THERE'S A BRIGHT GOLDEN HAZE ON THE MEADOW

I call this our meadow. An area above the house which has relatively few obnoxious invaders, unlike our septic field.

I don't even know what this carpet of flowers is, except that it belongs to the Asteraceae family of which there are so many members. It is too common to appear in my wildflower books.

There are also large stands of prickly pear cactus. There used to be more but before we bought the lot someone came along and stripped a whole area to put in their garden! I heard this from my neighbor.

There is always incredible activity inside the flowers. These same beetles show up ever year wallowing in the pollen. Their activity will mean plenty of tuna in the fall. That is another thing that disappears overnight and I don't think it is the deer!

There never was a more fascinating flower than the antelope horns milkweed, Asclepias asperula. I must go up there when the seed pods form as their resemblance to antelope horns gives them their name.

The Mexican hats, Ratibida columnaris are beginning to flower. Summer must be on the way.

The native Texas mullein, Verbascum thapsus, will soon send a shoot with pretty yellow flowers but I will be careful to remove the seed heads. I don't need a field of triffids.

The retamas, Parkinsonia aculeata, are having a tough year. Although this branch has healthy blooms the lack of rain has taken its toll by producing smaller flowers than usual. Everywhere is bone dry and yet all these plants have flowered with the minimum of rainfall. Way to go Texas natives.

TALL AND SPIKY THINGS

It's the time of the year when tall and spiky blooms appear and the most striking of all are the blooms of the red yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora. 

They look striking en masse but equally so with a backdrop of Mexican feather grass. Their flowers are long lasting and attractive to hummingbirds.

The softleaf yucca, Yucca recurvifolia is also a spring bloomer with pendulous bells of white. It looks its most striking when in flower then retreats to a somewhat untidy appearance until it blooms again in  the fall. Its presence in this spot may be long past its time. We shall see.

This is also the time when Manfreda sileri sends up her 4' bloom stalk from the rosette of speckled, strappy leaves.

Probably not everybody's cup of tea!

Then there are the 4' flower spikes of the Manfreda udulata, 'chocolate chips' This plant was a pass-a-long from a gardening friend who is no longer with us, but whom we remember every time her plant flowers, in our gardens, with these fascinating blooms.

A FAMILY GARDEN AT THE WILDFLOWER CENTER

Wednesday was the ceremonial ground breaking ceremony for the new Family Garden at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.  I had the good fortune to be leading a tour that day and managed to sit in on part of the ceremony. The new garden will be called the Luci Baines Johnson and Ian Turpin Family Garden. It was their generous donation of $1,000,000 which initiated the fund raising for the garden.

Although the center holds many events for children in both the Little house and the gardens themselves, there has never been a place where children could go to explore, use their imagination and run free.

The award winning landscape architect, Gary Smith, has designed a whimsical place where children can interact with nature through various features like the metamorphosis trail, the nature spiral and giant bird's nests. Built on 4½ acres of meadow and woodland there will also be a covered pavilion for group learning.

The ceremonial shovel

Construction will begin this summer and is expected to take one year.

PEA AND POTATO EXTRAVAGANZA

The pea harvest has been outstanding this year. So much so that I have had to find new ways to use them. I made pea and potato soup on Monday and tonight I served it cold with a dash of cream and a sprinkling of garden chives. After all it is still 80° outside.

I don't think we will be sitting here tomorrow evening. A strong cold front is coming through tonight and will give us record low temperatures. It has been such a roller coaster ride this year that I don't really care any more.
So, tonight we are eating dinner in the front garden again much to the annoyance of the humming bird who keeps swooping in and then out.

I picked some potatoes. They are so good I think I may opt to fill my beds with potatoes next year. Of course the vegetable of the night is peas of the Cascadia variety and rack of lamb with a garlic and rosemary marinade. I feel like I am on vacation.

A SERIOUSLY GOOD PRUNING

 This week saw the start of the annual seriously good pruning and cutting back days. There will be many more to follow.

This is the walkway down towards the gate at the end of the vegetable garden. Yes, that's mint on the left and the trim back comes at least 3 times a year. For now I was more concerned with getting out the trailing wine cup. It had totally obliterated the path and required a hop, skip and a jump to pass by. It had woven its way up through the seat of the new bench I purchased this year and would soon be in my 'highly successful this year' hayrack planter on the wall. The felt lining did the trick.

This is a hot spot on the wall of the potting shed, facing west and there is no way that even succulents would tolerate such a blast furnace. Soon these plants will have served their time and I will have to think of their replacements. The feather grass, dahlberg daisy and alyssum will stay and likely I will put in some zinnias. For now there are still the stocks to bloom.

This is the pathway alongside the citrus pots. Once the feather grass, mealy blue sage and California poppies were removed I could now reach the far end of the square beds. Three buckets for the compost pile.

This morning I turned my attention to the beds themselves.

Two rows of gone-to-seed arugula. I thought they looked rather pretty with their back drop of blanket flowers until I spotted a harlequin bug on them. Then I pulled them out. I do not want to face an attack of those bugs this year. I also finally removed the gone-to-seed cilantro, carefully removing the remaining lady bugs and relocating them to an aphid colony on the top of the chocolate chip mangave. Apparently they don't like those dizzying heights and have left. Will have to dunk the top in some insecticidal soap.

FRIDAY HARVEST

I just couldn't wait to see if there were any potatoes down there. I'll just scratch the soil away from the plant that had flowered. Yes! I'm adding a few to the day's harvest for tonight's dinner.

So here's what will accompany the pork chops. Roasted beets dressed with Meyer lemon olive oil and white grapefruit balsamic vinegar over sauteed beet tops. Fresh sugar snap peas.

If you grow peas and you haven't grown Pisum sativum, Cascadia, then plan to put them on the list next year. These peas can be eaten at all stages; even when the pod gets fat with peas you can eat them pod and all. They are great for dips with hummus, stuffed, steamed chopped up in Italian dishes or curries. Then if at the end of the season if you have just eaten too many then save and dry the peas for next year. They are open pollinated so breed true.
But the part I'm looking forward to is those buttery yellow potatoes. There is just no comparison with grocery store spuds. They aren't quite as good as Jersey new potatoes but next best.

GARDEN VISITORS

Today the ladies from Shady Hollow Garden club came to visit. They were supposed to come two weeks ago but we had to cancel because of rain. This time the weather was more cooperative, although you can see from their clothes that it was pretty chilly. I warned them early on, "dress for 38°" because that was the wind chill at 8am this morning.

With a strong north wind blowing on the driveway we were all anxious to get inside the walls, although even high walls don't protect much from this kind of gusty wind. Where was my camera all this time? Hung around my neck, as usual. How many photos did I take? Just two.

By the time they reached the vegetable garden I remembered and took one more. It was in this garden when someone noticed this anole. OK, we have lots of them running around but this one is different.

He is inside the house. He wasn't going to find much to eat in there. With the help of a washing up bowl we managed to get him to the outside.
All these ladies are hands on gardeners and also into crafting things for the garden. There was talk about making hypertufa pots and spheres and look at this.

Anne had made this wonderful jewel studded ball from a bowling ball. Just what I needed to brighten up a corner of my garden. I am not sure of its permanent home yet but for now it is among the greenery on the patio. It is so heavy that there is no way the night visitors will knock it over like the little mouse at the foot. I often find it upside down in the morning.
Thank you ladies. David and I really enjoyed your visit.

IT WAS JUST AN EXCUSE

We sat out in our favorite lunch spot today. I had spent 4 hours outside doing a bit of this and that  and we both ended up pulling out this terrible European thistle from areas outside the garden. Will it do any good? Maybe not but I feel better seeing it gone. We both deserved to sit down for a nice lunch break.

First the hummingbird came to the red salvia and the Texas betony and then I noticed a butterfly flitting around. You know how it goes? I'll get the camera and stay here a while and hope to get a good photo of both these visitors. It took time but finally I identified the butterfly as a common buckeye, Junonia coenica. He spent over half an hour flitting from one blackfoot daisy to another and I watched and snapped until finally I got a reasonably good shot.
Now the temperature is in the 80s. Gone is that morning coolness I enjoyed working in the sunken garden.

It is time to go inside.

NO GARDENING TODAY

This is how the weekend began. On Friday afternoon we sat  outside under the umbrella in the front garden.

It was warm and still and the fragrance of the Confederate jasmine, which is on the trellis by the front door, filled the air.

It was one of those perfect evenings. we should do this more often.

With two of our young grandchildren in town for the weekend we thought it the perfect opportunity to take them along to the East Austin Garden Fair sponsored by Texas AgriLife Extensionservice. It was a chilly Saturday morning but the sun was shining brightly.

 

Our first stop was to visit the chickens, brought in by fellow garden blogger and Master Gardener Ally, from Gardenally Who knew that chickens like raisins, although it was much easier just to drop them into the cage than risk a pecked finger.

Then the children learnt why the eggs have a different color and what kind of house they live in.

Next stop was at the bee hive. Not too sure about this.

Until under the safety of a bee keeper's hat.

And learning how bees are calmed with smoke.

Time to visit the craft table and make a bug house.

I visited with Vicki from Playinoutside, who was there demonstrating the rain water harvesting and this little butterfly water station she made. I think this is next on my project list.

Then, because we were in the neighborhood we stopped in at East Austin Succulents.

I had not been there for a long time and couldn't believe their selection. You had better know what you are looking for or you may be in serious trouble.

And of course I didn't go with a purchase in mind so I left empty handed... this time!

We rounded out a busy day with a visit to the Salt Lick to celebrate our son's birthday. I hope I have the energy to work in the garden on Sunday.

IRIS, AUTUMN MAPLE

The cold front blew in last night bringing rain and chilly temperatures. I knew it wasn't going to be a day to spend in the garden but I needed to go out to pick peas, parsley and lemons. Snails were loving it. They are so easy to catch on such a day. It was worth spending an extra 15 minutes going around collecting them. I also went to check on the grapefruit halves, which act as snail traps, in the front garden. You wouldn't expect to find snails in a gravel garden but they have taken a fancy to the leaves on the Macho Mocha mangave stripping the top surface off the lower leaves.
Then I spotted this dwarf iris in bloom.

I had picked up several dwarf iris in the summer at the local Saturday market in Boise, Idaho. This one is called Autumn Maple. It was hybridized in 1992 and is classified as a rebloomer. I can expect another blooming in the fall. I think the flower is a little large for the foliage and maybe I don't have it placed in the best spot but it certainly was another welcome surprise and uplifting to see on another bad news day.