A quiz from Bookish Gardener.
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My tastes aren’t really this black or white. So I’ve had to annotate my responses. What I like and what I can do are very different things. Learning to work with the conditions you live in is the easiest way to successful gardening.
July 11th, 2004
Bandwagon
2004-07-07. I’d placed a stone path here at the bottom of the hill next to the garage and interplanted it with monkey grass to slow down the runoff during heavy rains. What had once been a gravelly desert landscape is overrun with vines this year.
July 8th, 2004
Jungle Fever
Returned from San Francisco to find a jungle. Flying between Houston and Austin, I saw swollen rivers brown with runoff and sheets of standing water in the fields. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it this green in July. It had rained through last Thursday and the temperatures continue in the low 90s; that is quite temperate for us this time of year. Compared with the dry, cool air of San Francisco, though, arriving in Austin was like stepping into a sauna.
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I knew stuff was happening without me.
June 6th, 2004
Memorable Weather
Typical for the day in Austin, Memorial Day brought on the weather. We hit our first 100 degree day of 2004 (a bit of a surprise since we only hit 90 a few days before). Then it began pouring rain, then hail (bean-sized). Then the sun shone and it continued to rain and hail.
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Yes, I really preferred a lawnmower to cut flowers. I’m just that kinda girl.
May 28th, 2004
A Reel Mower
As a combination Mother Day’s/birthday present, I got a reel mower, which arrived yesterday. After a bit of research, including going to look at some at Breed and Home Depot, I decided on American Lawnmower’s 1815-18. It is supposed to work best on our coarse St. Augustine grass and it has the highest blade level. (As summer progresses I mow higher and higher, so that the leaves of grass shade its roots.) We purchased the mower on sale at amazon.com. When the UPS man delivered it, he was so excited. “Look what I brought you. Man! I haven’t seen one of these since I was a kid. I can see what you’re going to be doing this holiday weekend.”
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2004-05-26. Magnolia grandiflora ‘Little Gem’.
2007-05-27. Loving this wet, cool spring.
May 26th, 2004
Magnolia grandiflora ‘Little Gem’
Maybe because my Mom wore “White Shoulders”, I love the scent of the flowers old South: jasmine, gardenias, and magnolias. AJM, too, is impressed by magnolias and wanted me to plant one. But they grow into huge trees, casting a dense shade. I also worried that a magnolia would get chlorotic in our chalky soil and need special treatment, like azaleas (another plant I’ve avoided so far). This winter, however, I was impressed with some magnolias in an apartment landscaping along Victory Drive behind the Target on Ben White Blvd. They seemed green and healthy and the trees had a beautiful conical form.
So, after a little research on the net, I decided to buy ‘Little Gem’, a “dwarf” magnolia that is supposed to grow only to 12 to 20 feet tall. I found one at Floribunda Nursery and planted it last January. Today, although still quite young and only three feet tall, it produced three creamy flowers, each five inches across. The leaves are glossy green on the upper surface and a velvety-textured russet underneath. And the scent! sweet but also sharply lemon.
Zanthan Gardens History
2004-01-10.
Bought 3-gallon ‘Little Gem’ magnolia at Floribunda.
2005-01-09.
Fed, weeded and mulched with compost. Topped with cuttings from the Christmas tree and put the cover of flat rocks on top.
“As the UK’s leading gardening charity, the RHS advises on good gardening practice, with environmental responsibility being central to our idea of excellence.” — Simon Thornton-Wood. RHS Head of Science, Advice and Libraries.
May 15th, 2004
Encouraging Biodiversity and Wildlife
The Royal Horticulture Society focuses on biodiversity and wildlife in their current issue of The Garden. All gardens impose a human construct on nature. Whether we benefit or destroy the environment in which we garden depends on our approach.
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Hybrid musk rose ‘Buff Beauty’. 2004-04-23. Austin, Texas.
April 26th, 2004
Rose ‘Buff Beauty’
Dateline: 2004-04-23
Yesterday two flowers open on ‘Buff Beauty’ finally. She and the other hybrid musk roses (‘Prosperity’ and ‘Penelope’) suffered the most from the attack of the spring cankerworms. If not for that, I think she would be covered with flowers this spring. I planted ‘Buff Beauty’ three years ago, and although she’s produced the odd flower or two, she’s yet to prove her worth in my garden. But I really like the apricot color of the flowers. ‘Gruss an Aachen’ has flowers somewhat similar in both form and color, but has only been in my garden six months and has already out-performed ‘Buff Beauty’. She’s highly-rated by many other gardeners, so she might just be in an incompatible location. I’ve also heard that she’s a slow-starter.
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Plant Profile.
Bearded iris. Night Game.
Black self. Keppel. 1996. ML 42 inches.
2004-04-22. Iris ‘Night Game’.
April 24th, 2004
Iris ‘Night Game’
Dateline: 2005
‘Night Game’ opened its first flower on April 16th making it the first named iris to bloom this year. However, the stalk is quite short, only about 18 inches tall. The first flower opened on the bottom and is also rather small.
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2004-04-23. Austin, TX. First flower on rose started from a cutting.
April 23rd, 2004
Rose From a Stick
Last November, when I was pruning roses, I noticed that some of the canes seemed very, well, lively. I hated cutting them or throwing them out. So I decided to see if I could get them to strike.
Following the instruction in Rayford Clayton Reddell’s The Rose Bible, I made cuttings about a foot long and stripped off all but the topmost set of leaves. Then I planted them, putting two of the bud eyes underground and two above.
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2010-04-10. Rose ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’ blooms pretty consistently this week every year.
April 13th, 2004
Rose ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’
Dateline: 2004
2004-04-13. Noisette rose ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’.
The cold snap that came last weekend has dropped nighttime temperatures into the 40s and ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’ is loving it. Her flowers hold their shape better in cool weather. Under normal April conditions they open and fade in an afternoon and looking, sadly, like crumpled tissues. The flowers are larger than ‘Madame Joseph Schwartz’ and more of a peachy pink than ‘Souvenir del Malmaison’.
