GETTING RID OF PILL BUGS

I hear people say that pill bugs are good for the garden; they break down dead matter adding compost back into the soil. That may be true up to a point but I can vouch for the fact that they adore nothing better than violas and many defenseless seedlings, including beans and cosmos.

I have always used the way my mother used to catch the nasty black slugs and large snails that visited our garden in England. Grapefruit skins. Orange skins work well too.

We are now into our 4th, 18 lb bag of Texas, ruby red grapefruit. We grow the best grapefruit here in Texas. We each have a half a grapefruit every morning for breakfast and the empty peel goes out into the garden. Every day I check underneath and dispose of the haul. There is always a collective noun to describe large groupings of a particular creature. Move aside crows, you have some company. This is crying out to be called a murder of pill bugs.

IT'S TULIP TIME

The species tulips opened this week. This one is Tulipa clusiana 'Lady Jane'

This one is Tulipa clusiana 'Cynthia'

Like all tulips the underside of the petals is more deeply colored. The insides pale.

At the end of the day they close up ready to show their colorful underparts the next morning.

NEW WILDFLOWER FIND

Today I found a new wildflower nestled in among a group of twist leaf yucca. I quickly identified it as Fringed Puccoon, Lithospermum incisum. It makes a very attractive clump, the flowers having 5 fringed petals united to form a long tube. Have I missed it before or did the weather just produce the right conditions for it to bloom. The roots, which produce a red/purple dye were used by the native tribes and settlers. They also had medicinal uses.

I shall be looking out for the seeds to form in the hope of growing some in the rock garden.

THE NEW POT AND DEMISE OF CACTUS

We finally have a new pot to spill into the pool. This replaces the old pot which broke apart after the extended freezes we had this last winter.

The original pot was a Mexican egg pot, we bought at Miguel's about 10 years ago. Mexican pots are not known to be long lived when they are left out in the elements, and this one was no exception. The rim of the pot gradually broke off in pieces over the years and I was always fearful that the whole pot would break apart while we were gone and the water would spill, drain the pool and burn out the pump. Luckily we were around when we noticed the big crack.

We began searching last year, but to no avail. Of all the hundreds of pots at Miguel's we just couldn't find one as perfect as the first one. Now it was urgent to find a new one. Then we spotted a resin pot at HD. It was limestone colored-wrong for our garden, but I got busy with a sponge and some paints and changed the color to one more suited to our landscape. A final coat of sealer and the new pot was put in place and the water turned on. I have a feeling that this one may last a little longer. I may have to spruce it up from time to time but I don't think I have to worry about cracks any more.

The second loss this winter, and this was a big one, was the demise of the barrel cactus I have grown in a pot for the last 10 years. Maybe they suffered badly last winter when the pot was outside during the deepest freeze we have had in some years or maybe it was the this years winter rain, followed immediately by prolonged freeze. Rain and cold are the enemy of cactus and succulents. Yesterday, I noticed liquid oozing from the pot and an unpleasant smell. I took this photograph this morning just before David tackled getting it out. It was easy, the cactus were hollow, rotted completely away, leaving only the center stem.

This one not so easily replaced.

FIRSTS

It seems rather incongruous that violets would bloom in my garden. After all, they are woodland flowers, usually found in damp conditions and my garden is decidedly non woodland. But today I saw my first flower on this violet I bought a couple of years ago, when the garden bloggers visited Madrone Nursery. I know it has flowered before because there are little seedlings growing around it but I always managed to miss the flowers in the past.

Among the sweetly scented stocks, the first swallowtail butterfly of the year. He didn't seem to mind at all that I was hovering over him to catch his photo. He'll be paying a visit to my parsley before long.

The first of the summer snowflakes, Leucojum aestivum are blooming in the English garden.

In the same bed, a new addition last winter, a small flowered narcissus. Surely now that I have bought some metal markers, I won't lose the names of the varieties I plant. It doesn't really seem important until you come to write about the plant and have no idea what the cultivar is.

SPRING BULBS

It is quite amazing that in less than a week all my spring bulbs have come into flower. I really thought spring was going to be very late this year. It is now catching up with every day.

It always leaves me wishing that I had started planting them years ago. Then I really would be able to talk about 'a host, of golden daffodils.'

Not all of them are golden. This one has a peachy center and is called Daffodil chromacolor.

I have always preferred smaller flowering plants and these small flowered daffs fit perfectly into the rockery in the sunken garden.

There are more to come; later flowering varieties with multiple heads and wonderful fragrance.

With the unseasonable warmth of the last few days I don't think they will be far behind.

'And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.'

William Wordsworth

PURPLES, LILACS, BLUES, SPRING IS ON THE WAY

My hellebore opened up its petals today and turned its face to the sun. Oh! I love it. Where can I get more? The color has not disappointed me. After all, it was not in flower when I bought it and you know how those labels are sometimes erroneous. But it was not the only flower to open today.

The native anemone has lost its spot for being the first to open. Usually blooming in early February, our unusually cold weather resulted in a later bloom time. It is the only one I can find but I am sure more will follow.

Last year the weather was favorable for the appearance of tens of wine cup volunteers and they are flowering remarkably early. One of my favorite colors. In fact, it is the blues, lilacs and purples which are first to bloom this year. I have gardened in many places and have always favored these colors. In Texas any color that does well here will have a place in this garden.

The diminutive Siberian iris, Iris sibirica, were planted for the first time last year. I wasn't sure if they were to come back but here they are. That ring of coat hanger wire is my reminder that I have bulbs growing in the ground in that spot. I am far too handy with the garden trowel and labels never seem to last.

The lanky foliage of the grape hyacinths is not enough to deter me from enjoying the first bloom.

I am too English not to have stocks in the garden. I love their sweet smell which brings an immediate breath of Spring into the garden. They seem to do well here, reseeding and wintering over to bring an early spring bloom.

I'M THROWING A VOLUNTEER PARTY

My garden wouldn't be what it is without all the volunteers, so I am going to throw a volunteer appreciation party.

I'm afraid there is going to be a huge crowd and I may have to limit the numbers.

One I won't be limiting this year is our native bluebonnet. The garden is usually overwhelmed with them, but not this year. Many germinated in the fall but whether it was lack of rain or days of low temperatures they are only sending a small group to the party. The best ones are growing in the gravel in the English garden.

Lamb's ears never seem to mind the cold. I will likely move them in with some of the other volunteers who prefer not to have their leaves covered with water.

I'll be hoping for the larkspur to show their true colors. I would really like a large contingent of the blues, purples and whites.

And the love in a mist. I never know which colors will show up.

Not to be confused with lamb's ear, rose campion showed up in two colors last year. All the original seeds were magenta, so I don't know where the white one came from.

Sometimes the volunteers jockey for space. Here the blue eyed grass and the California poppy.

The corn poppies are always the last of the poppies to germinate but the warm weather this past few days has brought everything on.

This California poppy likes to have a spot all to itself.

Many years ago I moved a daisy fleabane plant into the garden. Now I can rely on them to come to the party every year.

The same is true of one of my favorite attendees, the native purple skullcap.

For the last two years there have been so many wine cups I have to pull them out. If only they would stay in a nice clump like this young one.

I am hoping that this year the frilled blanket flower will show up again. I'll just have to wait until bloom time.

In a pot hundreds of viola seedlings and a dahlberg daisy survived the winter. I 'd better be moving a few of them around.

What can I say- there are always a few disrupters. Not that I don't like them, but heart leaf skull cap wouldn't leave a spot in the garden for any other plants if I didn't control it.

Right now it has driven out the Hinkley's yellow columbine to the point that this plant had to settle for a hole in a rock. It seems quite comfortable there.

Gulf coast penstemon has now made a home for itself along one of the raised beds in the vegetable garden.

I'm so happy to see this tiny plant. It is blue flax seeded in the cracks in the sunken garden. It is not where I want it but I may just have to leave it there.

I potted up some asparagus ferns that were growing at the foot of the steps, where the seeds had landed.

There are just too many volunteers to mention but my final one is a clump of the native verbena, sheltered alongside a vegetable bed. It is already in flower. Yes, it's going to be one big colorful party by the time May rolls round.

GARDEN BLOGGERS' BLOOM DAY FEBRUARY 2011

Please join Carol of Maydreams for a winter day in the garden, for those of us in the Northern hemisphere, and a summer day for those in the Southern hemisphere.

There is only one special flower blooming in my garden today. Well, almost flowering. I am really excited to see the bud about to burst. It may even be blooming on March bloom day too because, by all accounts, it is long blooming. Helleborus X hybridus ' Blue Lady' was a new addition to my garden last spring. I planted it under the yaupon holly tree, where it receives filtered sunlight and is protected from our harsh summer sun. It was not in flower when I bought it so I had to wait until now to see the flower. Northern gardeners must know this plant well, as I did growing up in England. We called it the Lenten rose and it often appeared on Christmas cards in its white form. Deer are supposed to avoid the plant but I'm not even going to give them the chance to have a nibble. I think I'll look for more, although I picked this one up in Dallas.

ONLY ONE MORE NIGHT OF THIS

Tonight we will light the fire again and hopefully it will be the last one of the year. I am sure all my plants are saying the same thing.