Zanthan Gardens
Category: Plant Highlights

I worry that 2008 might not be a very good for Texas’s beloved state flower, the bluebonnet. Under ideal conditions, bluebonnets sprout in late September or early October after fall rains break summer’s hold. By Christmas, each plant has formed a flat rosette about the size of a salad plate. The root system gets firmly established as the rosette grows to dinnner plate size. By late February, the bluebonnet sends up multiple stalks forming a compact little bush with a flower at the end of each stalk. If you pick these first flowers, the bluebonnet will stay bushy and more flowers will form on side shoots.

However 2007 was an odd year weather-wise. Austin enjoyed a cool, wet summer and endured a hot, dry fall. In my yard quite a few bluebonnets sprouted from fresh seed in June. Although this happens every year, these early summer seedlings rarely survive the heat and droughts typical of August in Austin. In 2007, seventeen plants ended up successfully oversummering and are already forming little bushes. On December 15th one of these flowered.

2007-12-22. The bluebonnets which grew over the summer are now forming small bushes ahead of schedule.

Unfortunately very few bluebonnets began sprouting in the fall of 2007. Only in the last couple of weeks of the year did I begin seeing new seedlings. Of course, they are quite small for this time of year, only a a few true leaves rather than a large rosette. And the weather remains very, very dry which means that they are not getting off to a good start.

2007-12-22. This bluebonnet just sprouted; it is a couple of months behind.

2007-12-22. This time of year, the bluebonnets plants are usually form rosettes about 6 inches across.

While the gardener may fret, the bluebonnets are employing their long-term strategy for survival. Their seeds have a tough coat which makes them difficult to sprout when dry. The coats are of various thicknesses so that only some of the seeds sprout in the same conditions and other remain in reserve until their coats are worn down. Even though the plants are fewer and smaller, once conditions are right, they will still manage to send up a flower or two. The seeds that didn’t sprout this year are waiting to sprout next year.

Now I’m waiting to see what the other oversummering bluebonnets will do. Will they also flower early? Will they be more subject to freeze damage in January and February? Or will the plants just sprouting now catch up to the plants which have been growing last June so that they all bloom at once?

I couldn’t decide which photo I liked better so I decided to post both of them. Chinese Sacred Lilies are neither from China nor lilies. Rather they are Narcissus tazetta v. orientalis and often forced for winter bloom like their cousins the paperwhites. Several people have written to me that they are associated with the Chinese new year, so that may be where we derive the “Chinese” in its common name. Elsewhere I’ve read that Chinese immigrants brought the bulbs to the US in the 1800s. Before that, however, they travelled along the Silk Road from Spain to China.

The individual flowers are about twice as large as the flowers of paperwhites. And, unlike the musky scent of some paperwhites which many people find offensive, the scent of Chinese Sacred lilies is deliciously citrus-y.

I have not found them to be good subjects for the garden, as Scott Ogden in Garden Bulbs for the South, suggests. Although the foliage comes back every year, they rarely flower in my Austin garden. I suspected that they require temperatures a bit colder than Austin. So last year I dug up a clump and chilled them for 8 weeks before replanting last month. These that are flowering are from the replanted bulbs I chilled. The clumps of unchilled bulbs are up but show no hint of flowers.

Well despite massive losses to the squash borer, we finally managed to eat some summer squash from the fall garden. I harvested three squash between four and six inches long. Together they weighed a bit more than 3/4 of a pound. AJM wished he’d known how much squash there was as he would have made his favorite pasta dish with summer squash, cherry tomatoes, pine nuts and olive oil. There are a few more squash out there so he might still have a chance.

‘Early Prolific Straightneck’ is open-pollinated, an heirloom vegetable which was an All America Selection in 1938. According to the seed packet, (from Botanical Interests), ‘Early Prolific Straightneck’ can be “…harvested very small for ‘baby’ vegetables. Can be steamed, grilled, sauteed, eaten raw in salads, made into relish, and made into bread. If left on the vine, (it) will grow so big that it will effect the orbital spin of the earth.” If this squash lives up to its marketing at all, it’s well worth growing. Because we ended up with so few squash, I let them grow a little larger than I like. I prefer to eat them very small when there aren’t too many seeds.The flavor was very good and the texture firm and creamy. I’m definitely going to try to grow ‘Early Prolific Straightneck’ again, maybe in the spring.

So far, my one night harvest ended up being 3/4 of a pound. The seed packet was $1.89. I’ll have to price summer squash at Central Market to see if the economics pan out (Update: summer squash at CM is $1.49 a pound.) The flavor was excellent. And I know there are no pesticides or anything nasty sprayed on them. And no fossil fuels were used to transport them to my kitchen.

Garden History

I’ve included the temperature ranges and rainfall to compare fall vegetable gardening in Austin to other times of the year and to other locations. Even for Austin 2007 has had a warmer than average fall. I find it difficult to keep seedlings going in early September when Austin temperatures can reach into the high 90s and even the 100s. It’s also been very dry. It rained once, about an inch, on October 22nd when a cold front dropped temperatures 20 degrees.

2007-09-09. Planted 3 seeds to a hole as directed. (45 days to harvest). Highs in the mid-90s, lows in the high 70s. Planted in the new berm made out of dirt dug excavated during the construction of the garden house. This “dirt” is mostly rock mixed with clay and caliche. I added three bags of Texas native hardwood mulch.
2007-09-16. Almost all the squash came so thinned and transplanted thinnings.
2007-10-23. As the first squash are beginning to form, plants are attacked by squash borers. They bore into all the existing fruit turning the squash into mush. I pick off the fruit and cut out all the borers I could and mounded dirt up over the vines where I cut off leaves. Some plants survive but about one-third don’t. Highs had climbed into the low 90s but just dropped to the mid-70s before the squash borer attack.
2007-11-13. First harvest. (65 days). High temperatures in the mid-80s, lows in the mid-60s. Almost no rain during the entire growing period so I had to provide supplemental water.

Here’s a couple of photos of the new flower I discovered in my garden last week. It looks a bit like a miniature tradescantia except that the flower sticks up on a thin stem. The flower is less than 1/4 inch (1 cm) in diameter and the stem about 2 inches (5 cm) long. The plant is a little more than a foot (30 cm) tall and a bit sprawling.

Should I be welcoming this stranger into my garden or weeding it out as fast as I can?

Annie, this isn’t the same white flower I’ve admired in your front lawn under the trees, is it? Seems to me the flowers on your plant are larger.
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One of the first books I bought when I began gardening in Austin was Sally and Andy Wasowski’s Native Texas Plants: Landscaping Region by Region. I believed that one should garden where one is and was interested in discovering native Texas plants that would, not only survive in Central Texas, but thrive. However, Ms. Wasowski totally lost me on page 99 with this ode to horseherb, Calytocarpus vialis.

This plant illustrates how prejudices can cloud the mind. It is described in botanical literature as a “noxious lawn weed.” Why? Because it outcompetes grass in the shade. Funny, that’s what I thought everyone wants a shady ground cover to do.

Well, honey, call me prejudiced but I’m here to tell you that horseherb is a noxious weed. It’s right up there with bindweed in my book. It will grow in your lawn. It will grow in your paths. It will smother the buffalograss. It will climb over the agave. It will suck the life out the species tulips. It will crowd out the bluebonnets.

In short, if you have it, you will never be rid of it. Try pulling it up, and it will snap off at the ground and resprout again in a few weeks. Dig it up and every little root will start a new plant.

Still, I’m resigned to the digging out method. Here I am, digging up the meadow and adding compost. The meadow needs to be disturbed a bit this time of year so that the self-sowers (larkspur, bluebonnets, cilantro, and nigella) will sprout. Unfortunately to get out the horseherb, I’m also digging up rainlilies and tulips and buffalograss and the nice gravel mulch I have around the agave. What? You can’t see any gravel mulch around the agave? Now you know why I hate horseherb.

Once a year (although never at the same time of year in my garden), the Sago palm sends up new fronds.

Sago palms are VERY slow growing plants. As such, they are rather expensive.

I started out with a very small plant about ten years ago.

Sago palms are not true palms, but cycads–a very primitive type of plant which has survived a lot. We need survivors here in central Texas. Their deep green fronds give them a very tropical appearance but, in fact, these native of Japan do not like to be overwatered or have wet feet. I’ve found mine to be extremely drought-tolerant. However, if they are in full Texas sun and the temperatures are in the high 90s or 100s, the fronds tend to get sunburned. Mine is planted where it gets some afternoon shade.

Sago palms are often used as potted plants. They can stand temperatures as low as 20F degrees (some people say 15F) which means that they have no problem surviving outside in the ground during most Austin winters.

I planted a packet of orange cosmos, Cosmos sulphureus, early last summer and the seeds sprouted and grew during our very rainy June. When I returned from vacation in July, the meadow was populated with lots of cheerful orange flowers growing on plants with a branching habit about three feet (1m) tall and wide. Those plants are just now starting to look a bit ragged.

In their place Super Cosmos has sprung up. These are orange cosmos on an incredibly thick stalk. The first one shot up to almost 6 feet before flowering. I had to stake it, as it was leaning precariously. I thought this was just a freak but all the orange cosmos coming up now are following the same pattern.

All these cosmos were planted at the same time from the same seed packet in the same location. I have not fed them anything. (Most wildflowers thrive on poor soils; feed them and you’ll get a lot of green and few flowers.) I have not given them supplemental water, as we’ve had so much rain this year. And yet they look like different plants. Were there different varieties in the seed packet? Did the early sprouting type have a different habit. Are they responding to the different amounts of rain we received at different times over the summer? Or did the ones that sprout earlier grow differently because of the time of year they were growing? I read once that cosmos grow best after the summer equinox. Certainly the plants that sprouted before the equinox behaved quite differently than these that sprouted after.

This is the first year I’ve grown orange cosmos. (Pam/Digging assures me it won’t be the last as they are prolific self-sowers.) So I have no basis for comparison. How do your orange cosmos grow? Short and wide? Or tall and straight?

Despite no appreciable drop in temperature, fall has come to Austin and the plants know it. New flowers are starting to open, first the oxblood lilies, then the coral bean, and now the Lindheimer senna (aka velvetleaf cassia) which goes by a couple of botanic names, Cassia lindheimeri or Senna lindheimeriana.

I bought the senna (or is it a cassia?) back in May in a 4-inch pot from Barton Springs Nursery. When I planted it, I teased the three stems apart. One died but the other two thrived on all the rain we got this summer and are now about 3 feet tall and wide. The flowers are not very showy. I prefer the plant for its blue-green leaves which are very velvety to the touch. Lindheimer senna is reported to reseed freely and is a native Texan, at home on the shallow limestone of the Edwards plateau. I also read, though not a problem in my backyard, that it is considered toxic to cattle. Deer, too, are said to leave it alone. However, birds like the seeds.

Garden History

Planted: 2007-05-23.
First flower: 2007-08-28.

Hands down ‘Persimmon’ is the best tomato I’ve ever eaten. And I will absolutely grow it again. However, it is the most challenging tomato I’ve ever grown. So far, we’ve gotten two tomatoes, each tipping the scales at over a pound.

Unfortunately, we’ve mostly gotten misshapen tomatoes that develop rot.

Twining Vine Garden says that ‘Persimmon’ requires “heavily fertile evenly moist well draining soil”.

I agree that it’s a heavy feeder. Although ‘Persimmon’ was planted in a newly dug bed filled with compost, it produced a giant deep-green vine (over 6 feet tall) with no flowers until I gave it some tomato food. It wasn’t that I’d filled the bed with high-nitrogen fertilizer or anything, just sifted compost from my pile out back. The other plants in the same bed flowered just fine.

The same site says that without calcium it will develop blossom-end rot. It did…not just at the blossom end but along the ridges and cracks.

Thomas Jefferson is said to have grown ‘Persimmon’. I’m amazed that it’s been around so long. The flavor and texture takes the tomato to a new level. It seems like some mysterious cross of tomato and mango (or perhaps persimmon)…almost something dreamed up in a laboratory. In short, ‘Persimmon’ is almost too good to be true.

Am I the only person who has trouble growing it?

A few years ago Valerie @ Larvalbug gave me some seeds for the wild magenta four o’clocks that you see growing all over Austin. These things are monsters and once they get hold, they don’t let go. Not only do they profusely set seed but they create deep tuberous roots that are don’t take any efforts to remove them seriously.

One year when I participated in the RHS seed exchange I got some more refined four o’clocks. The plants were much smaller, only about a foot high and wide. The leaves smaller and deeper green. The flowers were cherry red, although in photographs I can see a little magenta star inside. Unfortunately the scent was bred out of them.

The RHS reds have a magenta star in the center.

Last year I dug out the corner of the bed where the red four o’clocks had lived. I didn’t see any roots so I thought they were gone. But no. I’m talking about four o’clocks here. They came back just as strong.

I try to keep all of one kind together but there were two plants I couldn’t tell whether they were red or pink. Turns out they were neither–or both depending on how you look at it. My two four o’clocks had crossed and produced a third type which I like better than either parent.

2007-05-30. New flower in the middle.

The flower is frilly and has the scent (although less strong) of the magenta type. I like the color, a cerise pink, much more. The plant is somewhat bigger than the cherry red type but not as large or aggressive as the magenta. The flowers are larger and more frilly than its parents’ flowers.

Defying their name, the four o’clocks all open at different times, too. The original magenta flowers open first around 5PM. The new cerise pinks open around 7PM. And the RHS reds don’t open until past 8PM.