Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

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

September 15, 2010

First fall is firmly entrenched in Austin. Given that it’s hot and humid, how do I know summer has surrendered? When I go outside, it doesn’t feel like I’ve stepped into an oven. When I walk down the street, the heat no longer radiates off the sidewalks and buildings. If I’m unable to water the potted plants one day, they don’t immediately die. The plants don’t wilt after ten minutes of direct sunlight. I’m pretty confident if a plant has made it this far it’s survived summer. (I did lose a couple of things the week before the rain: my potted sweet bay and my second ‘Ducher’ rose.)

I’m surprised by people who can’t feel the 15-degree difference between 107° and 92. I’m not going to say it’s pleasant outside but it is bearable. The air is thick with humidity and mosquitoes the result of Tropical Storm Hermine. After an August with only a trace of rain, Hermine answered our prayers with a vengeance. Zanthan Gardens got about 6 inches of rain in one day; other places in Austin got twice that. Flooding ensued. Eight people died (not all in Central Texas).

The oxblood lilies had their day living up to one of their other common names, hurricane lilies. Their fleeting beauty is all but faded today. So the prize for most striking display for GBBD is a toss-up between the Datura inoxia and the Lindheirmer senna. Some of the latter is over six feet tall. I’ve never seen it so tall. It grew a lot during the wet early summer months.

Lindheimers senna

Gardens everywhere in Austin are brimming with Pride of Barbados this year. I’m seduced by the clear orange/yellow combination. Usually I’m not a fan of orange–it has to be the right flower. I’m glad I bought one. I also managed to grow a Pride of Barbados from seed which I planted a couple of years ago. It died back to the ground during the January 2010 freeze but now it is almost as big as the one I bought. It still hasn’t flowered.

Pride of Barbados

Both the golden thryallis plants are flowering as is the ‘Bangkok Yellow” canna which I had to rescue from pond-trashing raccoons. September is a very yellow month at Zanthan Gardens.

Golden thryallis

The garlic chives started flowering very early this year and are still flowering. I planted them to complement the oxblood lilies but they don’t always flower together.

Garlic chives

The vitex, the retama, and the desert willow have all surprised me with flowers today. Even the ‘Catawba’ crape myrtle is reblooming. The coral vine is also pretty happy, sprawling over twenty feet into my neighbor’s cedar elms. A couple of four o’clocks opened, too. The ‘Starry Eyes’ nierembergia has been a winner throughout the summer. I definitely want more.

Nierembergia gracilis ‘Starry Eyes’

After the rain the garden is really just a collection of moderately managed wildflowers. The ruellia (all three types) have taken over the back yard. It’s very obliging. I don’t water or feed it and it grows and grows and grows. Another native plant, scarlet spiderling has been very aggressive this year. I don’t mind it in small doses but this year the plants are huge. The flowers, although a very pretty color, are tiny.

scarlet spiderling

Another native plant that I try not to let get out of control but which has this year is this mallow (maybe Indian mallow, Abutilon incanum). This isn’t a very good photo…it makes it look like horseherb. The flower of the mallow is much larger than that of horseherb; it’s about the size of a penny. It’s also a pretty pale, flat buttery yellow. The mallow is an upright bushy plant; the horseherb is a sprawling ground cover.

mallow

Eventually I’ll get the garden all under control again. Or maybe not.

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

October 2009

What a difference rain makes! What a difference a year makes!

Last year, central Texas was a year into our drought and the season which usually brings a sense of renewal and hope to the garden had failed us. I was too discouraged to even write a post for GBBD last October. This year it began raining about a month ago and hasn’t let up. Yesterday was our first sunny day in almost a week. The garden is transformed. Everything that’s survived the drought and heat of summer is working overtime to put out new growth and flowers. The weeds (and mosquitoes) reign supreme. I don’t care about the weeds; I’d rather weed than water.

Unfortunately, many flowers are not camera-ready. The rain has left them a sodden, mud-spattered mess like the datura above (a passalong from Diana @ Sharing Nature’s Garden). This is why this post contains no rose photos, even though every rose except for ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’ is blooming today.

New for October

Bulbine started blooming this month and this is the first time I’ve had it in my garden. I received it as a passalong plant from VBDB @ Playin’ Outside during this spring’s Austin garden blogger get-together. I’ve always wanted it and I’m so glad to have it.

Another plant new to my garden is Mexican mint marigold, a passalong from Annie @ The Transplantable Rose. She gave it to me as a substitute for French tarragon which won’t grow in Texas.

Garlic chives is an old autumn faithful. It was here when I came and I bet it will still grow here when I’m gone. I like it best when it complements the oxblood lilies but most years it comes into bloom after they have finished. The garlic chives is just a little beyond its peak right now and beginning to go to seed. Like most alliums, it will take over the garden if you let it.

Fall Rebloom

Pam @ Digging gave me this zexmenia two years ago. The day I picked it up turned suddenly warm. I put it in the ground immediately but it looked like it had died straight off. It hasn’t had an easy time of it. I cut it back hard in August. Now it’s about four times bigger than it was a month ago and covered in flowers.

Lindheimer senna self-sowed all over the meadow and began blooming with the first rains in the latter part of September. It’s mostly gone to seed now but one flower held out for GBBD.

I was happy to see that the Dahlberg daisy I bought this spring survived and began flowering again. Jenny said it another profuse self-sower and I’m happy to report many new seedlings sprouting. I’m digging them up and tucking them in all over the garden. I love its clear yellow flowers and delicate foliage.

Summer Survivors

Not only the Port St. John’s creeper but every vine I grow has taken off running with all this rain. The morning glories, which I thought had died, came back from their roots. The potato vine, is conveniently covering the chain link fence next to the driveway.

Nothing attracts bees to my garden like coral vine. It struggled through this dry summer without any supplemental water but revived with the rains. It is currently trying to eat my husband’s car.

Once you grow cypress vine you will always have it. Every time it rains, more will sprout. In the rainy summer of 2007, it smothered my front yard. This year I kept transplanting self-sown seedlings next to my sweet pea trellis and now they are all blooming. Cypress vines is supposed to attract hummingbirds but I haven’t seen any yet. The little blue flowers behind it are the duranta–which has survived both winter and summer and never stopped blooming.

With all this rain and damp mulch, a variety of mushrooms continue to spring up. Although not technically a flower, I couldn’t resist including this one.

October 15, 2009

The list of all plants flowering today, October 15th 2009, at Zanthan Gardens.

• Abelia grandiflora (2007, 2009)
• Antigonon leptopus (2007, 2009)
• Allium tuberosum (2009): starting to go to seed
• Asclepias curassavica (2007, 2009)
• Bulbine frutescens (2009)
• Calytocarpus vialis (2009)
• Commelina communis (2009)
• Datura inoxia (2009)
• Duranta erecta (2007, 2009): overwintered and bloomed all summer
• Eupatorium wrightii (2007, 2009): just starting to bloom
• Hibiscus syriacus (2009)
• Hippeastrum x johnsonii (2009)
• Ipomoea quamoclit (2009)
• Ipomoea tricolor ‘Flying Saucers’ (2009)
• Lagerstroemia indica ‘Catawba’ (2009): full bloom two weeks ago; now almost all faded
• Lobularia maritima ‘Tiny Tim’ (2009) survived the summer
• Malvaviscus arboreus (2009)
• Mirabilis jalapa pink (2009)
• Nerium oleander ‘Turner’s Shari D.’ (2007, 2009): full bloom
• Oxalis crassipis
• Oxalis drummondii (2009)
• Oxalis triangularis, white (2009)
• Pavonia hastata (2009)
• Plumbago auriculata (2009)
• Podranea ricasoliana (2009)
• rose ‘Blush Noisette’ (2009)
• rose ‘Ducher’ (2009): so heavy with new growth and flowers that it’s sprawling
• rose ‘Mermaid’ (2009)
• rose ‘New Dawn’ (2009): both plants
• rose ‘Prosperity’ (2009)
• rose ‘Red Cascade’ (2009)
• rose ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ (2009)
• rosemary (2009)
• Ruellia (passalong) (2009)
• Ruellia viney type but not woody type (2009)
• Senna lindheimeriana (2009): full bloom three weeks ago; now almost all faded
• Solanum jasminoides (2009)
• Tagetes lucida (2009)
• Thymophylla tenuiloba (2009)
• Zexmenia hispida (2009)

The week before we went on vacation, Zanthan Gardens got 7 inches of rain in less than three days. The week we were gone, we got another 3.5 inches and temperatures dropped enough that my Austin garden friends on Twitter were talking about drinking hot tea and putting on sweaters.

In our absence the garden was transformed. It was green. (Mostly weeds.) Bluebonnets, cilantro, and Love-in-the-mist had sprouted. The rosemary was blooming. Half the lavender had rotted away. A large aloe vera had collapsed and a wooden retaining wall had fallen over.

The spineless prickly pear cactus which withered in the drought has become so bloated with rain that it had collapsed under its own weight. I hated it before and I really hate it now. So most of it will be removed to the city’s composting collection.

The crape myrtles would have bloomed better all summer if I had watered them. I saw them blooming all over Austin. However, they are a rather low priority plant in my garden when it comes to precious summer water so they had to wait for the rains. I think I cherish them even more now for missing them over summer.

Some oxblood lilies were still flowering on my return. However, I was surprised by this red giant blooming: the St. Joseph’s Lily. Maybe it wanted to join in the red revelry. It’s supposed to bloom in the spring, on the saint’s feast day, March 19th.

I also was surprised to see the Sweet Alyssum blooming. It’s never survived the summer before and 2009 was the worst of summers. About half the plants have survived even though sometime in August I stopped watering them. Such tenacity!

The curly parsley was another surprise. Last fall was the first time I grew it and found it as easy to grow as cilantro but when the cilantro faded in the heat the parsley soldiered on. I lost most of it but a few hardy stems which had died almost completely to the ground came back. I’ve decided that the intense bright green will make a perfect low hedging for my winter garden. I’m going to plant a lot more this year.

Some things are just as expected. The garlic chives, Allium tuberosum, are dependable fall flowers and a nice complement to the oxblood lilies. Over the years, they do tend to take over like all their allium kin. I’ve been pretty brutal the last few years yanking them out where I didn’t want them and not replanting them. Still, I’m happy to see them when they do bloom. It makes fall feel complete.

I began the stump garden on April 29th of this year to solve several other problems. First, I needed to move bulbs from an area which I had used as a nursery but which is slated to be a patio. I decided to move them to a wild spot under a cedar elm tree on the edge of the lawn in the back. That spot is too dark for most wildflowers and the shallow roots of the cedar elm suck moisture and nutrients from the ground, making the soil very poor indeed. Worse, the site is on a slope, so the water tends to runoff rather than soak in.

The other problem was I have a lot of bits of sawn tree trunk leftover from the tree which fell on our garage last November. I decided to use some of these pieces to create a structure on the slope and plant bulbs and other shade-loving plants between them. I placed the tree trunks close enough together that I can jump from one to another to water or weed. Then I planted garlic chives and oxblood lilies which bloom together in the fall; the rest of the year the garden would be various textures of green from palm grass, liriope, monkey grass, and ferns.

Last weekend our first fall downpour, a gift from tropical storm Fay, caused all the oxblood lilies to burst into bloom this week. The effect is better than I ever hoped it would be. But although the flowers will fade in a week or so, the arrangement of stumps provides a structure that has made this little garden pleasant all summer.