garden that is a bee favorite. Go native — invasive plants contribute to the plight of beneficial insect and bird populations. Plant larval food for the caterpillars and rejoice when you see your plant get eaten by little happy caterpillars. Build a little habitat that might be a perfect home for a hive. Make a mud puddle for bees and butterflies to drink from. Do you have fruit bats in your area? Build a bat house for them!

Make a commitment to avoid pesticides and chemical fertilizers. This is HUGE. Even organic pest controls can affect the population of good insects — so research before you buy and/or use any kind of product or method! And educate your friends and neighbors about the plight of bees and the dangers of pesticides and chemical fertilizers!

In this picture, there’s milkweed, flame acanthus, blackfoot daisies, and pentas, all together.

This is one of my favorite butterflies — the Gulf Fritillary. It has a stunning orange wingspread, but underneath it’s orange, silver, and black. I’m not sure which side I like best, which is why I like it so much.

Ah, here’s one of my absolute favorites of the Texas natives, the wafer ash, or hop tree (Ptelea trifoliata). It can be hard to find in a nursery, but it’s easy to grow from seed, and they’re all over. Our dogs ate the top off our first one, and it amazingly grew back, the determined little thing. The wafer ash is a host plant of the giant swallowtail and tiger swallowtail. It’s part of the citrus family, and it’s one time that leaves of three (trifoliata) are a good thing. They have nothing to do with poison ivy, by the way, so get that out of your mind!

Swallowtails enjoy other citrus — we have a mandarin orange, lemon, and two lime trees growing. No fruit yet! But I’m hopeful that as long as I don’t kill them, I’ll have fruit someday. Look, here’s a little fly sort of a thing on my lime tree. Flies are great pollinators!

Here’s a yellow jacket on the baby Goldenball Leadtree (Leucaena retusa). Yellow jackets are minor pollinators as well as predatory wasps. I’m happy to have them around my garden, just not building hives under my eaves right where I’m building a new bed! The yellow jackets and I are currently having a discussion about where it’s ok to build a hive and where it isn’t. I haven’t killed one, but I do remove their little hives in an effort to get them to move elsewhere. Oh, and the dogs also ate the goldenball leadtree over the winter, too. It grew back. Yay for native plants.

This one is almost native — it’s a Mexican Anacacho Orchid. We planted it a little too deep, I think — it lives, but I feel it’s struggling a bit. I hope to get a true native Anacacho Orchid in the fall. They are gorgeous when blooming.

Bees even like catmint! Catmint’s not just for cats anymore!

And who could forget the all-time bee favorite, the sunflower. Here’s mine:

My last batch of seeds I lightly spread into the ground where I wanted them to grow. They didn’t. So now I’m trying to grow sunflowers in little planters, and hopefully they’ll grow into seedlings. I love sunflowers. My husband said he always thought of them as a weed, not as a pretty flower (gasp!). When he sees them in the back of the yard with the prickly pear and the white TX honeysuckle and the goldenball leadtree, he’ll come around. I know he will.

So in honor of Pollinators Week, bee happy and make a bee happy. And then those vegetables and fruits and pretty flowers and trees you love will be around for you — and your grandkids– to enjoy.

Bird Socks and a Garden Mom’s Pride

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Meredith

Put me in nature, and I’m happy. That’s how I’ve been all my life, and though my moods might change, the nature lover in me never will. I’m an animal lover, too, and if any of these two parts of me rub off on my family, then I feel I’ve done right by them. Goodness knows enough bad parts of me have probably been shared with them already!

It has often been difficult, however, to pry my husband and children away from computers and other monitors. Oh, I insist on sports and cycling and hiking with the dogs, but it’s not hard to figure out what they’d prefer if given the choice. That’s pretty much why I don’t ever give them a choice when it comes to my planning for us to be outside, be it for enjoyment or working in the yard. Sometimes I get a grumpy, groaned response when I announce it’s time to take the dogs to the creek, but a good mom knows when to ignore this or put her foot down. The hardest part is getting the family out of the door – once you get them away from the house, they have a good time, unless you accidentally forget to tell them that they’re not allowed to bring their Nintendos in the car. It’s all over if a nearby game beckons them.

My kids have been involved in our new garden since I began it in the fall. Amazingly, they’ve been fairly willing to help at least a few minutes each day, and they delight as I do when birds and dragonflies and butterflies and other creatures come visit our blooming flowers and pond. But last weekend the effect I’ve had on my kids became truly apparent. My oldest son had friends come over for a birthday party, and when they arrived, he didn’t pull out the video games or Nerf guns. He took them outside to see our pond, and when they finished looking at that, he and his brother showed them the butterfly garden and thistle socks and birdfeeders. I didn’t get to hear the conversation, but I watched through the window as they pointed to different places in our yard and played tour guide. My heart swelled, and I’m still smiling.

And I also get to smile about our thistle sock experiment. We have a winner! The finches have found the thistle socks, and the clear favorite is the kitchen lace, which I kind of hoped for because it looks the prettiest in the tree. I guess I’m a girl after all – sometimes I forget that in a house of boys. Surprisingly, the next choice of the finches, based on missing thistle, is the jersey sock. The green netting has some holes poke into it, but it doesn’t look like they’ve touched the brand sock or the pantyhose (though there is a run in the pantyhose, so one must have landed on it). I’m also glad the finches chose the kitchen lace sock, because it’s the one my youngest son stitched by hand, his first attempt at sewing anything with a needle.

So I think I’ll make a few more lace socks, and then rotate them as I refill thistle. The lace socks aren’t exceptionally durable, however – the finches are a little rough in their endeavor to get to the thistle, but I can make a bunch for cheap, and I think they’ll last a pretty long time anyway.

The activity at the other feeders is busy nonstop. The hummingbirds are starting to fight over their feeder (and I’ve gotten to see them visit the flame acanthus and salvia). And it’s a nonstop parade of creatures at the other feeder. Cardinals, finches, blue jays, doves, squirrels, and titmice all for the most part are playing nice and taking turns (well, not so much the blue jays — they are the classic bullies). But we’re entertained, and so are the cats and dogs inside.