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Friday, November 1, 2013

AND THEN THE RAINS CAME

Some must wonder at how Texans just can't stop talking about it when they have rain. We had plenty of rain on Wednesday. Enough to wash the garden away.


This time around we got good warning about how much we might be getting. How glad I am that I decided to pick a spray of the hybrid musk rose Felicia to bring into the house. I always cut this rose back hard in the spring and this year she has grown with long arching stems laden with powder-puff pink, fragrant blooms. Next year I have plans to let her grow as a pillar rose and provide support for her lovely tresses.


In the late afternoon, before the rains came, when I walked out through the front gate I detected the unmistakeable fragrance of another fall bloomer, the white, fragrant mistflower, Ageratina havanensis.



The deer have been nibbling away at the branches resulting in this very late bloom. As an understory bush it produces open airy branches loaded with puff ball blooms. I added two more plants this year positioning them near the oak trees and hopefully not in the deer pathway.
And then came the rains. Throughout the night the rain came down. When it falls on our Edwards plateau land it finds its way though sink holes into voids in the limestone. Then it must find a way out.


On the side of the hill by the road it found a place. It has been gushing out of here all day. It's on its way down to Barton Creek and into the Colorado.

11 comments:

  1. I love Felicia too, thanks to you for featuring it on your blog; I had not yet met her! I'll remember to cut the canes back sharply this spring. How about your boneset (white mistflower)? Do you prune back drastically or do you just do light shaping if necessary? I love this shrub for the variety of insects it sustains and love the fragrance. We didn't get even a half inch of rain here, but anything at all is welcome. Felicia looks lovely in the vase.

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  2. I think that next spring I will not cut these long canes back as I plan to put in an obelisk to twine the roses around. I never trim the boneset because the deer nibble. However, it is among trees and is not a full bush but rather tall and willowy. Sorry you missed the rain. We got far too much.

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  3. That rain impact is incredible. Does the outflow appear in different places all the time or does it select the same exits on a frequent basis?

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  4. There is nothing like a Texas rain. Everything is extreme here. I believe your area received much more than the Gulf Coast did.

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  5. Looks like your hill has a cave in the making. We got around 5 inches here just West of the Zilker Park area. Fortunately it didn't all fall at once so our area wasn't devastated the way others were.

    The rose is gorgeous! I can't wait to see photos of it curving gracefully around your obelisk in future posts. I hadn't tried boneset but might - the deer browse the beauty berry fairly regularly and giving them more options might at least limit the damage to any one plant?

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  6. Looks like your hill has a cave in the making. We got around 5 inches here just West of the Zilker Park area. Fortunately it didn't all fall at once so our area wasn't devastated the way others were.

    The rose is gorgeous! I can't wait to see photos of it curving gracefully around your obelisk in future posts. I hadn't tried boneset but might - the deer browse the beauty berry fairly regularly and giving them more options might at least limit the damage to any one plant?

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  7. grateful also for the rain (we live in Spicewood)....luv your creek video.....praying for more rain this wk as we live up by the Pedernales River part of Lake Travis....
    it's wonderful to see new flowers coming out this wk!

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  8. That rose is gorgeous. Such a delicate color. You got a lot more rain that we did in the Houston area, but we still had a healthy amount and some local street flooding.

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  9. Good to hear you didn't have damage.
    We had about 13" here, in six hours. A little too much, too fast. Washed away a lot of hard work, but could've been worse. Several of our neighbors had water running through there houses.
    Feast or famine, when it comes to rain in Texas.

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  10. Wow, I love that video. Craziness as usual when it comes to Texas weather. I was saddened to see so much destruction. So I'm glad to see that you were able to get some lovely rose blooms before it came down.

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  11. Your fragrant mistflower isn't late...or maybe mine is late, too. either/or.

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