Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, June 2009 — my first!

Posted on June 15, 2009 by Meredith

At long last the 15th has arrived, and I get to participate for the first time in the Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, hosted by May Dreams Gardens. Some of my regular flowers stopped blooming for a bit this week, so I was a bit worried, but the garden came through for me. I’m just glad I don’t have to post a picture of algae “blooming” in my pond (thankfully, it’s not actually doing that anymore).

Zinnias. They are so much fun. You just never know what’s going to bloom at the end of that stem. Look at the variety in my butterfly garden — just some of many. These all came from two packets of seeds.

I think the buds are as lovely as the flowers.

I’m quite fond of the yellow flower holding its own among all the pink zinnias.

Several Texas natives are blooming away.

In a nearby Austin park were these native Texas Greeneyes, en masse. I love the way the yellow petals are delicately placed on a just-as-beautiful green center.

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Elsewhere in the garden, a few drought-hardy non-natives are managing to bloom in the hot Texas sun.

The crape myrtle was a slow bloomer this year and managed to send out its pink colors just in time for Bloom Day.

Even though hail a few days ago pulverized my poor lily pads, the plants are already making a comeback. I’ve removed a few of the beat-up leaves, and new ones are ready to take their place, along with this beautiful bloom. I’m trying not to remove all the damaged leaves at once — I still need shade for my pond.

And lastly, here’s this white flower that for the life of me I can’t remember the name of today. I have a purple variety as well. All I know is that this was supposed to be a winter annual (or so I was told) and here it is blooming in hot June!

Happy Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, everyone!

Oh no — my poor lilies

Posted on June 12, 2009 by Meredith

I was wrong about minimal hail damage. Look at what last night’s hail did to my poor lilies! Cry.

Tornadoes and Rain Hit Austin

Posted on June 12, 2009 by Meredith

Central Texas got pounded last night by a supercell storm, which brought tornadoes, lightning, hail, and well-needed rain to the area. Despite the tornadoes and powerful storm, the overall damage was minimal, thank goodness, but in the thick of it, it doesn’t matter — you do your emergency procedures and hope that you and your children are safe. We had tornado sightings within a couple miles of our house — needless to say, the boys played their Nintendos while hanging out in the bathtub during the bad part of the storm.

Getting out this morning, I assessed the damage. The streets and driveway were green from fallen leaves, and I lost a few branches. Just up the road, we saw a whole tree fallen over, and a bent and broken lightpost.

The dog’s wading pool was blown to the back corner of the lot. Either that or our local mischievous Sasquatch hauled it back there.

I’ll get to replace all the thistle in my finch sock experiment — I think the fact that I chose to leave them up there despite the odd clouds in the sky AND water some parched trees earlier in the day AND add some water to the pond to raise the level back up meant that we were destined to get rain. I should have known. But if I hadn’t have done all that, would we have gotten rain? The mandarin orange tree’s leaves showed off their raindrops this morning.

It always amazes me how sturdy the most delicate of flowers can be in the face of hail and pounding rain. Instead of seeing petals all over the ground, I see very happy plants (except for all the fallen leaves on the ground). Austin looks beautifully green this morning. The birds are cheerfully singing and visiting the birdfeeder.

We caught a squirrel hanging from the birdfeeder — he’s determined, to say the least. But the cardinals are thrilled with the feeder. Happy birds make me happy! The hummingbirds have found their feeder, too — I just haven’t managed to get a picture yet! I’ve seen a brown one and a green one with a ruby throat. I’d like to get another feeder, but I’ll wait until I see more than one at a time.

Today’s post ends with a space-age kitty — our son was emptying the dryer and while he dropped off some of the items, Cricket hopped in and snuggled in the remaining clothes. Dangerous spot to hang out in, kitten!

This Day Is for the Birds

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Meredith

I’m not sure whether this is the right time of year to be putting out thistle for finches, but I’ve been seeing them around, so I thought I might as well. I’ve been interested in trying thistle socks, but gasped when I saw how much our local bird shop was selling them for. No way could something like that cost $7 — online I found them for around $3. But why not make them myself? I headed to the fabric store and found that they don’t carry the typical fabric used for the socks, so I decided to do an experiment and chose 4 materials to see which the finches preferred — jersey, a lacy curtain material, and two kinds of netting. I spent a total of $3.05 and still have extra material to make more — I also got a sock free with my thistle purchase, and I pulled out an old bit of pantyhose to make a grand total of 6 thistle socks to delight the birdies.

I should point out that I’m currently without a sewing machine — we handstitched the four bags we made. If we have a winner, I’ll likely be borrowing a friend’s sewing machine, and then I’ll make more (here’s yet another reason why I want a new sewing machine, hubbie!).

I hope the birds prefer the jersey, pantyhose, or lacy stuff — they were the easiest to work with. The larger netting was a failure off the bat — the thistle fell right through the holes (I should have tested it before I bothered stitching the sock). Surprisingly, a lot of thistle fell out of the store-brand sock, too. What a waste of seed — I hope the other socks work ok so that I don’t have to watch so much thistle fall to the ground. The pantyhose was the easiest of all — I just had to pour the thistle and tie a knot — but the result had, pardon me, a rather phallic appearance until I smushed the seed down into a nice ball shape. The advantage to the smaller netting is that it comes in a variety of colors — it would make a colorful display in the trees. I didn’t poke any holes in the fat little thistle ball of pantyhose, but I might do that if the finches ignore it completely.

Now all I need are finches!

I certainly didn’t want to ignore the other birds in our neighborhood. I put out our new hummingbird feeder by the butterfly garden,

and got the yellow jackets out of our old seed birdfeeder, cleaning it and drying it for new seed. Hopefully the cardinals will find it again before the doves do. I bet if I set out the little sprinkler near it they will — a cardinal couple took a bath when I watered the side yard today. Looking out the window, there’s already a squirrel trying to figure out how to get some free munchies.

So where are the birds in my bird post? Well, they decided to hide when the camera came out, but I managed to sneak a pic of this female cardinal, chirping with her mate.

In other garden news, we already have tadpoles — we’ve had water in the pond for what, a week and a half? Seems rather fast — I wonder if there were toad/frog eggs in some of the plants we bought. Oh, I hope it’s just our neighborhood toads and not some crazy frogs from the pond store. Although there’s only one tadpole in this picture (it was hard to get a decent photo) — there are a ridiculous number swimming around happily in the pond. Some are larger than others — they just can’t all be from our toads. Sigh.

And the bottle discovery from the front yard soil is apparently a Coca-Cola bottle from around 1957 — for now I sealed a message in it with a cork and put it by the front door.

Arrrgh, there be treasure in that garden

Posted on June 9, 2009 by Meredith

Our house was built in 1971, and the earlier tenants were remarkable yard slobs, or this property was a dumping ground for someone long ago. I am amazed by some of the things I find deep below the earth — I have found parts of old metal tools, broken pots, and more — sometimes a foot into the soil. While digging part of a new garden bed in the front yard, I dug out this interesting item:

It was not that clean when I found it, mind you. Immediately my mind made plans for some excellent recycling project that would turn this old bottle into something fun for the garden. I had decided to turn it into a hummingbird feeder, much like the one I found at this site. However, in searching for feeder tubes, I learned that these kinds of upside-down feeders with stopper tubes are prone to leaking. The site does say that larger bottles are more likely to leak, but now I’m not sure I want spend money on supplies if it actually would leak and become less useful.

I’ve thought about putting the glass bottle on a new bottle tree, but it’s not as pretty as those colorful bottles people usually choose. Other ideas include using it with a plant nanny to water a container, using it as a vase (I already have vases, though), putting mini-lights in it, creating some sort of oil-and-vinegar thing, filling it with sand. I also thought about doing some sort of message in a bottle. Ruled the pond out for that one, though, lol. Maybe it could be a place in the house where my family looks for messages from one another, just for fun. Or even on the front porch.

I’m definitely in the market for suggestions! Or your experience with that type of hummingbird feeder tube — I was really looking forward to the project.

Dog disasters, algae, hummer, and (no longer a) mystery plant

Posted on June 8, 2009 by Meredith

So it finally happened. One of the dogs jumped into the raised pond yesterday and knocked over several soil-and-pea-gravel-filled pots of water plants. Add tearing into two mulch bags to that (and while we were outside dealing with that dog, the husky inside the house got my husband’s dinner off the table). We were not happy campers. I had just taken a shower and was in nice clean clothes, then I found myself standing hip-high in the pond trying to collect gravel from the bottom with my toes and a hoe, and saving surface-preferring bog plants from the depths of our hot-tub pond. Eventually I gave up and just reached down and used my hands to get the pea gravel, drenching me pretty much from head to toe in pond water.

I suppose that looking on the positive side of things, I got to do a little check on the placement of plants in the pond, as well as remove any dead leaves from the plants that would otherwise have been difficult to reach. And it will force me to finally get those last two bags of mulch off the grass (what remains, anyway) and into the garden beds where they belong. I guess the only thing positive I can say about the dinner incident is that perhaps my husband didn’t need those pizza calories anyway… I’m pretty certain there’s nothing positive my husband would say about that one, though!

I do have to say that either the additional plants I got in the middle of the algae bloom or just the natural process of pond establishment has put the clarity of the water back on track. I can see the goldfish again, and they are happy. Here is one next to a lily bloom, the Perry’s Baby Red. I worry that the pond is looking a little crowded with plants, and yet I’m determined to get a horsetail reed in there as a native plant.

Today I saw my first visiting hummingbird! It was as startled as I was to see it, and it zoomed off before letting me take its picture. But I’m ecstatic and can’t wait to see more.

And finally, I figured out the mystery plant in my garden. I’d planted three of them there in the early spring and forgot about them — in fact, I hardly watered them, but they are thriving. They are Fall Asters. I read today that I should prune them some this month to make them more bushy and covered in fall blooms. Hmmmm….

Gray Hairs Are Like Invasive Plants

Posted on June 7, 2009 by Meredith

Gray hairs are like invasive plants. Once you get one rooted, you just can’t get rid of them.

As I read Carol’s delightful May Dreams post about having to pull her “Snow-in-Summer” plants to save her Geraniums, I realized how uncomfortably close it struck to home. Beautiful white flowers that are taking over her garden bed… much like the gray hairs that have become rather abundant on my head. If I attacked my gray hairs by pulling them out by the roots, I’d look like… no, that’s an image I just don’t want to imagine. Perhaps I did the first one I found, many years ago. Is that what started this aggressive take-over of my native roots?

I ponder often the dilemma of being natural in the face of invasives. I love the feel of a peaceful woodland setting, native plants growing wild. But that approach clearly didn’t work in my pre-gardening days. The weeds and invasives too easily too over the yard. In order for my yard to be “natural,” I’ve had to remove unwanted plants and purchase and plant native ones. And as I find my greener nature, I long to be free of the desire to color my hair. Let it grow out, be natural. Grow wild, like I want my yard to do. But if I do, I realize I am going to look a lot more like “Snow-in-Summer” than this 40-year-old might be able to handle.

What’s one person’s weed is another person’s flower, right? Wildflowers are gorgeous to some, weeds to others. There are even butterflies that like poison ivy. I’m trying to embrace the gray hairs on my head as beautiful. Much like my garden beds full of baby plants, it will probably be easier to truly admire them once they’ve grown for awhile. Maybe I’ll just say I’m turning into a Gray Hairstreak Butterfly!

I garden like I cook

Posted on June 6, 2009 by Meredith

It’s the messiest process. When I cook a big meal or bake something yummy, I manage to use every dish, utensil, and bit of counter space available. When I garden, I cover every inch of me in dirt and spread all my tools across the yard. I’m not sure how it happens. It just does.

The algae… it’s a-bloomin’

Posted on June 5, 2009 by Meredith

I know that part of the natural process of establishing a healthy pond is going through an initial algae bloom, but all the same it’s a bit of a shock to see it.

I hope that it’s not going to get worse before it gets better. I rushed right out today to get more aquatic plants to hog the nutrients in the water. The local pond nurseries are going through a shortage of the submerged plant called Hornwort, but Emerald Gardens had some healthy new anacharis, so I headed right down. It was my first time to the store, and I’m glad to report that they have a good selection of pond plants to choose from. I didn’t get too many pictures at the store (I have kids, and it was hot), but I enjoyed walking through.

They, of course, have a variety of both native and non-native plants. I saw quite a few beautiful plants that I have a suspicion would not be found in a xeriscaped garden. The main attractions, though, were the ponds, and they were plentiful and very lovely. Did I get pictures? Nope. Next visit!

There was a very cool and very tall plant — it wasn’t labeled, but check out this stem:

I picked up some anacharis, a small maidenhair fern, and this dwarf papyrus. It was big, healthy, and hard to resist.

On the way home (read: detour), I stopped by Natural Gardener to see if they had some horsetail reed (Equisetum hyemale) (they had some at Emerald Gardens, but I was looking for an excuse to go to NG). I should have gotten some at Emerald Gardens, because NG currently only had the giant horsetail in the 1-gallon size I was looking for. But I did buy a Texas Star Hibiscus (Hibiscus coccineus) for the pond. I love how the leaves change in appearance as they mature.

I also went a little crazy and bought several other 4-inch plants to fill up the gaps in my butterfly/hummingbird garden. I usually try so hard to go mostly native, but I ended up gleefully giving in to an assortment of drought-tolerant plants — some native, some not — that I’ve always wanted but hadn’t ever bought, or perhaps didn’t buy enough of: gayfeather, bat-face cuphea (ok, turns out that one perhaps needs more water than it’s likely to get), cigar plant, white gaura, pink gaura, rock rose, and some extra milkweed. I accidentally bought some bee balm — which seems to require moisture, so it might get put over by the air conditioner, pond, or in a container. And I bought a small dwarf bottlebrush (from Emerald Gardens) to go in the container left empty after the dogs ate the dwarf pomegranate.

I am determined to have a healthy garden for monarchs, queens, and other butterflies. My current plants were just not doing as well as I’d like, though — the aphids took their toll this year. I went too long without removing those nasty pests, and the ladybugs had poor timing. I hesitate to show these pictures of my suffering milkweeds after Fairegarden showed such gorgeous pictures yesterday of Butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, complete with butterflies. But she inspired me to go inspect my related plants, Asclepias curassavica, and ugh, they seemed so stunted because of the aphids. Hose came out, I washed the aphids off, at least until I found a ladybug feasting–those aphids stayed. And so I bought a couple of healthy ones from Natural Gardener to add in, just cause.

I’ll finish with a lovely rock rose (Pavonia lasiopetala) that already looks perfect next to the limestone rocks of the pond, and it’s not even in the ground yet!

Trying to fix comments in Movable Type

Posted on June 4, 2009 by Meredith

I’ve had a couple of people tell me that they tried to leave comments on my blog but it’s not letting them. I’m not sure why my blog is being on the stubborn side — it sure looks like people should be able to get through to leave comments. So I’m trying to figure it out, newbie that I am (read — asking a friend to help me before I mess something up). The easy fix scares me, which is to completely open it up to Anonymous, which means bot spam could get through, I think — so maybe I can do a CAPTCHA plug-in?

Anyway, working on it — don’t give up on me. If you have any suggestions for how to set up comments on Movable Type blogs, I welcome them. Hopefully you can manage to get through here, or find me on Blotanical. In the meantime, I’ll stumble my way through MT documentation…