Rachel: April 2008 Archives

It's nice to have helpers when I'm working in my garden.  When the day gets long or the weeding gets tough, they help keep me focused and motivated.  Meet my eager assistant, Ruby. 

Ruby's favorite pastimes include garden design and produce tasting, and she's dogged in insisting on correcting poor plant placement.  If I don't heed her advice, I'm likely to discover a dry, withered plant lying just next to the hole I originally planted it in.

Ruby's partner in crime is Liam.  Liam is our air traffic controller, supervising arrivals and departures at our three birdfeeding terminals.  We haven't had a single collision yet - he takes great pride in his work.



While Ruby busily turns the compost...

digs, and weeds...

...Liam applies himself as a barrier method for weed control.  His increasing girth provides ever-greater effectiveness!


Ruby is quite multi-talented.  She prunes plants*...



...and chips and shreds garden waste.


Meanwhile, Liam directs our feathered friends to an alternate landing strip.












*Note: Neither dog nor plumeria was injured in the making of this weblog entry.

I (very carefully) Rounded Up my prolific poison ivy last weekend, and as of a week later, the leaves were starting to look a bit the worse for wear.  Not the dramatic demise I was hoping for, but it's progress, I suppose.

Looking through the slats of the fence, I can tell this is a serious plant in the uncivilized land behind our house.

I imagine it'll take a second treatment.

I apologize in advance - this is not one of the prettier pictures I've posted to my weblog.

This is a passiflora (passionvine) that my aunt gave me, a piece of her plant, which has gone crazy, and which I was hoping to get to grow, to cover an ugly fence and bring some color to my yard.  Passionvine is supposed to be aggressive to the point of being invasive, but this is the second one I've killed so far.




This vine, on the other hand, is doing really well in my garden.  You recognize it, don't you?  Leaves of three, let it be?  Yes, it's poison ivy. Gah.  What's a (mostly) organic gardener to do?  I know how good organic gardeners deal with poison ivy - two plastic bags, gloves, and a hell of a lot of prayer - but this ivy is growing in from behind the fence.  I've pulled it before, but I never get the whole plant.  There's some city-owned no man's land behind our property, so it's uncultivated.  I can get back there, but I'm not sure I'd want to - it's all tall brush, mosquitoes, and, well, poison ivy, obviously.  Plus, I've only just gotten over a nasty skin issue that may well have been poison-ivy-related.  (If no one at Spring Fling saw me scratching, I was doing well.)

And the monster is creeping into my yard in at least three or four places along my back fence.  So what do I do?  Break down and buy some Roundup?

Suggestions are very welcome.

Carol of May Dreams Gardens invites us to show what's blooming in our gardens on the 15th of each month.

The more that I work in my garden, the more I become aware that the way I enjoy the work I've done goes far beyond appreciating the colors and shapes of flowers.  This is a bit of a revelation to me, as a newer gardener, over the last couple of months, but it has made my experience much richer to realize it.

So this month, as we look at some of the things that are blooming in my garden, I'll consider the many ways that I enjoy the fruits of my labor in my garden.









Sight

The appearance of a plant or of its blooms often plays the strongest role in whether I choose it for my garden.  Whether it's the perfect geometric triangle of an iris (above) or the exotic, vivid orange lobster-claw blossoms of a lotus vine (Lotus maculatus 'Amazon Sunset'  seen below), the colors and shapes of flowers may determine where (or if) it will fit in my garden.



It's no accident, really, that I do most of my photography in macro.  I very much enjoy getting up close to the things I grow and seeing them in fine detail.  The leaf on my thornless prickly pear (Opuntia tuna) is nice, but even more beautiful to me is the intricate detail of the bud; the lacy, almost weightless spider web that strings from point to point; the tiny, almost invisible spines on this otherwise spineless cactus.  Without getting close and looking closer, one might risk a nasty surprise by touching it.



Stopping to get closer helps me to appreciate a plant I might not have thought much about before.  My red yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora) sends up several of these red spikes, covered in buds and blooms.  They're large, but the blooms are subtle until you take a moment to look at them in detail.



Close up, the little bell-shaped flowers are delicate and dainty - really lovely, and not what I would have expected.




Touch

 As we wandered around the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the Spring Fling, I mentioned to some of the people in my vicinity that I had started a collection of fuzzy plants.  Alas, none of them are blooming this month, but it reinforces in my mind that I very much garden by touch.  I want to test the texture of the foliage of the things I plant, and one of the best places I can do that is in my growing herb garden.  I love to snag a leaf between my fingers, feel its textures, and smell the herbiness of it.  Take this lavender, for instance.  Lavender flowers are what are generally used for fragrances and potpourri, but the leaves are quite fragrant and interesting, as well.
 



Take, then, the almost velvety smoothness of the edible foliage of the nasturtium.  Its leaves are water-resistant, causing raindrops to bead up and rest in their round centers, like they do on lotus leaves floating on a pond. 



In contrast, the lacy leaves of the Dahlberg daisy (Thymophylla tenuiloba), a native, tickle my fingertips and palm as I brush over them with my hands.




Smell

My herb garden is full of mints and basils and chamomiles, all with distinctive textures and smells.  Some smells, like rosemary, drift in the breeze, while others, like lemon balm, have to be touched to be fully appreciated.

The blossoms of my satsuma tangerine tree, which faded earlier this month, smelled sweet as jasmine, their scent emanating throughout the garden.

Elsewhere, on the rose trellises, my climbing roses smell as lovely as they look.




Another to be touched and smelled, these chives (Allium shoenoprasum) have started blooming in my vegetable garden.

 



Sound

In our busy urban neighborhood, one of the most important ways that we try to make our garden relaxing and hospitable is by masking the sound of traffic nearby.  For us, this is a work in progress.  We'd like to have a water feature, for the soothing sound it would make, as well as to serve as a draw for wildlife, but we haven't had a chance yet.  We'll be installing a rain chain soon, which will give us some sound when it rains (just in time for a hot, dry summer, to be sure).

Wind provides sounds, too, in the jangling of wind chimes and the rustling of tree branches, and in the waving of grasses.

And creatures make sounds, as well, such as the buzzing of the bees that I'm attracting to pollinate our fruits and vegetables with this African blue basil (Ocimum 'African Blue').  Basil is said to make tomatoes more tasty as a companion planting, so this one is surrounded by tomato plants, which aren't seen here, and nasturtiums (yes, that's a tall, broad nasturtium leaf behind the basil), which acts as a lure for pests, drawing them away from my tomatoes.  The tomatoes are blooming, as well, and some of our first tomatoes are already full-sized, though still green.





The pomegranate (Punica granatum) has leafed out and started blooming as well, seemingly out of nowhere.  It seems like just last week, there were no leaves on it at all, and now it's quite full.  The pomegranate, with its fruit and spiny branches, is a wonderful attractor for birds, whose songs and calls are quite welcome in my garden, as well.

     


Taste

And finally, we come to taste.  One of the joys of growing organic herbs and vegetables in my garden is the ability to taste things as I come upon them.  My husband's family was amazed when they visited in March that we had full-grown peas growing already, and they enjoyed being able to shell and eat them right there in the garden.  The shells went straight into the compost, but I admit to eating those, too, on the earliest of peas, much as you would eat snow peas. 

And truly, there's nothing like a homegrown strawberry.  The poor imitations that we've become accustomed to in the supermarkets can't even compare.  Real strawberries are tart and sweet, and they smell heavenly.  (Unfortunately, our dog, whose cultured palate also leads her to pull smelly things out of the compost bin, thinks so, too.)




And, in the interest of delayed gratification, these are the blooms of our potato plants, growing in a new bed on the south side of our house.  I've never had potatoes fresh from the garden, but I'm hopeful that we'll have this experience soon - obviously, the plants are growing like weeds and blooming well.  Internet sources tell me that we can start harvesting new potatoes two to three weeks after they quit blooming.



And that is a taste (and smell and sight and sound and touch) of what's blooming in my garden!  April has been a beautiful month here in Austin, and I'm trying to enjoy the pleasant spring weather before the oppressive heat of summer moves in.


   

I was so impressed by this at the time, and then I guess I got distracted by all the plants I bought...

While all the Flingers of Spring were wandering around the Natural Gardener on Saturday afternoon, I took a quick look around the Sun Perennials section.  It's one of my favorite sections, in part because I don't have all that much sun in my garden at home, but also because those are the flowers that seem to attract the most bees, butterflies, and birds.  As I was standing there, grazing among the potted salvia just sitting on tabletops, I noticed a hummingbird swoop in, take a sip of nectar, and swoop back out again, no more than three feet away.  That's not the sort of thing you're likely to see at a lot of nurseries, and it speaks to the environment that they work to preserve at the Natural Gardener.

I glanced around to see if any of the other Flingers were nearby, but I didn't see anyone, so I tucked the memory into the sieve-like recesses of my brain and continued on.

I'm very bad at retrospectives for get-together events. People always write them as soon as they get home, but I like to process things for a week or two, and by then, the momentum is gone. Suffice it to say, I had a wonderful time. I wasn't sure how much I'd have in common with the other attendees, because I haven't been weblogging about my garden for very long and I don't have many long-standing relationships with other garden webloggers, but I felt very blessed to be in the presence of such good-hearted, creative, and talented folks. I really enjoyed myself immensely, and I hope to help maintain some of the friendships I forged this weekend. Thank you so much to Pam of Digging, Diana of Sharing Nature’s Garden, Bonnie of Kiss of Sun, and MSS of Zanthan Gardens for all your hard work and hospitality.

That's all the retrospective you're likely to get from me for a while. What I will show you, though, are some pictures.

This wash of blooms is mostly Texas bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush.


There wasn't a cloud in the sky while we were at the Wildflower Center.  This detail is of the observation tower at the center, which also serves as a rainwater cistern.  These beams, it turns out, serve no purpose whatsoever, poking out of the tower as they do.  Within the tower, they're structural support.  I can't imagine the tower without them, though.



These are spider lilies, which are native to marshy east Texas.  These are among my favorite wildflowers, because I once had an adventure related to them.  I'll share it another time.

Zanthan Gardens


I think MSS will be amused to know this, but I faced similar photographic challenges in her garden as I did in James David's.   Some of the beauty of her wild meadow-cum-cottage-garden is found in the casual waves of tall larkspur and cilantro, and I never did take a photo that conveyed that as well as I'd like to have.  My macro wasn't framing what I hoped to frame.  Perhaps I'll have an opportunity to try again someday.

Texas weather is notoriously hard to predict accurately, so I can't make any guarantees, but I think the severe thunderstorms complete with hail have likely passed, and we should have a gorgeous weekend here in Austin for the Spring Fling.

Bonus: cooler temperatures! The northerners (not to mention the locals) should appreciate that little perk.

I look forward to meeting everyone at Matt's El Rancho tonight!

Several years ago, I bought an amaryllis as a Christmas gift for my best friend and then-roommate.  It bloomed not long after, but never again.  For four or five years, it grew in a little pot.  Every year, I figured it would die back in the winter, but every spring, it would grow long, spiky amaryllis leaves again.

Last fall, I put the bulb in the ground, in my front bed, along with all my other bulbs, and promptly forgot about it.  (I notice a trend, with this planting and forgetting.) 

This spring, all my irises started growing, to my delight, but among them, growing a stalk of blossoms, was my amaryllis!

The bloom is gorgeous - I didn't even remember what it would look like.  And there are two more blooms yet to come.