Take this shot of the dry creek taken from the driveway. Your eye might pass over all that green growth in the gravel. It is a mixture of zexmenia, feather grass and oak sprouts with a few rain lilies thrown in. It will probably take a whole morning to clean up to my satisfaction. If you have live oak trees you know the oak sprouts just keep coming back and have to be trimmed time and time again.The granite area you see at the top of the picture is another story.
When we took out the two large Texas sage bushes that had seeded in the granite I felt quite relieved. I loved the cleaner look. Well, I learnt something new about this plant. If you leave a little piece of root behind it will grow into a new plant. So there were 15 new Texas sage growing up, clustered together. I should have just taken a few pieces of root and stuck them in the ground in a place where I would like this bush to grow. Of course, I have potted them up until they make a good root mass and I can put them where I want them. It took an hour of my gardening time this morning.
I have mixed feelings about this scenario. Bluebonnet seedlings. Do they really have to clump together like this. I feel the need to save them from strangling each other. There are so many other places I would like to see them. The good news is that I am going to need some extras having discovered this morning that the decollate snails have a taste for the the seed leaves. They have eaten every one in my front garden. So having discovered this I spent an hour searching and removing every snail I could find. It's rather difficult for a snail to dig itself in in the gravel. Its broken cone is always sticking up in the air.
Down on my hands and knees I noticed this little plant beneath the Weber's agave. Is it a ghostly Eryngo? I have never grown this plant so I have no idea where it came from.
I also spotted something else growing and I am hoping it is standing cypress, Ipomopsis rubra. Will it send up that gorgeous red flower stalk next spring?
I couldn't possibly remove this frost weed, Verbesina virginica, even though it is crowding out the rose and spineless prickly pear at the back of the pool. You don't get to see the wide shot! In previous years it was on the berm outside the walls. I may never get to see the frosty stems when we have our first freeze because by then it will be long gone. For now the bees and I will enjoy the pretty white flowers.
The potager may look reasonably tidy but you should see all the weeds. It's a nightmare!
