Zanthan Gardens
Category: Plant Highlights

Everyone who visits my garden in April or May is stopped dead in their tracks by Acanthus mollis. It’s so big. And it’s floral spike is bizarre and somewhat menacing.

Acanthus mollis is not really a good landscape plant in Austin, although it can be useful if you have a very shady site. It needs lots of water. As soon as the temperatures reach the 90s, it wilts and looks about as attractive as cooked spinach. Once the summer gets really hot, it fades away leaving a big hole in the border design. But when temperatures cool off in the fall, it’s back again. Fall and winter (if it’s not too cold) are it’s best seasons. In spring, the leaves are often ravaged by spring cankerworms and whatever beetles are about.

It’s one tough plant, though, and keeps coming back despite my neglect. People in more temperate climate consider it a pest.

2003-05-09. Acanthus mollis. Austin, Texas. (zone 8)

I fell in love with tall bearded irises the first time I saw a photo of ‘Seakist’. The photo made me send off for Schreiner’s Iris Catalog and then I fell in love with a dozen more varieties of iris. I couldn’t afford ‘Seakist’ that first year or even the second year. But when the price fell to $15.00 a rhizome, I was determined to have it, even though it was the most I’d ever paid for a bulb of any kind.
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This week the Lady Banks rose is doing a perfect job of hiding my neighbor’s clothesline from view. I bought this rose in a gallon pot three years ago for $8.95 at Barton Springs Nursery. It’s doubled in size each year and is now about eight feet tall and twice as wide. I planted it about five feet from a chain link fence to give it plenty of room, which it’s going to need. The thornless canes are very flexible and easy to train.

The leaves are small, glossy and bright green. The small double flowers bloom in bunches like bridesmaid’s nosegays. They are warm buttery yellow. Flowers on this variety, ‘Lutea’, which is common in Austin, are scentless. The Lady Banks rose blooms but once a year, but then so do azaleas and pear trees and no one faults them for that.

Update: 2005

I’m very sad to report that this beautiful rose died in the hard freeze we had in December 2004. None of the other roses was affected.

Iris albicans surprised me this week.
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The scent of paperwhites ushers in the New Year. I can’t stand the scent of the modern paperwhites, ‘Ziva’ and ‘Galilee’, but I’ve love the scent of their tazetta relative, Narcissus tazetta v. italicus. It is the scent of the first flower of the New Year.

I had always thought that N. italicus had a lovely, citrus-y scent. But over Christmas, when JQS was working at my desk, he said, “Mom, do you smell airplane glue or something?” I came over concerned and then laughed. “It’s just the flowers.”

If you don’t like the scent of paperwhites, try growing Narcissus tazetta v orientalis (the Chinese Sacred Lily) instead. It is scented with orange essence. I always buy bulbs to force and plant them out in the garden afterward where they come back year after year.

In this photo, the N. italicus are on the left and the Chinese Sacred Lily on the right. In my garden the N. italicus grow on stalks 20 to 24 inches tall, the Chinese Sacred Lily on stalks 12 to 14 inches tall.

The foliage of N. italicus is a much deeper green than the gray-green paperwhites, the strappy leaves are almost an inch wide. They grow straight and tall in the fall and finally flop over. Although they are my first narcissus to bloom, the leaves are the last to disappear in the spring. Sometimes it is May before I can divide them.

I always plant them where I can see them through a window from inside the house. Then even on a miserably cold day like today, I can enjoy the garden.

In Other People’s Gardens

I don’t really know if my bulbs really are Grand Primo as they were in the garden when I arrived. Mine don’t look anything like the photo at Old House Gardens.

However, mine do look like the Grand Primo pictured in this photo from the Stephen F. Austin State University. Notice how the cup is much smaller and a paler lemon yellow. Also the petals are slimmer and more pointed, often twisting back.

Although the same photo is enlarged here and these flowers do not have as narrow tapering petals as mine.

Update: February 25, 2004
I’ve corrected this post because I determined that I had two different Narcissus tazetta growing in my garden. For more information, see A Tale of Two Narcissus

technorati: ChineseSacredLily bulbs garden

The drumstick onions take forever to unfurl. I’m always disappointed in the beginning and then end up being won over by their odd charms.

From the catalog description: Deep pink-reddish flowers. Height 32 inches. Late spring flowering. Plant 6 inches deep and 3 inches apart.

Zanthan Gardens History

1998-11-24
Planted the ornamental drumstick onions that I purchased from Dutch Gardens.

1998-12-01
Sprouted. (About 1 week).

1998-12-13
Rapidly attained a height of 10 to 12 inches with dark, straight, narrow leaves. They have a much neater habit than the A. neapolitanum and for that reason, I prefer them in the meadow. However, they weren’t supposed to bloom until late summer or fall. I was hoping they would replace the larkspur, But they are up before the larkspur and I might have to pull any larkspur I planted there so that it doesn’t compete and overshadow them.

1999-05-05
First flowers. On stems 30 to 36 inches tall. They tease for a long time in bud, then lose a papery case around the flowers and turn a lovely reddish-purple from the top down. They are very strange-looking and I like them.

2002-06-13
This year the first flowers began well after all the spring annuals had faded. Supplemental watering has lengthened the bloom period and resulted in larger flower heads.

2002-10-29
Dig up one clump that was weedy and divide and replant it. The leaves are about 8 inches long and the roots are well-established, but they didn’t seem to mind the transplanting very much.

Photo Gallery Rainlilies

Sadly, ‘Sneezy’ bloomed in my garden only once and then disappeared. Experiences like this persuade me that I’d be better off just forgetting the garden and buying cut flowers instead.

Dateline: 2002
The bearded irises have really begun blooming this week, beginning with ‘Altruist’ on April 8th, then ‘Champagne Elegance’ on April 9th, and ‘Incantation’ today.

Whenever an iris opens, I fall in love with it, forsaking all others.

Zanthan Gardens History

Monday March 19, 2000
Among my Schreiner’s order this year, one ‘Altruist’ ($7.50).

2001-04-11. Second to bloom in this row. It is not very blue, but more lavender. It is more flouncy and more open than “Mystic’s Muse’, matching the description from Schreiner’s quoted above. I brought them both to work today and their colors complement.

2002
2002-04-08.
First flower of 2002 on ‘Altruist’ and first flower this year of all the bought irises.

2002-04-22.
Altruist has produced some spectacular stalks, each with many flowers. As for the note above, it only seemed less heavy because it was not fully open.

2002-06-02
One of the Altruist rhizomes had rot. Dug up five rhizomes and soaked them in a mild bleach solution, then replanted them in the front square. The one that had rot was one that already bloomed, so it should probably be thrown out. It was small and didn’t have any babies. One other was very small and three were good sized and will probably bloom next year.

Thursday April 10, 2003
First flower of 2003.

Monday April 5, 2004
First Flower. Iris ‘Atruist’ is also the first flower of all the bought irises.

Tuesday August 28, 2018
Schreiner’s no longer carries this iris.

A native of China, Indian hawthorn Rhaphiolepis Indica is ubiquitous in traditional suburban landscapes and commercial landscapes here in Austin. Why? Because it is a tough, evergreen shrub that can be used in a hedge. It doesn’t wilt in the summer; its glossy leaves always seem fresh and cool. In late spring, it is covered with small, pale pink flowers. After a frost, some leaves turn a bright orange or red, but like live oaks, the old leaves remain until the new leaves push them out.
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