Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

Saturday morning the designer from Floribunda is coming over to assess whether we can afford his services to design and construct a screened-porch house to replace our falling down shed. After booking the appointment, I looked around my yard and panicked. I haven’t mown the lawn yet this year and the weeds are about a foot high. Garden tools and hoses are scattered about giving witness to my short attention span. Only the imaginative eye can discern the wildflower garden hidden in the among the dandelions, thistle and chickweed.

And inside the shed! Of course he’ll have to go in the shed to measure and check the foundation. Myself? I haven’t been in the shed in over a year. During our kitchen remodel we just kept stacking boxes and torn out pieces of house in there until it was impossible to get one more thing in. Last summer the paper wasps took over and we let them have their way with it.

So, I spent the day trying to make the place look less like we lived here and more like “important clients whom you might want to include in your portfolio” lived here.

I didn’t get much done though because I kept getting distracted by spring. I spent a lot of time taking photos of the Narcissus ‘Hawera’ in bloom. Then I had to lie down on my belly and admire the Muscari racemosum (or is it M. neglectum?)

Grape hyacinth aka starch hyacinth aka M. racemosum aka…

I found one bluebonnet bud that had finally blued up and opened. And lastly when I was watering the magnolia (which you might notice is not cleaning the shed) I saw another anole, the third this week, basking itself among the Mexican plum blossom. Trying to get a photo of the anole ate up a good portion of an hour. (Mostly I just sat and talked to it.)

I stopped and looked at everything so the garden doesn’t look like much of anything–I did manage to build a garden sculpture out of bricks I found in the shed. I’d been meaning to do that for several years now.

Note: I originally wrote this post for Austin Metblogs.

When the redbuds are in bloom and the skies are blue, loft-dwellers and suburbanites alike feel the pull of spring. Instead of heading over to the big box store to pick up a flat of petunias, check out Austin’s local nurseries. Not only does buying from local entrepreneurs support fellow Austinites but in the plant and garden business, local advice is best. Austin has challenging conditions to garden in and the local nurseries can help you find plants best suited for our climate.

Austin is fortunate to have many and varied local nurseries. Most of them are interesting destinations in themselves with quite distinct personalities. Check them out!

Barton Springs Nursery. Out in West Lake on Bee Caves Rd, Barton Springs Nursery is my prime source for native plants. They have a very helpful, knowledgeable staff and extensive shaded grounds. They also carry an assortment of planters, garden decorations, bird baths and fountains.

Big Red Sun. (Annoying Flash site but great real-world site.) On East 1st Street, Big Red Sun has a modern, urban feel. It carries very architectural plants (lots of succulents and cacti) and unusual planters. Their gift shop also sells apparel and housewares. A great place for integrating your indoor/outdoor lifestyles–even if all you have in terms of outdoors is a balcony. If you have no design sense, they can help you make something striking.

Floribunda. Formerly located on South Lamar, Floribunda has just lost its lease as South Lamar is being transformed to “SoLa”. However, their garden design business is still going strong and they do some of the most eye-popping designs in Austin. The owners hope to find a new location and reopen the nursery this fall.

Gardens. Near the Mo-Pac off the 38th St exit, Gardens is Austin’s high-end nursery and landscape designers. The plants are sometimes exotic and the gift shop always is. You’ll find plants at Gardens you won’t find elswhere. They are THE nursery to go to if you are looking for heirloom tomatoes and eggplants. They also carry unusual seeds that you can typically get only through mail-order, as well as a varied supply of bulbs suited for the south.

The Great Outdoors. On South Congress near St. Ed’s, the Great Outdoors is a green refuge in the middle of the city. It has magnificent live oaks, a huge water feature, and a coffee shop—oh yeah, and lots and lots of plants. The gift shop is filled with playful garden accessories.

It’s About Thyme. If you live in far south Austin, or north Buda, here’s an alternative to the Lowe’s and Home Depots that dot every corner. Located on far south Manchaca in what was once a ranch, the grounds of It’s About Thyme flow seamlessly into the fields beyond. They have all the typical nursery fare but what distinguishes them is the number of greenhouses with a varied assortment of ferns and palms.

John Dromgoole’s The Natural Gardener. Located in southwest Austin, the Natural Gardener has extensive grounds with many different show gardens to provide inspiration of what you can do with native and xeriscapic plants. Not only is this a great source of ideas and information and native plants, it is the place to go to get a wide variety of composts and mulches, either by the bag or the pickup load. Truly an Austin gardening institution.

Shoal Creek Nursery. Off the Mo-Pac on Hancock, Shoal Creek Nursery has a good selection of roses, shrubs and trees—their focus is the suburban gardener. Importantly, Shoal Creek Nursery sells only plants raised by regional growers, which means they will be more adapted to our harsh climate than plants shipped in by out-of-state growers like Monrovia.

Sledd Nursery. Located in Clarksville, this small nursery has been in Austin for almost three decades. If you like azaleas, this is the place to go. Sledd Nursery is my shrub and tree source but that’s not all they carry. They pack an amazing variety of annuals, veggies, bulbs, and roses into a very small space.

Where do you get your plant fix, and why?

After I bought my eggplant and two tomato plants, I faced the Gardener’s Dilemma. Where would I plant them? Not in the vegetable garden. I don’t think that a tomato has produced anything in the vegetable garden this millenium.

I put the vegetable garden on the south side of the house where the grass died because of a slope. When a friend of mine was building a house in Steiner Ranch, I carted several RX-7 car-loads of limestone blocks and built a small wall to form a terrace. Then I hauled in horse manure from another friend’s horse ranch near Hamilton Pool. AJM put in a timed drip irrigation system for me.

In the intervening years, trees have grown. A pecan and red oak have shot up on either side of the vegetable garden. In the summer, any spot gets only 3 hours of sunlight if I’m lucky. Not enough for summer veggies. This year I stopped fighting the obvious and renamed it the winter vegetable garden.
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2002. Arctic front brings killer cold.
2003. Ditto.
2004. Rain. Rain. And more rain.
2005. Very average weather.
2006. Spring sprung. Record highs.
2007. Spring sprung. Very, very dry.
2008. Very dry. Six months into drought.
2009. Parched. Very hot. First 90-degree day. Very dry. Eighteen months into drought.
Dateline: 2009

Dateline: 2007
The garden woke up this week. (You could argue that in what passes for winter in Austin it’s never been asleep, merely cat-napping.) Still, on Wednesday (Feb 28th) all the Mexican plums and the redbud behind my neighbor’s house burst into bloom overnight. And the cedar elms were clouded with a mist of bright spring green. I cut some branches of Mexican plum to bring inside and I feel like I’m living in a Japanese sumi-e (ink painting). Lots of new plants in bloom this week.

First flower: Coriander sativum (2/26); Narcissus ‘Trevithian’ (3/1); Muscari racemosum (3/2); Cercis canadensis (3/2); rose ‘Ducher’ (3/3); Sedum palmeri (3/3); Narcissus ‘Quail’ (3/4).

In Bloom: Prunus mexican, viola, Leucojum aestivum, rosemary, tradescantia, Commelinantia anomala, white oxalis, purple oxalis, henbit

We continue to have very dry weather this spring as we did last spring which results in desert like extremes of temperature: highs in the 70s, lows in the 20s. Do I cover the plants or uncover them? move the potted plants out or bring them in?

I bought two tomatoes “Black Krim” and “Persimmon” (said to be grown by Thomas Jefferson) from Gardens because they always have interesting and unusual tomatoes. They had already sold out of our favorite, “Carmello” though. I also bought a Listada de Gandia eggplant because it promised to be mild.
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I suddenly have a new back yard to garden in. I haven’t moved but I’ve got a new neighbor. He’s renovating the duplex to the north of me, living in one side of it and looking to rent the other. He approached me a couple of weeks ago and asked me if I would mind if he removed the chain link fence which divides our yard (and is on my side of the property line) so that he could put up a wooden privacy fence. After dancing a little dance of joy, I calmly agreed to his plan.

Unlike some people, I’m happy that none of my other neighbors choose to spend any time in their yards. Looking west towards the back, my view crosses four yards which are green and woodsy and almost always empty. Once in awhile someone will bring his boom box outside and throw back a few beers with friends but those incidents are few. If my new neighbor finds a privacy fence necessary, is it because he’s going to be outside a lot? Or is our shed really that tacky? (Definitely a factor.) Or does he come from a neighborhood (Boulder, CO) where people just have privacy fences as a matter of course? Whatever the reason, I hope my new neighbor is going to enjoy his yard (and his newly-installed hot tub) quietly and without pesticides.

Very quickly he had men out to tear down the fence, chop out the hackberry trees which grow in the fence (and which I try to kill every year) and erect the new fence. My back yard looks completely different. And it’s motivating.

First of all, the visual boundary makes the yard look more like a garden. Even my son, who isn’t at all interested in my outdoor projects, was amazed at the transformation. “Wow. It really looks like something.” “A garden?”

Secondly, the transformation allows me to see the garden with new eyes. Instead of seeing the same old border and the same old chores, I see possibilities! I can get rid of a lot of the nandina and make a nicer perennial bed. This is one of the best spots in my yard to garden because it gets southern winter sun. The privacy fence makes it protected and cozy both for me and the plants. In fact, the little bend in the path would be a perfect spot for a garden had I not just spent a couple of days transplanting my ‘New Dawn’ rose which I grew from a cutting. (It’s seems to be thriving. Well, when it dies I’ll put a seat there.)

2006-12-15. When I planted my rose bush, I was already itching for ways to improve the north border.

Many of you gave me suggestions to improve the north border and block my view of the duplex. And now I don’t have to do anything (but I’m able to do the fun stuff). This is the second time procrastination has paid off.

I’m learning the wrong lesson.

I just came in to take a break from my gardening break. My indoor breaks usually involve a little surfing and over at Garden Rant a couple of entries lately have lamented the news that some Americans don’t garden because it’s work. Eeew! And dirty.

The 2 cents from some commenters is that gardens don’t have to be hard work. I don’t know what paradise they garden in but, honey, in Austin, Texas gardening is hard work. Hard, back-breaking work.

The twinge in my lower back today comes from turning the compost pile and moving half a dozen wheelbarrow loads of compost into the winter rose bed. I still haven’t finished last week’s project of putting Dillo Dirt around my large bushes and small trees even though AJM made it easier for me by helping me move a 22-liter bag next to each of the plants I wanted to fertilize. I thought that would take a day….so that chore is in overtime.

Let’s not forget th. 32 bags of Christmas tree mulch that I hauled from Zilker Park and spread over all my paths. And the still-to-be-blogged-about-when-it’s-finished front path project which involved me moving 3 tons of gravel a bit at a time because trying to put it in a wheelbarrow resulted in the wheelbarrow being too heavy to move. That damn project required all the levelling of the paths beforehand and laying down horticultural cloth so that the paths retained their shape and bindweed didn’t sprout through.

Speaking of chores I hate: pulling up bindweed and poison ivy and cutting back smilax and nandina; chopping out hackberry and chinaberry sproutlings.

Digging holes for new plants is also always a day-long struggle involving prizing out rocks and cutting out tree roots.

Then there’s just the normal boring stuff…not hard work but tedious, mindless stuff. I’m still cleaning up red oak leaves from all the beds and paths, hacking back English ivy, cutting back perennials, trying to get the trees pruned before they break dormancy, and watering. And then there’s always weeding.

All those chores take a back seat to the stuff I enjoy doing: transplanting seedlings and dividing bulbs and playing in the dirt. Fear of Soil? I’m not stricken with that phobia. I love gardening precisely because I like having my hands in the dirt. I never wear gloves. I get a thrill in squashing grubs with my bare hands. I love the feel and smell of rich, moist earth. Any veggies or flowers that result from my messing around in the dirt are a bonus. That’s why my garden is not a hot tour spot. It’s more for feeling than for looking at. You have to get down on your knees to appreciate it properly.

Do I ever just sit in the garden? enjoy a cup of tea? read a book? Nope. We bought a hammock years ago and an Adirondack chair. But I can’t sit down a second without seeing something that needs to be done.

I enjoy being in the garden, but relaxing it ain’t.

Dateline: 2007
This is the first week of 2007 that temperatures hit the 80s. Wednesday (2/21) the high was 82F and Thursday (2/22) it was 83. Compare that to a week ago Friday (2/16) when we woke up to the coldest morning of winter and all the plants frozen solid.

A few daffodils are struggling to bloom. When it’s very hot and dry, they tend to blast; that is, the outer papery sheath turns brown and the flower inside can’t break through. I want to ask you northern gardeners, what are the temperatures like when daffodils bloom for you? These balmy days are great for gardening outside (at least out of direct sunlight) but the cool weather flowers like the sweet peas seem unhappy.

I cut back perennials (salvia and lantana) and cleaned and mulched beds. I haven’t started hacking out the weed tree seedlings or finished transplanting the roses and duranta I meant to do earlier. The lettuce came back quickly after last week’s freeze and I’ve been eating more salads.

First flower: Leucojum aestivum (2/22), Tradescantia (2/23), Commelinantia anomala (2/23).

Still blooming: Viola, Narcissus ‘Grand Primo‘ Mexican plum, rosemary, a single larkspur, Mahonia bealei, oxalis. The early spring weeds (henbit, goose grass, and chickweed) are everywhere at once.

I still haven’t seen a single redbud in bloom anywhere in Austin. Have you?
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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.

Dateline: 2007
Sunday (1/21) was the first sunny day Austin’s seen in about 9 and everyone was out on the hike and bike trails, packing the parks, or sunning themselves at Barton Springs Pool. This is not a population that could stand winter in the normal sense of the word. I managed to transplant some more sweet peas and rake some more oak leaves (will it never end!) but after all the rain and ice last week our black mud is too mucky to work.

The rest of the week, save Thursday, was gray and dreary. Despite last week’s downpours, lake levels remain low so it’s hard to find fault with more rain.

The ice storm didn’t cause much damage to my plants, as the temperature was never much below freezing. However, bitter record-breaking cold is looming on the horizon. It may be in the mid-60s today but will it be in the mid-20s next Saturday?

The violas, Narcissus tazetta, mahonia, and mealy sage continue to bloom but really there isn’t much flowering in the garden. Both the Tulipa clusiana and the ‘Ice Follies’ daffodils are nosing up this week. The ‘Ice Follies’ are the last daffodils to show themselves.
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