Fall To Do's

A list of things that we could do this fall:

Front yard

• plant gold lantana on the south of the path for balance
• plant yaupon holly next to front walk (evergreen and good for birds)
• move kidneywood
  
• add red gregg's salvia (x5)
• create drainage creek
• remove grass and throw in crushed granite for the meditation circle?
• prune lacey oak, texas persimmon
• add purple coneflowers, texas betony, black-eyed susans, Nolina texana, coralberry, turk's cap
  

Back yard

• move wax myrtle to create better plant border to patio
• dig up remaining sea oats, give to friends, plant more herbs and flowers in that spot
• make limestone path in back instead of brick squares
• prune peach, mexican plum
• plant more bamboo muhly by entry path
• plant ferns in the hammock nook
• move and/or remove Ruellia (petunia)
  

All

• compost all
  

[I'm going to add to this as needed, just to keep a record....]

Monarchs Trickle

The monarchs are beginning to trickle south on their migration to Mexico. So here one is on the very milkweed plant that seems to be butterfly manna. The spring monarchs ate it to the ground and now their distant relatives are back. Surprisingly, I watched this female lay eggs. I have always heard that the last generation born in Canada and around the Great Lakes flies all the way south to Mexico and overwinters there.

That's true, but it turns out that these fall migrants can jump start their reproductive organs if they get the hankering. This from Oberhauser and Solensky:

...many monarchs appear to become reproductive when they reach the southern US during their fall migration. The importance of this late reproduction to overall monarch population dynamics, and the environmental triggers that promote it, is still undetermined, but it suggests that an increase in the availability of milkweed in gardens and parks may trigger reproduction...

So, it seems like they are suggesting that as we humans plant more butterfly weed (and other milkweeds) in our gardens and/or if milkweed seems to be increasing in general, then we could be effecting the overall ecology of the monarchs. Maybe our gardens, in combination with longer growing seasons due to climate change, could help offset any decline in population numbers brought on by forest destruction in Mexico (but that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop that practice!).

If you totally want to geek out, here's another neat site: the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project. Or, Monarch Watch is full of info on the wonders of all things orange and red.

This cool site has an animated map of this year's migration.

Garden Themes

Pam Pennick at Digging has an interesting post on garden "memes" and the idea of Not In My Garden (NIMG) attitude. I don't believe meme--which refers to a piece of culture that can be passed down like a gene--is the appropriate word, but the sentiment seems appropriate nonetheless.

It's good to ponder the idea of the garden's identity or theme. It's topical for me, because J and I were just talking about where we might plant a Texas palm (or is it a palmetto - labels can be really bad around here sometimes) in our yard.

What is the theme of our garden? Hill Country Cottage? Modern? Tropical? Prairie? Mediterranean? Texas Japanese Zen?

Right now, I don't know that it has a distinct theme, though many of our plants are native to Texas and the central Texas area. We inherited a garden that already has s certain style, brought on by the circular brick walkways. One of the challenges (and coolest things) about Austin is that three ecosystems converge here. Most of Austin-proper sits on Blackland Prairie, but Post Oak Woods and Edward's Plateau also converge here. And we can get tropicals, like dwarf palmetto, here too (tropical plants, like butterflies, are probably inching ever northward with climate change). So, this can create a mix of interesting plants that can grow in our yards, even if their true niches and habitats might be a mile or two away.

Landscape themes should tie in with your house design, as well. Our house is '50s Texas ranch, with a limestone base in front (a very common look around some neighborhoods in Austin). It's not ultra-mod, so I don't think a stark angular modern garden wouldn't look right. Plus, modern gardens tend to do very little for wildlife. I LOVE modern landscapes, but I don't think I can give up all the flowers, butterflies, and birds for simplicity. But, our house ain't a cottage either...

Would a palm look right in a garden with Gregg's salvia? With kidneywood and agaves?

This theme thing may take some pondering...

From ash to ash

Arizona ash is a wayward stranger, an invader, an immigrant. Some people find it ugly, cheap. It was brought here from its native land by people who meant well. They wanted a tree that would grow fast, shading the asphalt and homes from the scorching Texas sun. Fast and cheap. The Arizona ash joined its native cousins here in Texas, brought together by the hand of man from a separation that had endured evolutionary time and great geographic distance.

I've never really liked the bushy crazy looking Arizona ash in our front yard, even though most people would have thought it perfectly fine. You see, I know that it doesn't belong here. The tree has received the bad end of my tree bigotry. Since moving here, I've always secretly plotted to get rid of it.

But the ash was planted here, probably 30-40 years ago, by a fellow homeowner who meant well. And now, long after that inhabitant and several more are gone (a house, and a yard, you see, have deep history) the ash now grows tall and heavy, burdened with winged seeds and the weight of time and growth. It shades the street. The Mexican family who used to rent the house next door needed our tree to protect their cars from the beating sun. They would spend hours protected in the ash's shade in the street in front of our house working on their cars.

And now, the ash has had a trim. A prune. A lift here, a tuck there. I can now see the ash better for what it is, and what it always could've been. In order to grow, thrive and achieve some semblance of beauty--however imperfect--our ash needed to lose the things that were weighing it down.

Like humans, it needed to shed a few of its burdens to shine.

For now, I think we'll keep it. This great immigrant from afar. It will seed the land with it's progeny, however it pains me. But it does as we have done, so who am I to judge this great being, here long before me, and perhaps, long after I'm gone...

September Weekend Pix

Photos from an early September weekend in our garden:

A gulf fritillary sipping from the turk's cap.

Mexican sage

Tropical sage blooms in the shade

Okra!

Desert willow (Chilopsis linearis)

Fall Veggie Garden: Planting #1

I still can't believe we can plant a garden in the fall down in these parts! Today, I planted my frist round of seeds and seedlings for the Austin Fall Veggie Garden.

In my green raised bad, from the southwest corner clockwise:

• Red, Gold and Candystriped beets (Renee's Garden seed)
• Okra (still growing from summer)
• Baby ball Dutch beets (Renee's Garden seed)
• Peppers (from summer)
• Collard greens (transplants x 6)
• Red Russian kale (Seeds of Change seeds)
• Dinosaur (Lacinato) kale (Seeds of Change seeds)

I've saved room for broccoli and brussel sprouts. Yum. Plus I need to find room somewhere for aragula, spinach and strawberries!

Crack

Crack! I awoke at 3 a.m. last night to the sound of our grand old pecan dismembering itself again. This time, a huge branch laden with pecans and probably 99.9% water is hanging precariously directly above and intertwined with our electric and cable/phone lines. Pecans are brittle beasts to begin with, but our excessive amounts of rain this summer have done two things: made the trees waterlogged and boosted their pecan crop. Both of these things are making pecan branches fall from the sky all around Austin like frogs in the bible (heck, I'm sure there are frogs falling in those trees too). Anyway, I wonder what sort of pecan nub we'll have left by the end of this monsoon season?? I wonder just how old our venerable pecan is? How many droughts and floods has the tree witnessed?

Butterfly Garden @ the Reach

I'm doing some cross-posting here. This isn't our garden, but my hoodies and I are about to embark on the installation of a native butterfly garden at the creek near our house.

Hummers

So, I know it is B.A.D. to feed hummingbirds simple syrup made with white sugar, but what the hell? I stopped filling my hummingbird feeder after April, because I thought the birds were gone northward, but I decided to bring it back last week just for kicks. I have more hummers now than in the spring. Three of them in particular fight for my fake flower juice; one of them stakes out the feeder by sitting on a live oak branch. He swoops in and buzzes away interlopers to his territory, and all three of them swirling around is a sight. I believe these are all ruby-throated hummingbirds, but it's hard to tell the difference between those and the black-chinned.

The hummers are all over a neighbor's turk's cap, and I've seen them buzzing ours in the back yard as well. I vow to rid myself of the evil sugar monster feeder once I have a buttload of hummer-friendly plants growing in the yard. But until then, I just can't resists the little buggers.