Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

Dateline: 2010
Temperatures have been quite chilly in the mornings, dipping to the high 30s and low 40s. Our coldest morning of the fall was Saturday (11/6) when our first freeze warning was issued. I didn’t even hear about it until after the fact but temperatures fell only 38 at Camp Mabry and 39 at Bouldin. After 10AM, it warms up to the 70s. The days are sunny and very clear with brilliant blue skies. Great weather for digging out horseherb and dividing the yellow heirloom irises. The bog garden is taking shape.

It continues to be very, very dry and I spend a lot time watering bluebonnet seedlings. I haven’t even started the larkspur yet. I’m waiting for the leaves to fall.

Some leaves have fallen from the cedar elms and pecans but I’m still waiting for some sunshine. The red oak in the back has had a bumper crop of acorns this year. They grind up well in the mulcher/grinder. The red oak in the front has dropped fewer nuts but those are twice as large. I find how different they are interesting.

Both ‘New Dawn’ roses have had excellent fall bloom this year. The ‘Red Cascade’ rose is also the best it’s ever been. Even ‘Mermaid’ (which I’m trying to hack back until some semblance of control) has a flower or two. Four years ago this week I bought my replacement ‘Ducher’. It was wonderful this spring and then it died of cane dieback, too.

We picked some cilantro for chicken tortilla soup (11/7). I haven’t planted the winter vegetable garden yet.

First flower: cat’s whiskers (11/7).

Dateline: 2007
At the beginning of the week it seemed that November weather had indeed arrived–cool, cloudy, dark, and gloomy. What lovely weather for snuggling under a blanket with a cup of tea and reading gardening books. The high temperature Tuesday (11/6) was actually 69F, but that was at 3AM. The temperature dropped during the day so that it was colder at 4PM (59F) than at 3AM (69F). Also it was a drop of almost 20 degrees from the previous day. As the week progressed, the sun came back and the high temperatures were back in the mid-80s. Warm air is blowing up from the Gulf, so the air is quite balmy. This is one of the features about Austin weather that I like. We have one or two days of cool weather so that we can work ourselves into a holiday mood and then it warms up again so that we can get some real work done.

Other signs of fall: the cedar elm leaves began falling in earnest. I’m going to have to buy a new mulching mower this week. The leaves on the Japanese persimmon and the ‘Catawba’ crape myrtles are changing color. The paperwhites began to nose up and by the end of the week, I saw some Narcissus tazetta x italicus sprouting. I better get those bulbs in the fridge planted. The banana plants are starting to yellow and I’ll need to wrap them up soon. The aloe vera by the front walk has some cold damage. I’ll have to bring the potted ones in. And this year, finally, one branch of the weeping yaupon holly has red berries.

I did manage to plant out some violas. The lettuce and swiss chard are up but the raccoons and squirrels keep digging in my seedbeds. More nasturtium is up. A lot of cilantro is sprouting but I’m still waiting on the larkspur, bluebonnets, batchelor buttons, and love-in-a-mist. We need rain for those to sprout. In fact, looking at last year’s photo, I can’t believe that the four o’clocks were still blooming this time last year. I tore those out last month with the tomatoes and cypress vine, all of which were dry and weedy looking and long past flowering stage.

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A few years ago Valerie @ Larvalbug gave me some seeds for the wild magenta four o’clocks that you see growing all over Austin. These things are monsters and once they get hold, they don’t let go. Not only do they profusely set seed but they create deep tuberous roots that are don’t take any efforts to remove them seriously.

One year when I participated in the RHS seed exchange I got some more refined four o’clocks. The plants were much smaller, only about a foot high and wide. The leaves smaller and deeper green. The flowers were cherry red, although in photographs I can see a little magenta star inside. Unfortunately the scent was bred out of them.

The RHS reds have a magenta star in the center.

Last year I dug out the corner of the bed where the red four o’clocks had lived. I didn’t see any roots so I thought they were gone. But no. I’m talking about four o’clocks here. They came back just as strong.

I try to keep all of one kind together but there were two plants I couldn’t tell whether they were red or pink. Turns out they were neither–or both depending on how you look at it. My two four o’clocks had crossed and produced a third type which I like better than either parent.

2007-05-30. New flower in the middle.

The flower is frilly and has the scent (although less strong) of the magenta type. I like the color, a cerise pink, much more. The plant is somewhat bigger than the cherry red type but not as large or aggressive as the magenta. The flowers are larger and more frilly than its parents’ flowers.

Defying their name, the four o’clocks all open at different times, too. The original magenta flowers open first around 5PM. The new cerise pinks open around 7PM. And the RHS reds don’t open until past 8PM.