Zanthan Gardens
Category: Garden Essays

One of the garden chores I hate is watering. I hate having to use up a precious resource (our local lake reservoirs are currently at half their capacity) and I hate the time it takes. I have a drip system in the vegetable garden but everything else I water by hand with either the hose or a watering can.

Around Christmas I dropped by The Great Outdoors and bought myself a little present, the Dramm Revolver. I had used one when volunteering at the Green Classroom and fell in love with it.

The nozzle revolves to spray water nine different ways. The mist setting produces a cloud of mist fine enough to water seedlings. The sprinkle setting is like the fine head on my watering can. Then there are various harder sprays of different shapes, cone, center, flat, angle which make it possible to water in beds of different shapes. There is also a hard jet spray for washing out the bird bath and cleaning off rocks and a bubbly soaker to leave on the ground next to tree or large bush while I’m doing other chores.

This week temperatures soared into the 80s and I decided to use my new toy. I had so much fun. I was delighted with two other features. First, I can shut the water off at the nozzle end instead of running back to turn it off at the faucet. That makes it so much easier to stop and move the hose around without wasting water or soaking myself. I feel that I must be dealing with the some monstrous descendent of the same hose Karel Capek describes in The Gardener’s Year.

“One would think that watering a little garden is quite a simple thing, especially if one has a hose. It will soon be clear that until it has been tamed a hose is an extraordinarily evasive and dangerous beast, for it contorts itself, it jumps, it wriggles, it makes puddles of water, and dives with delight into the mess it has made; then it goes for the man who is going to use it and coils itself round his legs…”

Second, the Dramm Revolver has a little widget that flips to keep nozzle open (like at a gas pump) so that my hand doesn’t get tired squeezing the lever. It’s solid and sturdy. This was $10 very well spent.

I was reading Monty Don’s My Roots: A Decade in the Garden last night and I came across a couple of passages that irked me.

“This is why I have little time for gardens that are merely a collection of plants…A culture of technique–almost always male-dominated–where the garden almost became a laboratory superseded the true spirit of gardens which is feminine, intuitive and full of guile. Gardening is no more a science than cooking is.” — p. 105

As someone who loves science both in the garden and in the kitchen, I’m impatient with these gender stereotypes. I do believe that there are two types of people but the division here is not between men and women but between those whose hearts rule their heads (F-types) and whose heads rule their hearts (T-types). Monty Don is obviously an F-type, even though he is male and I’m decidedly a T-type.

A couple of pages later, Monty Don traces his aversion to science to his childhood walks.

“I never really really articulated it, but I think I thought that studying [flowers] would break the magic and reduce this intense, private world to the foolishness of rational intelligence. It was the difference between watching the butterfly bob and float until it disappeared and scrutinizing the same specimen pinned to a block” — p. 108

If that’s how he wants to see the world, fine. But I resent the dig against the “foolishness” of rational intelligence. The underlying message is “Let’s all revel in ignorance.” The hippies said it in the 1960s and forty years later the religious fundamentalists have picked up the cry. And he continues.

“…I am still wary of those who categorize and measure with botanical fervour…The poetry slips through these cracks, and without poetry gardens and plants are reduced to something between a specimen and another chore to measure the day. The light does not get in.”

I find it difficult to comprehend how anyone could be blind to the poetry in science. Science teaches us how to observe, how to really look at the world, to distinguish the differences between one butterfly an another, to wonder at the living processes within each organism and delve into interrelationships among them. Whether taking a micro or a macro view, science forces us to see the world with new eyes. F-types don’t have a monopoly on poetry. Science is infused with poetry. I think my experience of the world is all the richer for trying to understand it.

I might as well say to an F-type, “Stop cluttering the joy of pure thought with sensual distractions.” I wouldn’t, though, because I know that people experience the world in different ways. That’s part of the wonder of the range of human experience. One mode is not superior to the other. Remember, it takes the separate vantage points of two different eyes to experience the world in three dimensions.

‘Blush Noisette’ was just about to open three buds. She was completely flattened by the ice but has sprung back to shape now that it’s melting.

Ditto for the loquat and the magnolia. I don’t think any limbs are broken, just bent. The duranta, however, looks terrible. I should have tried to bring it in. I’m counting on it coming back from its roots but that means I lost a year of growth on it.

All my little cuttings of lavender and Jerusalem sage which I had under cover look fine. So does the vegetable garden, except for the basil, of course. It’s really too early to tell. I wonder how the tomato is doing. The cover over it is frozen solid so I haven’t had a peek yet.

“Just one more trip,” I kept telling myself. How can I turn away from a huge pile of free mulch? I can’t! I figure each lawn and leaf bag hold about the same as one bag of mulch from a big box store. So 32 x 2 x $3 = $192. If a penny saved is a penny earned, then I made $12 an hour–and didn’t have to pay taxes. Of course, if I bought mulch by the yard it would be cheaper but because I don’t have a truck, I’d have to pay a delivery charge.

I also bagged 58 paper grocery sacks of ground pine needles that I’ll compost with the oak leaves I’m still raking up.

At any rate, even when we had a truck, I never had enough mulch to cover all the paths in the meadow evenly. This is a first. And it looks so nice. I’m always pleased with how the garden looks when the paths are tidied.

An ice storm is headed our way. If we’re lucky it will rain first. Bearing this in mind I kept at it. In a couple of days, I’ll be huddling indoors enjoying our week of winter and wondering how the rose bushes, which are beginning to bud, and the vegetable garden will do. I picked enough lettuce for a big salad and three cherry tomatoes today. I don’t think I’ll be able to coddle the tomato through this storm.

If the forecast is correct, my next photo may be of the garden covered in snow.

The New Year dawned cold but sunny. I discover that I do like the sun! but only when the temperatures are below 70F. Reading over my garden journal I see how every fall and winter I plan and plant anew. The amount of plants I’ve killed over the years is sobering. And reading about my excitement and hopes and how my many plans came to nothing puts a damper on plans for this new year. For the first time I see the downside of keeping a journal.

Yet it’s difficult not to throw oneself into gardening when the days are so fine. Add the fact that we had a bit of our usual December rain and you’ll understand why it’s said that hope springs eternal. The success of my first winter vegetable garden encourages me to make new plans.

I spend a lot of time writing about the reversal of seasons down south. Lately I’ve been thinking that if summer is really our dead season, why shouldn’t I treat it as such. Why not help the garden go completely dormant, cover it up with mulch, and wait out the worst of summer. As long as this drought continues (the one in the 1950s lasted seven years), our summers are getting hotter and we have more and more days over 100F degrees.

Kathy Purdy at Cold Climate Gardening posted recently about the USDA hardiness zone maps and I replied that in Austin I’m more concerned with the data in the relatively new AHS Heat Zone Map. Some plants suffer heat damage in temperatures as low as 86F degrees. In Austin, temperatures top 86F degrees 50 to 65 percent of the days in the year. Finding the right heat-loving plants is part of the fun of gardening, a challenge tempered with failure. We plant native plants but I, for one, want something more than plants that merely survive. If we try Mediterranean or desert plants in our dry years, we risk losing them to humidity in our wet years. If we plant tropicals, we worry about that one hard freeze a year wiping them out.

The number of days in a row where temperatures are above freezing but below 86F is hard to calculate but generally speaking Austin has two short prime growing seasons from mid-September to mid-November and mid-February to mid-May. Here at Zanthan Gardens plants receive more sunlight in December after the leaves of our large deciduous trees have fallen than in July. And, on the average, more rain.

As I spend my days tending my cool-weather vegetables and planting out my cottage annuals (which don’t require a struggle to dig deep holes in the clay and endless roots of bindweed), I wonder why not just stop here? Enjoy the spring flush of flowers and pack it in for the summer. Forget the short-lived perennials and roses which never receive enough light in the summer and yet demand water, feeding, and attention. Sling a hammock in the deep shade and forget about gardening in summer. Become a cold season gardener.

Is it possible?

I can’t match the incredible tomato reviews that Hanna writes but I do want to share our first and only vine-ripened tomatoes of 2006. Two! We also ate half a dozen others that I picked three weeks ago before our first freeze and ripened in a paper bag. These are from the “Husky Cherry Red” tomato plant from Home Depot that I planted on September 22, 2006 when it was 99F degrees. These cherry tomatoes have a nice tang to them which both of us like. ‘Husky Cherry Red’ is classified as a dwarf indeterminate and marketed for people with small gardens or who want to grow tomatoes in a container.

The lettuce is producing wonderfully now, almost 8 inches tall–enough to make two modest salads a night. The weather forecasters are teasing us with predictions of snow flurries for Christmas Eve but the temperatures look to stay just at freezing, so I’ll cover everything up and try to pull it through. After the front blows through this weekend it will be sunny and in the 60s again.

“On page 123 there was a cross-section drawing of how to prepare a rose bed. Instruction: excavate the entire bed to a depth of two feet. I shall pause here to allow time for reeling around and protesting.” –Midge Ellis Keeble, “Tottering in My Garden”

“Unless one is willing to take the trouble properly to prepare the ground, there is no use in expecting success in gardening. I have but on rule: stake out the bed, and then dig out the entire space two feet in depth. Often stones will be found requiring the strength and labor of several men, with crowbars and levers, to remove them; often there will be rocks that require blasting.” — Helena Rutherfurd Ely, “A Woman’s Hardy Garden”

With the weather back up in the 70s this week, I’m trying to get all my December gardening chores done, especially transplanting the three ‘New Dawn’ roses that I grew from cuttings.

I find digging a hole of any depth in my heavy clay difficult. Lacking a cadre of men with pick-axes and blasting equipment, I’ve developed a compromise plan: I dig down one foot and build up one foot. For these roses, I had AJM construct three additional 4×4 foot planter boxes.

I’m planting two of the roses in the, optimistically named, north border. The north of my back yard is fenced with a short chain-link fence and looks directly into the shared yard of a rental duplex. Given these intimate conditions, I prefer neighbors who aren’t much interested in yard work because they spend all their time indoors. The latest renter, however, likes to sit on his back patio and talk all afternoon into his cell phone. His presence (and the fact that he and his girlfriend share afternoon delight with the windows open–he’s apparently very good) has kept me from spending much time in the back lately but this week I decided I had to get this job done. My presence right at the fence line drove him indoors.

To provide a bit of privacy I’ve let the nandina grow wildly out of hand. My idea, inspired by English hedgerows, was to create a mixed hedge by planting other plants among the nandina and then as the new plants grew bigger cutting back more and more of the nandina. Unfortunately, almost everything I’ve planted has died mostly because I never water the nandina and so I forget to water anything else on that side of the yard. Even the Podranea ricasoliana which has eaten the north side of my garage, failed to cascade gracefully over the chain link fence where I wanted it to do. To block some of the holes in the view, I built a woven wood fence out of pieces of the rotting fence that we took down. I attached it to the chain link fence with cable ties. I’m pleased to report that it’s still holding up well.

Before I could dig, I had to prune back the nandina. I know that it looks better when it’s trimmed viciously but some of it was six feet tall and did a pretty good job of blocking the duplex from sight. I hated opening up holes in the border that will take years to fill in. But it had to be done. The north border is also ridden with bindweed, thorny smilax (I think), and some poison ivy. I’ve spent the better part of three afternoons hacking at roots and digging out a bit of soil and hacking at more roots.

One encouraging note is that there is about 3 inches of leaf mold mulching the nandina. I dump whatever leaves I don’t have room for in the compost here and it’s built up nicely. I read once that the earthworms would mix the top dressing in but I see no evidence of that. The layers of dirt here are clearly stratified. The next 8 inches are pretty good soil: not too many rocks and not many lumps of clay. I can tell I’ve dug here before, twice. Below the friable dir. is black clay.

Another book I read suggested using landscape fabric to line the holes in order to keep tree roots from overrunning bulbs and annuals. When I read this ten years ago, I thought it was ridiculously unnatural. I’ve been humbled. I cannot spend every year redigging every bed. The tree roots suck all the moisture and nutrients out of the soil. Beds where I’ve generously mixed in copious amounts of sifted compost or aged horse manure look like they’ve never been cultivated. Implementing this advice was more difficult than I imagined. Did I dig down deeply enough? Won’t the roots just come in from the side. And should I cut a hole for the rose’s roots–will it ever get that big? will a hole allow the noxious roots to invade?

After I filled in the planter with dirt, sifted compost and Dillo Dirt (aka people poop), I transplanted one of the little roses. It didn’t have much of a root system…or perhaps I ripped out all the roots when I dug it out. Well, it grew originally with no roots at all from a cutting. Maybe it will take. I don’t really understand how Susan Harris can dig up established plants and move them around on whim. I bow before her in awe. In my yard, if something takes to a place, it’s pretty much stuck there forever.

Kathy, of Cold Climate Gardening begins a series today, an online panel discussion of eight other garden bloggers who have been blogging for four or more years. I’m thrilled to be included. Kathy is putting up one topic a day over the next week or so. Here are the questions she asked with links to the answers. I’ll update the list as she does.

Part 1. According to their respective websites, Blogger was founded in 1999 and Movable Type in 2001. But as I remember, even when I started my garden blog in 2002, most people didn’t know what a blog was, or see the point of it, really. So what in your background or relationships made you aware of and comfortable with the technology? What led you to become an “early adopter”? Link to discussion.

Part 2. Of all the things you could use this technology for, why gardening? How did you see a blog working for you better than more traditional means of garden communication, such as a chat over the fence, a garden club membership, a plant society membership, or a magazine subscription? What problem were you hoping to solve, or what need did you want to fill? Link to discussion.

Part 3. Did your garden blog accomplish what you were hoping for? Any unexpected benefits? Any disappointments? Link to discussion.

Part 4. What do you think has caused the proliferation of garden blogs in the last year? Link to discussion.

Part 5. Thinking over all of the garden blogging you’ve done and the garden blogs you’ve read since you first started, what has changed for the better? What negatives, if any, have arisen? Do you miss anything from the “good ol’ days” of blogging? Link to discussion.

Part 6. Do you think gardeners comment less than other bloggers? Link to discussion.

Part 7. Does it seem to you that gardeners, as a whole, are late adopters of technology? I mean, look at the categories for the Weblog Awards. There’s a category for best craft blog, best food blog, best entertainment blog, best politics blog, best web development blog, etc. The closest gardeners get is best topical blog, which is basically an “everything else” category. Why do you think this is so? (Or make a case for the oppositeÅ|that they’re not late adopters.) Link to discussion.

Part 8. What advice would you give a gardener starting a blog today? Link to discussion.

Part 9. What’s next for gardeners interested in internet communication? Today, blogging. Tomorrow? Link to discussion.
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In the spring when the perennials strain for a bit of sunlight to produce a weak flower or two, I consider thinning out the trees. Come the dead of summer and I think about planting more. Oh beautiful trees! How could I be so whimsical? How could I let my fancy be captured by those flashy, seductive flowers? Their joys are fleeting but trees stand strong and true through the years.

I walked around the garden today to note what plants kept their looks in heat and drought without any primping from me. I have a lot of drought-tolerant plants…but just because they can tolerate this heat, doesn’t mean they thrive in it. The crape myrtle, oleander, wisteria, confederate jasmine, ruellia, Tecoma stans, plumbago, duranta, salvia, Turk’s cap, and magnolia all need supplemental water. Even with water, most plants take a droopy siesta between 2PM and 7PM every day the temperatures hover around 100.

Are there really any plants that can go it alone?

The hands down winner is Texas mountain laurel, Sephora secundiflora. This slow-growning small tree has glossy medium bright green leaves that never wilt. It looks fresh and green on the worst summer day. I don’t water it at all; however, in February, if it is a dry spring, it will reward supplemental water by producing much showier flowers.

My Texas persimmon, Diospyros texana, also seems unfazed by July’s dry heat. The tiny leaves have a silvery gray cast, so it doesn’t provide the refreshing sense of cool green that Texas mountain laurel does. It does have an attractive peeling bark similar to crape myrtle.

I’ve never tended the heavenly bamboo, Nandina domestica, except to thin it. It doesn’t get a drop of water or even a mulching from me. Still it never wilts or browns. I use it as hedge to provide a wind break and a green backdrop for the north border of the garden.

The Mexican plums, Prunus mexicana, are still looking good this year. Usually by the end of summer, the leaves will be brown and bug bitten. They’re ten years old now and each year they get bigger and tougher.

I don’t know how much drought the sago palm, Cycas revoluta can stand because I haven’t put it to the test. It looks tropical but it prefers good drainage to a swamp or it can rot. I keep it in partial shade because it gets sunburnt during the worst part of summer. Its deep glossy green looks very refreshing.

My asparagus fern, Asparagus densiflorus, (neither an asparagus or a fern) continues to remain a bright yellowish green. I have two planted in the ground and one in a pot. I cover them in a freeze. Last year, one froze back to the ground but came back again when temperatures warmed up. (In Austin, the ground doesn’t freeze.)

The varigated Agave americana, a passalong from Valerie is thriving. At this rate, Zanthan will soon be turned into an agave garden. In contrast, both types of yucca and the aloe vera get burned under the intensity of Austin’s July sun.

“Turn on the hot water, ” the plumber shouted from the roof as he began snaking out the half-century old sewer lines which have a history of backing up in the kitchen sink whenever the washing machine drains. Leaks in that same section of plumbing necessitated rebuilding the outside wall on that side of the house and gave us the opportunity to move both the electrical and plumbing inside. Now the plumber was almost finished with that day-long job. Problem. The new connection wasn’t draining.

I couldn’t hide my pained expression as thousands of gallons of water poured into the waste water lines. Wasted water. I– the same I who dread walking through the garden this time of year as the plants cry out for some relief and I skulk past them making Sophie’s Choice over which I choose to live–I stood there with the hose for 45 minutes pouring water down the drain.