Louisiana Iris

We've told the irises that they can have the whole lower pond now and they are working hard to fill it up.  I also moved some cuttings to the BOD pond and they are doing well - even after last years' drought that almost dried up the pond.

Wildernest - Featured in the (February 29th, 2012) Mineola Monitor Spring Lawn & Garden Section!

"Master Gardener Wields Light Touch on Natural Masterpiece" - What's not to like about that headline!  This lady knows a lot of adjectives!  After reading the article I had to go walk the trail again to see what she saw!  I'm really happy with the write up - it touches on most all of our favorite outdoor things about our home. Five nice color pictures too.  (If you double click the pictures you can read it.)

February Gardening - Floral and Vegetable

 Here's a mid-February post about the gardening activities we've been enjoying this month.  We started a few seeds towards the end of January - those that say on the package to start indoors 6-8 weeks before the last expected frost. All have now been transplanted into 2" pots. Those included some Butterfly Weed (the taller ones in the picture below), some Salvias, ornamental peppers, early jalapenos, and Big Bertha bell peppers.  The last four are all out in the greenhouse now.  There was not enough room under the lights for everything so some of each variety spent some time in a southern window.  Those that were kept under the lights did noticeably better!

The taller plants to the front of this picture are marigolds that were planted about 7-8 days ago.  They came up in three days and are reaching too much for the light now.  I'm going to lower the lights before today is done!

Not in the picture are four flats of six packs of another variety of marigolds, two varieties of zinnias, and some pickling cucumbers!

Starting seedlings in the house with supplemental heat (a pad) and light.

Some seedlings just moved from the house where they were started to the greenhouse

Some of the plants over-wintered in the greenhouse

The bougainvillea - enjoying the greenhouse

An experiment - some peppers (only four) into a cold frame in mid-Feb

  A couple years ago I used a small frame structure covered with plastic to start seeds.  I've made it into a temporary cold frame now and have put a few peppers in it to see how they'll do.  I've got extras so this will be a good experiment.

First plants into the garden (purchased plants)

 Yesterday I was at the co-op/feed store in Quitman and bought six four packs of some of the cold weather plants - lettuce, spinach, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower.  They are now in a raised bed that I prepared several weeks ago.

Rose of Sharon

daylillies

I've also started in the greenhouse some Rose of Sharon trees from cuttings, some ferns, sweet potato vines, a few succulents, a tray of daylillies, and a few other plants.

  
Here's a detail from one of the pictures above and it's still hard to see the subject but between the little heater and the reddish pots is Shadow!  She loves it in the greenhouse and would stay there all day every day if I would let her - except when she got hungry enough to go hunting! 

2011 East Texas Pond Tour

Glynda and I spent Saturday morning touring garden ponds in the Tyler/Lindale area.  It was one of those self-guided tours and we just drove from site to site selecting the ones we wanted to see.  There were some wonderful back yards and it was an enjoyable time.  We got to visit with a number of the owners and hear about their experiences with ponds and saw more than one pond where we'd like to go back and spend some time just enjoying it.  Got this Monet-like picture of Glynda at one of them.

Blossoms we haven't had before

I'm trying a few new plants this year just to learn more and change up the appearance of the landscaping.  Most were started in the greenhouse earlier.  Some winners, some losers.  But it's been interesting.

Mirabilis, or Four O'clock.  The blooms are not open here because it wasn't yet 4:00 when I took the picture.

Cleome - A really interesting blossom.  I've got a dozen or so of these.

Datura - no blossom yet but you can see it's almost there.  It will be white and trumpet shape and large! I had a low germination rate in the greenhouse and then lost most of the ones I eventually planted in the garden.  I can do better next time.

Crinum - This is the first year it's bloomed and it's not completely opened here.

A new zinnia with an unusual color mix.

Cosmos - Suppose to thrive on neglect and I've got two beds outside of the normal watering zone so I'll see how they do.  So far - OK!

Glynda's first iris blossom!

This turned out nice!  I'm posting it too big but what the heck??

"Pre-Spring" is pretty much yellow here!

The native jonquils are everywhere!

Daffodils are usually first

Our Carolina Jasmine is blooming more than ever before!

Pansies are best when the weather begins to warm. (We do have other colors of these.)

Johnny Jump-ups (Violas) are there all winter but really shine when the weather warms. 

Even the Lime Mound Spirea, that will later be "lime" starts off very yellowish!

Some pictures with the macro lens

I've been taking a few flower pictures using the macro setting on the 28-90 lens.  The pictures give the impression that we've got lots of flowers right now but it's still limited to these and just a few more.  The little plant at the bottom (and all of its' brothers and sisters) will hopefully be a garden of flowers in a couple months.  They are a new variety of Zinnia that I tried last year and really liked - a creamy color in low, compact plants - Dreamland Ivory!

I'm going to plant more Dreamland Ivory Zinnias next year!

They've got a beautiful creamy ivory color, very lush foliage, and they stand up to the very hot temperatures. As you can see, the butterflies like them too! I've saved some seeds and will hopefully be able to start them that way - but I bought the ones I have this year at Hughes Plant Farm south of Tyler. They've got many greenhouses, sell in volume, and sell flats for around $10.

Some new blossoms for us:

I started both of these from seed in the greenhouse this year. The Moonflower has been a project for the last few years for me. Each year I've started them from seed but have failed to get flowers either from errors I've made in getting them started and into the right spot to grow or from creatures making a meal of them. In the spring I picked up a ten cent package of seeds marked "Mixed Sunflowers" and after what looked like an unsuccessful start (they were getting way too leggy in the greenhouse) I did get a dozen or so plants in the garden and now they're taller than me. They're are several of the more familiar yellow ones but this one seems to just sparkle.

Bougainvillae

We've got this one on the deck in a hanging pot. The blossoms actually have a structure much like the leaves and are called bracts but they also have what looks like tiny flowers within the blossom. A unique plant - but easy to care for.

More about blackberries

I showed you the first of the Navaho blackberries about three weeks ago. We'd been harvesting the Araphos for several weeks before and now after 6-7 weeks of harvesting a pint or so a day, we're at the end of it. This is today's harvest! We'll do this two more time at the most and then we're done for the season - but this has been a very satisfying crop. We've had blackberries in cold cereal, blackberries in hot cereal, blackberry pie, blackberry cobbler, and - just blackberries as snacks by themselves. The rate of harvest and the rate of consumption has stayed in sync pretty well - we've got a quart or so in the frig now.

Both of these types of blackberries are thornless and are classified as "erect" in their growth habit. The canes that we've been harvesting from are called "floricanes". They are the second year growth and they will die now that production is over and I'll prune them off. Already growing, and of very large size, are this years' "primocanes". They will bear the fruit next year and I'll be taking care of them now to shape them and encourage more lateral growth to give us even more blackberries next year. We've had a few volunteer plants come up and they'll give us a few blackberries next year but most will come the year after.

In any event - we're going to miss our berries! You ought to consider growing some. You get a lot for what you put into it.

Butterfly and bumble bees

A couple butterfly shots this morning. When I first walked out, the humidity fogged up the lens coming from the house and made an interesting effect in some of the shots. The butterfly alone is one of those. Then he flew to a clump of flowers already occupied by some bees.

Japanese Painted Fern

I came to appreciate the Japanese Painted Fern several years ago on a visit to Clark Gardens near Mineral Wells. I learned about the Oak Leaf Hydranga at the same time and have a couple of those near the pond. They both provide color in a shade environment. The Oak Leaf Hydranga actually has nice, long life blossoms but the Japanese Painted Fern adds color with it's silver and purple foliage. We have several of those in the "Springy Chair Garden" and they come back nicely ever year. This year is about their 4th year and their 3rd year with regular watering and care and they are healthy, growing well, and even seem to have stronger colors. Being in an area with other very green ferns they take on a starring role and we've added a few Coral Bells to pick-up of the purple. (We also transplanted a couple Netted Chain Ferns to this area. They grow wild on the property and there is a big area filled with them down near the East Bridge.) But the post is about the Japanese Painted Fern and if I'm going to be a Master Gardener and talk about plants like these I need to learn to use adjectives like "lovely"!

Blackberries

We've got two varieties of blackberries - Arapaho and Navajo. We've been harvesting a pint or so a day from one of them for several weeks now and the other will be harvesting soon. They're especially good right off of the vine when they're just a little warm from the sunshine!

Dad alway tried to harvest the first tomato by Memorial Day

Well - here they are dad - a day before! We've harvested some cherry tomatoes, beets, chard, onions, squash, and zucchini - along with a daily harvest of blackberries, but a few days ago I was wondering if the tomato would make it by Memorial Day. Most every gardener I've heard from has harvested their first tomatoes this week. (And that's the kind of thing we're concerned about over here in 'retired land'.)

Quick! Here's the yard before the heat gets it!

I bought a few more annuals today to fill in the spots that the early bloomers will leave. The goal for next year is to have them ready in the greenhouse when they are needed. Requires proper planning and restraint when buying flower seeds. (But at $7 & $9 a flat - is it worth it??)

It's not a very pretty flower

But it's prettier if you know the story. This is a Shasta Daisy. It takes a long time to get one of the blossoms and this is actually the second one. The first is in a vase in the kitchen. In the mini-greenhouse picture which was taken in March last year, the Shasta Daisies are the seedlings to the far left. I planted them in the flower bed in April and they grew and looked good during the summer but they never grew very tall and they didn't bloom. I learned that they weren't suppose to. They stayed green all winter but lost a lot of the height they did have. They were only 6-8 inches tall and after a freeze they lay on the ground and looked to be gone. But now they are perhaps three feet tall and there are buds all over them. They bloom the second year - so I'm gonna have a bunch of these - just hope that some of the others look better than this one!