Zanthan Gardens
Category: Week by Week in the Garden

Dateline: 2007
First flower: Lupinus texensis (12/15).

Read the rest of this entry »

Dateline: 2006
I think I should always expect Week 46 to be blustery. A cold front blew in Wednesday (11/15) with a dessicating wind, gusts up to 50 miles per hour–more wind than we’ve seen in awhile but nothing as severe as 2001 when the tree fell on our garage. The banana plants looked disheveled even though these particular bananas, Musa lasiocarpa, hold up to wind, rain, occasional hail, and drought better than most of their kin.

Temperatures dropped 20 degrees after the front, from near-record highs in the 90s to lovely clear sunny days in the 70s. Nighttime temperatures keep dipping into the 30s. I always thought our average first freeze was around Thanksgiving (from a memory of snow on Thanksgiving Eve, 1980) but KXAN weatherman, Jim Spencer, said Austin’s average first freeze was December 2. Has it changed?

These are beautiful afternoons to spend in the garden. It is dry, dry, dry though. What happened to El Nino? The bluebonnet seedlings, especially, are curling up for want of moisture. And, yes, for a change I’m being a conscientious gardener and attending to my watering–even though our wastewater averaging has kicked in and water spent on the garden now will result in higher utility bills all next year. Pam/Digging has convinced me that my meanness with water is false economy. A look at the price tag on the replacement plants I’ve had to buy this month has also been motivating.
Read the rest of this entry »

Dateline: 2010
A cold front settles in and we wake up Monday (9/27) to a mere 58°. Second fall has arrived with its dry air and icy blue skies.

I begin sowing greens in the winter vegetable garden.

The Lindheimer senna, the coral vine, and the four o’clocks are the most striking flowers. Quite a few oxblood lilies are still blooming. The red spider lilies are coming up all over the yard. Unfortunately I dug up most of them in the last year because they hadn’t flowered well in years–not even in rainy 2007.

We had a tremendous Mexican plum crop this year. I should have done something with it.

Bluebonnets, baby blue eyes, and false dayflowers are popping up everywhere. So are the less desirable plants like horseherb. I’ve seen a few cilantro, too.

Dateline: 2006
We fast-fowarded from August to October, with only one day of September weather two weeks ago Sunday (9/17) when it rained. The October weather (lows in the 50s, highs in the 80s, dry and perfectly blue skies) is gorgeous. I’ve been busy in the garden every day dividing irises and oxblood lilies and generally setting the garden right. But (the gardener’s lament) we need more rain. By the end of this week, the rain-softened iris beds were already becoming dusty dry.

During this exhilarating week I wondered what happened to me last year? Why did I wait so long to divide the irises? Why are the roses just inches from death? Why have I been so neglectful?

Then I looked at last year’s stats: the hottest day of the year was September 25th…we hit 108. Hurricane Rita swung east and drowned east Texas but left us with out a drop of water. And afterward, no rain. Not in September. Not in December. It was pretty much a downward spiral of drought for an entire year now and I gave up. For awhile…

I’m typing this with dirt under my fingernails. Yep. I’m back in the garden.

First flowers: Oxalis drummondii (9/25); crape myrtle (9/25) fall rebloom; Oxalis regnellii (9/27); Lantana montevidensis (9/27); Mirabalis jalapa (9/28) fall rebloom; Salvia greggii (9/28) fall rebloom.

The crape myrtle, cypress vine, and plumbago are fighting it out for the honor of most flowers this week. Still a lot of pink rainlilies and garlic chives blooming in the meadow, but the oxblood lilies are almost at an end.
Read the rest of this entry »

Dateline: 2006
Summer hung on tooth and claw with Friday’s (9/22) temperatures near 100. Despite a lousy ending, the rest of the week was everything we can hope for this time of year. The week began with a drenching rain which interrupted Tom Petty’s set at the ACL finale but left gardeners cheering. We received upwards of 1 1/2 inches–we haven’t seen rain like this since the 4th of July when towns all around Austin were forced to cancel their firework displays. The early part of the week, the lows were in the 50s, highs in the upper 80s, low 90s and gorgeous blue October skies.

The garden responded immediately. By Wednesday (9/20) the oxblood lilies were opening en masse. The meadow was covered in rainlilies. (I usually have them throughout the summer and even after the flowers fade, their leaves tell me where they are. But this summer there has been no sign of them.) Bluebonnets began sprouting everywhere in the meadow. The salvia began reblooming. The rose ‘French Lace’ (which had no leaves whatever) put out a flush of new growth). They hyacinth bean vines are about 5 feet tall. The esperanza and plumbago are heavy with flower. The chili pequin is bursting out with tiny white flowers.

I’ve been rushing around all week dividing irises and oxblood lilies and transplanting cosmos in the meadow. More rain is forecast for the weekend and even better, El Nino is coming our way for the fall and winter. That means more rain for Central Texas and a good year to get those replacement bushes and trees in.
Read the rest of this entry »

Dateline: 2006
When I was a kid, by the time August rolled around I was just tired of summer. Most of my early life I lived in the desert southwest so trees and hammocks and back porches and playing ball on a green lawn were images out what might as well have been fairy tale books so little did they correspond with my experience of summer. My summer days were filled with reading, helping my mom do the laundry while we watched soaps together, and working on projects around the kitchen with my brothers and sisters. One year we were quite into stamp collecting which is why I know that the state flower of Kansas is a sunflower. After two months, even my mom had run out of ideas for entertaining 8 kids indoors (too hot to play outside, remember) and I’d read all my books several times. You never saw any kid so anxious for summer to be over.

I longed for school to start, for the rains to come, and the air to smell fresh again. Other people associate spring with beginnings and renewal. But that’s how I feel about fall. I always fall in love in fall. I don’t think I look forward to fall in the same way you cold climate gardeners anticipate spring. There are no early signs like crocuses or buds swelling to make my blood quicken.

I’m finally at the point in summer this year where I’m resigned to it. In July I still tend to be fighting–out in the garden watering, mulching, and fussing over plants. By August, I just sit indoors and wonder what will pull through this year. Will the rains come the last week of August like they did the very first fall I lived in Austin? Or will we have another extended summer like last year when it was still hot in October?

I do my part to bring the rain. Wash the wool carpet and leave it in the grass to dry. Wash the cars. Leave the car windows open a crack. We did get 10 seconds of rain last Sunday after a strong gusts of wind hinted at a storm approaching. Monday we got almost three minutes of rain.

Another rose, ‘Madame Joseph Schwartz’, has succumbed to rose dieback. I’ve started turning the spring compost pile. At least the hot weather helps break down everything quickly as long as the pile is kept moist. I found the biggest grubs I’ve ever seen in the middle of the pile. Usually they’re small enough I don’t mind squishing them with my bare hand (just imagine it’s a grape) but these were bigger than my longest finger. It took a good stomp with my boot. I’ve also seen two or three hummingbirds this week which is unusual in my yard. They must be after the turk’s cap which is one of the few things left flowering. I haven’t had to mow all month since the grass is lying flaccid and scorched. The leaves are beginning to fall from the cedar elms and the chinaberry trees. On the Japanese persimmon almost 1/3 of its leaves have turned yellow. I’m hoping the fruit won’t drop as there are less than half a dozen persimmons this year.

Wake me when it’s September.
Read the rest of this entry »

Dateline: 2006
The toad finally let me get close enough to snap his portrait. He jumps into the potted plants after I water them in the morning. I frequently disturb him when I’m fiddling with the plants, only seeing him when he hops off in a puff. Today I was sitting panting on the step when I noticed him panting in the saucer. I snapped a score of pictures inching closer and closer until I got this one. He was too lethargic to care. I feel the same way.

August in Austin is filled with lots of shoulds. I should be watering more. I should be clearing out the many plants that have died. I should be getting my beds ready for a fall garden. I should be starting seeds for fall tomatoes and wildflowers. (I always wonder how the seeds sprout in these temperatures. Doesn’t it need to be 65 or something? Our overnight lows are in the mid-70s and it’s never cooler than 80 in the house.) I should be digging holes for planting shrubs and trees.

But every time I step into the searing sunlight I suspect that I’m part vampire. I saw a T-shirt I want to buy: The Sun Is Trying to Kill Me.

The garden this week? Scorched. That’s normal for us Texans. Sorry that the rest of you guys got stuck with Texas weather or worse this week. We didn’t plan to export the worst aspects of Texas to the rest of the country. You’ve probably had enough of that already.

Dateline: 2010

First flower: Datura inoxia (7/10); Rivina humilis (7/10); Zephyranthes ‘Labuffarosea’ (7/12).

The Crinum bulbispermum and both ‘New Dawn’ roses have begun reblooming after the heavy rains last week.

Dateline: 2006

When I walk outside to the wilted garden in the morning after a low of 76, I feel certain that had Shakespeare been a Texan he would have written, “Now is the summer of our discontent. Of course, Shakespeare meant something a bit different; that discontent was drawing to an end as does winter. I mean when summer hits Austin, when the grass crunches under foot, when one can feel the sun burning into your skin after 30 seconds, what’s there for a gardener to be content about? I balance my thankfulness that we’ve survived the first week of the dead of summer with my dread of wondering how many more there are to come.

As much as I can’t imagine Cold Climate Gardening, I think gardeners in colder climes have one advantage. In their winter off season, the plants go dormant and the gardeners can curl up with gardening books and plan and dream. In Austin’s summer off season, the plants need extra coddling. Most stop producing fruit and flowers but they still want attention. If I make the mistake of forgetting that summer, too, will pass, then I’m apt to close the door on the garden and give up.

The only star in the garden this week is plumbago. Even the crape myrtles and oleander look pinched and wan. The rose ‘Blush Noisette’ put out a couple of flowers. ‘Madame Joseph Schwartz’ looks like the next victim of rose dieback. I cut half of her all the way down to the rootstock, but it might be too late.
Read the rest of this entry »

Dateline: 2010

A week of rain. We hire R. to replace the fence on the south side. I remove all the ivy. They remove the scrub trees growing in the fence line. The pond and the rain barrels are overflowing. Temperatures in the low 90s while the East Coast hits the 100s.
Dateline: 2006
Cloud cover most of the week kept highs in the tolerable low 90s and provided occasional scattered showers. The result was very muggy. However, I’m thankful that it wasn’t as hot as last year given that on Thursday (7/6) we were without electricity the entire day while our service box and meter were being changed over to a new system.

An electrical storm competed with fireworks but didn’t rain them out. We had light rain for a few minutes almost every day this week. It wasn’t the drenching we needed but it was refreshing and it filled up my rain barrels. I didn’t resort to the hosepipe once.

Almost nothing is flowering–only the plumbago, the cleome, the wild ruellia, and the Turk’s cap. None of them make much of a floral impact. At least the garden looks green for the moment. I know that won’t last long.

First flower: Malva sylvestris ‘Zebrina’ (7/2).
Read the rest of this entry »

Dateline: 2006
This week I was drawn into the garden still fresh from last week’s rain. The lawn was gloriously green (I had to mow it for the third time in 7 days) and an earthy dampness rose from the mulched beds–as did clouds of mosquitoes. I didn’t have to water, so I was able to spend my time weeding, raking, and pruning. I cleaned up the entire upper bed in the meadow. I scraped up the old semi-decomposed pine bark mulch from the paths to mulch the beds and then put new mulch down on the paths.

2006-06-26. I still call this the upper meadow even though the buffalograss was shaded out long ago and I turned it into a flower bed. During the summer a combination of shade, high temperatures and low rainfall means there aren’t many flowers either!

Some people might complain that the bed looks bare now that the spring wildflowers are gone. But when the heat and humidity return, I dislike the cottage garden style. In the heat of summer the plants and I need room to pant. I consider this my Big Bend style.

Monday (6/26) night the temperature dropped to 60! After this year’s early high temperatures in the 100s, dropping down to a low in the 60s felt like the life-giving breath of fall. Garden and gardener revived.

While temperatures remained cooler, I tried to finish up the path project so that the gravel pile would be out of the way of the construction workers this week. Yes, I know I’ve been working on this since last October but three tons of gravel is a lot of rock for one little girl to shovel.

Speaking of constuction workers, I have two distinct types. The electrician sees only his work. He tramps through flower beds, snaps branches of my roses, gets muck on the new gravel paths, and lets bits of wire and staples fall into the beds where I’ll be digging on my hands and knees. Before he arrived I tried to prepare a path for him. I moved the rain barrel out of his way, cleared out the leaf mulch, and dug a trench for the conduit. In fact, I’ve always designed my foundation plantings so that there is space to get between the plants and the house in order to paint and do other maintenance. I have tried to steel myself for a little destruction in the face of new construction; I remained calm even when he dropped a ladder on a large potted aloe and shattered the pot. Still…

In sharp contrast, my handyman notices everything. He ferreted out the coffee scent on my lawns. He was intrigued with my banana plantation (and was rewarded with a banana plant to take home). He sees how I recycle everything: old fencing to border paths, chippings from my own fallen trees for mulch, the cement chips from the kitchen counter for drainage, even old plumbing fixtures for garden ornaments. He is aware and considerate of his surroundings.
Read the rest of this entry »

Dateline: 2006
Austin’s heat wave continues, but it could be worse. It has been worse. In 1998, we hit a record high of 108 degrees on June 14. Today it was a mere 95–a breath of fresh air after yesterday’s 101.

We typically get an average of 4 inches of rain in June, making it one of our rainiest months. So if we Austin gardeners are grumbling and shaking our fists at the sky, we feel completely justified. Looking back over the last eleven years I see I note every shower and thunderstorm, wondering if it will be the last before the heat of real summer sets in. Not to worry. This year misery has already arrived. You northern gardeners can imagine it as the equivalent of an early frost which cuts down your plants in their glory and then is followed by a balmy Indian summer.

When June is a wet and mild month, I find it easy to succumb to the tempations of the nursery and plan and plant. Over the years, I’ve become suspicious of June’s charms and learned to put off any planting until fall. As heat wave 2006 continues, I am only in the garden between 7 and 9 in the morning. Almost all my time is spent watering with little time left for cleaning up seedy plants and dead-heading.
Read the rest of this entry »