Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

Spring has sprung and apparently lots of people want to write about it. And some of those people used an image of Mexican plums in bloom that I published three years ago. Although it is not a very good image (since it was taken with the videocamera in the days before my Coolpix 4300), it does come up on the first page of Google Images for Spring.

Now I don’t mind people copying my photographs for their personal use. In fact, I’m flattered. But if you want to use them on your website, you should 1) ask my permission, and 2) give me credit. The photographs on Zanthan Gardens are copyrighted.

What is worse is that there is a net etiquette for using images: copy them to your computer. That is, do not reference my computer in your “img src=” tag. When you do that, you are stealing my bandwidth. If you don’t understand what that means, please read this article on Bandwidth Stealing.

I meant to write to each person individually, but there are a lot of you. All over the world! Again, I’m flattered that you liked my photo. And you probably didn’t mean to steal it. But it is stealing. So please stop.
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Today the high was 76F (24C). It is our last warm day before (as the weatherman put it, so it must be the official term) The Arctic Blast. He’s predicting 18F on Christmas morning. So I tried to get some last minute sweeping up of leaves before holiday visitors arrive. The leaves did fall only last week with the first norther, so it’s not as if I’ve been overly remiss.
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2004
This Brugmansia just gets better every year. It’s almost 5 feet tall now, and would no doubt be happier if it got more summer sun. After the fall equinox, when the sun begins to shine on the south side of the house, the brugmansia produces its first flowers of the season. I’d like to move it, as it is strangled by two climbing roses and a hyacinth bean vine. I’ll try to root some more cuttings instead. (Wow, having a better camera than I did two years ago is nice, too.)
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Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve written about the garden. I appreciate people writing to say they’ve missed my updates (thanks Pam and Rantor). I really don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s as if the gardening fever has run its course. Is that possible? I thought that once the bug had bit, you were a gardener forever. And for the last ten years I’ve spent several hours a day in the garden and almost as much time again writing or reading about gardens.
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This picture lies. I wish the garden really were as cool and inviting as this picture makes it look. But it isn’t. I took this shot of the oxblood lilies about 10 on Saturday morning. It was only in the mid-80s, but very muggy–the kind of summer weather that makes you retreat inside to a cold lemonade. I had just mown the lawn the night before, and with our rain last week it’s greened up. But the telephoto lens compresses the focus, making tha garden seem more compact and comely than it is.

My neighbor’s yard is a mass of lantana right now and I benefit because the butterflies it attracts wander over to my yard. They seem fond of the garlic chives. I have some lantana, too. But I have too much shade to suit it and it rarely blooms.

Dateline: 2004
If fall is the South’s spring, then oxblood lilies are our daffodils.

About three inches of rain which fell the other day have brought out the oxblood lilies en masse. A few had bloomed earlier when I watered the lawn near them. But those were just teasers. The garlic chives have been blooming since August 12. The hyacinth bean vines are flowering. I think they do best in the fall. The sago palm is putting out new fronds. I’m relieved since this is the first time since I transplanted it into the garden. Mostly I’m working inside the house right now, and just admiring the garden from within.

It’s in the 90s and muggy again this week after some cool dry weather last week. So it doesn’t feel like fall anymore. But we really needed the rain in the city. The last few storm systems to the northwest (which dumped 10 inches around Marble Falls) didn’t bring us any rain.
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Gardening has its fashions. One year it was pentas. Then it was Tecoma stans. This year commercial landscapes all over Austin, planted Dietes vegeta, the butterfly iris. The long graceful spears are attractive even when the plants are not in bloom. But when they are bloom, it’s magic; single flowers flutter above the leaves.

Seduced, I bought a gallon pot of some at Home Depot several months ago. Since I was going to be away at the worst part of summer, I decided not to plant them then. Today I finally got around to it.
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Our third day of wonderfully cool temperatures in a row has got me out nosing in the garden again, tidying up here and there.

During my week stay with my parents in Las Vegas, I continued to be very much impressed with the xeriscape designs along the streets and medians as well as the very small, but well-landscaped yards. Two-thirds of Las Vegas didn’t exist when I lived there as a teenager. The desert is bull-dozed as new development is laid like a giant grid in the valley and the landscaping is newly installed, a bit crisp, clean and artificial like the houses. All the neighborhoods are sheltered from the major streets with cinder block walls. Most of the newer developments also include a wide (not greenspace but) planted space between the street and the walls. The design of these xeriscape spaces is delicately fluid and much more attractive than either mown grass or decorative rock landscapes of my past.
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When I arrived home at 4 this morning, I slipped out into the moonlit garden even before disturbing the sleeping boys with my “I’m home”. Plants looked bigger, the grass was longer, and the paths a little overrun with weeds.
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I was surprise when AJM pointed out a bearded iris about to open last week. Our season for bearded irises is April and I’d have sworn I’d never seen one blooming this late. Must be all the rain. Looking at my garden journal, however, I see I was surprised when this same iris bloomed in early June, 2002 and then again on July 15, 2002. Well, this is why I write things down.
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