Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

The Iris Society of Austin held it’s annual show today at Zilker Botanical Garden Center. For the first time in several years, I didn’t have a single iris blooming, so I wasn’t able to enter. Apparently I’m not the only one with that problem in Austin this year. There were probably only half the normal amount of entries. The one group of irises that looked good, however, were the Louisianna irises. AJM likes these bog plants and if we ever get around to building a pond, I’ll get some for him.

This bearded iris won best “space-age” iris.

The semi-double sport of ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ has a cinnamon-scented center. I can’t always smell it, but I did today.

Updates
Need to hunt down the dates for these photos.

Dateline: April 2, 2004
This week, the Tea rose ‘Madame Joseph Schwartz’ is trying to steal the spotlight from ‘Ducher’ and ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’. Now into her third year in the garden, she is a mass of rosebuds. The Tea roses, first bred in the mid-1800s by crossing China roses with Bourbon and Noisette roses, are popular in the south. As a rule, Teas are considered “delicate”; that is, they are not roses for cold climes. But they stand up well to Austin’s heat and humidity.

‘Madame Joseph Schwartz’ is often described a “white” sport of ‘Duchesse de Brabant’, but is actually more creamy pink. Her color varies from flower to flower and season to season. The loose cabbage-shaped flowers are not individually arresting. They have weak necks an. the flowers dangle like bells. They have a casual, blowsy look that is at home in the wildflower border. On warm days (highs above 85) they open and fall quickly. But when in flower, there are always a lot of them, and they are nicely scented.

‘Madame Joseph Schwartz’ is a great landscape rose because she forms a dense shrub which is attractive even when not in flower, so dense that the thin flexible canes droop under the weight. She can get to six or seven feet tall although after three years in my garden is is only about three feet tall and wide. I’ll be glad when she reaches her full height and I can look up into her flowers, rather than kneel on the ground to see them. In my yard, she blooms best in cool weather. This is her second flush of buds this year; the first was at New Year’s. She blooms so early in my garden, that her buds are frequently nipped by frost. She also holds up well under our summer heat. She hasn’t had any problems with mildew or black spot.
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For the last two years, after I acquired a dozen or so heirloom roses, I’ve spent the thirteenth week of the year battling a little green inchworm–spring cankerworm. As the cedar elm and oak trees leaf out, it floats down on a silken thread until it finds the tenderest new leaves, mostly those on the roses or the flower buds of the lilies. It exudes a sticky web and curls the leaves around it, munching away happily. In stage 2, it acts rather like a hornworm, munching leaves along a branch, denuding it.
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One of the bulbs I found in my garden when I moved in over ten years ago was a Narcissus tazetta cross. These narcissus (in contrast to the paperwhite narcissus) have wide strappy dark green leaves, yellow cups, bloom later, a much more pleasant scent, and thrive year after year on heavy clay soil without much attention.

So based on Scott Ogden’s description in Garden Bulbs for the South and the fact that I live in an older Austin neighborhood, I was pretty sure my N. tazetta was ‘Grand Primo’. But I had some doubts. Scott Ogden said that ‘Grand Primo’ blooms in late February and mine usually begin blooming on New Year’s Day (depending on the amount of rain in November and December). The few photos I found confused me more. My tazetta has distinctly separate, thin, pointed, petals which tend to twist back slightly, forming wind-blown stars. Other photos of ‘Grand Primo’ show overlapping petals that curve inward.

This season, with its unusually dry December and an unusually wet February, provided an answer to the mystery. I have two different tazetta crosses. The flower on the left bloomed as usual beginning in January. But then three more clumps came up much later than the rest, with slightly shorter leaves and scapes. When they began blooming a couple of weeks ago, I could see the difference.

I think that the flower on the left is Narcissus tazetta v. italicus. The one on the right could be ‘Grand Primo’ or even ‘Avalanche’.

If it ever stops raining (did I actually say that?), I’ll take some more photos.

Update: February 5, 2008

Update: December 25, 2015

Today a fourth Narcissus tazetta opened. This has been a good year because of the heavy rain on October 30 and throughout November. I find it very difficult to tell one little narcissus apart from another in photographs (especially close ups). I need a side-by-side comparison. So here is a note to my future self.

From left to right: unknown paperwhite narcissus, Narcissus ‘Grandiflora’, Narcissus tazetta x italicus, Narcissus tazetta var orientalis ‘Chinese Sacred Lily’.

Update: February 13, 2020

This year both the italicus and ‘Grand Primo’ bloomed better than ever. I was ahead of schedule weeding and feeding them. And we got good rains at the end of December and early January.

As usual, the italicus bloomed first. But the ‘Grand Primo’ was right behind so that there was a bit of overlap. In one bed in the front of the house where they got mixed in together, the dark green foliage of the ‘Grand Primo’ was distinctively different than the lighter gray foliage of the italicus. But the italicus is still larger and strappier than the typical paperwhites.

Oddly, this year, it was ‘Grandiflora’ that bloomed first (in December)…weeks before the unnamed paperwhites or the italicus.

Dateline: February 20, 2004

Valentine’s Day is usually when I mark the beginning of spring in Austin. The redbuds start blooming and spring takes off from there. But this year it snowed on Valentine’s Day. No matter. A couple of days later, the highs were in the 70s. With all the rain we’ve had recently, the flowers could hardly wait to strut their stuff.

Garden Spot in Houston reported her first Tommie crocus on February 16th. My first one opened today, on the 20th, as did the ‘Ice Follies’ daffodils, which is one of the most reliable daffodils for Austin.

Summer snowflakes and the Mexican plum started blooming yesterday.

And the yellow-flowered Sedum palmeri that Valerie shared with me have been blooming for a couple of weeks now. It’s just been too cold and rainy to snap a photo.

It snowed last night! The snow began melting at 4AM and by the time the sun and I were up at 8AM, it was almost gone. We scooped enough off the cars to have a snowball fight before going to Central Market.

It looks like Dallas got quite a bit more snow than we did in Austin.

I’ve never had a white Christmas, but now I’ve had a white Valentine’s Day.

This could explain why I haven’t seen any robins this winter.

Dateline 2016

It rained all day. Luckily, I blew all the leaves off the roof and paths yesterday. It rained all day on Dec 3 in 2011, too. AJM went on the same 20 mile run while I worked on the computer huddled under the electric blanket, albeit on a different project. I did sow some larkspur seeds in the northeast corner in a spot I prepared yesterday. I can see why people who live in cold climates have so much time to bake and be crafty.

Dateline 2003

A very welcome gray day, misty, then drizzly, then a thunderous downpour. Just yesterday the Statesman was reporting that Travis County was under a burn ban, since we only received two-thirds of our usual rain for the year. All around us, the rain levels have been normal or higher than average. But Austin is in a little black hole of rainlessness.

And then today it rained. I gathered the rain harvest in every wheelbarrow and bucket I own. And, yes I do have a rain barrel. I just wish I had more.

A single rose blooms here and there. Today I cut ‘Peace’, ‘Souvenir de St Anne’s’ and ‘Blush Noisette’. I’m having a lot of problems with mildew especially on ‘Souvenir del Malmaison’ and ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’ which are along the same south-facing wall.

This year, I didn’t wait for a freeze to kill off the summer vegetables, but took action and cleared them out. A lingering death is so ignoble.

Dateline 2001

The weather is setting the holiday mood; it continues to be cold, gray, and drizzly. I like this weather in this season of Advent because it makes me feel like baking, or sitting in front of a fire writing Christmas messages.

The garden needs tidying, but it will have to wait. I’m not in the mood to rake sodden leaves and the lawn is too wet to mow, even though it needs it. The bright green annual rye has now grown 6 inches.

Only the trailing lantana is in full flower. Some of the Grand Primo narcissus are sending up their flower spikes. The nandina berries are brilliantly red against deep green foliage (the foliage in my yard has not changed color as I’ve seen in other places).

In past years, I’ve spent this week cleaning up freeze damage. There is a sense of relief in the finality of a really hard freeze. But Austin’s first big freeze two weeks ago did not affect our yard. Both in summer and winter, the buildings downtown store and radiate heat, always making our yard a couple of degrees warmer than the official temperature at Camp Mabry. So the old tomato and basil plants linger on and I’m in no mood to deal with them.

Displaced Yankees often complain about the lack of fall color in central Texas. While it’s true that we lack the brilliant hues of a New England autumn, I’m thankful that while they’re trying to shovel themselves out of a massive snowfall, we’re enjoying weather like this today.

August may be miserable here, but damn!, December’s gorgeous.

The cedar elms have produced spectacular color this year. Just as they lose their leaves, the red oaks will start turning color. Autumn drags out gradually here in Austin, rather than exploding in one big bang of color.