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)

Redoing the flower bed

We've hauled out all the weeds and most of the old weed cloth, and pulling up the drip irrigation system revealed a couple of leaks in it; now, with some new sprinkler spikes and the leaks fixed, we're just about ready to plunk down some new plants. Waiting until this week's risk of freeze is past, though.

My plans are to install more roses and daylilies this spring, as well as the tasty herbs and two sweet olives. I think I will also experiment with a crinum and some sternbergia lutea, for blooms in October and green leaves all winter. For fall planting, I see I am already too late to get French Roman hyacinths, but I will certainly try to lay in some drifts of Dutch iris and at least a couple dozen more Grand Primo narcissus, the best little jonquil on the planet (for my garden, at least).

In fact, I might be able to get my GPs by dividing the thick double clump I have now. The Master Gardeners say you're supposed to, to help 'em along. If you do it when the leaves start to yellow (but leave the foliage intact), then that should be right around April or May for my guys.

December roses, impatiens and lemons

There are two bright yellow Meyer lemons on our tree (three, before
we gave one away); there are buds on several of our rosebushes; and
the impatiens are fully blooming, despite a wee bit of frostbite.
The crape myrtles have gone completely dormant in the past two weeks,
but the St. Augustine grass is full and lush. Happy New Year!

Jason has observed that the roses along the fence are probably
competing for water with the St. Augustine (which has formed great
big clumps at their bases, where the mini-sprinklers are).

I've decided that since he is almost certainly right, it's time to
declare that rosebed permanent! I've been resisting putting in a
border and mulch on the theory that if the roses simply don't survive
there, we can pull them out without having damaged the lawn. But they
are surviving, and probably would do even better with the extra
water, so it's time to make their bed!

That is probably the major change we will make in this coming year.
The new grass in the front is beautifully established, so we've
eliminated one major hassle (pruning the shrubs that were there).
The beds, trees and pots are all on a 5-day timer now, so they don't
require even the minimal effort of my remembering to water them. If
I can remember to maintain the birdfeeder, and if we neaten up the
backyard bed.... and maybe build a dog gate and some low-voltage
lanterns to cap the deck railing posts ... then we'll have exceeded
our plans!

Schoolhouse lilies bloomed Sept. 8

At least that's the first time I observed them. And that is despite an astonishingly rainy summer that actually caused the clay soil to heave the bulbs out of the ground, a la frozen soil! I thought they were toast but no, they are blooming.

Holding steady amid the rains; pruned roses

Pruned the sickly roses pretty heavily about a month ago (NOT the approved pruning time!) and was rewarded with a flush of healthy new growth. It's been raining heavily for about a month and everybody's lush... now the heat will set in!

Other crapes in the neighborhood are blooming but not ours yet; Mom speculates those in full sun may be warmer, thus starting earlier.

Daylilies have been blooming for at least a week -- the soft peachy one is blooming its head off and just lovely.

Ruellias are green, not blooming; narcissus greens have just started to go brown.

Two potfuls of impatiens on the front porch, planted about a month ago, have been blooming steadily the whole time; ditto two pots of petunias in a sunny corner of the back deck. Really pretty.

Roses sprayed, fertilized

That's Don on the left, with a couple blooms, and High Hopes on the right, blooming more than ever before. This is their first full year in the ground and I think that's the difference. After five years of waiting to find out what High Hopes' flowers looked like (I moved a lot, and these guys stayed in big growers' pots) I am delighted to report that they are perfectly charming -- long, narrow, photogenic peachy-pink buds, opening up to warm peach flowers with a sweet fragrance -- just lovely.


This is the mystery volunteer rose that came up from the rootstock High Hopes left behind (the big pot sat on this spot for nearly a year and roots went down; when I moved the pot, I severed the top of the roots, but this guy came springing up). He's also thrown up some very tall canes, so that matches the Dr Huey diagnosis -- Dr Huey is a climber. Contrary to my belief, though, it's not used as rootstock because it resists disease. It must just be extra vigorous. The photo would bear this out!

Those are my strapping but nonblooming spuria iris to either side of the Doc.

Sprayed with copper soap yesterday and put fertilizer spikes on the arch roses, Kordes Perfecta and all the weaklings along the fence (i.e. everybody except Belinda and McCartney). Shouldn't need to fertilize again until June 16, at which point it'll be interesting to see if the weak links are catching up.

A good month for roses; crapes are green

This is Kordes Perfecta (I thought it was Sonia but I must have gotten the labels swapped) and it is blooming along with most of the other rosebushes. High Hopes and Belinda's Dream are particularly lovely now; McCartney Rose, Apricot Nectar, Don Juan are all blooming; and both "Olly the octopus" (unidentified cherry-red climber) and the dark red mystery rose I believe to be Dr. Huey are covered with flowers. There are buds on the others, including the new Gemini I planted a couple weeks ago.

This photo is actually a little yellow-tinged -- the roses are more cream-colored than golden, with the lovely soft pink edge and great form.

I think the cold weather followed by buckets of rain have everyone's roses very happy.

The crape myrtles have been fully leafed out for almost a month now, since about March 23-24. (I.e. about 15 days after I last observed that they looked completely dead.)

Narcissus bloomed Jan-Feb; Larry blooming

The Grand Primo bloomed healthily from mid-January to mid-February -- I think that's its third year to do so now. It has developed into a thick stand of lush, sturdy green. A few feeble blooms on the Texas Star at the same time.

As of now, in early March, Larry the lemon tree is covered in blooms (a bit early, I think) and bees.

The roses have all leafed out with flushes of healthy, burgundy-colored new growth. With their Rose Hose that I am proud of installing, they get regular measured doses of water right to their roots!

And every bulb in the garden has its greenery up, making mid-March an excellent time to install watering systems or weedcloth or anything else that requires that you know exactly where all your plants are! The schoolhouse lilies, narcissus, spuria iris (they made it!) and daylilies are all fully green right now.

The trees are getting their first sprigs of spring green. And the crape myrtles, as is traditional, look so dead that we are afraid, as we are annually, that this is the year we killed them! But we have faith.

Broad-leafed weeds took over the yard in the last half of February. We didn't do doodly squat in the way of corn gluten prevention or anything, so we deserve what we get. However, we've requested estimates for installing a sprinkler system -- healthy grass will choke out weed growth naturally, or so we hope.

Narcissus sprouted; crapes dormant

Saw yesterday that my Grand Primo narcissus are back in full force, a vigorous stand of green stalks. Not sure how long they've been up because lately I've either been indoors in the cold, or traveling in the heat.

Weird December weather's taken a toll on the spinach and pansies -- alternating from light, wet freezes to 70s and dry has left them spindly. TV folk are actually forecasting snow for Christmas, so if that comes true it's back in the garage for them!

Trying also to keep several holiday rosemary topiaries healthy. Overwatering has turned some parts black, but I've been good about getting them lots of daylight.

In the past week the baby crapes have dropped all their leaves and in the grand tradition of my family I am completely convinced they are dead.

After two years of experiments (results recorded here) we are ready to commit to bedding plants for the back bed. I'll design a watering system and sketch a plan with the following solid performers: dwarf purple ruellia; rosemary officinalis; Grand Primo.

The plan is to have a few rosebushes along the back (because I love them, not because they do well); then a belt of rosemary for scent, vigor and permanent greenery; then edge the bed with ruellia. Between the lines of rosemary and ruellia I plan to tuck the Grand Primo and whichever bulbs I like to experiment with. That way there will be green most of the year (ruellia is green right now, for example -- I think it croaks in the heat) and it won't look as odd when the bulbs pop up or die back.

Sept. 24: Planted spinach and pansies

The lady at the nursery said spinach seeds were their top seller, which I can well imagine (recent health scare from E. coli in bagged grocery store spinach). Two weeks in, we've got about a dozen sprouts.

Start the pansy clock: They were blooming when I bought them and haven't stopped since. Last year, they bloomed right through until May. If they manage the same this year, that'll be six solid months of blooms. Which is enough to put them in the ground and leave 'em there, if you ask me. (Not saying that they'd survive the summer, just that they'd be worth replanting each year for that kind of performance. Plus I love their little faces.)