Mid-April: The Dutch irises are blooming!

Delighted yesterday to see blooms on my lovely blue Dutch iris. This is the first year for them, so we'll see if they rebloom next spring. They're part of the Great Budget Bulb Experiment (see last post) -- and they are a month early, according to their catalog bloom time.

Daffodils up! Missed my dwarf iris :( And, warbler

Several of these beautiful things greeted me today. Try if you can to resolve this mass of frilly petticoats into a daffodil -- it really is one. By far the silliest daffodil I've ever bought, and it is just a big ball of cheerful on a stick out there in the (fantastically well-raked) flowerbed, as you can see.

It's daffodil "Replete," to be precise... and it's supposed to be PINK! Haven't figured that out yet. Mom says sometimes they change color after they've been open a few days, so I'll watch it. My theory is the alkaline soil leached it yellow :)

So all the bulbs I planted this fall have at least come up. I missed the dwarf iris, which nearly breaks my heart -- owing to work pressure, daylight savings and a couple other issues, I barely saw the garden at all in February, and I think that's when they bloomed, because when I did get out there I saw the spent brown post-floral husks. Sigh!

I did hit every single bulb with the Magic Rabbit Poo (Buds N Blooms) a couple weeks ago. And the roses as well -- all the roses survived the winter of many freezes and total neglect. (You wondered why it's called the Darwin Garden? They don't.) The roses, in fact, are all glossy-leafed out with the flush of new growth that always happens right before the aphids hit. Sigh.

For the record, here's what got planted in the fall, each with bloom time and quantity:

	CYCLAMINEUS DAFFODIL PROTOTYPE	Mar-May	5
	DOUBLE DAFFODIL REPLETE	Mar-Apr ✓	5
	DUTCH IRIS BLUE PEARL	May (✓Apr!)	15
	DWARF ROCKGARDEN IRIS (Iris reticulata)	Feb-Apr ✓	25
	SKY BLUE LILIES (Ixiolirion pallasii)	May-Jun	25

I checked off the ones that have already bloomed. We'll see if the rest do as well!


Also today, very exciting: Saw the first yellow-rumped warbler I have ever seen. He was polite enough to spend a full two minutes flitting around the cedar elm branches that are right outside our bedroom window, and if I hadn't been looking from that high position, I might have never seen his identifying feature: His bright yellow diamond where his back tapers into his tail! Without that, he would have looked like any of our gabillions of other LBBs (little brown birds). And indeed I think he was an immature, or maybe a she, because he had no other yellow on him -- no yellow wing or breast patches or crown, as are shown in some pictures.

But what a little cutie, and he obligingly hopped from branch to branch trilling his pleasant little song until he'd cleaned every single bug off our cedar elm. Cutie McCutepants!

Well if I thought the spuria looked good last year...

I walked out in the back this afternoon and was greeted by at least three blooms apiece on stalks where I'd never seen more than one before! And there is a whole 'nother scape ready to burst open. I am awash in giddiness. These are gorgeous glowing things in the early dusk, and they are fully four to five feet tall, healthy as horses.

Whether the difference has been our drought-drought-freeze-flood-freeze-freeze-flood winter, or the fact that they got Buds 'n Blooms both this spring and last, I do not know. But I know they will be getting more Buds n' Blooms. Here's a closeup:

Bookkeeping: Last weekend I planted 10 Siberian iris "Caesar's Brother," 3 asiatic lily "Lollipop" and one lavender calla in the northeast corner of the back bed (a forlorn barren spot by the gate).

Catching up on three weekends of garden blooms

Here it is the first weekend in April and my Duchesse de Brabant bush is covered, just exploding with buds. She's already given me three fat frilly roses, currently scenting the bedroom:

Last weekend I was amazed to find five of my Thalia jonquils sporting lovely, pure-as-snow white flowers, two to a stem. The blooms are larger even than I had expected (this is the first year they've bloomed for me) but with that stunning graceful form that looks almost more like an orchid than a narcissus; the scent is pure paperwhite narcissus, though. These two came to work with me and spent the week making my desk happy, along with a miniature Parade rose that I think might be Apollo Parade:

And the weekend before that, I was stunned to see blooms on my tiny. tiny Louisiana jonquils, which like the Thalia did not bloom their first spring, but must have enjoyed our conditions this year -- drought, freeze, flood, freeze, neglect, freeze, flood. Hmph. They're also called Early Louisiana jonquils, which fits 'cause they did come up first -- middle of March. Tiny things, and sweet-scented -- I zoomed in close for detail here. Also borne in pairs:

Since I have planted a drift of, say, five bulbs each year, I am now starting to get the effect of a few dozen wide paintbrush strokes that appear in green at first, then flame into a different color as each week rolls on. This fall, I think, if I put in some Iris reticulata and perhaps a peachy white jonquil, I'll be able to expand the magic a few weeks (and a few colors). Off to place my order!

A chat with Nelda Moore

This is not so much in the nature of an interview as it is my notes from a chat with wise gardener Nelda Moore, whom I met at the Zilker Garden while she was watering irises. I told her I have some spuria and some mystery iris that don't like to bloom (which I think are bearded) and she gave me advice.

Spuria iris: They like rose food, so just give 'em what I'm giving the roses they're planted with. They go dormant in the heat -- but don't cut the dead foliage till it's completely dead, like in July or August.

Louisiana iris: A row of them were growing in giant soggy buckets there, and Moore said they'd also take to a sunny spot with drip irrigation. Look for blooms in April. Hold a leaf up to the light -- if you see tiny horizontal flecks, looking a lot like the slubs in dupioni silk, it's a Louisiana. No flecks = spuria.

Mystery/bearded iris that aren't blooming: If they're in a big clump, divide them and replant about 12" apart in new soil. They love new soil. Don't plant the rhizomes very deep or they won't bloom. Give them full sun, and also water in some bonemeal every February and September (Valentine's Day and Labor Day is the mnemonic).

Iris reticulata: Not only can they grow in the ground here, they are about the first thing to bloom in spring! Them and grape hyacinths, she said.

My thanks to a lovely lady! She also noted they're having an iris show April 17.

Mini roses, violas, rosemary and fertilizer

Today I redid all our flowerpots on the front and back porches. Amazingly, the garish pinwheel-looking impatiens on the front porch survived for two years, through drought and freezes, until a month or so ago when we had what must have been one freeze too many.

Delicate "Sorbet" violas went into every pot -- the Natural Gardener had an incredibly lovely color for sale this year and I just bought half a flat of it, never mind trying to mix and match colors. There isn't any color of "Sorbet" violas I don't love, but this one is a cream shade with a very delicate feathery thin edge of lavender-blue. I think it must be the one called "Coconut Swirl." Anyway, I just slathered it into every pot; the nursery also was selling some particularly nice "Parade" miniature roses -- perfect hybrid tea form in a pale blush ("Breeze Parade"?) and also a creamy white with a tiny pink tinge to the edges ("Bianca Parade"?), so I mixed those in with a few rosemary sprigs. I'm pretty sure the rosemary won't enjoy the same conditions as the violas and roses, but it's a very tough little plant so we'll see. I'm tired of not having any rosemary to nibble on and cook with, so I will take what I can get.

Then I fertilized all the narcissus and iris. Both the spuria iris I planted and the mystery iris I inherited have come up strong this year, but not a bud scape among them -- I'm hoping the "Buds and Blooms" (aka magical rabbit poo) will fix that. The new Narcissus "Grand Primo" are huge, but only managed a couple of flowers as of yet; the new ones are even larger than the established "Grand Primos." The "Thalia" narcissus came up a little smaller, and the early Louisiana jonquils are just spindly little things ... but with buds! They've never bloomed for me before, so I'm very excited.

New climbing rose planted; plus, disaster recovery!

Today I plunked down a replacement for Olly, the mystery red rose that had established itself so strongly on the side of our house (we called him Olly because his huge branches looked like tentacles)... he was doing beautifully till I got ahold of him. Injudicious overpruning on my part, at the wrong time of year, to boot, did Olly in. So with sadness, today I cut down his old tentacles and put in a New Dawn climbing rose -- this one sold by the A&M EarthKind people, so it's been raised in Texas weather, transplanted when dormant in a biodegradable pot. EarthKind also means it's chosen to do well without excessive spraying and feeding. I have high hopes for him (not to be confused with my High Hopes climber in the backyard, still alive despite drought and freezes).

About those droughts and freezes... so as I was recovering from surgery early last year, my sweet husband dug me a rose bed in the front yard. We happily ordered roses... and then just before they arrived he had a cycling accident, and broke his collarbone. Since I still couldn't bend down very well, we just kept the bareroot roses in buckets and pushed it as long as we could... naturally when we did get them planted, they were weak, and didn't last long.

Ah well, we said, and ordered a new batch. Then we had one of the worst droughts Texas has had... we ran a watering system to their roots but not in time... and those died.

Ah well, we said, and ordered a new batch. These were planted right away, with the drip watering system working beautifully, and started producing prize-winner blossoms even as they were still getting rooted in their new home.

And then AT&T dug up the bed. Rose bodies flew everywhere as the workers made a big chasm to whichever wires they needed to reach. The workers did their best to move the plants aside, and actually did try to stay in touch with us about the work... but my husband was hit by another driver on his way home from work at the end of December, and I spent a week with him in the hospital and then got him moved to a physical rehab where I visited him after work every day.

I didn't even look at the rosebed for weeks. Meanwhile, "Snowpocalypse '09" moved in -- infamous in our region for bringing more frenzied preparation than actual precipitation, but still bashing our new little plants with freezing temperatures as they lay in their temporary spots on either side of the rocky ditch that had been our neat, mulched rosebed.

A dear friend wrapped her towels around our roses... AT&T did their best to put everything back... we only wound up losing three plants, all told. (Out of about 10.) So now things are holding steady; I'm watering and watching as needed; and when we both recover a bit we'll replace the fallen and fill in the hole (despite AT&T's efforts -- which were pretty good -- there is a concavity where the dirt settled in).

Whew!

New rose garden planted!

Well, it's official: All the rosebushes that have been struggling
along the increasingly shaded fence (our bur oaks are getting big),
plus six brand-new ones, have been newly installed in a flowerbed my
genius husband invented at the northeast corner of our yard. The
genius part: It's a corner so sunny that the grass never got a good
grip, meaning it was sparse and weedy -- but the roses will love it.

He put in several weekends' worth of labor digging it out, edging,
weeding and preparing it, then transplanted all our rosebushes. A
batch did not survive, so we ordered more, and now there are a total
of nine or ten teas and floribundas, plus two miniature roses -- all
labeled, with a new watering system tucked at their roots, under a
blanket of fresh, sweet-scented cypress mulch.

It's so beautiful it actually draws us out to spend time in the front
yard. Thinking of how it will be when there are pink, coral, cream,
red and yellow blooms to cut makes me absolutely giddy! (Mister
Lincoln, Aromatherapy, Spellbound, Gemini, Full Sail, New Zealand,
Rainbow Sorbet, Gypsy Carnival, Elegant Lady and two anonymous
grocery store minis.)

Two roses that were doing well on the fence remain in their spots:
Belinda's Dream and the McCartney Rose were doing so well we did not
want to dig them up. Luckily they are at either end of the fence and
sort of bookend it in pink blossoms.

Narcissus poking up their little green noses

With Jason's help again, took another sunny garden stroll today. The plants in pots on the deck have taken a beating with all the dry cold (although the Mexican oregano continues to appear unkillable and Larry the Lemon is, as Jason phrased it, thanking us for bringing him in on the really cold nights by covering himself with buds and blooms -- even without the benefit of Rabbit Hill Farm's Buds & Blooms, aka magical rabbit poo.

The new Thalia and Grand Primo have almost all sprouted, as have the new Louisiana jonquils -- though the latter have unhealthy brown tips on their sprouts that worry me. The established Grand Primo appear at least a couple of weeks ahead of the new ones, two to four inches tall! (Or else I planted them two to four inches shallower :)

Bella'roma and, particularly, Sonia have lots of clean new growth, and the climbing roses look spindly but half leafed out. Didn't visit the outside roses today, so don't know about them. And Jason reports the potted impatiens on the front porch are droopy, but alive.

Neglect, the best fertilizer

With Jason's help I just took an actual walk in my sunny garden (I'm recovering from back surgery, it's 75 degrees and sunny outside and it's Christmas Eve). All seems in better shape than when I was tending it! This despite freezes, neglect, etc. The new Sternbergia lutea seem to have taken hold -- lots of foliage -- and the two roses in the backyard bed (Sonia and Bella'roma) look healthier than they have in months. 'Course it is winter so they're not boiling hot, plus they get more sun since the bur oaks have dropped their leaves. But mostly, I'm sure, they're just glad I haven't been out there messing with them!

Plus, Larry the Lemon Tree has two lovely yellow fruit and a crop of new flowers. Feliz Navidad!

Planted Sternbergia lutea

I need to get out there and mark the spot, but I popped six "fall crocus" into the ground on Sunday. More bulbs coming -- and it's been so long that I forgot what I ordered! So it's a little like Christmas. I think I got more Grand Primo. I remember putting a lot of thought into this back in the spring, but I've slept since then.

Simple composter

Just saw an HGTV show that described an extremely simple composter that could fit in the back corner of our yard. He described a 3x3 wire cube that you just set on the ground and fill with layers "like a lasagna."

Twigs on the bottom provide for some air circulation
Brown and green leaves, clippings, etc. provides leaf mold, carbon and nitrogen
A shake of blood meal accelerates decomposition
Water it till all is about like a damp sponge.

Also he showed these biodegradable bags, which I found online in Gardener's Supply Co.'s beguilingly named "Compost Accessories" section, into which you can put all your green/planty kitchen bits (but no fatty foods or meats) and just toss the whole bag into the composter. A little online digging reveals there's no need for the expensive ceramic crock unless you want its carbon filter to control the smell. Just toss the bags more often, is what I say.

Schoolhouse lilies run riot

Yesterday Jason and I noticed the schoolhouse lilies have gone insane.

Their bloom time is short, but this is the biggest flush of color we have seen from them yet. The abuse heaped on their heads is manifold: It's been a punishingly dry summer, and I never replanted them from last year's very WET summer, when the soggy ground dried so fast it actually heaved the bulbs partway out of the ground.

So the bulbs are partly exposed, never watered and in crummy alkaline clay soil. What are they doing? Multiplying like weeds!

We not only have more blooms than ever this year, the stand is spreading, and another round of bloom stalks are on the rise, which should double the show.

I love these bulbs! They were worth every penny!

New arrivals: Lantana, sweet olive, rain lily

My mom came to visit recently, and we wandered happily through a lot of local nurseries. I got some interesting additions:

• A lovely lantana, "Olivia" -- pink and gold like the clouds at sunrise.
• A rain lily -- the flower on this one seems immense to me. White with a faint pink sheen. Planted in the bed where its foliage looks exactly like our weeds. Predicting trouble there.
• There was a variety of ruellia with small, oval leaves and a horizontal habit that I'd never seen before, so I got two and stuck them under our cedar elms. If they're as vigorous as our regular ruellia, I think I've solved the baldness problem back there. Possibly they are "creeping ruellia."
• An incredibly healthy torenia is now brightening our big planter on the back patio.
• Mom brought us a big sweet olive shrub -- she got three big $29 plants that were in bad shape and the nursery owner sold them to her for $5, but she hadn't found a place to plant the third one. So we happily glommed on to it, plus I bought a little one because lately I've had trouble finding the big ones. So those two need to find spots someplace.

BUNTING! Buntingbuntingbunting!

I know this is a garden blog, not a bird blog, but it's been in the nineties here for weeks with hardly any rain; our plants are all dead or dormant. By far the most exciting thing to happen in my garden in months is this PAINTED BUNTING! (Photo quality not great - taken through window.)

Below him is Stumpy, our cardinal.





And here is one of our green anoles displaying his throat fan for the ladies.

Magical rabbit poo!

Yesterday I secured another bag of Rabbit Hill Farms' Buds and
Blooms. We've used it on our lemon tree for years, but recently I had
some leftovers I needed to use and sprinkled it on the spuria iris --
now blooming for the first time in three years, though that could be
just because they've finally settled in, too.

Anyway, I doused nearly everybody with it -- crapes, roses, spuria
iris, daylilies, narcissus and oxblood lily foliage. Then watered.
We'll see!

Spuria! Blooms on both Hasarya and Protege

That's Hasarya at the top and Protege below. I realize they look nearly the same! I planted other colors but they have not bloomed yet.

The roses are starting to come out, too. That is, Olly is covered in flowers, High Hopes has probably six or seven, Don Juan and McCartney have one each, and there are buds galore. My plan is to hit everybody with some Buds n' Blooms and see where we get!

It's starting to get a bit warm for the pansies. Or perhaps I mean dry. The hose timer's goofed up and nobody's been getting their regular watering. Probably time to replace the timer and maybe buy some impatiens while I'm at it.

Buds on the spuria iris! Yahooooo!

I'm so excited. It's the first time they've budded. When I planted them in 2005, I noted that they were supposed to get heavy fertilization, but then I never fed them. Each year there's been big strappy healthy growth, but no blooms. And to be honest, I thought they were supposed to bloom in fall -- turns out it's mid-April to mid-May. But about three weeks ago when I planted the new daylilies, I gave everybody a heaping helping of Rabbit Hill Farm's "Buds and Blooms" mix, which we think is absolutely magical fairy dust for our lemon tree.

And lo and behold, there are buds. Some of the markers have gotten knocked down over the years, but one that I am sure of with buds is Protege, a purple-gold mix. The others will be a surprise, but no doubt lovely surprises, as all the ones I planted were mixes or solids of blue, gold and purple.

I had nearly given up on them, and all I needed to do was feed them. Dang! Or maybe it was just time; the growing tips do say, "Do not expect peak performance until the third year." It also says I should fertilize them again after the blooms. Also perhaps in the fall. And they may be too close together, as these notes say they "resent" being transplanted!

Pretty much everybody says they need lots of fertilizer, preferably balanced (or high in phosphorus to encourage bloom), and these folks say to fertilize 'em every 2-3 weeks after danger of frost is past.

Planted crinum 'Bradley'; everything's green

Just now stuck 'Bradley' in the ground, mere moments ago. He's possibly a little too close to the cedar elms, but we'll see what he does. Right now, of course, he only looks like a giant onion with an old, chopped-off six-inch stem coming out the top.

Larry the lemon tree is covered with flowers, the impatiens in the front beds are a blanket of lavender, and all my spuria iris as well as the spurious iris (I inherited at least one mystery iris from the previous homeowners) are huge, green and strappy but show no signs of even considering a flower.

The crape myrtles have all leafed out in the past couple of weeks, as have the cedar elms, Arizona ash (trash) and bur oaks. As for the new daylilies... well, they're not dead yet! And at least one shows new growth. The survivors from last year all look big and fine.

Of note: Absolutely nothing in the main flowerbed is blooming now. The pansies in the pots and the impatiens in the front are blooming their heads off, but I don't have anything colorful going in the perennial bed. A chronological gap to be filled!

New daylilies planted; temperature hits 95

Received from Oakes yesterday (when the temperature hit 95 here...) and planted today: Little Heavenly Angel; Mini Pearl; Little Strawberry Shortcake; Strawberry Candy (a freebie); Elizabeth Salter; Stella in Yellow. These are in addition to the previous year's survivors: Marcia Fay; Pandora's Box; Chicago Petticoats; Scarlet Orbit; Pardon Me.

Should bloom in roughly this order:

(yellow) Stella in Yellow (extra early, rebl)
(red/yellow) Scarlet Orbit (early, rebl)
(white/purple) Pandora's Box (early-mid, rebl)
(pink/red) Strawberry Candy (early-mid, rebl)
(pink/white) Little Heavenly Angel (early-mid, rebl)
(gold/rose) Mini Pearl (early-mid, rebl)
(copper) Little Strawberry Shortcake (mid, rebl)
(red/white) Marcia Fay (early-mid, rebl)
(peach) Chicago Petticoats (early-mid)
(peach) Elizabeth Salter (midseason, rebl)
(maroon/gold) Pardon Me (mid-late, rebl)