THE BEES AND I

 The bees and I had a lot in common today. We were both out hunting for flowers. Looking for what had made it though the freeze.

 Gopher plant

Flowers have been few and far between since the freeze. The first blooms to appear were those of the muscari and the bees were very adept at finding them hidden among their strappy foliage. The lemon trees are full of flowers but few have yet opened. It doesn't seem to deter the bees from flying around and even trying to poke their proboscis in the half-opened buds. 

No surprise to see a Juniper Hairstreak, Callophrys grynius, getting in on the action too.

 

 

 And there were lots of little pollinators on the gopher plant, Euphorbia rigida. Much as I love this plant, and the bees do too, it is more of a love/hate relationship for me. Loved when in flower and sending out the newly formed shoots, but at other times of the year disliked as it sprawls across the garden with many dead leaves.  It does not seem to do well in our hot and humid summers. In fact last year I said it would probably be their last year. And this year they look even worse because the freeze did not spare them. But of course I am already relenting because, despite their ugliness, the bees adore them and those new shoots look very attractive. I cut off many of the damaged stems because they were unattractive and were not going to flower.

 Fortunately the ipheon. Ipheion uniflorum, were still below ground and have just started blooming. Two shades of blue. I have never seen bees on them so maybe more for my enjoyment than theirs.

And the first of the bluebonnets. Loved as much by the bees as all Texans.

After several warm days the garden is truly coming to life and the first species tulips opened today. And there are several later blooming daffodils showing buds

 Crow Poison, Nothoscordum bivalve! I remember being quite excited about this clump of flowers showing up many years ago. It looked like the perfect rock-garden plant. Now I am careful to remove the heads once they finish flowering but it is too little too late. They are everywhere and impossible to remove as their bulbs go deep beneath the soil. But they do have pretty little flowers. If only it would clump.

But it isn't just flowers that I am searching for on my many walks around the garden. I am also looking for signs of life on some of the larger shrubby plants and those that have gone dormant beneath the soil. I was excited to see that, over the last few days, with warm temperatures, the hybrid musk rose Felicia rose was sending out new shoots  from the base. It really needed a good pruning so I took out my big Fiskars pruners( a raffle prize I won at the Austin Garden Bloggers' Fling) and cut the rose down to the ground. Maybe this time I can do a better job of guiding it onto the pillar. I love this rose for its clusters of pale-pink, fragrant blooms and its habit of blooming several times through the year. 

I also see shoots emerging from the ground on my five Clematis, 2 natives and 3 hybrids. And possibly a couple of seedling Clematis versicolor. A few leaves have appeared on the Philadelphus but nothibng so far on the Philippine violet.

Things are definitely beginning to look up and with the first day of spring just a week away I have new hope for this year's garden. 

THE ENGLISH GARDEN...NOT EXACTLY

I named the English garden for the dry stone wall I created. A reminder of my childhood in the north of England where drystone walls were created to divide farmers' fields. I quickly discovered when we started building the house that there was a wealth of perfect stone at my fingertips. Flat pieces of stone suitable for building stone walls without any mortar. I began saving them and shortly after we moved in the house I began the project.

The wall creates a raised bed which follows the curved wall which encloses the garden. This was really necessary if I wanted to grow anything.
I love to capture the sun just as it peaks through the archway in the morning.

It lights up the Mexican feather grasses.

Not all English gardens are cottage gardens with lawns. In England there are many gravel gardens and gardens planted in the Mediterranean style, and although I didn't imagine this at the time, it is the way the garden developed and it made sense to eliminate lawns completely. It would have been so much work getting a lawnmower in here and so much more water to keep it looking good. Instead I decided on gravel and I am really happy with the way it looks most of the time.

In my usual style a majority of the plants growing in the gravel have self-seeded and although it is work to keep it under control when it is at its best it looks great.

I confess I did plant the silver leaf gazania last year and it survived the winter.

A few days ago the gazania was looking wonderful and then with the heat yesterday and today it just started to wilt. Maybe the underlying soil was just too wet from all the rain we have had this spring.
One of my favorite flowers which have had wonderful success are the skullcaps-particularly the native Wright's skullcap, Scutellaria wrightii. It is one of the few plants that will last all through the year and with an early spring trim will stay in a mounding shape. When I prune off old growth I walk around sprinkling the seed into other areas. That and the Blackfoot daisy, Melampodium leucanthum, require no irrigation.

An English garden should have roses and yes there are a few of these but I could be doing so much better. I originally planted 3 knockout roses around the birdbath in memory of my mother and a friend who died of breast cancer. Then added 3 white ones in between. Unfortunately one of the red ones died and I have been planning to replace it for several years. Yes, with just another knockout rose but quite honestly they are fuss free-so far. No bugs, no blackspot and as long as they don't get rose rosette disease they will stay. And if that happens I will switch to salvias.

But my other roses are not doing so well. So far this year Felicia has had blackspot and thrips but still still she has managed to provide me with wonderful fragrance when I have been working outside.
My idea was to replicate the pillar roses I had seen at Mottisfont, but then I am afraid I don't have their expertise. It's not too late to give them a big trim back because Felicia is a reliable repeat bloomer through the season.

But my big failure has been in that raised bed I created. I never put any thought into the planting and just put plants in there willy nilly. Mostly passalongs. The shasta daisies have almost taken over one section and the pale pavonias are crowding out other plants with their scrappy stems reaching for the sun. One side gets more sun than the other and the vines on the wall have moved into the beds. It is my plan to overhaul the whole bed or in the very least move some plants out of there. But that has been in the plan for a few years so we will see how far I get this year.

The garden is always a work in progress.

OUT AND ABOUT IN THE OCTOBER GARDEN

Trying to work outside in this horrendous humidity is downright miserable. Where is our October weather? Those clear, dry days we expect after a brutal summer. They are just not happening this year and it means a delay in our fall gardening jobs.  This morning I took a walk around the garden with camera, while waiting for some garden visitors to arrive.

The entry garden doesn't see much in the way of change through the seasons although it won't be long before many of these plants will be moved to their winter homes.

In the front courtyard the pink crystal grass, Melinus nerviglumis is starting to flower. Those seed heads will ensure a new crop of grasses for next year.

You wouldn't know there was sunken garden here. Viewed over the wall from the English garden.

In the English garden Rosa 'Felicia' with her beguiling fragrance. Just a glimpse of her through the Sun and Moon archway.

The Philippine violet on the corner of the patio is just starting to bloom.

As is the shrimp plant. A new addition to this same corner.

The planter of bunny ears cactus, Opuntia microdasys, is back on the wall.

Peas are up.

Mexican mint marigold, Tagetes lucida, is just starting to bloom.

Lots of grasses in the herb garden and one big one over by the potting shed. This one is lemon grass, Cymbopogon.

The stock tank pond surrounded by gaillardia, cosmos and narrow leaf zinnias.

A splash of pink from the Japanese anemone. Are their petals supposed to be distorted?

The fall bloomers have definitely enjoyed our recent rains. And there is more to come this weekend.

AFTER THE RAIN

It has taken me a few days to even think about mentioning the damage my garden sustained. It's all minor compared with what Houstonians and those along the coast are facing and will face for years to come. With Austin 200 miles away from the coast our rainfall didn't come anywhere close to that at the coast and while the winds did some damage none of it was catastrophic. We didn't lose any big trees and are forever grateful that we don't have trees overhanging the house, having lost those 5 large oaks several years ago. I'm glad we got those down immediately. We had lots of twigs and leaves scattered all over the place and in the plants. My poor oaks are not in very good shape and now they lost more leaves.
But the rain has gone and the sun shines again and the garden couldn't be happier. In less than a week the oxblood lilies, Rhodofiala bifida. began to bloom. Sometimes known by the name naked ladies because the flowers come before the foliage, they appear overnight, a signal that cooler weather is on the way.

A new crop of the pink rain lilies.

Everything in the garden is refreshed. Wafts of almond fragrance from the blackfoot daisies, Melampodium leucanthum. I wish they were a little more generous in spreading their seed. But this one found a perfect home in the English garden among the stone steps.

More seeded among the grasses in the front courtyard garden.

There's nothing a seed likes better than to find itself in a gravel bed. No fertilizing or watering needed here.

Across the garden the flowers on Rosa Felicia are beginning to show a deeper pink color. Sometimes, even on the hottest day her fragrance wafts through the arch.

The first blooms of liatris hang over the low dry stone wall in the English garden.

I can almost hear the plants saying, 'We made it through the summer and now we have fall to look forward to.' I hope this is the case. Those cooler mornings do make all the difference.

A TOUCH OF COLOR IN THE DECEMBER GARDEN

Fall has been a very short season this year. The heat continued through to late November making it impossible to move the plants I would normally move in the fall. I put in winter annuals-they fried. I planted fall vegs. they were eaten by caterpillars and a huge hatch of tarnished plant bugs.
This weekend winter arrived, with a cold rain and promise of a heavy freeze later this week. It will not be the first as we have already had two frosts between those 80º days. Such is Texas weather. I began to cut back many of the last blooms of the season to tidy up the garden for winter. Now, all that remain are the plants that add a touch of color in the winter garden.
It has been a hard summer for the Felicia rose. Although she continued to bloom throughout the spring and summer, the fall blooming has been a disappointment. Thrips! But on Friday a beautiful rose with the fragrance that no other rose can beat.

And this pretty little flower on the donkey ears kalanchoe, Kalanchoe gastonia-bonnieri. A native of Madagascar it blooms at the same time as it would be blooming where it comes from. I have moved it into the greenhouse for the winter.

The winter window box on the potting shed is filling out. Never mind that when I planted it up, on the ground, I planted it the wrong way around. By the time I realized it it was too late to change so the snapdragons are on the front rather than the back. I love the color on the ornamental cabbages but in my garden a window box is the only appropriate place for these plants. If only I could be more successful with cabbages in my vegetable garden. I tucked in a few seeds of nasturtiums but they probably won't survive a heavy freeze.

There are even a few new blooms on the flowering senna tree, peaking over the wall into the vegetable garden. A seedling tree that needs relocating.

Even the ghost plant, Graptopetalum,  in the sunken garden is showing tinges of color from the cooler nights.

and of course, the Euphorbia tirucalli Sticks of Fire, is also responding to the cooler nights with flashes of red on the new growth.

and here's one of the Philippine violets,  Barleria cristata, seeded alongside the pathway, starting to bloom. What am I going to do with them all? There are at least 6 growing in the wrong places which I will need to relocate when they go dormant. I already have 3 potted up in the greenhouse.

But the real splash of color comes from the Yaupon holly, Ilex vomitoria.

The bird planted pyracantha espalier on the bathroom wall.

It's time for the gardener to take a break!