From My Corner of Katy

Ponder This: Changes to the Bog

2012-05-30T13:01:00.000-05:00

Well, shoot, I can't find any pictures of the pond from earlier this year to show how overgrown the gravel bog filterhad become with Colocasia, Louisiana iris and Blue Rush. (The Head Gardener says it might help if I'd tag the pictures when I uploaded them to the computer.) I asked my handy dandy pond guy, Justin Bristol of Pond Pros of Houston, to stop by and clean it out a bit ... the plants were large and well-rooted enough that I didn't want to risk injuring my back trying to get them out. A couple of days later, though, I decided I still wasn't happy with the way it looked, threw caution to the wind, and pulled up what was left. Then I went shopping!

A visit with the one and only Cramer at Nelson's Water Gardens in Katy provided the inspiration and encouragement needed to be more adventurous in my choices of plants for the bog. Cramer showed me a planting he'd done in a gravel bog at the nursery, using a variety of bedding plants and perennials, including torenia, scaevola and gomphrena. Incredible as it sounds, he also has an agave that's been growing in that bog for about 3 years. So I wandered the nursery in search of plants that I thought might be able to take the conditions ... when I was done, I had a purple-leafed coleus, a QIS Carmine gomphrena, a White Swan Echinacea, and a scaevola. I also added one true bog plant, Dwarf Acorus.

I'm mostly happy with the results, although I do need something in
front of that pipe on the right. I added some smaller Louisiana irises
from my personal plant inventory and left some of the water
purslane already growing in the bog.

Here's a closer look. The other thing I'd like to camouflage
is the black pond liner. I wonder if adding some larger river rocks
at the back would interfere with the bog's filtering abilities?

And because it's so very lovely, here's a closeup of the 'Colorado' water lily,
a gift from Jackie of Southern Post Journal. Who's that pollinator hanging
out on one petal?

I'll do a follow-up post in a few weeks on how the planting does. Here's hoping it will be a positive report!

A Mello Fellow's Garden in West Asheville

2012-05-28T22:15:00.002-05:00

Call it Shovelhenge ...

Or call it Dump Truck Park as the children in artist and gardener Christopher Mello's West Asheville community do ... the one thing you CAN'T call it is dull!

This sign was all I needed to see to know that Christopher's was my kind of garden.

He clearly shares my affinity for rusty stuff. This waterfall was the coolest, most creative use of rusty metal that I've ever seen.

He also shares my affinity for succulents ... combine succulents with rusty stuff, as he did in this planting, and it's enough to make me swoon.

The plantings in his garden, such as the classic cottage combination above, were a serene counterpoint to the riotous garden art.

What really made Christopher's garden sing to me was the daring, the exuberance and the creativity displayed at every turn.

I'm still thinking about it and pondering how I can bring more of that to my own gardens. I did contribute something to his garden before I left, after seeing that a certain Tennessee gardener had left her mark!

Where We've Been ... And Where We're Going ...

2012-05-09T15:12:00.003-05:00

The Head Gardener and I have had precious little time and/or energy for blogging this past month. Mother Nature hit the fast forward button and spring has rapidly morphed into summer. We've seen 90+ temperatures almost every day this past week. We live in fear of a repeat of last summer's hellatious heat.

The HG and I have been in something of a plant buying frenzy, which is followed by even more frenzied efforts to get plants into the ground and settled before summer truly arrives. We could spend all day every day outside and still not be done. It's hot enough that we usually call it quits between 1 and 2 pm.

We're feeling not only the time constraints imposed by Mother Nature but those imposed by our upcoming absence. A week from today we'll be in the mountains of North Carolina for the 2012 Garden Bloggers' Fling!

Have we arranged for someone to water while we're gone? Nope. We're still cogitating on how best to handle that. I think we're both hoping for a few timely rain showers. Once there, we'll be too busy enjoying other gardens to worry overmuch about our own!

We know we'll come home to find a few casualties but plants are replaceable ... the friendships and experiences we'll share with fellow garden bloggers are anything but!

Sadness on My Corner of Katy

2012-04-16T07:51:00.000-05:00

I posted this on Facebook yesterday and wanted to share it with y'all so you'll understand why I've not been blogging much lately and may not have much to say for a few days. As much as I'm hurting for and with Hayley, I know her grief is immeasurably deeper.

My daughter is without a doubt the bravest, most compassionate and most selfless person I know. She made the difficult decision yesterday to say goodbye to her beloved kitty Loki rather than put him through more treatments that had only a small chance of saving his life. Loki was only 2 years old so it was especially hard to know what was best for him. She held him in her arms as he crossed the Rainbow Bridge and the last thing he saw was her face. Hayley, you are my hero and you make me proud every day but never more so than yesterday.

On The Road Again ...

2012-04-06T21:10:00.000-05:00

For the first time in almost two years, I motored over to Austin today to spend some time with my sister ... tomorrow we're going to a hen party, otherwise known as the Funky Chicken Coop Tour. We expect to be entertained and enlightened on the subject of chickens, which will be a nice antidote to the somber sights I encountered today between Smithville and Bastrop. The devastation that resulted from last September's wildfires moved me to tears and it will be a long time before I shake the images of the charred and blackened sticks that were once Loblolly Pines. Over 34,000 acres were affected by the fires and 1600 homes were lost, some of them belonging to the firefighters battling to save other homes from destruction. The area continues to recover and rebuild but the landscape will never be the same.

Wednesday's Walkabout

2012-04-04T18:06:00.000-05:00

Back at Rick Rice Park again ... I wish the picture of this bald cypress could convey the impossibly tender and beautiful color of its new spring foliage. It was hard not to stop and marvel at each and every tree.

Let's Get Small

2012-04-02T17:57:00.000-05:00

The Head Gardener and I sighted these tiny blooms on this morning's fitness walk around Rick Rice Park. They never fail to make us smile.

A note re the pictures: I've been using my iPhone camera on these jaunts for the sake of convenience. It's hard to capture a good shot without lying down on the trail so the shots aren't as crisp as they could be.

Wildflower Wednesday: Back In The Saddle Again ...

2012-03-28T09:00:00.019-05:00

I can never look at this flower without hearing Gene Autry in my head ... although I take exception to his description of Jimson Weed as "lowly". It's anything but in my garden! That faint blush of lavender along the edges of the blooms just knocks my boots off!

Mosey on over to Clay and Limestone and see what blooms other garden bloggers are sharing with Gail on her meme. And if you want to take a listen to Gene Autry, here's a clip!

24 Plus and Still Gorgeous!

2012-03-25T21:49:00.000-05:00

For as far back as I can remember, "24 plus" was my mother's standard response when asked how old she was. Today is her 80th birthday and in deference to her dislike of being photographed, I have NOT posted a picture. She's had to pose for pictures at two different doctors' offices recently as part of their conversion to electronic records and I suspect she had to fight the urge to put her hand up to block the camera! Instead of her picture, I'm posting one I took a few years back of the clematis growing on her front wall. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to duplicate her success, as I lamented in this post from 2009.

She asked that it be a quiet day so we took a jaunt out to Enchanted Gardens, which is just far enough out to feel like country instead of city. The sun was blazing and Mom's diminished vision made navigating the grounds of the nursery a bit tricky for her so we didn't spend as much time there as we usually do. She bought a small Crown of Thorns Euphorbia, in full brilliant bloom, and we left the nursery to spend some time roving about the surrounding countryside. That area is very similar to her childhood home of Lost Prong, which really IS out in the country ... I'm not sure it even appears on any maps. As we drove around, she reminisced about her childhood and how grateful she still is to have had such a wonderful place to grow up. It was a big part of my childhood, too, since we made regular visits to see her grandparents and cousins, and I too am grateful for the happy memories made there. Thanks for those memories, Mom ... Happy Birthday!

This Place Is Lousy ..

2012-03-23T12:19:00.000-05:00

Fiesta Gal

With Louisiana Irises ... the Head Gardener long ago gave up trying to rein in my LI addiction. We wish we could tell you the names of all the cultivars pictured but both of us long ago gave up trying to keep track. The HG makes a half-hearted effort now and then to make me compile an inventory but it's fairly easy to distract her with a report of snails munching on the Manfredas. Such intangibles as inventories are forgotten in the process of molluskicide!

One Perfect Poppy ...

2012-03-21T20:17:00.000-05:00

Enchanted, Indeed ...

2012-03-19T08:17:00.069-05:00

A view of the stream at Enchanted Forest, a place where I spent many happy hours

The Bur Oak was planted at EF in memory of my cherished friend Amy by
her Garden Gangsters. I'm so happy this tree made it through the summer of 2011
and is putting forth new leaves.

This little desk once belonged to the Executive Producer's grandmother. Amy's son Drew,
a talented woodworker/furniture builder/cabinetmaker, refinished it for us. It's all
the more special for the time and care he took. His mom would be so delighted with his work
and so proud of the wonderful job he's doing as a husband and father.

Today's (Not So) Secret Word is Green!

2012-03-17T08:16:00.071-05:00

And in honor of the day, here's a picture for my friend Kathy of Cold Climate Gardening. Kathy brought an assortment of her beloved fall-blooming Colchicum bulbs to Garden Bloggers' Fling in 2010 to share with a few lucky fellow bloggers, including the Head Gardener. Kathy selected varieties for me that she thought had a fighting chance and I planted them when the weather cooled a bit at the end of September 2010 (read about that here). Neither Kathy nor I really expected them to even grow in my inhospitable climate. That was the last I saw of them until recently, when I discovered that one lone bulb had made it. Although Kathy and I agreed that the chance of their blooming was less than miniscule, the HG and I are holding onto the tiniest shred of hope.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day:BLTN*

2012-03-15T08:15:00.039-05:00

It's that time of year ... I'm so preoccupied by and occupied with working in the garden that I have precious little time or energy for blogging about the garden. I missed Bloom Day last month and didn't want to do so again. So I snapped some views of the back gardens with my iPhone camera and those will have to suffice.

And having just discovered Wordle, I created a word cloud of plants blooming in my gardens today and I thought it would be fun to do a giveaway based on that. Leave me a comment listing 10 or more words that belong together and I'll send you seeds from this year's crop of poppies, pink and red!

*BLTN: better late than never. An acronym for Bloom Day's originator, Carol of May Dreams Gardens.

Fencing 101

2012-03-13T23:18:00.049-05:00

Last week, as I stepped into this bed to turn on the hose, I noticed something a little off with the fence between my garden and my neighbor's. When I took a closer look, I discovered that a lengthy stretch of the fence was leaning in my direction.

My neighbor and I discussed the matter via e-mail and agreed that my contractor Brent should take a look and recommend how to proceed. Brent discovered that the fence posts on the neighbor's side were rotting away and the fence was in imminent danger of falling over on my garden, so his first recommendation was that we install some bracing to keep it from doing so. Rather than installing a completely new fence, we've determined that we can dig new holes near the old posts and install new posts, then attach the fence to those.

The only plant casualty has been the neighbor's redtip photinias, which have already been cut down to stubs so the fencing crew can work around them. The Head Gardener and I will leave it our readers to decide how we feel about that.

Say We-Satch!

2012-03-11T11:10:00.014-05:00

I've passed this tree as I've gone to and fro from Lowe's recently. My friend Otahal tells me it's a Huisache, Acacia farnesiana. The thorns make it a less attractive option for my own garden but I'm delighted each time I see it on an otherwise nondescript street.

Euphoria over Euphorbia

2012-03-09T08:22:00.003-06:00

Euphoria 'Ascot Rainbow'

Fellow blogger Jenny from Rock Rose in Austin posted recently about the Euphorbia 'Ascot Rainbow' she brought home from Seattle last summer. She did recall correctly that one of the little beauties jumped off the table at Dragonfly Farms and into my hands. I had no reason whatsoever to believe that this Euphoria would be happy on my corner of Katy, since I had never seen it offered at my local nurseries. Like Jenny, I was compelled to try, and also like Jenny, I am happy to say that the plant is flourishing. Hers is showing a bit more red of eye ... perhaps she's fertilizing it with tequila?!

What I

Took A Walk Around The Park ...

2012-03-07T08:22:00.288-06:00

A view of the overlook and flag plaza

While it's true that gardening can be great exercise, the stop-and-start nature of my gardening habits make it a less than aerobic activity. I decided it was time to add fitness walking back into my life and today was my first foray. The last time I walked the trail at Rick Rice Park, only the detention pond and the trail had been installed. I found it a very different place today. As described on the website, "the park, an aesthetic enhancement and creative use of a storm water detention area next to Mason Creek, is still developing yet already offers benches, an overlook platform, a flag plaza, and a central lake and fountain surrounded by a mile-long trail."

Wetland planting

The Head Gardener and I were even more delighted to find that the park has now been extensively and attractively landscaped, using native and adapted plants that can handle the site's weather conditions. We were especially gratified to see that the landscape architects' design plan also includes bird and butterfly habitat plantings that should bring an abundance of winged visitors to the park. Amongst the plants, we spotted quite a few personal favorites: were Gulf Coast Muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris), Salvia greggii 'Cherry Chief', Barbados Cherry (Malpighia glabra);, Texas Sage (Leucophyllum frutescens), and Texas Sundrops (Calylophus berlandieri). We noticed that the wetland areas of the detention pond are planted with moisture loving iris and cannas, as well as clumping grasses that we assume are moisture-tolerant. Plantings near the trail include signage identifying specific plants by both common and botanical names. We were dismayed to see some misidentified plants but learned from the landscape maintenance company's rep that they were aware of the problem and it would be corrected.

The undulating planting swales are stunning.

The arch of the pedestrian bridge can be seen in the background.

The Head Gardener and I are especially enamored of the sinuous planting swales along the banks of the pond. We're looking forward to seeing them come alive with movement when the grasses have regrown. The pedestrian bridge across Mason Creek is stunning in its elegance and simplicity and it fits the space beautifully. Eventually there will be paved walking trails on both sides of the creek. And despite the fact that the Katy Freeway is a mere block away, it doesn't intrude on the sense of tranquility we felt in the park.

That tranquility was only slightly shaken by the signage which warns visitors to watch for snakes and alligators. Fortunately, the only wildlife we saw were some turtles sunning themselves on rocks and a Great Egret standing in the shallows of the detention pond. The maintenance company's rep told us that they had not seen any alligators thus far but expected them to find their way there eventually from the interconnected waterways in and around the Katy area. Other four-footed visitors are frequently seen, however: the park is already a popular dog-walking venue. A welcome amenity are the pet waste disposal stations, complete with mutt mitts for pet owners to use.

Great Egret with turtles camouflaging themselves as rocks

I'm looking forward to many more walks in Rick Rice Park and I hope my fellow Katy/West Houston residents will find time to visit this verdant oasis near my corner of Katy.

Hello, Gorgeous!

2012-03-05T13:18:00.041-06:00

Neomarica caerulea 'Regina'*

Where have you been all my life? Oh, never mind, it doesn't matter now that you're mine. Now tell me, Regina, my pet ... where would you like to grow? There are some lovely spots near the pond. Or perhaps you'd prefer the shelter of the house wall? Yes, I agree ... you would look stunning against the mossy green of that wall. If it please Your Majesty, I believe I'll give you some time to tour the garden before making such a life-altering decision. Your Majesty concurs? Thank you, fair Queen ... you grace this humble garden with your presence!

Through the Garden Gate

2012-03-03T11:17:00.000-06:00

Three for Thursday: Apples of My Eye

2012-03-01T09:18:00.000-06:00

The 3 in 1 espaliered apple I planted last spring has blooms!

'Anna'

'Dorsett'

'Fuji'

2 out of 3 ain't bad, according to Meat Loaf, but the Head Gardener disagrees most strenuously. She says when the 3rd looks as pitiful as poor 'Fuji', she cannot be elated at the beauteous blooms on the other two. She's sitting me down at the computer today to research the care and feeding of fruit trees!

My Eyes! My Eyes!

2012-02-28T18:06:00.005-06:00

I'm pretty sure this color combination qualifies as what my wonderful friend Gail of Clay and Limestone refers to as "Clown Pants". Screaming yellow Texas Buttercups (Ranunculus macranthera), hot pink Toadflax (Linaria maroccana), Johnny Jump-Ups (Viola cornuta) and Lady in Red Salvia (Salvia coccinea) do not a felicitous combination make. They certainly are eye-catching, though!

Today, My Corner of Katy ...

2012-02-26T09:25:00.006-06:00

Tomorrow the world!

Yes, that's Spiderwort blooming profusely in front of a Redbud. Remind me how pretty I thought it was in February when I'm digging out umpteen gazillion seedlings in July.

Same Time, Next Year ...

2012-02-24T22:25:00.020-06:00

The front gardens at the end of February 2011:

The front gardens at the end of February 2012:

And that, my friends, is the difference between a harsh winter and a mild one here on my corner of Katy!

It's Alive!

2012-02-22T10:25:00.067-06:00

Not only that, it's blooming! This is Schizostylis coccinea, commonly known as Kaffir Lily or Crimson Flag, one of my impulse purchases in Seattle during last summer's Garden Bloggers' Fling. I planted it out front in an area where I'd see it every day as I walked to the mailbox and could monitor its progress or lack thereof. Hey, some people play the slot machines or craps ... I gamble on plants! Since many of the links I found in a Google search were from the UK, I didn't really expect that the plant would do well here. I'm happily surprised that it's thriving and even increasing - new fans are poking up through the soil.

That spot of red in the lower left corner of the picture isn't the S. coccinea but another South African bulb, the subject of Wednesday's post. I didn't expect them to be so similar in color or to combine so well with Pinecone Shrimp plants (Justicia brandegeana) and Salvia greggii 'Cherry Chief'. I'm delighted that it worked out that way. Long may the Crimson Flag wave on my corner of Katy!