TOUGH TIMES

I will preface this post by telling everyone who wrote on my Blog or on Face book that David and I have been been most touched by all the kind things you have written, as we contemplate our move. I thank each and every one of you. Garden friends are a treasure and have brought so much joy into our lives. David only reads my posts occasionally and I told him please read the comments people have made. When he did he became quite emotional.

I will never forget the day that, volunteering at an Austin garden tour, Pam Penick approached me and said how much she had enjoyed my garden when it was on the LBJ Wildflower Center tour. She gave me her card and told me about garden blogging and how much fun it was. On a cold and windy day over Thanksgiving I ventured onto Blogspot with no idea what I was doing. A name? How about Rock Rose?  After all, we do have plenty of rocks a few roses and of course Rock Rose is a native Texas plant.

Purchased at the Rock Rose gin distillery in Northern Scotland a few years ago, a stave from a whiskey barrel. How could we not buy it!

 I never looked back, joining the local garden blogging community and I hope that I will continue to look forward wherever we settle. We are not planning on moving from Austin just yet and will go into an apartment while we decide. It will probably just have a balcony so I will only be taking a few plants with me. Trying to find a place with the right sun exposure is not easy. Trying to find a place at all is not easy. What to do with all those potted plants and pots!

I'll be honest if the deal on our house and the 'back up' offer fall through we have decided not to care. But I can tell everyone the last month or so as we prepared and now the waiting is killing us. We have had to vacate the house so may times in the last week that there has been no time to get out in the garden which, as every gardener will know, would be a big stress reliever.

Two years ago our neighbors told us "Don't leave it too late it is very difficult to do" and we are 10 years younger than they were. Apart from all the logistics of selling and finding and timing, for the first time we are leaving something we created from scratch. From bare pieces of ground. Hardly a day goes by without a walk around the garden bringing me a surprise. Yesterday, it was this pretty little tradescantia, Tradescantia geniculata, given to me by Lucina Hutson. It has the delightful name of Tahitian bridal veil. Tucked under a yaupon tree I caught a glimpse of its shadow on the wall as I walked through the house. This is its first year in the garden.

 

 It is easy to forget all the difficult moments when a new flower pops up in the garden or a cactus blooms or a bird chooses to nest in one or your bird houses. This morning a clump of rain lilies flowering. This one chooses it time to flower. We have had rain several times over the last month so why did it just decide to flower this week. Just a few days ago Pam posted about her pink one blooming and I went out to look at mine. Not a peep. Now, here they are today and  it seems I missed two flowers yesterday. 

And an argiope spider with 2 fecal sacs dropped and caught in its web. It seems late for birds still to be rearing young. I wish I could sit and watch to see if a little web cleaning had been going on as one had disappeared a few hours later. 

 

When I walk out the back door lizards scurry in front of me as if to say " I can run faster than you can" and they can. It almost seems like a game."Here she comes" If the lizards start to disappear then I am thinking that a snake has been around. I know many people have walked around this garden during the day but have little knowledge of who walks around at night. We once saw a ring-tailed cat sitting on the kitchen window ledge at night and a skunk passing through early one morning. Foxes moved into the garden one time when we were gone for 6 weeks. Sometimes I hear the wrought iron gate rattle in the night-a raccoon or possum or skunk or fox maybe. Throughout the pandemic winter we put up extra bird feeders and I spent hours watching them. At one point we had to vacate the patio because a house wren built a nest high up on a piece of art work. If only they had carried away the fecal sacs instead of arranging them around he rim of the nest or sticking them to the wall. We tried to outwit the squirrel getting on the bird feeders until we finally bought the pepper-coated seeds which they won't eat. 

And during the last two years of cancer treatment and pandemic I often sat out there or tinkered a little. One time I sat on a stool and weeded. I couldn't imagine what it would have been like not to have had a garden.

I'm going to miss it all. As you can tell this continues to be a difficult time so please bear with me . It's a sort of release to write about it.

THE TIME HAS COME THE GARDENER SAID

Or I should say that both gardener and under gardener are saying the same thing and have reached the conclusion that the time has come to pass our gardens on to another gardener.

This garden has been millions of years in the making as without the most incredible limestone that we found on the property we could never have given it the bones it has. Millions of years ago Texas was covered by a shallow sea in which lived the creatures who made our garden rocks. On their death their skeletal fragments sank to the bottom where they were compressed over time until they formed rock.  A period of time of which we can barely conceive. We have been rearranging those rock on  this piece of land for 21 years. It has been a labor of love and we will leave it with a heavy heart. No doubt the next gardener will change the plantings but hopefully the bones of the garden will remain the same. 

 

Without the large ledge stone rocks that came from the foundation there would be no sunken garden or terraces in the front courtyard.  These rocks raised the level to the ground to bring in soil to give a decent depth of planting. Shallow soils on the Edwards Plateau limit the growing of many plants. Lime stone and bluebonnets pair so well in the early spring and look wonderful even without all my gorgeous agave which died in the wicked Texas freeze.

 And the smaller flat rocks I collected while building the house gave us the dry stone wall in the English garden, reminiscent of the walls built to divide fields in our native homeland. 

 Those same rocks were used to pave the patio area in the English garden. We have enjoyed many a breakfast here protected from the summer morning sun by the high wall.

We have always been a couple who liked to do things for ourselves and that would be very difficult to change. And yet we know that with our advancing years we cannot continue to do all. All those adventures up ladders cleaning gutters and checking our roofs need to stop. It is with an incredibly heavy heart we feel the need to move on to a simpler house and garden. We have adored our house, designed for us by Dick Clark in 2000. We had given him our brief and he gave us exactly what we asked for. The enclosed spaces outside allowed us to create the gardens. It was all our own work. We woke up every morning to a house with incredible light-filled rooms and with views of the outside gardens we created. 

 What will I do with all those photos I took of the garden and there are thousands. Just like my garden style I hardly delete any. So just like paring down the contents of our house I will get busy on that project. My computer will be so happy.

Bought in England I hung this little plaque by the front door. It will remain and hopefully will bring good fortune to the next owners of our much-loved house and garden.

ALL CHANGE

One thing that never changes in the world of gardening is the need to make changes, and although there is rarely a need to get them done with haste we really felt this one needed to be addressed at once. It is right outside our front entry.

 

The soft leaf yucca, Yucca recurvifolia, which had survived the winter and flowered so beautifully a few weeks ago, suddenly went into a decline. I know when something looks like this that there is no hope for it to recover and my biggest fear was that it had been visited by the weevil. Yes, they are not above destroying yuccas as well as agave. It needed to come out post-haste. David duly sawed it off at the base and used the pick axe to get out the thick root as I stood by. I was ready to gather up any weevil grubs or adults. But there was no tell-tale sign of weevils-usually a hole bored right up through the center of the stem. It's out and it will remain a mystery as to what caused its demise.

 

I pondered on what to put in its place. Another one? No. I had planted one there 20 years ago which died after 10 years and then about 5 years ago another popped up in its place. It is never a surprise to find agave and yucca leave behind some root with a young bud. This is what we found when the extended root was removed...in fact two young ones which I shall plant in another area of the garden. 

We had just had work done on the front entry wall and on the right hands side of the gate I had to remove a few native golden groundsel while they worked. I had asked David if he would just fill in with some flat rocks we had stacked on one side.

 Maybe do the same on the other side instead of planting. This would balance out the area. 

 We did have to keep the area of bull rock because there is a drain from one side of the path to the other. All in all a cost efficient solution.

 

I refreshed the pots on either side of the gate with dianella, Dianella tasmanica 'Variegata' and coleus. This is deer country and my research showed that these plants should survive. We shall see. I have never planted dianella before but I know it is used to great effect by many of my Austin gardening friends.

 Quite honestly the work we have been having done has been a nightmare for a gardener. At least here there was little for them to destroy but nearby is where they had a lot of equipment, mixed their product and then washed out their equipment. Not only did they trample all the native plants that had been growing successfully in the area but they threw their cementitious water over all the plants. My beautiful agarita, beloved of the bees and which gave us such fragrance every spring is completely covered with a fine layer of cement. It won't even wash off. Heartbreaking. I regret now that I didn't go out at the end of every day with the hose. To make the area look presentable David brought it lots of leaves gathered from under the trees in a more remote part of the garden. 

There is much more work to do in other places they have been working but they should be finished by the end of this week and we will have the garden to ourselves again. 

OUR WILDFLOWER MEADOW

I don't even have enough time to deal with everything in my inside gardens and outside gardens without venturing onto the septic field. But about 4 years go I decided I really wanted to have that wildflower meadow I should have had 21 years ago. That was when I bought a Texas wildflower and grass meadow mix from Native American seed. It was to go in the tank when they sprayed the cover on the septic field. When I came over the next day there sat the 2 bags by the garage, unopened. There was nothing in their spray tank but left over Bermuda which is what began to take hold within weeks. We tried to get rid of it and then put down our seed but it was to no avail. Weeds came and in the end David just decided to mow. It looked fine. Still I had that hankering to have the meadow. Five years ago David began mowing and collecting, the idea being to reduce the fertility of the soil. No more mulch mowing. I scattered left over bluebonnet seeds from the garden as well as blanket flowers. 

 

 

Bluebonnets are now gone, but a year ago native bee balm, Monarda citriodora,  started to grow and has really increased in numbers this year. I am so happy to have the purple one because at the top of the lot, near the road there are some white ones. This is hands dwon my favorite after the bluebonnet whihc is good because they don't share the same season.

And they are not called bee balm for nothing.

While I control the pink evening primrose, Oenothera speciosa, in my inside gardens, I am more than happy for it to spread outside.

 And prairie verbena, Glandularia bipinnatifida,  is a welcome plant.

Coreopsis, Coreopsis tinctoria, has started to bloom. Small plants at the moment but I am hoping next year their see will spread just as it does along the roadsides.

And this rather unusual one has popped up.

Tall vervain

Surprisingly the blanket flowers, Gaillardia grandiflora,  struggle to survive as the they seem to be a favorite of the deer.

The first year we made a path alongside the septic field we had an amazing showing of Mexican hats, Ratibida columnifera. They were all different shades of yellow and brown. Some solid some mixed colors. Maybe the conditions were just perfect, never to be repeated. But one or two this year. All the yellow variety. 

Horse herb or straggler daisy, Calyptocarpus vialis, soveres much of the shady area of the field but is nmaking headroads into the center. Maybe due to long days of rain and cloud. I think it will go dormant now we are well into summer temperatures. 

And it is no surprise that our native lantana, Lantana urticoides. I will be watching out for the pink variety  Lantana camara, which is invasive. 

This year finds me very happy about how the wildflower meadow is coming along. And we haven't had to mow yet. That will be done in the fall.

WHO WOULD WIN

I often ask myself when I am out in the garden, "Who would win if I just let the garden take care of itself." Would it become a mono-culture or would every year bring a different winner. I think maybe the latter and I say this because I often say, "It's been a really great year for such and such a plant" I think mother nature gives every plant a chance.

This year the cone flowers, Echinacea purpurea, would take the prize.

They were busy preparing for this year last year when they set hundreds of seeds-which, of course, I allowed to remain.  And I am not really sorry because I think they just look marvelous. I wish they would last a little longer although I suppose the idea is to let something else take center stage. They have even muscloed their way into the English garden. Of course as often happens they are right by the stepping stone instead of in the more open spaces.

And who among this group would take over. Mulleins, gopher plants, blanket flowers or wine cups. Each one of them would vie for top dog position in the garden.

Naturally the weather plays a big part on what will bloom successfully in each season. We had a relatively dry winter  and then all hell let lose with one of the deepest freezes, in fact the deepest freeze I have experienced while living in Texas. It wiped out a number of plants, in particular the larger ones. Maybe some of them were ready to go. I had a gorgeous Pride of Barbados that had volunteered in the small strip between sunken garden and pool. Over a period of 5 years, despite dying back to the ground every winter, its girth increased with every year. 

 

It was really too big for the space but that deep freeze did something I couldn't bring myself to do and that was remove it. But the good news is it left behind some offspring. One a little further along and one in the middle of the sunken garden. Maybe they will be too young to flower this year but I am excited that in the future they will. And in a prior year one grew between two rocks on the other side of the sunken garden. Maybe it was sheltered between those rocks and that was why it survived or maybe the covering of ice and snow helped insulate it. It does seem to be the smaller plants that survived.

 

Let's look at Monarda 'Peter's Purple' Is there a more successful spreader than this plant? It isn't that it seeds but that it sends its underground runners out in all directions to make new plants. One year it managed to successfully invade the yellow iris. How charming, I thought, when the iris finish here comes the bee balm. That is until the iris failed to bloom the following year, completely crowded out by bee balm. Then the bee balm decided to move out and this year the iris bloomed with a mighty vigor chasing the bee balm in its relentless spread.The bee balm is so adored by all manner of flying insects and hummingbirds too that I don;t have much of a problem letting it go on its merry way. 

My beautiful Philippine violets, Barleria cristata,  took a big hit. The two along the edge of the pathway(volunteers) in the Sunken garden are slowly making their way back but the big one has split itself into four plants leaving a gaping hole in the center. It is a perfect place to add a pot and it so happens that last winter an arm broke off the plumeria, which I potted up and is growing. 

 One plant that is not permitted in the back gardens is the Engelmann daisy, Engelmannia peristenia. I can remember when I bought 3 small 4" plants at the Wildflower Center sale. "Oh! you'll have plenty of those" someone said. Now I have more than even I could have imagined and I constantly pull them out-not an easy propositions as they send down a big successful taproot. That is why they do so well in dry gardens . But they are beautiful when in bloom in the early morning. By afternoon their yellow petals have curve under. They do give the garden a somewhat wild appearance.

 And that was before the American beautyberry, Callicarpa americana, and the liatris, Liatris spicata.  started to move in. I think the latter might be the most freely seeding plant in Texas. At least in my garden. It does add gorgeous color in the later months of the year. 

But of course I am not going to let any one of these plants the chance to take over. I leave that to the next gardener who lives here.

THE APACHE TRAIL AND LOST DUTCHMAN STATE PARK

 Not ones to squander the early morning hours when we were in the desert in May, we headed out early to drive the Apache Trail, which starts at Apache Junction, near Phoenix. 

 We had a vague memory of having driven this road sometime back in the early 80s when we were traveling with our three boys in our VW camper van. Maybe we had thoughts of finding that illusive gold mine in the Superstition Mountains. But this visit was purely to drive part of the trail and to take a hike on one of the trails at the Lost Dutchman State Park. I called ahead to make sure we didn't need to book. At the entrance gate the ranger asked if were were there to hike because he told us many think they can come and drive through the park. The road is short and leads only to the parking lots for the hiking trails. There was one car ahead of us.

 The park is located at the foot of the Superstition Mountains and takes its name from the fabled gold mine no one has ever been able to find. We chose the Treasure Loop, Tr. No 56. It was of moderate length , 2.4miles, climbing up to the mountainous out-cropping seen behind David in the first photo. The trail is quite wide to begin although narrows higher up.  The surface is stony so eyes down much of the time but frequent stops to take in the views.

This is the Sonoran desert and the familiar cholla, prickly pear and ocotillo fit perfectly into the arid landscape. On the lower level we encountered lot of cholla with their hanging fruits which I had never encountered before.

They are called chainfruit cholla, Cylindropuntia fulgida, for their grape-like clusters of fruits. 

 

 

Other members of the cholla family include teddy bear and pencil. All chollas will readily cling to your clothing or skin if you venture too close to them. They have a reputation for jumping at you but this is false. However, you may not even be aware that you have brushed against one until you find one clinging to your skin. I speak from experience! 

As the trail continued on up we speculated as to where the trail would start to make the return loop. Opportunities came and went until we found ourselves right at the base of the mountain. I looked up at a cave wondering if some kind of animal might be taking shelter in there and looking down on us. Mountain lion maybe? As we reached the high point and started to go down I began to wish that I had brought my hiking poles. When will the time come that we take them on every hike? We always carried and used them when hiking in Idaho but recently we have had several occasions to wish we had them with us. They really aid in both going up and going down a steep rocky trail. My replaced hip is fine but the other hip I was supposed to have replaced 2 years ago has difficulty and the last thing I want to do is jar it or fall and break it-or break anything for that matter. And just as we began to go down my phone rang and we had a Facetime with our son in Dubai! Better reception up there than at our house! There was pleasant breeze throughout the hike but back on the desert floor things were hotting up and it was good to get back in the car with AC. 

We left the park and continued on the Apache trail. Stretching 47 miles from Apache Junction to Globe Originally used by the Apache Indians as a migration route, who took advantage of the trails created by the Salado Indians who lived there in 900 AD, to raid villages along the Salt river. Later it became a stagecoach route and was used as a supply route for the building of the Roosevelt dam on the Salt river from 1906-1911. The Apache who worked on the road lived in brutal conditions during the building during which time the road was closed. On completion was opened as a tourist route. 

The road winds through some spectacular scenery which we enjoyed from our car as there are few places to stop on the narrow road. At Canyon lake we went down to the marina to look for somewhere to eat.  We were fortunate to find one with an outdoor deck and we opted to stop for lunch and a cold beer.

We decided not to continue further along the road. There will be other opportunities when we are can explore further along the road and I was anxious to find a stop on the road where I could get a closer look at the unusual yellow/green rocks. There are few places to stop and none it the best spots but I was able to walk up closer to some of the rocks to get a close-up look. As I suspected it was lichen. 

Our final stop fo the day was at the rather commercial mining town. I'll bet we took the boys there in the 80s. A quick walk up the main street. No need to go in the shops or bars. Then we headed back to Ahwatukee where our son and family live.