Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

Dateline 2010
The first week of the new year has been blackened by the ominous forecast of the coldest weather since the big ice storm of the first week of February 1996 (when AJM and I were marooned together). Not only will this freeze plunge Austin temperatures to the teens, it will be cold for several days: too long and too cold for plant covers to help much. While the first freeze of the season cleared the garden of overgrown annuals this one threatens to kill long cherished tender perennials. Cue much moaning and gnashing of teeth in the Austin garden blogosphere/Twitter.

I spent Wednesday (1/6) ahead of the front digging up what tender perennials I could: the amaryllis (all but the butterfly amaryllis had died down anyway in lighter freezes), scores of aloe vera, and the largest banana. All these plants needed dividing or moving to a sunnier spot. Nothing like the threat of disaster to focus and motivate.

Some losses will really hurt. I’m going to hate to lose plants I’ve grown over many years from very small plants especially the lemon tree, asparagus fern, and the philodendron–all which I planted out last year after they became too big for pots. I will be sad to lose my rosemary which I was training into a weeping tree form. I lost my first big rosemary in a similar freeze years ago.

Other plants I’m not going to be sorry if they get cut down to size because they’ve been unruly, overcrowding and shading the neighbors: the variegated Agave americana, the three Duranta erecta, the Port St. Johns Creeper (which had already frozen to the roots in earlier freezes). I’m very bad at pulling out something that survives because so little does. So I’ve let these run wild even though they’ve overstayed their welcome.

This hard freeze is particularly frustrating because so many plants put on a lot of growth since September during the rainy period Austin’s had after our 2-year drought. The cilantro and some larkspur are already sending up flower stalks and have buds–two months before normal. The Acanthus mollis has early summer growth already, its new leaves a fresh bright green and glossy. Worst, the fall vegetables were just starting to get growing in the last month after the pecans and oaks finally shed their leaves. We’ve harvested one cutting of Mesclun and that’s it. Goodbye English peas, swiss chard, and various other greens. Luckily these are easily replanted. Also agonizing will be the loss of many plants that I’ve struck from cuttings.

First flower: Narcissus italicus, (1/1). Only one flower. It’s been a very disappointing year for N. italicus and not a single paperwhite bloomed this year.
Blooming (very little after a couple of hard freezes): Lobularia maritima, Lonicera fragrantissima , Oxalis triangularis (white), Narcissus italicus.

Related

If you’re preparing for the oncoming winter storm, read Frost and Freezes from the Travis County Extension Agent.

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We Austin gardeners are living in heady times. The last two winters have been very mild. Last year I didn’t even get a killing freeze in my garden (although I know others in who Austin did). As a result, plants that usually die back to the ground–like the duranta and the Port St. Johns creeper–kept growing and flowering year around. Tender perennials that we treat as annuals–such a jalapeno pepper–demonstrated that they are indeed perennials. My aloe vera that I planted outside has survived three winters and grown and flowered. It produces so many pups and is so heat and drought tolerant that I keep planting it all over the garden. And worse, I’ve started collecting its cousins. There are 400 species of aloe and dozens of different ones are available in Austin nurseries. Some are reputed to be hardy but aloe vera is not. So far the aloe vera has reacted to the cold by turning slightly red but recovered quickly.

Aloe vera. I planted these in 2006. Since then they’ve doubled in size, multiplied, and flowered.

The aloe vera was only the beginning. Last winter I got tired of lugging plants I could barely carry into the house when a freeze threatened only to lug them back out again a couple of days later when temperatures returned to the 70s. So, I planted them out in the garden, too. If Austin gets several hard freezes this year will it be the end of my lemon tree, my cut leaf philodendron, two different kinds of asparagus fern, and my kalanchoe?

The kalanchoe is forming new buds. These will turn to mush in a freeze.

Why do I keep buying new frost-sensitive plants like the allspice bush and the Natal plum?

As I continue planting (Austinites do most of our planting in the autumn so that our plants can have a chance to establish themselves before our deadly summer), I keep wondering if we aren’t headed for a reversal of fortune. We’ve been riding a non-freeze plant survival wave, living recklessly based on short-term memories. The forecast for this El Niño winter is colder than normal.

Established plants have responded to Austin’s recent rains after our two year drought as if it were spring. Several normally spring-blooming plants are flowering now and everything is putting out new growth. Even in normal years, many of our plants don’t go dormant and our ground never freezes. I often have roses in bloom at Christmas. Although on average Austin has a dozen nights of freezing temperatures, these nights are interspersed with days in the 60s, 70s, and even 80s. (If you delight in statistics, see the freeze dates at Camp Mabry between 1997 and 2006.)

Earlier this week, November 17th, the National Weather Service issued its first freeze warning for parts of our county. This should not have surprised us. The average is first freeze is December 2nd and as recently as 2005, our first freeze was also November 17th.

If the garden is unprepared and vulnerable, I think Austin gardeners are even more so. On Twitter, our responses fell into one of three camps: those who hurriedly covered plants and brought them inside, those who decided their plants were just going to have to tough it out, and those who gambled that while a freeze might hit other parts of Travis County, our micro-climate was probably safe. I was in the latter group and I won my bet with the weather. This time.

I need to get prepared. When it comes to Austin weather, anything can happen. In 1980, on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, it snowed.

November 15, 2009

This last month has been one of the most beautiful in memory, its perfection lulling us into a glowing sense of “God! Isn’t it wonderful to live here in central Texas.” Rain. Rain. Rain. And then a month of dew-kissed mornings when we never got the hose out once and only watered seedlings and new transplants with the bounty in our rain barrels.

The overwintering annuals have filled in making it look more like March than November. The false dayflower is already flowering.

Commelinantia anomala. The common solid blue false day flower has an endearing face, too.

Henbit, chickweed, and dandelions–the early winter weeds (or tonic herbs depending on your point of view)–are also getting a head start on sprouting and blooming. It’s odd to think that our first freeze is due within three weeks when the whole garden is insisting we’re already into spring.

Another March flowerer, cilantro, is about to bolt. I hope this counts as a bonus fall crop and that we get a second crop in spring. Even the spring-flowering Jerusalem sage threw out a few flowers on one bush.

The fall flowers, brilliant with fall yellows and oranges, are in full bloom. With the flowers, the butterflies returned.

Asclepias curassavica.

As did swarms of mosquitoes. The mosquitoes love to be in the garden in the late afternoon at the same time I otherwise find it most pleasant to work. Very discouraging. The garden is buzzing with bees, too. They especially like the coral vine, the basil, and the orange cosmos. The cosmos is in full bloom right now. Unfortunately it is a uniform orange, unlike previous years. It and the pink Port St. John’s Creeper account for almost all the color in the back yard.

Cosmos sulphureus.

All month the roses have been in full bloom. The ‘New Dawn’ rose by the front fence has flowered more and longer than ever before. So has ‘Red Cascade’ which looks like it has finally decided to do something (take over the world?) after years of lying sleepily along the ground. In the back yard, ‘Ducher’ collapsed under its own weight and then sent out a lot of additional new growth from the bent canes. In short, it pegged itself.

Rose ‘Ducher’. Linen white and lemon scented.

Rose ‘Red Cascade’. Tiny flowers on rambling rose that wants to be a groundcover.

Rose ‘Prosperty’. From bud, to faded flower on stem…like a timelapse photo of itself.

Rose ‘Blush Noisette’.

‘Mermaid’ has been blooming this last month, just not today. Only ‘Souvenir del Malmaison’ and ‘Madame Alfred Carriere’, which are still in the shade of a red oak, have not flowered.

The vines have set out to smother the yard, especially the kudzu-like Port St. John’s creeper which is following the coral vine’s leap into the trees. The cypress vine has grown into a flopsy mopsy tangle at the top of its trellis. One surviving morning glory puts out a unique striated flower every other day or so.

Pavonia hastata. A single pale pavonia flower struggles to open. I prefer it to its cousin the solid pink, Texas native, rock rose, Pavonia lasiopetala.

In the winter vegetable garden, the parsnips are flowering. The leaves are only just beginning to fall from the pecans today so the newly planted lettuce and other salad greens are struggling in the shade and getting leggy or eaten by pill bugs. The jalapeno is flowering and has peppers on it. One self-sown tomatillo is flowering but the other two which sprouted died so can’t cross-pollinate and set fruit.

Complete List for November

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

• Ajania pacifica (2009)
• Antigonon leptopus (2009)
• Asclepias curassavica (2009)
• Aster ericoides (2009)
• basil (2009)
• Callisia repens (2009)
• Calytocarpus vialis (2009) hated horseherb
• Commelina communis (2009)
• Commelinantia anomala (2009)
• Cosmos sulphureus (2009)
• Datura inoxia (2009)
• Dolichos lablab (2009)
• Duranta erecta (2009): overwintered and bloomed all summer
• Eupatorium wrightii (2009): fading
• Galphimia gracilis (2009)
• henbit (2009)
• Ipomoea quamoclit (2009)
• jalapeno (2009)
• Lagerstroemia indica ‘Catawba’ (2009): one flower; leaves browning–not changing color
• Lavandula heterophylla ‘Goodwin Creek’ (2009)
• Lobularia maritima ‘Tiny Tim’ (2009) survived the summer
• Malvaviscus arboreus (2009)
• Mirabilis jalapa pink (2009)
• Nerium oleander ‘Turner’s Shari D.’ (2009): fading
• Oxalis crassipis (2009)
• Oxalis triangularis, purple (2009)
• parsnips (2009)
• Pavonia hastata (2009)
• Podranea ricasoliana (2009)
• Polanisia dodecandra (2009)
• rose ‘Blush Noisette’ (2009)
• rose ‘Ducher’ (2009): so heavy with new growth and flowers that it’s sprawling
• rose ‘New Dawn’ (2009): both plants
• rose ‘Prosperity’ (2009)
• rose ‘Red Cascade’ (2009)
• rosemary (2009)
• Setcreasea (2009) both purple and green
• Solanum jasminoides (2009)
• tomatillo (2009)
• Tagetes lucida (2009)
• Thymophylla tenuiloba (2009)
• Zexmenia hispida (2009)

Dateline: 2007
Sunday (1/21) was the first sunny day Austin’s seen in about 9 and everyone was out on the hike and bike trails, packing the parks, or sunning themselves at Barton Springs Pool. This is not a population that could stand winter in the normal sense of the word. I managed to transplant some more sweet peas and rake some more oak leaves (will it never end!) but after all the rain and ice last week our black mud is too mucky to work.

The rest of the week, save Thursday, was gray and dreary. Despite last week’s downpours, lake levels remain low so it’s hard to find fault with more rain.

The ice storm didn’t cause much damage to my plants, as the temperature was never much below freezing. However, bitter record-breaking cold is looming on the horizon. It may be in the mid-60s today but will it be in the mid-20s next Saturday?

The violas, Narcissus tazetta, mahonia, and mealy sage continue to bloom but really there isn’t much flowering in the garden. Both the Tulipa clusiana and the ‘Ice Follies’ daffodils are nosing up this week. The ‘Ice Follies’ are the last daffodils to show themselves.
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