A TALE OF TWO JASMINES

It is nearly 15 years since I planted this jasmine by the front door. Every spring from late March until the end of April it perfumes the garden wafting into the house when I open the front door. It is the  jasmine, Trachelospermum Star of Toscana,  cousin of the Confederate jasmine, Trachelospermum jasminoides.

As you can see it is an exuberant vine and constant trimming is necessary to prevent it covering the front door. ( I have seen a few front doors like that over the years) The original wooden trellis attached to the wall broke under the weight last year and there was grave concern over what to do; tear it down and replant or try to salvage? Finding a new one would not be easy as the only one I ever see is the white Confederate jasmine. David drilled into the wall on the side and tied it back with a piece of hosepipe. It was touch and go there for a while because the green hose and the wire attaching it to the wall were quite unsightly. But within a year it had completely covered the hose and now, as I look though the window, I am appreciative of David's fix.

Although growth is similar in that it is a self twining plant and reasonably hardy in central Texas, the flowers are yellow and more exuberant and I do find this one to be hardier than its cousin.

Compare this with the pure white flowers of the white confederate jasmine.

Despite its location on the similar NW facing wall this vine was severely hit by our winter freeze, all its leaves turning brown and many of its stems splitting. However, after pruning and primping, it has made a good recovery in recent weeks and is now flowering. Like the other jasmine it is constant work to keep it in its place.

Both are favorites for maintaining an evergreen look over the winter even though they do take work.

GARDEN BLOGGERS' BLOOM DAY MAY 2015

It's raining again this morning. After all the rain that has fallen on Texas over the past ten days I think the rain lily must have pride of place on the month's Garden Bloggers' Bloom day. Please join with Carol at May Dreams Gardens and share your May posts.

Rain lily

Day lily

Common ditch lily

Heart-leaf skullcap, Scutellaria ovata

Verbena bonariensis

Common tickseed, Coreopsis tinctoria

Pomegranate flower, Punica granatum

Blanket flower, Gaillardia pulchella.

Wine cups, Callirhoe involucrata

Confederate jasmine, Trachelospermum jasminoides

Chocolate daisy, Berlandiera lyrata

Happy Bloom Day everyone.

THE BLESSINGS OF HIGH WALLS

First of all I want to thank everyone who sent their commiserations either by writing on my blog, face time or by email.
There is good news from the garden today. As many of you have visited here know, our garden is surrounded by walls. Some of the walls of the houses are very high. The hail storm blew in from the west and those plants in the lee of the walls were miraculously unscathed.

At the front door, protected by a porch overhang and a 20' wall to one side the yellow star jasmine, Trachelospermum asiaticum was untouched. It is a little different from the Confederate jasmine, although closely related and said to be a little hardier. The center of the flower is tinged with yellow.

On the pool wall the Confederate jasmine, Trachelospermum jasminoides, was similarly spared. Both are now blooming with their heady fragrance.

You can see that the flowers on this one do not have the yellow center.

2 out of 3 isn't so bad. The third one on the potting shed wall wasn't so lucky but knowing how vigorous these plants are I know it will be back again.

I wasn't planning on staining the hail-blasted trellis this year.

The Mock orange, Philadelphus virginalis 'Natchez' is planted on the east side of a 20' wall and was similarily protected. But just 8' away on the other side everything was flattened.

Other plants were saved because they were sheltered by larger plants above them. This little cactus, one of a group, beneath an agave at the foot of the steps from the English garden took no damage. This week it when the sun came out it opened a flower.

And the Lady finger cactus, Echinocereus pentalophus, on the steps was not affected as the hail came through the arch.

More cleaning up for me this weekend. Hope you have a bright and sunny one.

BRINGING FRAGRANCE INTO THE HOUSE

There are several ways to bring your garden fragrance into the house. The first is with cut flowers. Today I picked these white 'cheerfulness' jonquils. Their stems were battered down by strong winds yesterday so rather than try to prop them back up again I cut them and brought them inside. Their perfume reminds me of Easter when I was a child.

Their double white blooms with a touch of yellow in the center are intensely fragrant. Don't mix them with other cut flowers because their stems exude a substance which makes other flowers wilt.
But there is another way to bring the sweet smell of the garden into the house and that is to plant a fragrant vine by the door. This one, planted by the French door, is Jasminum polyanthum.

This vine, seen here on a trellis on a south facing wall, grows by twining itself around its own stems. It can grow as large as 25' but is easily controlled by pruning back after flowering. The flower buds are pink, hence its common name pink jasmine, opening to white. The first time I saw this vine was on the house we bought in Southern California. It was draping over the trellis outside the kitchen window. One day I came home and the whole vine was gone. The house had a zero lot line and the vine was growing on the other side of the wall in next door's garden. They had cut it down to the ground. I have done that myself before now and this year my plant will get a good pruning to bring it to a manageable size.

At my front door I grow Confederate jasmine, Trachelospermum jasminoides, sometimes called star jasmine. It's a few days away from flowering at the moment which is probably a good thing. When the fragrance from one plant has diminished another will take its place. This evergreen vine is growing on a north facing wall with a little shelter from the porch over the front door. It has been here for 12 years. One year it was severely damaged by a late freeze when the sap was starting to rise. That resulted in split bark and die back. Nevertheless after dead tissue was removed it began new growth. The flowers on this Confederate jasmine has a slight yellow tinge. There is also a pure white-flowered variety.

April 2010

Does fragrance waft into your house when you open the door? Both these plants can be grown in pots in cooler climates and overwintered indoors.

THE PATIENT GARDENER

Not many would be excited by what they see in the center of this photograph- unless of course they have sago palms. All over town these odd looking mounds, nothing but a mass of spikes and cut off fronds. Mine looked just the same. They lived in pots and graced the entry through the front wall, which happens to face North West. They took the brunt of the cold weather which turned every frond to brown. I finally cut them back last week. I thought they looked better with the fronds on than off. I moved them into a sunnier spot in the hope that it would stimulate them to burst forth. This morning I looked into the center and saw tiny new fronds.

I was a patient gardener.

The same is true of 3 Meyer lemon trees. They finally started to sprout and now have healthy green foliage. They are not as large as they were and they won't produce lemons this year, of course, but if I take care of them next winter by bringing them indoors they should crop the following year. I lost the Mexican lime and Persian lime.

I was a patient gardener.

The Confederate jasmine on the study wall lost every single leaf. It was cut back to bare wood. I felt pretty sure that it would recover from the brutal pruning and it did. It is now in full green leaf again and even has a few flowers!

I was a patient gardener.

When other Austin gardeners were eating beets and peas through the winter, my plants were sitting there doing nothing. This happens every year. It takes until April before they start to move. Now we have beets and beet tops aplenty, and I am picking peas every day trying to beat this heat. This will be the last week for peas and, unlike other years, I will be saving some of the open pollinated peas for next years crop.

I was a patient gardener.

Manfreda maculosa, the spice lily took a long time producing a stalk before the flowers finally opened. In the front garden I have 2 Manfreda sileri in the front garden, one of which has a 6' flower stalk. This, on a very small 9" diameter plant. At the top of the stalk are a few flower buds that have been there for weeks. When will they open? Eventually for.....

I am a patient gardener, most of the time.

NEW HAPPENINGS IN THE GARDEN

It happens in the blink of an eye. On Monday morning I checked on the lace cactus growing in the front garden. The flower bud was ripe to open. "Good" I thought, it will bloom tomorrow, just as our out of town visitors are arriving. It was not to be. By the time the sun reached the spot around lunch time it had unfurled its delicate paper petals, shouting out "come and see me now, tomorrow I will be gone" Sure enough, the flower had shriveled and closed 24hours later.

Another cactus is flowering and these have a longer bloom time. A pretty little coronet of flowers encircles the top, with the promise of more flowers to come. This cactus is in the bowl I bought in Phoenix in December and which I completely repotted on returning home. The bowl had been overwatered by the store and in the soggy soil I was afraid for their health.

I finally managed to get this yellow flowered succulent identified at the recent Cactus show. It is Glottiphylum davisii, and every few weeks it puts out a single yellow bloom.

The cardinal chicks have hatched. As I have mentioned before, the nest is built in the cross vine growing on the gate in the English garden. We are really excited because previous nests built in our garden by cardinals and doves have been marauded by the scrub jay. We are keeping our fingers crossed for these little hatchlings.

The yellow Confederate jasmine perfumes the whole garden. Incredibly, it survived our extremely cold winter without the loss of a single leaf. Unlike the sister, white flowered jasmine in the back garden. That one lost every leaf and we had to cut it down to bare wood.

It was in serious need of a good pruning so we have mother nature to thank for her perfect timing.