Bring On the Mason Bees

Just hung this aesthetically pleasing mason bee house that was a Christmas gift from mom. (You can pick this up from Gardener's Supply in case you are wondering.) This is the second bee house in the garden for attracting native bees. I can't wait to see who takes up residence. Clearly this anolis lizard is staking out his place too. Have you ever seen those videos of snakes that sit at the mouths of caves and pick off exiting bats? That's what I'm picturing here, but much cuter somehow. Nature rocks.

Lazy Gardening

Ruth Stout, where have you been all my life?



Money quote: "I don't do anything I don't want to do unless I have to. And I don't have to."

Happy Valentine's Day Ya'll

Let There Be Light

Lights! We have lights.

Just installed some new low voltage landscape lighting this past weekend to ease our way through the front yard. Frankly, it's actually pretty bright on many nights here in the city, particularly when there are clouds reflecting all the city lights. But still, our front stairs can be treacherous in the dark, and it was a safety imperative. We don't want our East Side Pies pizza delivery folks to hurt themselves, now do we? That pizza belongs in my belly, not strewn across the pea gravel.

The set up
We opted for 3 simple lights along the main path; one to light the stairs and two others to light the corners.

We also buried an up-light to shine on our custom steel house numbers on the limestone wall. It was way too bright with a 20 watt bulb, so we hunted down a lower wattage 10W halogen at the Light Bulb Shop up on Burnet. (We don't need planes landing in our front yard...just a little visibility.)

John also rigged up this old Japanese lantern that we purchased long ago at a Wimberley Market Day with a landscape light that he took apart and re-purposed. It's still a little bright, in my opinion, but we'll work on that.

Why didn't I use solar?
For several years, we tried to use solar lights to light the paths. It seemed like the right thing to do, but they consumed battery power fast and never really stayed charged in our shady yard. My brother - who owns a successful solar installation business in Seattle called A&R Solar (if you're in those parts) - and I talked at length about whether solar lights were more or less eco-friendly than hardwired low voltage lights. Though our power mix in Austin is largely coal, which is dirty, he said that the hardwired, low-voltage, longer-lasting lights were probably the best way to go in this case. They don't use much power, and batteries and throw-away solar lights might not be as eco-friendly as we think.

What about wildlife?
Garden lighting can also be very bad for wildlife, and I am really conscious of that. Artificial lights throw animals off their life and mating cycles. I love moths, and everyone knows how they are drawn to their deaths by lights. But it effects frogs, night mammals, owls, sleeping birds, and even plants. Here's a neat presentation on that by Travis Longcore with LA's Urban Wildlands Group.

So, we opted for as few lights as we thought we could (no glamorous uplit trees for me, thank you) and wired them up so that we can turn them off and on with a switch. The idea is that we will only turn them on when we need them - like when we know people are coming over - not daily. We'll see. It's always a balance.

Dot Com Bloom: We're in Living Magazine!

Last night, I had this crazy dream that we were in the March 2012 issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine. It was wild!

Behind the scenes...

Garden editor Stephen Orr helps photographer Juliana Sohn get the light just right.

Taking photos in the front garden pre-French 75's, but they are on our mind!. Click here for a recipe.

Why I Love My Hood

One of the things that is so important to me about my daily life is that we live somewhere that is walkable. That is the one overriding characteristic that I believe makes the best kind of neighborhood. And not that we can just walk the dog, but that we can walk to all sorts of amenities.

Here are the things I love about my neighborhood that I think all good neighborhoods should have:

1) A coffeehouse/restaurant. One of the things I love the most is having a place with food and drink where I can also regularly run into my neighbors. That last part is really key. It's important to be able to have a place where you know people. Even better is when the place has good breakfast tacos. And cinnamon rolls. Yum.

2) An elementary school. There is nothing more Norman Rockwell-esque than kids and parents walking or biking to school together in the morning. I love seeing it. Our neighborhood has a ton of new kids, which makes their convergence in the morning very palpable. The elementary school also serves as a community hub. We have neighborhood meetings there. Also good for: bake sales, art shows, cake walks, basketball hoops and playgrounds. For parents, school is an instant community builder.

3) A dry cleaner. This is a luxury that I only recently discovered. Being able to drop off clothes to have them laundered and ironed is a really nice thing. Even better if you can pick up and drop off on a walk. Even better is when they learn your name. Priceless.

4) A park or green space. I need nature. Period. And I think most people do. Any park will do, but I like living near somewhere that's a bit on the wild side that people gather to take care of, through trash clean ups or planting parties. The trade off is that the greenspace isn't perfect or often its easy to get angry that the city isn't taking more responsibility, but there is nothing like a good project to bring people together. Mainly, I think it's important to have some small space where we can connect with the wild. Even in dense urban neighborhoods, find the space that's a bit wild. Nature grows through the cracks, yo.

5) A food mart. For me, it's important to have a place to buy good wine and beer and quality chocolate. But you might rather have Mellow Yellow and Cheetos. Whatever. It doesn't matter. It's just good to have a store to run or walk when you need something fast. Mmm. Cheetos.

Now, the best neighborhoods have multiples of all of the above, to be sure, but it's critical to have at least one of each. If you find yourself in walking distance to a movie theater, or a full grocery store, or a train station, or even a collection of different kinds of restaurants...you win. But, at minimum, if you find yourself in walking distance of one of each of the above, I think you're golden.

If you want to assess the walkability of your hood, check out WalkScore.com. My hood scored a very bad 52 out of 100, even though I have access to all of these wonderful things. I imagine it's because we have an incomplete sidewalk system (hello, Austin!). It could also be that everyone still drives to everything, even two blocks way (hello, Texas!).  But whatevs. Tests are for sissies.

Coralberry

When planning plants for the garden, I basically think of three things: form, origins and benefit to wildlife. Coralberry, Symphoricarpos orbiculatus, seems to fit all three. I've seen gorgeous stands of this arching plant growing at the Wildflower Center, and seen relatives of our coralberry (often snowberries) growing all over the U.S. in parks and wildspaces. It's pretty in summer and in winter when it is full of berries. It also spreads a lot and feeds the birds.

In our own garden, coralberry has not yet lived up to snuff. It has spread around a bit, but it doesn't form the dense lovely thickets that I was hoping for. Nor does it fruit all that much. However, I was happy to find that a small area of coralberry in the far back corner has produced abundant fuchsia berries this year. (It's something I discovered while on my knees weeding.)

I think coralberry probably likes more moisture than I'm likely ever to give it, but perhaps if we have a nice wet year someday, it'll do its thing.