ARE WE THINKING SPRING YET?

Of course we are. It doesn't matter where you live I guarantee that every gardener among us is busy making plans for the new gardening year. I'm expecting to see a few of these popping up in the next week or so. Wild anemones, Anemone caroliniana,  are usually the first of our native flowers in the spring.

In northern climes first blooms may be a few months away but the ordering of seeds and plants will be well under way. I am recalling my own time spent in Eastern Canada where an old door would be erected on boxes in the sunniest spot in the house ready for seed sowing.
Things haven't changed much today. Yes, I have a greenhouse but it is full to bursting with overwintering plants. No room for seed starting in there. That has moved to my laundry room which has been a seed collection room for the last year or two. Now, with the arrival yesterday of a grow light system it is also the seed starting area.

Stay-n-grow system seen in the GS catalogue

I am wondering to myself why I never invested in grow lights before. Maybe it had to do with the cost as these systems are not cheap. But this year was made easier by using a gift card from Gardeners' Supply. I purchased a starter kit which is the lower part of the system with a plan to add on to it if I find it works well. Grow Light System.

Yesterday morning I opened the box and carefully began the construction on the living room floor. I read a lot of the comments on the website before I made the purchase and almost all of them were positive. I think there was only one negative comment and it had to do with the flimsy nature of construction. Not true at all. The product is well made and instructions are very clear on how to build.  Directions are written in good English because the product comes from England. That was a surprise. But I was not so careful taking it into the laundry room and one of the bulbs fell out and smashed!!!! Oh! careless me. Not an easy bulb to find in Austin so I am ordering on line and fingers crossed it is the right one.

My only complaint is that there is some additional expense required to add trays (shown above) on which to put your seeds starting trays, because the tray beds are perforated. GS does sell products that would work here or you can source on your own. Being a collector of anything useful that comes into the house I will reuse polystyrene meat trays to prevent water spills.

I am thrilled with the product and already well ahead on starting seeds. I also have heat mats on which to put the trays until the seeds germinate. And I plan to add the next level to the system.

When it goes dark the bulb puts out a tremendous amount of light so much so that it lights up the garden through the window. I have decided to turn it off when I go to bed.

The start of the New Year adds another year onto my age and with the realization that I cannot do quite as much in the garden as I used to do I added a piece of power equipment to make a few of my jobs a little easier. A hedge trimmer. I am not a lover of power gardening tools but this one is small, quiet and easy for me to handle.

It's main purpose will be to trim the fig ivy walls, a job that takes hours of my time. I haven't tried it yet because it is too early to be trimming off the winter kill but I did take it out for a trial run yesterday. The object was the Salvia leucantha outside the walls. I trimmed the large stems by hand and then finished off with the hedge trimmer. I was thrilled with its performance.

Who would think that this pile of sticks would look like this within a few months?

Salvia leucantha May1 2017

At the same time I cut back the miscanthus grass growing alongside the greenhouse. I wouldn't normally cut back this grass so early but it is ready to be moved to another location. I am waiting on the lemon grass growing in the corner. It survived out here last winter and I am hoping for a repeat performance. It was never watered at all last year and still grew well in the decomposed granite. If it doesn't survive I have several shoots potted up in the greenhouse and will replace in this spot. This is a big grass and needs lots of room.There is no flower but it produces masses of fresh shoots for my Thai recipes.

Lemon grass

The area outside the walls is a transition area between wall and septic field. It is planted with waif and strays from the garden, lantana, salvias, prickly pear, Mexican mint marigold, blue mist flower a crape myrtle and pomegranate ; all deer proof plants. It is now tidied up and mulched waiting for spring to arrive. 

It feels good to have made a start on winter clean up.

THE SEPTEMBER GARDEN

When hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas coast, 200 miles away, it brought some much needed rain to Central Texas. Along with that we saw a significant drop in daytime temperatures but more importantly night time temperatures in the low 60s. Warm days and cool nights. For a few days it was like being in California. The plants showed an immediate response; the sickly yellow leaves greened up and the flowers colors brightened. It was glorious but not to last. Still, for those brief few days I enjoyed every moment in the garden.
Sometimes I think fall is better than spring. Everything in the garden has become more blousy. There is barely a scrap of earth or gravel to be seen.

I never know from one year to the next how this will look or which flowers will be present-except there will always be plenty of rock roses.

The Salvia leucantha I have been planning to move for years is still there. The hummingbirds are very adept at flying in through the window in the high wall that separates the gardens.

A week ago there was but one bloom on the butterfly pea, Clitoria ternatea. Now there are many. The blackfoot daisy, Melampodium leucanthum, continues to spread across the step.

Ruby crystal grass, Melinis nerviglumis, is flowering. There will be plenty of those again next year.

  Globe amaranth, Gomphrena haggeana, 'Strawberry fields' is everywhere.

As are the purple and pink varieties growing in the pathway of the vegetable garden.

The spider zinnia will eventually be evicted from its home in the vegetable bed but I will save the seeds for next year.

In the sunken garden it grew where the white California poppy once grew.

In the sunken garden there are gomhrena, pink and purple skullcaps, aura, mealy blue sage, white Salvia greggii, and an errant member of the cucumber family which came in on the compost.

As well as zexmenia, Wedelia texana,  chocolate daisy, Berlandiera lyrata,  and returning alyssum.

But the absolute show stoppers of the moment are the liatris in the front courtyard. Purple is definitely the color of the moment.

Last year I removed many of the bulbs and planted them outside the walls. It seems that every seed germinates but they are silent all summer until their bloom time in the fall.

Phlox paniculata John Fanick, After the first flowering I pruned it back and here it is again. Smells wonderful.

Trailing Snapdragon vine, Asarina procumbens is a native of Mexico but seems to do well here as an annual.

Tradescantia sillamontana with its cobweb leaves and pretty pink flowers, easily grown from cuttings.

In the spring I bought a hanging basket because it looked simply gorgeous. I repotted it into a larger basket with baby diapers in the bottom. It was an impulse buy. It has been watered all summer on a drip system twice a day, and received an occasional fertilize. I have cut it back completely about 3 times. It took a beating on one side during the hurricane but is recovering.

The mandevilla vine is into its second year. I cut it down and put it in the potting shed last winter. It dried out and went dormant but started to come back after a good spring soaking. I will try to keep it for another year.

It is wonderful to see so much color back in the garden and there is still the Philippine violet yet to bloom. Soon it will be fall and these icky-sticky days will be a thing of the past!