YOUR GARDEN STYLE

I have met people who never look back. Maybe it is a function of age but I think mine was triggered by a box of photographs I inherited and by a sudden interest in genealogy. And, as a life-long gardener, I began to realize my younger self might have influenced my style of gardening.

From a very young age I loved wildflowers. You see me here with a bunch of straw at hay making time. At a similar age, on holiday in Devon, I wanted to pick the big white bindweed flowers growing along hedgerow. My father chastised me telling me I must leave them for others to enjoy! Bindweed? I ask you !! And there was the time my parents thought of taking over the lease on a pub in the countryside and I was thrilled to bits because the bank alongside the pub was full of primroses. It never happened... but I know I would have been thoroughly happy living where I could walk the country lanes. Making daisy chains, searching for four leaf clovers, marveling at the tiny flowers of scarlet pimpernel, the cowslips, buttercups, sucking the honey from the purple clover flowers, celandines and marsh marigolds growing in the brook and the seed heads of shepherd's purse. I have plenty of that on my septic field right now.  It was always about the native flowers growing around me.

Fast forward to arriving in Texas in early February1968, just in time for the wildflower season. This time no one telling me not to pick the flowers!

And I am still that lover of wild flowers today and it is reflected in my gardening style. It is a free-for-all cottage garden style.

The sunken garden May 2019

It's why I love the little puffball flowers of Barbara's buttons, Marshallia caespitosa.

April 2019

 The common corn poppy, Papaver rhoeas,  flowering in profusion.

Sunken graden 2019

 And weedy Love-in-a-Mist, Nigella sp.

And a summer flower of the English hedge row. Foxglove Digitalis purpurea,. I have tried growing them from seed with only modest success so I now buy them in 4" pots,early in the year, potting up as they grow larger until I can finally move them into their larger pots. I think they are going to bloom earlier this year as I see a flower spike starting. What color will they be? I have no idea although they say you can tell by looking at the underside of the leaf. If that is the case they will be all white.

February 2020

Front courtyard April 2019

And the delicate blooms of Blue Gilia Gilia rigidula

March 2019

And of course our state flower the Texas bluebonnet.

And it can all become a little unruly after a while and that is why this year some changes are in order.

Herb garden May 2019

 I must endeavor to keep the pathways clear of all but the smallest and tidiest of plants. And that means alyssum, narrow leaf zinnias and possibly the daisy fleabane. Possibly the odd tidy grass and if there is space enough to walk by, the Verbena bonariensis. And I might just allow a few coreopsis and blanket flowers. This is not going to be easy.
For the moment I am excited to look at photographs from last year's spring and to know what is soon to come.

THE TEXAS TWO STEP AND THE CHELSEA CHOP

Having a cottage-style garden is one of the most difficult gardens to have even though many say it is the easiest. It isn't just a matter of throwing out a few seeds and waiting for them to flower. It is trying to create a balance between those annual plants and perennials which carry the garden through the remaining months of the year. In Texas, because we have such a long growing season, a cottage garden will go through many changes and must be helped along at every step.  Texas Two Step is my term for that time when annuals have done their thing, set their seed and must now be pulled for tidiness sake. You sow them, you gather them.
Take this area of bluebonnets, a beautiful sight back in March.

Not looking quite so attractive by mid-May. This annual plant has made and thrown its seed and the dried, crispy remains of the plant must be removed for neatness sake. It's time for the Texas two step.

Having bluebonnets is a labor of love, but isn't all gardening. I have at least 8 areas of dried bluebonnets that I need to work on over the next week or so-if the weather would just cooperate. A stroll around the garden this morning made me realize that I won't be doing much of that today unless the sun comes out and pops those seed heads. But, I will be snipping some of the almost ready heads and storing in a brown paper bags or boxes until the fall.
But first up for the two step this week were the poppies. Those of ten thousand seeds. I'm guessing that like many wildflowers their seeds lie dormant in the ground waiting for me to disturb the soil, just like the poppies in the Flanders fields following WW1, so despite the fact that I have plums to reduce their numbers next year I am sure they will be back.
If you want these, and I do.

Then you must wait for this and hope to catch a few of them. Brown paper bags at the ready!

I am serious about collecting some of these this year because of a long term project we began two years ago. That of converting our septic field into a wildflower meadow. When the field was originally done I ordered 2 bags of wildflower seeds from Native American Seed with instruction for them to be added to the spray mix they use to cover the field. It wasn't enough to tell my builder and give him the bags with instruction for them to be put in the tank before they spread. It was never done.  I would plant seeds in the fall but nothing ever grew and then I discovered that the soil was probably to rich for them. For the past 3 years we have mowed and bagged and last fall I threw out blanket flowers and bluebonnets. It worked. These and so many more wildflowers showed up this year.

May 2019 on the septic field

The next Two-Step with be with Nigella,  Love-in-a mist. A cottage garden must have these.

Their seed pods put on a pretty good show too, but....

But there comes a time when they must be pulled too.

And the herb garden will hopefully take on a tidier appearance as I remove the parsley and cilantro once the seeds are ripe.

It's Chelsea Flower Show week and many gardeners in England adhere to the old rule of cutting back perennials by half at this time. The practice is known as The Chelsea Chop. I have quite a few plants that will get this treatment over the next couple of weeks. The roses, salvias, Mexican marigold mint, Copper Canyon daisy, mealy blue sage, the mint-I may even pull that out completely, oregano, basil, All of theses if left to continue growing will swamp the garden. I want them to look good right through to the fall. A little cut back will help them do that-and some summer rain.

HERE THERE AND EVERYWHERE

If ever there was a freely seeding flower that I welcome with open arms in my garden it is that of  Love-in-a-mist, Nigella damascena. Who wouldn't be won over by such a lovely flower and if not that a charming name.

Since introducing this flower many years ago it has found its way into every one of my gardens and every nook and cranny. And it comes, not only in blue, but in many shades from white through pink to blue and purple. Don't even try to control which color grows in which place. It is always a surprise when the flower buds open.
I think it found a perfect home in among the stems of this clump of narcissus where its feathery foliage will hide the yellowing stems.

There are some places where there are only white ones but the predominant color is blue.

Here it is all about pink.

I love the ones that seed along the walls. It is a dry spot so they don't get very big.

And the strange this is that there can several colors of flower on the same plant.

I once heard one of the panel on Gardener's Question Time remark on how well this does in the rock garden. I agree. The poor dry soil means it grows only a few inches tall. Seen here with my artichoke agave, A. Parryi truncate.

And when flowering is over the seed heads also are a delight. Just make sure you capture this seeds before they find their way into every nook and cranny in your garden.

GOING TO SEED

This is the second year I will let my Italian parsley, Petroselinium neapolitanum, flower and go to seed. I will probably do so for the rest of my gardening life. The insects adore those tiny flowers. In the warm sunshine it isn't just the bees, but all manner of insects, most of which I am unable to identify. It might be easier if I could just get a good shot of them but they just don't like that camera lens moving in on them.

Parsley nectar attracts many beneficial insects and encouraging them may even protects plants such as tomatoes from the tomato hornworm caterpillar. That would be a bonus. And right by the side of the parsley plant is my newly made bug hotel. It's early days yet but someone has already moved in.

When a friend came over with her camera with new macro lens the other evening I gave her a mission. A nice close-up of those parsley flowers. Of course the bees had gone home for the night but she managed to capture this ladybird feasting on the parsley.

Yesterday, I tried once again but my camera has trouble finding the right focus. I wonder if I need to try manual?

Is this a big-eyed bug? Either way it has a big head.

Who is this?

And the ladybirds were back again only this one has spots.

Last year when the seeds were ripe I took down the plants and carried them out and threw them under the cedar trees on the edge of the septic field. I have often taken plants to this area and there is quite a garden there now. Among the plants growing is a nice field of parsley. The poor quality of the soil there has meant the plants have not grown much-unlike those in the herb garden.

The grasses are in full seed mode. In the herb garden, Mexican feather grass, Nassella tenuissima, and Ruby crystal grass, Melinis nerviglumis, caught in the morning sun.

Both these grasses need to be controlled a little as they are a little too generous with their seeds. The older ones need to be pulled out.

The same is true of the bluebonnets. I have been snipping off the ripe seed heads every day and putting them in brown paper bags until planting time in the fall.

Clearly I have missed some.

After losing the whole of last years crop to the hail it is a relief to see the seed bank filling up again. By the end of the week I should be able to remove all the dead, dried foliage and the garden will start to look a lot tidier.
But there are those plants whose seed heads put on quite  a show. First it was the poppies and now it is the Love-in-a-mist, Nigella sp. They are wonderful in dried arrangements.

Before they went to seed they put on a wonderful show, returning year after year in all different colors.

I heard the designer Bunny Guinness espouse the growing of Nigella in the rock garden where they never achieve their full height. She was right. Seed away as much as you like.

WHITE IS A COLOR TOO

I didn't realize how many white flowers I had int he garden until I went out to photograph them today.

The mock orange, Philadelphus sp Natchez is putting on the biggest white show.

Followed by the Anacacho orchid tree, Bauhinia lunariodes.

There's even a single rain lily, Cooperia drummondii, coaxed into blooming by the recent rains.

In the English garden the white knockout rose puts on her first full flush of blooms.

The native blackfoot daisy, Melampodium leucanthum.

Love-in-a-mist, Nigella sativa, with the spiky foliage. A faithful spring returner.

Larkspur,

A single white Shirley poppy.

The multiplying onions, Allium sepa, making a great stand. I think I may mix them in with my other garden flowers next year.

The potatoes are flowering.

And the snow pea flowers mean lots of peas over the next few weeks. I always plant Pisum sativum 'Cascadia' because they are open pollinated and I can save the seeds for next year.

The first pods.

And the tiny star flowered sedum, Sedum potosinum.