AUGUST IN THE GARDEN

When I wrote this past week about working out in the Sunken Garden and the improvements I was about to make my enthusiasm knew no bounds. It was a wonderful feeling. On a hot afternoon I gathered up my rock garden books and leafed through page after page imagining how my new garden was going to look. I made my list. There is still much work to be done before I can ever think about heading out to the nursery for purchases.

The problem is that I have a lot of other gardens that require my immediate attention. I must cut back the remaining lantana and zexmenia as well as removing all the weeds that have sprung up with our recent rains. This is necessary because we have a long season and they will bloom again by late September early October. Then there is the vegetable garden to prepare for planting the winter vegetables. Cucumbers and Melons are finished and need removing as well as the beans and tomatoes. And it is so hot out there that only the early mornings are bearable for working outside.

And I must reserve a little time for walking around the garden, not just to see what other things need to be done but also to admire the latest blooms. This week there are new blooms on many of the cactus. A result of our recent rain which brought a brief cool-down.

And the mystery plant growing in the gravel in the English garden has revealed its identity.

Of course!  but it is so far away from its family in the Sunken Garden! It is a chocolate daisy, Berlandiera lyrata.

In the fall I will move this to the Sunken Garden where it belongs and I may even be brave enough to remove the errant ones growing in between the pavers in the herb garden. Unfortunately they will not survive as their roots are firmly entrenched underneath the pavers.

Our recent rains have brought us a flurry of rain lilies and although I like the pink and white ones my favorite are the yellow, Zephyranthes citrina. My timely removal of the mealy blue sage that was covering them means they will be get their deserved spotlight in the post-rain garden. I plan to lift them and put them all together in one clump and mark them so I know where they are! Our native white ones seem to have a dislike for growing together in a clump. No matter how hard I try they only ever appear as singles scattered here there and everywhere. Six appeared in various spots in the herb garden this morning.

The job of removing the spent cucumbers from the vegetable garden was thwarted yesterday by finding the plants covered in aphids and ladybirds too. How could I possibly remove them now. it will have to wait a few days. I recall last year having the cardoon covered in aphids and leaving it because the mealy bug destroyers and ladybirds were hard at work. In the end the plant survived and thrived without any intervention from me. Stages of the ladybug from larva(bottom) pupa (top) adult(middle)

I'll leave them until they have finished feasting.

Overnight I decided to remove some of the Gopher plant from the Sunken Garden. I love that plant but it has become too big and untidy for even me to tolerate. There is plenty elsewhere to enjoy in the late winter and early spring but not here. I began by cutting off all the stems-they bled- and tomorrow I will get the pick axe to the root ball. Naturally more rocks are in my plans.

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.

FIRST RESPONDERS

There is not a plant in my garden that didn't respond to the wonderful rain we had this past week. So long overdue. One day I was looking at plants that were withered and dying and a day later it was as though someone had waved a magic wand and breathed new life into them. But of all the plants in the garden there are no plants that respond so dramatically as the rain lilies.
It may be time to divide this large clump of pink rain lilies.

Zephyranthes

Our native rain blooms a couple of days after rain. Unfortunately if a deer walks by he likes to nibble off the flower.

Cooper pedunculate

Just a couple of yellow zephyranthes.

Zephyrathes

And this stunning flower on the Trichocereus cactus greeted me this morning.

Trichocereus

RAIN COMES TO TEXAS

Three weeks ago, when I returned from vacation, I moved all my cactus and succulents under cover. Temperatures were at 100º or close to every day. Even cactus don't like our afternoon Texas heat.

A little morning sun suits them just fine and that place happens to be on the patio. Some of the other plants in the front, where there is no shade, I covered with shade cloth.

At this time of year I certainly envy those who have filtered sun through their live oak trees. There is little of that here. Of course we expect such heat in August. What we don't expect is for it to be followed by a week of endless rain amounting to over 12" in some places. Over a 4 day period my garden had nearly 11" Now we are drowning. Rainy day visitors are showing up. Some of them are welcome others are not.

Of course we all expect rain lilies after a rain event and sure enough they arrived within days. I have lots of the white ones, and the pink ones, Zephyranthes labufarosa series, looking a little bedraggled after this last rain. This is a hybrid of Z. grandiflora and does not produce seeds.

 Today a new one appeared in the garden. This yellow rain lily with a burnt orange center is Texas copper lily, Habranthus tubispathus var. texensis. Where did it come from, I wonder?

I think it is so much more striking than the pale yellow Zephyranthes

I only have one clump of pink rain lilies but they have been outstanding this year, blooming 4 times over the last few weeks.
But an even bigger surprise today as I found a another of my daylilies blooming. This one behind the pool hiding among the bent stems of cone flowers.

There are other day lilies blooming too.

But by far the biggest surprise this year is the arrival of a Mexican red bird of paradise, Caesalpinia pulcherrima. The seedling appeared last year and I was not sure of its identity so left it. It disappeared over the winter but began to grow again. When a flower bud began to develop I felt pretty sure that it was a bird of paradise. Today it opened its first flower. The sad thing is that it is growing in a narrow strip alongside the pool. I can't afford for it to get much bigger.

It is in good company with the gomphrenas growing alongside. They too have grown enormously with all the rain.

All the blooms are making for a very colorful August garden.

GARDEN BLOGGERS' BOOM DAY, SEPTEMBER 2015

Drive around Texas after a fall rain and as like as not you'll see roadsides of rain lilies, Zephranthes ssp and gardens of oxblood lilies, Rhodophiala bifida. Today I had four different kinds of lily open in response to the rain we had last week. The most prolific are the Ox-blood lilies which I have clumps in a couple of places. Many years ago a garden friend offered me some of her bulbs. They were in full flower.  "Just take them home and put them in water, enjoy them in the house and when the flowers die just plant them in the ground" What a forgiving plant which will allow you to dig it up when in full bloom and then enjoy its flowering for days. Come fall, and following a rain you notice a small nub of green peeking through the ground and within a day or two the flower bursts open from a single green stem. Later, when the flowers die two strappy leaves appear and remain until early summer the following year before they disappear. During their dormant time they prefer to be dry. They also prefer to be planted with their bulb tip just above the ground.

Our native rain lily flower, Z. drummondii, comes from a deep rooted bulb. I try to gather the black seeds before they fall because much as they like my my herb garden I would like them to bloom elsewhere.

My pink rain lilies,  Zephyranthes ssp, don't seem to produce seed at all. How I wish they would.

But the yellow ones do, and they now seem to be popping up in different places.

Long stems of liatris open their flowers from the top down. I watched a queen butterfly visit today. She must have forsaken the Gregg's blue mistflower, Eupatorium greggii,  blooming in the back garden.

This year I took out the gray globemallow, Sphaeralcea ambigua, in the potager. Much as I loved its prolific orange blooms it just seemed to clash with the other plants. In its place I planted the more delicate pink variety which drapes over the low wall.

And my native Texas Indian mallow, Aubutilon fruticosum, in the front garden has a similar delicate appearance but velvety leaves.

Temperatures may still be in the 90s but both flowers and gardeners know we have broken the back of summer and we have only fall to look forward to you.
And Rock Rose wishes you a Happy September Bloom Day.

Thanks Carol at Maydreams for hosting Bloom Day for gardeners everywhere.

FIRST RESPONDERS

I got the surprise of my life today. I was out watering with the hose when I saw a patch of bright pink in the sea of brown. I dropped the hose and went over to see what it was. It was a clump of rain lilies. Where had they come from? Did I plant them last fall? I truly cannot remember doing it although I remember buying bulbs in the fall.

And why are they blooming now? This bed had not had any water for over a month. That is until I came home at the weekend and discovered a failure in the sprinkler system. I immediately watered the bed. Is that what triggered the flowering or was it coupled with a drop in humidity this week. Watering doesn't usually trigger flowering or maybe it does after a prolonged dry spell. My garden friend Pam Penick at Digging also had rain lilies blooming this week so this is not an isolated incidence. I wonder if they are the same species.
What an amazing response in less than 3 days.
But I have more first responders; the water lilies. Within a day of filling up the tank I had blooms and not just one but six.

Of course the Ruby crystal grass turned from dull to blue green in no time at all. It may be invasive but I am more than happy for its strength and determination to beat the Texas heat and lack of rain or irrigation. I think that this grass is tougher than Mexican feather grass and just about as invasive. Tough wins the day.

As I currently spend most of my mornings pulling out dead plants and cutting back others in attempt to save them, I am uplifted by these sights.

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.