A NEW APPRECIATION OF OLD TREE STUMPS

With news of the California wildfires on everyone's minds I am reminded that a serious wildfire passed through our lot in the 1950s. It was long before there was any development here, when only rough tracks ran through the acres of ranch land. It burnt cedar and oak to the ground leaving only their burnt-out stumps. In the past we have often re-burnt the stumps that were left in our fireplace. They burn really well and are long lasting.
This one was completely destroyed.

And yet only one side of this tree was burnt.

While rooting around on the lot a couple of weeks ago I picked up several smaller stumps, now bleached white by the sun, but still bearing the charred marks of that fire.  Rather like old pieces of driftwood they had character. I had already used one as a perch for a ceramic anole in one of my hypertufa troughs.



Maybe I could do something more useful with them. Maybe drill out a place to plant a small succulent. I was thinking of using the succulent that Matt Shreve gave me when we visited his gorgeous cactus and succulent garden.
Drilling out that hole was easier said than done. My first attempt resulted in the wood slamming against my ankle and tearing off some flesh. I called on David for assistance. I don't know if our drill bits are just dull or this wood is fearfully hard. The wood was smoking! In the end we managed a big enough hole to plant the succulent. I hope it likes tight spaces.

Now more more drilling and more succulent planting.

I am also gathering up a pile of larger stumps and thinking of making a small stumpery in the woods.

WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE ABOUT AGAVES, CACTUS AND SUCCULENTS

I am heading into the agave, cactus and succulent phase of my gardening life. The evidence is right there as you climb up the steps to enter through the side gate of my garden.

It is perfect place for these plants. A few hours of direct sun and several hours of filtered sunlight under the branches of the live oak tree. It is one of the few places in my garden where there is filtered sun. One lucky plant gets to sport the clay collar I found at a yard sale.

When visitors come to my garden I invite them to come in through the side gate. From there they can pass through the front courtyard garden and out through the main gate and around the outside of the house into the back gardens.

Look at the variety of shapes and textures in this plant grouping. Small cactus and euphorbias look better when they are grouped together in a wide-mouthed pot or with others.

Small agaves in hypertuffa pot.

Fireplace grouping.

Strawberry jars make great pots for these plants.

My weekend acquisitions; Candellia, Euphorbia antisyphilitica. That's a handy plant to have around!

But the biggest statement of all comes with the large plants situated in the landscape. On the right, Yucca rostrata, sapphire skies

Paired with plumbago which is having its best year ever.

There's a little experiment going on here with the soft leaf yucca. It was a tangle of offsets and dead leaves. I am hoping that the plant will respond to the cut back and take on a new life. Otherwise I will be looking for a replacement.

Structural plants are needed to give height and statement in the garden and none do it more beautifully than the agaves. And no agave makes a bolder statement than the Whale's tongue agave, A. ovatifolia.

Two of these beautiful agaves live in the front courtyard garden.

This is just the tip of the iceberg!

RAIN DROPS ON YUCCAS

There is not a gardener in central Texas who is not celebrating the arrival of the first rainfall in months. 2" fell in my garden in the last 24 hours. My plants are happy, the soil is happy I am ecstatic. Never mind that we had to cancel our Sunday walk around Lady Bird Lake.

Last night I pulled all the succulents out in the hope that we would get that promised rain.

The baby kalanchoes decided ti was time to strike out on their own, falling on stoney ground. I gathered them up and put them on the soil.

After a good drink I pulled everything back under cover to dry off.
Everyone is happy.

A NEW HOME

I thought it time for my indoor succulent to have a new home. It was a rescue plant from a Lowes store in Florida some years ago. They were just selling off all their succulents and I happened to be there. I think this is the only one that has survived. It has grown quite a bit but I still don't have an id on what it is. Anyone know?

I saw this pot at Garden Ridge for $4.99. It comes with its own saucer, which is always nice. I hope my plant will be happy in its new home.

I'M REALLY POTTY

As children we often referred to someone as being a "bit potty" if they did a silly thing. Who would have thought that I would be still be potty in my later years. My growing collection of potted plants is to what I am now referring .

Most of these potted plants are tender succulents and cactus and I am finding they cannot tolerate this brutal Texas heat without some protection. That protection turns out to be the hearth of the outside fireplace.

Here they receive just a few hours of sun in the morning. It seems to suit them quite nicely.

A large cactus and succulent bowl with urns of Agave desmettiana and Mangave 'macho mocha' a passalong from Pam, Digging. In fact many of my plants are passalongs; small offsets pups, root cuttings, leaves, even bare stems which, potted up in my favorite media, pumice, root in no time at all. The agaves have just started putting on new and healthy growth after suffering terribly this winter. They were in pots in the greenhouse where temperatures plummeted to the same as outdoors. I trimmed off the black ends of the leaves and new leaves and pups are on the way.

This large agave fared better because it was in the garage for the winter. Strangely, it has made no pups. Agave demettiana does better when it is located in filtered shade or afternoon shade.

Two of my favorites are these rectangular clay pots.

and this strawberry pot which was a gift from one of the boys many years ago. It sits on the center of the dinner table outside. These haworthia are planted in the holes and are currently in bloom. Not an exciting flower but you can't help but love the twisting nature of the stems, along which the flowers are arranged.

Remind me again Diana, Sharing Nature's Garden, the name of this passalong plant. It is on the front gate, receives no sun at all. I think you told me it was an epiphyte of some kind. It struggled for a few weeks because every night a bird came and rooted out the smaller plants so it could roost there for the night. It seems to have weathered that intrusion, although the one at the front is going to win the race.

Another collection of cacti and succulents has replaced the gorgeous agave which is no longer!

Huernia schneideriane, on the green wall. Maybe a little too much sun this year.

Already in flower. This flower does not have an unpleasant smell.

And not all pots have plants. This one holds my collection of beach finds among which are hundreds of fossilized sharks teeth I gleaned from the beaches of Siesta Key in Florida. As the collection followed us from town to town I finally found something to do with them. Put a piece of glass on the top and you have a table.

AN UNIDENTIFIED SUCCULENT

This unnamed succulent, in a pot, resides on the wall of the Spanish oak garden. Some of the stems are a little scorched this year but the flowers appeared this week. I love these little flowers for their color and their shape. This is a plant that asks little and gives much. It would look perfect growing from a Medusa head pot as the stems drape down like dreadlocks. When they break off I stick them in a pot and in no time I have a new plant.

Late press- The plant is Huernia schneideriane, red dragon flower, of the Asclepiadaceae family.

I walked around to the garden to take a look at the tree trimming work D had done the previous day. The main feature of this garden has been the clump of Spanish oak which overhang the garden and have provided shade below.

Despite our best efforts to keep the trees alive, each year new branches have been dying. This year the die back has become very serious and there is a real threat that a storm will bring down those branches onto the roof. So, D got out there on the roof, and with ropes and the long pull saw cut off all the dead branches. In the end the whole tree will probably have to be removed but for now we will try to keep it alive.

It doesn't look really pretty but at least it should be a lot safer for the house.