New Life in the Gardens

Back during spring break, my folks, my good friend Anne, and I tilled up the front of my yard and replaced crappy, water hungry semi-grass for what will eventually be a very lush front butterfly garden! In just a couple of months a lot of the plants have started filling in nicely, especially my Wendy's Wish salvia (the HUGE mauve colored one) that is making it's appearance just about everywhere in Austin right now. It's a pretty incredible plant! You can see a lot of new growth on my bamboo muhly, right above my Texas stone, that has shot up thanks to this crazy stuff called rain! I was initially hesitant to make such a drastic change in my landscape, but I am very happy I did - as are the hummingbirds that are now frequenting what used to be a very sad little yard. :) 

Yesterday at a backyard fundraiser at a good friend of mine's east Austin chateau, I randomly met two of my landscaping idols - the guys from The Grackle. I'm sure it was a very awkward encounter as I introduced myself as Darcy who is obsessed with your yard. :) 

Yeah gardening! 

Busy, busy, busy

I can't begin to tell you how pleasantly hectic everything has been the last month.

I've done a lot of planting, a lot of purging, pretended to clean, puppy walking, (going with a 'p' theme here apparently), all on top of the craziness that comes with the life of a band director this time of year.

But today, I discovered that someone else has been busy, busy, busy, and I can't tell you how excited I am!

I'm also super nervous for this little bird and her nest as the wind today is CRAZY! I realize I have never built a bird's nest and that birds have been building nests for millions of years, but I'm worried for her to the point of fixation. :(

PS. I'm not this bad of a photographer. The wind and trying to take pictures through the window make me look terrible though!

Bloom Day : March 2012

All of my favorite gardening blogs participate in "bloom day" on the 15th of each month showing off the fruits (or rather flowers) of their labor. This is my first time to participate. Boy do I have quite a bit blooming after the recent rains. :)

pineapple sage 

not a true bloom, but the crape myrtles are about to pop!

evil, evil spiderwort buds....

you can tell from the leaves that i mow this stuff down all the time... 

the dianthus i planted, let die, never water, yet still comes back year after year

salvia greggii

verbena 

mexican bush sage coming back nicely

love, love, LOVE my hot lips salvia :)

white salvia greggii with my primrose jasmine in the background

some form of salvia i have never planted that randomly appeared between some bricks in the front 

the salvias i DID plan in the front :)

i think my redbud may be dying one limb at a time, so i need all the bloom pictures of it i can

I ♥ Hill Country Water Gardens & Nursery

O       M       G

Today, after having lived less that 5 miles away for 3 years, I visited Hill Country Water Gardens & Nursery for the first time. I have always assumed they only dealt in aquatic plants (as the name might suggest), but upon arrival I was excited to find 1) my Mexican Bush Sage - the subject of my quest, 2) a fairly extensive selection of Texas natives - trees, bushes, perennials, and annuals alike, including a bicolor sage that I rarely come across, 3) beautiful fountains whose sounds make your experience very relaxing, and 4) a HUGE selection of pottery and yard/garden art! 

Don't buy big box.... So much of their stuff is mislabeled and not in the greatest shape when you buy it anyhow. So much of their stuff doesn't do well in Texas to begin with, definitely not with our current climate. 

Find a local nursery you can fall in love with. I've always been a walking advertisement for the Natural Gardener and Barton Springs Nursery, but I am so pumped to find a great one in my own neighborhood! Like Natural Gardener, HCWG&N has free Saturday classes plus events throughout the year, like Night at the Ponds with local wine tasting and live music. 

This Saturday is their Gardeners Gala which features a huge plant sale just in time for prime planting season, live music, and demonstrations. 

SHOP LOCAL! SHOP FROM PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THE HECK THEY ARE SELLING! SHOP AT A PLACE WITH AN ATMOSPHERE!

Spring Break: In the beginning...

countertop celery update

farmer's market scrambled eggs - the yolks were the same color as my midget oranges

there's a DATE on this stuff?????? whoops...

one of three stacks of my beloved Oprah's going to recycling that I whittled down to just the dog-eared pages 

pictures do not do my closet justice for how clean and roomy it is now!

vertically folded my tshirts in the closet drawers just like on Pinterest - it DOES make it easier to find shirts!

playing around 

All in a Weekend: A Pictorial

organic cauliflower at the Lakeline Farmer's Market

interesting herb at Barton Springs Nursery

ELECTRIC mower I bought and assembled - starts crazy easy

Mexican feather grass

the start of my touch&smell garden: spearmint, grey bush sage, pineapple sage (YUM)

lemon thyme - another touch&smell plant

more of the rebirth of my Mexican mint marigold

the butt of a celery stalk that I "planted" in a bowl of water. look at it growing!

Surprise!

Back in November I bought a bunch of plants from Barton Springs Nursery and then in traditional Darcy fashion didn't plant them all. Of the two Mexican mint marigolds purchased, one made it into the ground, and one died within a week. I've really just been too lazy to throw it away. So every time I go into the yard, I walk past the dead and dry EX-marigold as I go back inside.

 WAIT!.... What is that????

That plant has somehow revived itself! It shriveled up months ago. I haven't watered it. I haven't thought about it. Holy cow! And this is why I love plants; they are simply miraculous.

Darcy vs. Henbit, plus a sock monkey

Friday evening I came home to a wonderful surprise: my primrose jasmine is in bloom for the first time after 3 years!

Unfortunately, more than just my jasmine is blooming... The whole yard is abloom. The two years of drought that took it's toll on the lawn with the help of the recent rains and warm winter has allowed for a ridiculous crop of weeds to take over seemingly over night. My plan is to apply cornmeal on what is left of my lawn this week before TMEA. Hopefully I'm not too late for the cornmeal to act as a pre-emergent for warm weather weeds.

 All week I've been waging a war against one weed in particular: henbit. I'm willing to bet most of you have henbit invading right now. It's actually kinda pretty with its purply flowers. Once it goes to seed though, that pretty little plant spits out thousands of tiny seeds that then take over ad infinitum the next season.

With some KGSR going through my headphones, I managed to pull up 7 bags of henbit, dandelions, and a few random weeds over the course of about 2 hours. I'm trying to operate under the "weeding IS gardening" mantra, although planting is much more fun. I have about 20 bags worth more in the back, and I haven't even begun to attach the front.

My other project for the weekend is about half way done. I'm in the process of making a sock monkey hat for my nephew's first birthday. With nothing that I am remotely interested in watching on tv tonight, I should be able to finish it very soon. :)

Waiting for Sprinkles

I am emotionally driven by the idea of rain. 

It's been a lazy Saturday morning (thank god), which I've needed more than anything. I woke up late-ish: 8:30. The girls spent about 30 minutes nuzzling me, convincing me to get up with little kisses. A bowl of cereal and cup of coffee with gingerbread cocoa mixed in helped me to muster up some energy while browsing the day's news online. But despite riveting stories of how I'm losing more money in my investments, how our politicians are still too damn proud to frickin work together, and a few video clips of Steve Jobs's commencement speech, I found myself compulsively checking weather radars. 

This drought is taking a serious toll on my project therapy. Another coral honeysuckle meets it's end.

One of my most impressive specimens, one of two 6 foot+ butterfly bushes, hasn't died and is actually  sending out new leaflets in the "cooler" temperatures but is draped in wrinkled, burned leaves from the summer. Several of the branches have died, but I'll prune those when when fall actually shows its face.

 My raspberry salvia greggi has chosen to bloom for the first time since maybe March, but it's neighbor - a dwarf silver sage that used to produce the most beautiful bright blue flowers - shriveled up despite being watered.

My red bud's foliage is taking on interesting stress patterns. I have babied this tree for 3 years now, and strangely enough, even with the horrible drought, my constant attention has allowed the tree to keep leaves all the way into October! Both previous summers the leaves turned black by July and fell off well before fall ever arrived. 

I AM A GARDENER!!!!!! But I can't bring myself to garden when I know my efforts are futile.

For about 2 minutes, it rained hard at my house. When I heard those first few drops on my chimney, my eyes actually welled up a bit I was so excited. I literally ran out to the back porch so I could feel the drops in my hair, on my face, through my shirt. A few seconds of standing in the rain and I got to see something I haven't in almost a year: water shooting out of the gutter spout! When we bought the house it was gutterless. $800 later our house was equipped for the torrential flooding we will apparently never see. My rain barrel stands without purpose. Does anyone else have fingers crossed for category 5 hurricane? How is it possible that virtually the entire state of Texas is seeing rain or has seen rain in the last month or so, and Austin is still being savagely punished? 

I'm going to continue with my lazy Saturday but with the TV muted and the music stopped in case I am so lucky to hear a few more sprinkles.