Foliage Follow-up

For Foliage Follow-Up I present to you some of my favorite; here is Salsa Verde Sedum with a little touch of Silver Ponyfoot  planted in my new pot.I like to place pots in the middle of my garden, this one contains yellow Bulbine. I tried it in the front yard but it got eaten by deer so I moved it to the backyard which is protected by an 8ft fence. Last year the ones I had planted in this pot were bitten by frost so this past spring I cut them all the way back and stuck them in the ground, I figured no loss they were gone anyway. Low and behold they came back in full force so I bought new ones for my pot.Artemisia, one of my most favorite, it has been frozen, eaten by deer and hacked back and it still grows into a beautiful silver mound. It gets a gold star in my book of gardening.Last is another silver beauty, Santolina, I love the little yellow button flowers that come in the spring. Check out Pam at Digging for a wonderful Foliage Follow-Up in Austin. She has a wonderful eye for plant design.

 

a new gate

I am the happy owner of a new gate made by my loving husband. We had an old Mexican gate we had bought in Laredo many years ago. I loved that gate. But over the years it went from a cool vintage gate to an old rotten gate. At one time it had been painted red. The bottom had began to rot. We wanted to try and build one to be similar to our original gate. The main structure was made from bead board so we used bead board and I painted it teal with a distressed finish of sanding and staining.Here are the boards painted and sanded but not yet stained.Here is the “tool” I used to make worm holes in my boards to distress it further. The original gate had wood posts in the windows but we wanted to put hammered steel bars. Jim also hand forged the latch. The clavos were taken off the old gate and put on our new gate. Now I think I need to get a pot with a cactus in it to put next to the gate. Oh, the bell is from my husband’s grandparents farm in Missouri. They called it “The Maples”. Here is a before picture of the gate:I kept the doors. I know I can find something wonderful to do with that beautiful distressed wood.

 

one lone sunflower

I was surprised one day with this big beautiful sunflower  in the middle of the backyard growing out of some rocks. I noticed it first like thisand how it got to this stage without me seeing it is a mystery to me. I believe what happen is a stray sunflower seed from my birdfeeder in a nearby tree  got dropped by one of my feathered friends. What a delight he left me. I have enjoyed watching it each day until it opened to its fullest. I would like to keep it for the seeds to replant for a beautiful display of sunflowers. I am just not sure if I should let it dry on its stalk or cut it to dry. At this time all the petals are gone and it is still in the ground. Here is another photo to show how dis located  it is.

 

 

rain lily

A nice rain can bring some little gems into the yard. I love walking around in the backyard finding these small surprises popping up. I have two kinds, but I don’t know the scientific name for either one. I just love looking at them. I pretend they are the skirts of small fairies laid out in the sun to dry. 

 

The Mystery of the Shredded Agave

 

I woke up this morning to find two of my plants in the front yard damaged like nothing I have seen before. I don’t have many plants in the front yard because the deer eat everything. I have three Texas sage, one agave, and two rosemarys. I have had deer nibble on the leaves of the Texas sage and even take a bite out of the agave especially since this Texas drought has been going on. But I have never seen anything like this. The Texas sage had good size limbs broken off  and tangled together. There were no leaves chewed on. The agave was shredded. What kind of creature could have done this? The mulch was not disturbed around the two plants so it does not seem as though there was a struggle between two animals. The plants are approximately 3 ft from each other. The Texas sage has two others next to it that were not touched. Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas on what could of happened?

 

 

a favorite nursery in San Antonio

My first visit to Rainbow Gardens in San Antonio, Texas was back in 1994. My family had moved from East Texas. We lived in an apartment for 8 months until the house was built. Thousand Oaks was a street lined with apartments and nestled in between all these apartments was this small garden nursery. It was my refuge from all the surrounding asphalt. This is where I first learned about xeriscaping and Texas native plants. The front entrance looks deceptively small but today the nursery has expanded to six acres at the Thousand Oaks location and 5 acres at the Bandera Rd. location.  They specialize in the use of Native and Xeriscape plants in the San Antonio landscape. Rainbow Gardens  also have a extensive shade and ornamental tree selection, including natives and exotics that do well here. Another area of specialty at their location is the use of desert southwestern landscaping.Not only do they have a wide assortment of plants, they also have beautiful pots, yard art and gifts. Yesterday, I made my first Fall visit and they had all their shrubbery and trees 40% off. Which is great because in our area Fall is a great time to plant. I always know I will come home with a few goodies. Check out Pam at Digging to see other garden bloggers’ favorite nurseries.

 

 

a little rain…

I am sitting in my kitchen watching the dark clouds roll in this evening. We don’t get a chance to see very much in weather changes lately. I have been told a person can be feeling depressed when the weather doesn’t make changes no matter if it is snow, rain or heat. Texas has not given us much of a weather change for the last 11 months. Tonight as we watch these clouds, knowing they could dissipate at any moment, we have hope there is a change coming. Our temperatures have been in the three digits since early June. When September rolled around we hoped for fall temps. Even though we haven’t gotten the temp, I am being optimistic and planting some mums and a croton to suggest fall is on the way.

Update: As I finish my post, the winds came and the clouds are gone. I doubt if we got enough rain to be wet under the cars. Oh well, I have hopes another day will bring cooler temp and rain.

 

 

 

Foliage Follow-up

Pam Penick at Digging begin Foliage Follow-up which for me is a good time for it because there is nothing blooming in my garden. Lately I have grown a fondness for cacti and succulents. Not only does it fit well in the Texas hill country landscape they do well in our dry and hot climate. I am fascinated by the variety of shapes and textures that can be found in cacti and succulents. My collection is new but I have big plans to gradually create an arrangement of pots and plants next to my stone wall. My first one is this rock planter given to me as a thank you gift from a friend for babysitting her dog while she was on vacation. I planted Moses in the Cradle ( Tradescantia spathacea) and stonecrop (which hasn’t done very well)

This is an aloe vera I bought for $4 at HEB on the sale table. It has really filled out since I planted it in this pot. It even had a small peach colored bloom on a stalk when I bought it. I did not know aloes would bloom. I guess that is why I bought it because I was intrigued aloes could bloom.

I love the color of this silver pony foot. I bought this one as a small 4″ at my last visit to Natural Gardener in Austin. I planted it in this pot for now because it is waiting to be placed in my new bed as soon as the weather makes a change for the better. I just don’t see the point in trying to develop a new bed at this time. The plants I have now are struggling as it is.

This last one is a agave augustifolia I bought at HEB. I am proud of this buy I made this weekend. The pot was 20% off 18.00, the plant was 3.98 and a bag of cactus soil was 3.69 with a total less than 20.00. Well so much for my foliage follow-up. Thanks, Pam at Digging for letting me share.

 

 

Congress Sidewalkscape, a painting

8x8 oil on stretched cotton canvas

I have already complained about the weather in my last two posts, so as to keep from doing it again I am posting one of my paintings. This painting is from a photo I took of one of the planters on Congress Ave. in Austin, Texas. I love the fact that they used giant culverts(?) and let them rust giving them a beautiful burnt sienna color. It would look cool to have an assortment of sizes grouped together in my yard. It is on my list. Hopefully I will be working in my garden soon. I even hesitate to plant a fall garden. I know August is the month to plant, but it is sooooo hot for new plants. I am going to hold out a little longer before I do any new planting. In the mean time, click on over to my painting blog to see more of my paintings. Thank you!

 

 

 

We are in an exceptional drought

Our rivers and beautiful live oaks are hurting. I have started watering our trees. We have cedar elm, live oaks, red oak, pin oaks and mountain ash in our yard. I did some research online trying to find the best way to water large trees. I found that a sprinkler or irrigation system that you use to water your grass or plants is not enough. After all my reading I found the most talked about were these three methods: 1) a soaker hose circled around the tree along the dripline (not close to the trunk) 2) divide the dripline area around the tree into four sections and use a dripping hose in each section 3) setting  5 gallon buckets with holes drilled in the bottom  filled with water around the dripline. My biggest question was how much water or how long for the hoses? I just recently stumbled upon this pdf file put out by City of Austin that gives you a formula for figuring out how much water a tree needs. I hope it helps you too. Jim and I walked down to the Guadalupe River today and was saddened to see just how dry the river was.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the rock you see is usually the river bottom. This is a favorite run for tubers but not now. We got about 1/4″ of rain Tuesday afternoon. It wasn’t much but I will take any I can get. Watching the radar that day, at least some areas got more than we did. Take care of your trees too!