Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

Last fall I read an article that Austinites could grow strawberries as annuals, planting them in the fall, pinching back all runners, and picking off flowers until mid-February. We were not to expect them to survive the summer but must be prepared to replant each fall. So when Margaret and I were at Gardens last October, I was so excited to see strawberry plants there that she bought me five plants (at $1.99 each).

Seeing the catalog prices for strawberry plants since then has made me realize these strawberries were quite expensive. However, they were the plants that were available here last October, ‘Sequoia’ variety grown in Texas at Gabriel Valley Farms.

So from our tiny strawberry patch of 5 plants, we just harvested our first strawberry. A $10 strawberry. (The more we harvest, the more the price will drop, but for now that is the cost of this harvest.) I waited until evening when AJM came home from work and we harvested it together. Then we carefully cut it in half with our sharpest paring knife. We each popped our share into our mouths and simultaneously exclaimed, “Mmmmm!” Wow! I think fresh from the garden strawberries might even be better than fresh from the garden tomatoes.

I hope our silly little strawberry patch graces us with more fruit. Now I have wild dreams of expanding my planting next fall but I will have to find a cheaper source of plants.

The butterfly amaryllis is quite striking. I would say that it has been worth the wait, except…more than seven years! I’d love it just as much if it bloomed every year. Really, dear, I would.

A native of Brazil, my butterfly amaryllis has never gone dormant, although it looks a bit ratty after a long, hot Austin summer. I’ve heard some advice that Austinites can plant them in the ground as we do our more hardy Hippeastrums, the St. Joseph’s lilies. I don’t think I’ll bet against the Texas weather.

Garden History

2000-11-05.
At Gardens buy the amaryllis that I first saw and liked in the Garden.com catalog. [2011-01-24. Maybe I actually got this from Dutch Gardens. I find a label for one with this description. Or maybe Gardens was carrying bulbs from Dutch Gardens.]

“Brightly striped maroon and ivory petals with a chartreuse background.”

2000-11-09.
Pot it, after soaking the bulb in sea weed mix.

2000-12-10.
First flower opens completely.

2000-12-17.
Last day of bloom.

2006-09-06.
Divide the butterfly amaryllis into two pots. It was incredibly pot bound. I’ve heard that they prefer to be pot bound, but I don’t think they mean like this. I had to rip out a lot of roots to separate them.

2006-09-06. The butterfly amaryllis and three daughters sit on top of the pot they were in.

2008-03-12.
First flower.

Whether I love something or hate it, a strong emotional reaction piques my desire to explore why. I immediately fell in love with the gardens at the Springs Preserve and having grown up in the American southwest and seen many desert-themed gardens in my life, my first reaction was curiousity. How did the did the designers at the Springs Preserve do it? What’s special about these gardens? What makes them stand out?

Not being much of a designer myself, I’ve always cast the gardener’s dilemma as an either/or choice: some gardens sacrifice good design to the owner’s love of plants (the category I see myself in) and some gardens eschew plants in favor of good design. But the gardens at the Springs Preserve demonstrate that you can indeed have both. Containing over 1200 species, a true botanical garden, the Springs Preserve does not skimp on plant choices. Conversely, the designers did not set out the gardens in some boring, orderly way, grouping the plants in rows by genus and species as I’ve seen in some botanical gardens. They created plantings that “Wow!” the eye.

The gardens at the Springs Preserve are primarily educational. Run by the Water District, the purpose of the gardens is to teach water conservation to the many people who have retired to desert living after living in climates where water usage was something they didn’t think much about. A lot of people view any plea for conservation as a request to “do without”. The Springs Preserve demonstrates that water conservation does not mean having less or going without; a new climate is an opportunity to explore new and more appropriate ways to garden, one more adapted to the climate in which one gardens. In other words, rather than complain about a lifestyle that is lost, why not use good old-fashioned American inventiveness to explore new, more efficient ways of doing things? (This is what our immigrant forebears did; abandon the ideas of the old world and embrace the challenges of the new.)

The designers at the Springs Preserve did not just come up with a list of plants suitable for desert climates. They sought to educate the public on how to use these plants together to create striking gardens. One of the demonstration gardens is devoted to explaining and exploring 8 elements of good design: symmetry, line, color, balance, texture, proportion, rhythm, and harmony. In a circular display, 8 mirrored stations are set up with a mirror, plantings, and short explanation of each design element. The lesson I learned was that it is important to consider the relationships among all elements in the garden.

Below are the notes I took, with some of the example plantings.

Line

“In your garden, lines–the edge of a walkway, a curving plant bed, or a tree’s branches–lead the eye, too. Horizontal lines create a calm environment while zigzag lines are playful and lively. Vertical lines make a view look narrower. Horizontal lines seem to widen a view.”

The Springs Preserve uses lots of concrete edging and other borders and paving to define space. Like the square paving stones inside the circular walk above, they use a combination of shapes so the design isn’t boring. Many of the plants, like the palm trees, or the saguaro cactus in the background provide provide dramatic vertical lines.

Color

Do you like energetic contrast or a muted palette with few accents? Choose carefully because colors have a powerful effect on human emotion. Colors interact with each other so when you are choosing colors for your gardens, think about their relationships.

Like Japanese-style gardens, desert-themed gardens do not rely primarily on color but focus instead on the texture and forms of plants. However, when cacti bloom, they do so in neon colors that can’t be ignored. Color in the garden is not limited to flowers. The Springs Preserve used many different colors of mulches to create patterns. We should also consider the colors of our garden benches, sheds, pots, and other ornamentation.

Texture

You can feel texture or see it. Smooth textures are subtle, and rough textures create a more raw feeling. Contrasting textures can be very striking.

Proportion

“Your size is relative to what’s around you…Trees, plants, and pools should be in scale with each other and the environment.

I find it difficult to figure out proportions in my garden. First of all, those dang plants are always growing. And then, just as they reach maturity, we get a drought or a freeze or a flood that kills them off and leaves a hole in my planting. Lastly, I design too small, too conservatively.

Symmetry

“Symmetry in your garden creates a formal, orderly feeling. An asymmetrical garden, which is not divided down a visual midpoint, creates a more casual, natural feel.”

Balance

“Objects in a garden have relationships. If they are in balance, the garden will look and feel complete. A garden doesn’t have to be symmetrical but you should feel that the elements at any point balance out those around them.

Rhythm

“Repeating a shape over and over moves the eye moving along. Repetition can be boring after a while. Spice up your design by slowly changing shapes, colors, texture, or direction.”

Notice how the form, shape, and texture repeat and diverge in this hardscaped area.

Harmony

Somehow I failed to take any notes on harmony but I think the garden above captures it all. Look at the different colors and textures, at how the strong lines draw you into the garden, at the balance of elements and how they are in proportion to each other, the use (but not overuse) of repetition.

Now I’m going outside to examine my garden with new eyes.

I make a trek to Las Vegas every couple of years solely because three generations of my family settled there. I never would have thought that Las Vegas held any interest for gardeners even though lot has changed since I went to high school there. All the new developments have a buffer of desert landscaping between the street and the concrete block walls that define each neighborhood. The new parks are all planted with waterwise landscaping. There is a lot more public art including some wonderful giant tortoises underneath the tangle of freeway near downtown. Even the cell phone towers are disguised as palm trees. Some people hate this but I think it shows a sense of humor and it looks better than a plain cell phone tower.

“Las Vegas” means “the meadows”. Ancient peoples and westward trekking pioneers found water and forage in this formerly bountiful valley. By 1962 the springs had been pumped dry and the original heart of Las Vegas languished. It’s now bounded by Highway 95 and The Meadows shopping mall. In 2002, Las Vegans voted to create the 180 Springs Preserve, overseen by the Las Vegas Water District. Not only does the preserve contain historical and archaelogical sites, the future home of the Nevada state museum, and an interactive exhibit hall, it is a model of instruction on how to live and garden in a desert. Las Vegas survives on borrowed water. It is not just an ecological disaster waiting to happen, it already happened.

The gardens at the Springs Preserve are designed to teach water conservation through water-efficient landscaping–to show that xeriscaping does not have to be zero-scaping (as my Illinois-born dad calls it). The Springs Preserve shows us when we stop taking our way of life for granted, we can tap into our creative potential and discover better ways to live.

The cactus gardens were designed by someone with a master’s eye for form, texture, balance, and harmony. All the plants are carefully labeled, as they should be in a good botanical garden. (I hate discovering a plant I love at a garden without being able to find out its common and botanical names.)

The variety of plants was astounding. Over 1200 species were moved from the original Demonstration Gardens to the Springs Preserve Garden Walk before its opening in 2007. The plantings at the Springs Preserve made even some of the English estate gardens I’ve been to seem rather prim and dull. After looking at these incredible textures and forms, don’t beds of pansies or tulips seem a bit tame?

I’ve never been a big fan of cactus gardens but that apparently because I’ve never seen a really well-designed one before.

I’ve never been a fan of palm trees either. And yet I stood amazed at how artfully the palm trees had been arranged. Again, this is first a botanical garden, so the main purpose was to show the great variety of palm trees available. (Compare my favorite, the Canary Island Date Palm, on the left, with the others.) But the designers went a step further and created a beautiful planting.

I fell in love with this Canary Island Date Palm, Phoenix canariensis, because of the texture of its trunk and the unique bulge at the top. (Should I buy one?)

After writing about my own maintenance headaches with rain gardens, I was happy to see a lovely example of a rain garden gone right. Hints: create rain garden away from trees and install waveform sculpture. (Isn’t it clever without being too cute?)

My brother, MJN, introduced me to the gorgeously planted Springs Preserve in Las Vegas and there I fell in love with golden barrel cactus, Echinocactus grusonii. Although it is an endangered species in its native Mexico habitat, it is one of the most popular landscape cacti in the American Southwest. Apparently this cactus can reach a size four feet tall and three feet tall. However, in the many display gardens of the Springs Preserve, it was used as the desert equivalent of a small globe shaped boxwood.

In another display bed, colorful recycled glass chips were used as a mulch. The resulting jewel like beds glittered in the desert sun, but like many rock/gravel/shell mulches, the glass chips ended up being strewn in the paths. Recycled glass is definitely not a mulch to use if you have lots of trees and leaf litter.

Golden barrel cactus also filled planters lining the parking area at the entrance to the Springs Preserve. My mother fell in love with them, too, and so I bought her one for $20 at Lowe’s. Then I saw a little golden barrel cactus in a paper cup on the clearance table for $2. I had to have it even though everyone wondered how I’d get it home. (I put it in my carryon luggage. No problem.) The silly thing about my $2 cactus is that someone glued plastic eyes on it and the cup said, “My Peeps, Cactus Buddies”. Ugh! I’ll figure out how to cut off those cutesy plastic eyes and restore some dignity to my beautiful golden barrel cactus.

One trouble with Spring in Austin is that when the trees start budding and the gardener feels that irresistible pull into the garden, it is already too late to start lots of plants from seed. I haven’t made a seed order yet, (I was too busy in the garden to look at seed catalogs in December and January) and already the spring plants are blooming. Arg!

Today (3/4), the first flower of the California poppies, Eschscholzia californica, opened. The flower is about twice as large as last year’s but then it’s blooming almost three months earlier. Given that this plant is one that oversummered, I consider this the “correct” time for California poppies to be blooming in Austin.

Last year (2007) I didn’t plant any California poppy seeds until the middle of January and those plants didn’t flower until late May. This year (2008) I was even later getting my seeds started. Those seedlings are up but I haven’t started transplanting them yet and here last year’s flowers are already blooming. So I better get busy.

Although the seed packet claims that California poppies “reseeds easily”, I’ve haven’t had much luck with them self-sowing. However they are very easy to sprout from seed which is much larger than other types of poppies. Now if I could remember to get them started earlier…

Garden History

2007-01-12.
Plant California poppy ‘Mikado’.

2007-01-30.
California poppies sprouting.

2007-02-21.
Begin transplanting California poppy seedlings. Because they have a long taproot, California poppies don’t like being transplanted. But they were only two inches tall when I moved them and watering them well at first helped almost all of them to survive.

2007-05-24.
Finally, two flowers on my California poppies opened today. The flower are quite small, not much bigger than a thimble. I planted them way too late for Austin (January 12th). They didn’t sprout until January 30th.

2007-05-24. California poppy ‘Mikado’.

Here’s a factoid to demonstrate how late I was getting these in this year; in 1998, when I tried ‘Mission Bells’, they began blooming on February 28th.

2008-02-05.
Discovered that there were still plenty of seeds left in last year’s seed packet and sowed three rows. There are still seeds left! Several plants from last year survived the summer and just in the last month or so have been putting on a lot of growth.

2008-03-04.
First flower on a plant that over-summered. California poppies are perennials but they don’t usually survive Austin’s summers in my garden. The poppies I planted in February are just getting their true leaves and only two inches tall. Despite my springtime urges, spring is too late to plant California poppies in Austin.

2008-10-10.
Plant California poppies ‘Mikado’. I always start these too late (like Jan). The ones that flowered last spring overwintered. Start earlier.

2008-12-19.
Transplant a dozen California poppy ‘Mikado’ seedlings that I started on 2008-10-10. All that’s left from squirrels digging in the seedbed. Note: They always look to small and crowded to transplant. Wait until they have a few true leaves and are two to three inches across–later than for larkspur or bluebonnets. Don’t worry about crowding or thinning.

2009-01-01.
California poppy transplants have recovered and it has also self-sown, a first for me.

Living for a time both in the American desert southwest and Japan, I’m quite attracted to the aesthetic of gravel gardens and dry creek beds. As there is no shortage of rocks of all sizes in my yard, I group like rocks together in various configurations. Because I live on a slope, I often arrange rocks to follow the topography, creating an informal dry stream.

This year rain gardens seem all the rage (4,080,080 hits on Google or check out Pam/Digging). And they always look so clean and tidy when first installed, while at the same time looking natural. However, in my experience, they don’t remain clean and tidy very long. My biggest problem is leaves. In Austin, leaves can start falling in September with the cedar elms (if it’s a typical summer–2007 was wet and the leaves held on until October) until February with the live oaks (which haven’t started dropping their leaves yet). In my yard I also had hackberry and chinaberry trees (which I cut down this year) and red oaks. So for five months, leaves are clogging my dry creek beds and I can never keep them clean. The cedar elm leaves are the worst because they are small and break down quickly. They mess up my gravel courtyard and my gravel walks, too.

Then there’s the weeds. Gravel is an excellent medium for sprouting seeds. It doesn’t matter if you put landscape fabric underneath the gravel (I did on my paths but not in my garden which is more free-form). The seeds fall on top of the gravel, work themselves down, and then sprout. I spent all afternoon digging that hated horseherb and spiderwort out of this small section of the meadow so that I could replant it with larkspur and California poppies.

So what’s the secret to maintaining gorgeous rain gardens? Do I have to move back to a treeless landscape? I guess I’ll start reading some of those 4,080,080 articles…but I’ll have to finish weeding first.

We’ve watched the weather reports all week long as it threatened possible sleet for the weekend. The forecasted temperatures kept getting revised upward but predictions of severe thunderstorms, high winds, hail and even tornadoes amended our usual prayers for rain to something like, “Please let it rain (on my garden), but spare us the tornado.” By Friday it was muggy and warm, the air heavy with pre-storm moisture, and the clouds gray and roiling.

I’ve been working so hard these last few weeks with the chore side of gardening that I decided I needed a little treat before the bad weather set in. So I took myself to the Natural Gardener purposefully to buy some organic fertilizer but also just to see what I could fall in love with this year.

Most of the display gardens have been cut back and cleaned up. Some are being remade and it looks like there are some new ones in the works. Everything should be beautiful for our Spring Fling. The herb garden looks quite nice pared down to its bones, nicer than it did when MM and I visited last October. One of the things I notice about these boney geometric gardens–they are built on a flat surface. The other is that any trees are well beyond the perimeter. If I wanted a garden like this, I’d have to cut down all our trees and bulldoze my yard. Even if I had the money to do that, I’d be reticent. I’m trying to compromise with little terraces.

The garden I am really inspired by at the Natural Gardener is the winter vegetable garden (see photo at top). Look at the size of those cabbages! The hoops are for row covers during Austin’s occasional freezes. I do better with winter vegetables than summer ones because I have a lot more sunlight in the winter and because the temperatures are more temperate. A lot of vegetables, even heat-loving tomatoes, don’t like it when nighttime lows are consistently above 70F/21C. Also the winter vegetables don’t contend so much with insect and viral pests.

The Natural Gardener has a lot of new perennials in. I keep saying that I need to plant some shrubbery and I was very taken with a white viburnum. Still, I walked away. I couldn’t imagine it in my garden–it seemed more suited for a Deep South or east coast garden. It seemed like it would stand out unnaturally. I’m going to have to read up on them first.

Of course, I walked around the rose section three times visiting all my old friends. I’m clearing space where I cut down the chinaberry tree last fall for some new roses. I haven’t decided what to get yet although I’m leaning heavily toward replacements for ‘Sombreuil’ and ‘Gruss an Aachen’.

This trip I was most impressed with the seed section. The Natural Gardener carries seeds from quite a variety of suppliers near and far: Renee’s Gardens, Botanical Interests, Territorial Seed Company, Seeds of Change, Lonestar Seed Company, Thompson & Morgan, and Baviccchi (I think). As usual, I’ve been too busy to send of a seed order and now it’s so late. I was hoping I’d find some of the things I circled in the catalogs. I’ll have to bring my list and make another trip next week.

I didn’t walk away without making a purchase of course.

I spent $36.08 as follows.: $11.95 on organic fertilizer (this is mainly for the potted plants); $9.99 on a fancy new oxalis, Oxalis pre-caprae, ‘Scotty’s Surprise’ (rumored to be discovered by and named after Scott Ogden); $6.99 on blood dock, Rumex sanguineus, because I fell in love with the foliage and need plants for my future bog garden; $1.59 on a packet of borage seed; and $1.62 and $1.19 on some of last year’s sunflowers seeds marked down 40%.

I got home in time to plant the borage and the oxalis. At 4:11 p.m. the wind shifted to the north, relieving our muggy 77.4F/25.2C high with a blast of cold air. About 20 minutes later it began to rain. Between 3:57 and 4:57 temperatures dropped 12F/6.7C degrees.

Now I can enjoy this nice rainy weekend catching up on some inside work…like reading more blogs.

Carol at May Dreams Gardens invites us to tell her what’s blooming in our gardens on the 15th of each month.

February 15, 2008

Just after January’s GBBD, Austin got a hard freeze which wiped out all the late hangers-on that I had written about. So everything new for February is new for the year. Austin’s spring is slowly unfurling, and like a new bride is dressed in white: paperwhite narcissus, summer snowflakes, and the Mexican plum blossom. However, the overriding color in the garden in February is the spring green of all the little overwintering annuals and spring bulbs, putting down their roots and gathering strength for their big show next month.

2008-02-15. Narcissus ‘Grand Primo’ blooming in the front, too.

The roses are about as dormant as they get any time of the year. None are blooming today and I had only two flowers since last GBBD, both on ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’. But all the roses are budding out. Unless we get a hard freeze, I think I’ll have roses before the next GBBD. The same is true of the Indian hawthorn, Rhaphiolepis indica. It had a few early flowers, isn’t blooming today, but is full of buds.

New for February

2008-02-15. One summer snowflake began blooming. I think it was dug up by a squirrel and replanted because it’s off by itself.

2008-02-15. My only bought and named paperwhite, ‘Grandiflora’. The flowers are twice as large as the naturalized ones. (The tiny ones by the mailbox are still blooming, too.)

2008-02-15. The largest of the three Mexican plum trees is just starting to open its flowers.

Still Blooming

2008-02-15. The lantana is still blooming even though it’s leaves are frost-bitten.

2008-02-15. The amazing bluebonnet that began flowering on December 15, 2007 hasn’t quit yet. In fact, it’s just getting going. Quite a few other bluebonnets have buds now and will probably bloom within a week.

The List for February

• Dianthus chinensis
• Lantana montevidensis
• Leucojum aestivum
• Lobularia maritima
• Lupinus texensis (another bloom on the plant that flowered in December)
• Mahonia bealei
• Narcissus papyraceus (small ones by mailbox)
• Narcissus papyraceus ‘Grandiflora’
• Narcissus tazetta italicus
• Narcissus tazetta ‘Grand Primo’
• Oxalis triangularis (purple only)
• Prunus mexicana (The large one from Gardens
• rosemary (Even more flowers than last month.)
• Viola cornuta ‘Sorbet Coconut Duet’

In Austin winters are sometimes so mild that we can have roses blooming all year long. December is often a very good month for roses. January less so. By February the roses are gearing up for a big spring show. I always try to have my roses pruned, fed and mulched before Valentine’s day, especially during a particularly mild winter as this one has been.

The problem in Austin is that it doesn’t get cold enough for many of the roses to drop their leaves and go dormant.

Last year’s leaves are ratty and prone to disease.

The new buds are forming but the old leaves haven’t fallen off.

Therefore, I follow a process suggested by rosarian Ray Reddell (I can’t find the link online anymore). I strip last year’s leaves off the roses, wait a couple of weeks to see where the new buds are forming, and then prune accordingly.

Stripping off the old leaves forces growth on the new leaves into overdrive.

As usual, I’m behind. For example, ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ is already putting out new buds. I spent part of this weekend stripping off the old leaves, pruning, and to re-tying the new canes to the trellis. I also did ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’, and ‘Heritage’. The ‘New Dawn’ and ‘Red Cascade’ roses lost their leaves naturally but still require pruning. ‘Ducher’ is always bushy and full this time of year and doesn’t need stripping.

Of course, the biggest gamble is timing. A hard freeze is still possible for another month in Austin. Is winter really over for 2008 or is worse yet to come? And will it come just as the roses are putting out their tender new growth? Although I’m sure we’ll have a few more freezes, I’m betting that the we’ve seen the worst of winter this year.