The Grackle

Coralberry

2012-01-30T12:00:00.000-06:00

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.

Wait, Weeding IS Gardening

2012-01-29T18:25:00.003-06:00

I'll never forget talking one day with a well-known local landscape designer when he said something to the effect that he didn't think of it as "weeding" but as "gardening." Ignoring the fact that we were at that moment watching his gardener weed, I still thought it was a great idea, philosophically. And the next time I found myself weeding, I definitely had that thought running through my mind.

You know, he's right. If gardening is indeed about tending to the earth, part of that is about plucking and preening.

Weeding is a bit like exercising - once you get started it's actually really great but it's the getting started that can be hard sometimes. The process of weeding brings you into intimate contact with your garden and all of its goings-on.

You are basically forced to plop yourself in one place for a while on your hands and knees, poking and pulling at weeds. And part of that process is distinguishing unwanted plants from those you like. You get to see things you might have tra-la-la-ed past if you weren't looking closely.

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny crisp day in Austin, and it was high time to try to control this awful cool season grass that invades our gardens.

While I was pulling that stuff up (for hours), I discovered that the Mexican plum (Prunus mexicana) has sent up a runner. Mexican plums are wonderful ornamental trees, but in the wild they form thickets. I never expected to see mine try to get to it's natural state. I also found a juniper seedling undoubtedly dropped by a bird.

I listened to a flock of cedar waxwings alight in the bare pecan branches overhead, squeak for a time and then flutter off to their next destination.

Gardening is more than just the planting of plants and the quaint snipping of flowers here and there. It's getting your hands dirty and muscles sore. It's listening and watching and smelling. It's slowing down to observe. It's fabulous.

View from the Front: A Series

2012-01-29T11:51:00.000-06:00

Last year I declared that I wanted to take a photo of the front garden from the front window every year in January. I almost forgot! Here is the front garden this year, then 2011, and 2010. Things look much greener this winter because we haven't had a big gnarly freeze (yet). Change and growth...

Winter "Weeds"

2012-01-22T08:51:00.002-06:00

This time of year, there are a few weeds that make themselves quite well known around here. The first is this beautiful little mint-like weed is called henbit, Lamium amplexicaule, and a quick search will teach you that its the bane of lawns and landscapes. This one is a non-native to the U.S. but it is widespread.

I think it's rather pretty myself, and is adding some nice purple color to the garden at the moment. That said, it is spreading itself around in an unruly sort of way. The fine thing about that is that it'll disappear once it warms up. I guess you can eat it too.

Here's another winter-spring weed that will take over quick called bedstraw, Galium aparine, often called cleavers.

Bedstraw is native. Reporting in the Gonzales Inquirer, Dr. Bob Williams said that bedstraw makes a bitter tea and has a long history of use as food and medicine. I always think of this plant as "sticky weed," because it has little hooks all over it that make it stick to humans and animals.

Williams also says that in old times the plant was known for its powers, and that it is still employed in country lore as a purifier of blood. He himself seems to have made up a tea of the stuff to use as a spring tonic in lieu of sassafrass. He says its also a host for many butterfly species, but I haven't yet confirmed.

The only real problem I see in the garden is that it spreads in very thick (but weak) mats and could compete for light and water resources with other spring emerging plants. So, I do control it to a certain extent. I don't feel the need to eradicate it, but I'll pull back the larger growths of it just to give our other plants the benefit of warm spring sun and moisture.

What's the different between a weed and a wildflower? Some people have so many bluebonnets growing in their gardens they might consider them weedy (but desirable). This year, I finally have one bluebonnet coming up from seed.

I'm not sure why I haven't had much success with these annuals in the garden, though I have noticed they love sun and really bad soil. We're mostly clay and part-shade, so that could be the reason. So last year, I planted this seedling's parent in the hot pea gravel part of the garden near the veggie beds. Maybe that'll become a little bluebonnet weed patch for us...

Being a Better Naturalist

2012-01-16T11:37:00.002-06:00

One of my goals for this new year is to try and be a better naturalist - to better document and observe the nature around me. This blog has long been an effort at that, but I've actually never been good at keeping deeper records of the plants, birds, insects and other animals around me. A good naturalist would have documents of sitings with dates and other important information, like weather. I'm going to try and work may way to that little by little.

To that end, I just compiled some master lists of the plants, butterflies and moths, birds, and reptiles, amphibians and mammals found at the Grackle. I've certainly forgotten things, so keeping this updated will be a new challenge for me. The butterfly and moth list, in particular, is very small compared to all the species I know that we have.

On the plant front in particular, it was an interesting exercise to write them all down and especially to categorize what is native and what isn't. One of the little challenges with that is that while we consider some things "Texas natives," they aren't really native to this area (for example, desert willow is widely used in gardens in Austin, but is a native of in West Texas.)

One of my goals is to have more plants from the Blackland prairie in the garden, and making this list made me realize how few we have to date. In particular, I'd like to have more native Blackland prairie grasses. As a next step, I'm going to separate those plants out in my lists and then think about how to get more Blackland prairie plants here in the garden.

Winter Blooms of the Loquat

2012-01-09T21:08:00.002-06:00

The loquats are in full bloom this time of year, and even more than last year if I recall. They must be digging these once weekly shots of rain juice.There are two great things about this. One, the flowers exude a very subtle sweet perfume, which is always welcome in the winter months. Second, blooms mean future fruits. The warmer temps this year are also encouraging honey bees to venture forth from the hives. I'm not sure if the loquats depend on them to set fruit, but it can't hurt.

Our loquats are still pretty full and growing up front. Someday they may be large beastly tree-hedges. And that's cool with me. They make a nice dark green wall to shield our view of the street (is there anything uglier than a street?).

These trees are from southern China, and I saw many of them wither during the drought over the past summer. They seem much like our native Wax Myrtle only in that they require more water than you might think.We didn't get any fruits last year, so I'm crossing my fingers for a bunch of the pale orange sweet fruits this year. They taste much like apricots and are great in granola. I'd love to make a loquat cobbler or something like that, but have never gotten enough of the fruits...maybe this year.

Dividing Red Yucca

2012-01-04T17:35:00.001-06:00

For a blogger, I'm awfully bad at documenting processes sometimes. Case in point: I decided to divide one of our three red yucca plants this past weekend. It would have been neat to photo the whole process of digging these up and dividing them, but above, you can only see the end point, which is a couple of pieces of the red yucca supported by a stalk of bamboo. (The support was called for because the divisions don't have any roots to speak of.)

Red yucca, Hesparaloe parviflora, is not a true yucca, but an agave. According to Mr. Smarty Plants, dividing them is best done in fall or winter and can be a successful way to propagate the plant. Another chance to cross my fingers and hope it works! I love the idea of getting more new plants from old ones, but it's not always as easy as it sounds...

Christmas in Austin: Keepin' It Galactic

2011-12-23T08:20:00.002-06:00

Heartleaf Skullcap Fills Back In

2011-12-21T20:31:00.000-06:00

The heartleaf skullcap (Scutellaria ovata), which completely disappears in the heat of summer, has blanketed the ground with its grey-green fuzzy leaves as the weather has cooled and dampened. We've been getting a nice rain once per week now for several weeks, which is a complete turn around from the crazy days of summer drought. The aquifers aren't filled yet, but some of the Hill Country streams are flowing clear and the plants sure are happy.

This photo above, which features a pass-along variegated agave from Pam Penick, was taken after about 1.5 inches of rain last week. Ah, sweet rain!

One Lonely Lemon Still Makes a Curd

2011-12-19T20:26:00.002-06:00

This year our improved Meyer lemon tree produced only 4 lemons, after producing a bumper crop last year. I hear that they might alternate years like that. And then some damn critter got to three of them, stealing them away in the night to ne'er be seen again. I can only guess it was a coon, since a squirrel would probably just take a bite out of the fruit and leave it there. These had vanished.

So I collected this one as quick as possible and got to making the annual lemon curd. (Here's the recipe.) I made some awful cookies to go with the curd too, but as Stephanie said, lemon curd really just needs a vehicle to get into your mouth, so the status of the cookies wasn't a complete downer.

Yum. Lemon curd.

Ty-Ty One On

2011-12-12T13:19:00.000-06:00

I just have to take a break from regularly scheduled programming to point out the Ty-Ty Tree Nursery in Georgia. Frickin' hilarious marketing these guys have. Here's a video just to whet your whistle with their particularly strange brand of humor. Their advertising goes from homoerotic to heteroerotic to just completely ridiculous.

Automakers used pin-ups for years. I guess these are kind of like pin-ups for trees? Uh, what the?...

Winter Walnut Sphinx Larvae

2011-12-11T20:13:00.000-06:00

We found this Walnut sphinx (Amorpha juglandis) larvae slowly crawling across the pavement this weekend - a strange sight to see in the December. I grabbed it and placed it on the soil in our garden, where it immediately began to find its way beneath the mulch and soil. This is a green morph. I've previously documented the red-brown morph in the garden. We have none of this moth's documented host plants anywhere around the hood, so I'm guessing it likes to munch on the pecans...closely related to walnuts...

DIY Tomato Cage Christmas Trees

2011-12-03T19:25:00.001-06:00

One of the most fabulous things to do in the garden this time of year is put out the Christmas lights! (Actually, every time of year is a Christmas light time of year in Austin, Texas, but we do it up extra special for the holidays.)

Here's a really simple and neat Christmas lighting idea inspired by Unconsumption: take the tomato cages that you've stored for the winter, flip them upside down and wrap them in lights. Voila!

Instant lighted Christmas trees and holiday yard art.

Pit Stop Prairie

2011-11-29T10:23:00.001-06:00

On our summer prairie tour, we discovered many restoration projects at rest areas.

Unbeknownst to Bodi, he is happily sitting there picking up hitchhiker ticks. Fun for us.

Fall Mists

2011-11-22T16:47:00.001-06:00

One of the greatest joys of fall gardening in Central Texas is that it's when the mistflowers bloom. There are two natives that are pretty common in the garden trade around here, Gregg's mistflower (Eupatorium greggii) and white mistflower or shrubby boneset (Eupatorium havanensis). And there may be more that are native to the area.

Both are massive butterfly and bee attractors. In a normal year in October and November one can find queens, monarchs, and any number of zillions of insects buzzing around the mistflowers. Queens and monarchs, in particular, love them.

Alas, this is not a normal year, and the mistflowers mostly stand quiet. There are a few bees, but almost no butterflies. I surprisingly found this male monarch butterfly sipping on the Gregg's mistflower this week.

He probably recently eclosed somewhere in these parts and may try to catch up with the monarchs gathering now in Mexico. (There were late monarch caterpillars munching on the tropical milkweeds here about a month ago.)

I like Gregg's, because it is a low sprawling groundcover. It spreads, but not too aggressively in my yard, and is really easy to pull up.

But I LOVE the boneset, because it smells fantastic. Its light spicy scent always catches me off guard when it sweeps over me in the autumn breeze. Boneset has a nice low shrubby form, beautiful white flowers and can sometimes stay evergreen if we don't get a crazy freeze. Also drought tolerant. Highly recommend it.

White mistflower is an edge species found just along the edges of the Edwards Plateau. I've been trying to plant it around the yard in the habitats that are forest edge-like, or will be some day.

Oh, I spied this green caterpillar munching on the Gregg's too. Wonder what it is?

Winter Senna: What's the Deal?

2011-11-20T20:33:00.001-06:00

We bought a beautiful little specimen of winter senna, Senna bicapsularis, at Barton Springs Nursery in a moment of weakness a month or so back. It has beautiful yellow flowers in bloom now, and really pretty alternate leaves. I know, I know, we have native sennas that are gorgeous, and yes I want those too. Like I said, moment of weakness.

Here's my dilemma. There are a ton of mixed opinions and references out there for this plant, some of which claim that its highly invasive, some of which claim that the invasive one is actually Senna pendula, and some which say that yes it's invasive but not all that bad.

One website that I can't seem to find again said that the climbing vine-like shrub can really take over in New Orleans, even pulling down siding.

So, what's the deal? Is winter senna invasive? Should we be planting it in Texas? If it's invasive, should our nurseries be selling it? I'd love to hear if anyone has any opinions on this. I've been snipping off the seeds for now, but I'm not going to keep doing that for long. Soon enough, I'll just have to either let it live or send it to compost bin.

Potential

2011-11-12T09:56:00.001-06:00

Tall Grass Prairie Grass Primer

2011-11-10T08:23:00.000-06:00

Where the Road Ends the Wild Begins

2011-11-07T19:06:00.000-06:00

One of the great joys of growing up in the suburbs in the 70s and 80s was the adventure that awaited us where the roads ended - where the new neighborhoods paused before oozing forth again under another round of growth.

Sometimes these spaces had already been cleared. Sometimes they had roads but no houses. Sometimes they were just pockets of forests that had no idea they were being eyed by the beady eyes of neighborhood developers.

For us kids, they were where we ran free, where we played kick the can, road dirt bikes, sculpted ramps, build forts, found old ruins, played make believe and generally explored life and community. Sometimes, I'm sure it was a very Lord of the Flies.

Since then, I've always held a soft spot for brownfields and strange properties that haven't yet developed. Those places that stand forgotten or undeveloped among our cities. These are different than wild spaces, because they bear the mark of humanity but they are places where nature shows us that she still holds the keys to the car. Long after us, nature will be there (unless we really f&%$ it up bad).

These brownfields are Mad Max in their weird combination of old asphalt and plants. They hold fascinating surprises and mixes of plants and animals.

One such place for me now is right around the corner - a huge playground that is the old Mueller Airport. The old airport, as any Austinite knows, is being redeveloped into an urban neighborhood oasis. But the process is slow going, and there's a ton of fascinating and awesome urban ecology happening in the Mueller Hinterlands.

Here is a beautiful stand of gayfeather (Liatris) going to seed.

And among the rose-colored stalks, I spied this amazingly concealed caterpillar. Can you see it?

It's pretty phenomenal that this species - whatever it is - is able to match the exact color of this liatris, and that the parent was able to find this liatris plant upon which to lay its eggs in this urban maze so devoid of other liatris plants.

A gourd, some asters, goldenrods and milkweeds, all making their home in the hinterlands.

And, in my opinion, this may be one of the most bad ass abodes in town. I bet they have an amazing view of the sunsets and the swallowtail flycatchers dipping across the hinterlands. They may even see a fox or two.

Shhhh. Don't tell anyone. Austin really is like the wild wild West sometimes, even in the middle of the city...

Kales and Lettuces Going Gangbusters

2011-11-02T08:00:00.000-06:00

A friend recently gave us some kale and lettuce transplants to grow in our new limestone garden beds, and they are growing like gangbusters!

This is my favorite time of year for veggie gardening in Texas. Frankly, it's the only time of year, if you want to stay sane.

The lettuces and kales are large enough now to harvest and use after only a few weeks.

And this sorrel is going to add a nice lemony zing to our salads with that lettuce.

I've also seeded in some lacinato kale, spinach, arugula and beets. Those should be pushing forth soon and ready to harvest in a few weeks too!

Mariposa de la Muerta

2011-10-31T16:59:00.002-06:00

On the morning of the Halloween, during this time of Dia de los Muertos, look at the beautiful moth that appeared before us hiding under a bridge on San Antonio's River Walk:

The Black Witch (Ascalapha odorata) or the Mariposa de la Muerta. This is our largest moth north of Mexico, with a wingspan of about 6 or 7 inches. Look how it stacks up against my large hand:

Learn more about this fascinating lepidoptera on Mike Quinn's Texas Entomology. Happy Halloween! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha...

Further Defining the Back with Patio Work Surface

2011-10-23T19:21:00.002-05:00

We used to have a nice rectangle of grass in the way back, about 14 x 20 feet. It was the last patch of lawn in our entire yard, and we rather liked it conceptually. But, the drought has taken care of that.

So, we've evolved our thinking of the space too. John has been quite diligently piecing together patio limestone to create both a nice walking surface beneath our laundry line and a visual delineation between the well-defined pea gravel veggie beds and what will become the wilder area in the back corner of the yard. It's design is very gyo, with so materials and a rectangular shin shape.

What remains of the old lawn is now a dirt square that we'll fill in with stuff. We've decided to basically give that over to the wild, letting things seed themselves and planting new plants that will benefit the wildlife. We have plenty of space for ourselves, so this area and one other are going to become more completely natural.

Lest it looks like it's all for show, here's what the new limestone workspace looks like in service, towels on the line...

The Capri, Marfa

2011-10-20T08:55:00.000-05:00

Two years ago, John and I ventured out to Marfa and stumbled across the Capri event space, which is directly across from the Thunderbird Hotel and owned by the same folks. The gardens were designed by Christy Ten Eyck, and they are really very amazing. The space once held a hotel and parking lot and it has been transformed into a West Texas garden wonderland.

Ten Eyck made ample use of native grasses, such as blue grama and side-oats grama, as well as West Texas stand outs, like Mexican elder (if anyone knows where I can get this small tree, please let me know!).

Here's a fantastic clump of blue grama in bloom:

Here you can see the crushed stone paths weaving through the grass plantings to connect visitors with steel fire pits ringed by stones. I can only imagine how magical those fire pits are on a cool starry night in West Texas.

Side-oats grama edges a limestone path:

A very Donald Judd-like geometric cement pool is nestled among tall gabeon walls:

Here's a few shots from a recent 2011 visit. A lot as grown in 2 years. It was really cool to see how everything filled in. (These three photos are from my my iPhone after the batteries died in my SLR...bummer.)

This is a lovely little scene with freestanding steel posts standing in a row among big fluffy grasses. Fantastic idea.

Ten Eyck is a landscape architect with offices here in Austin and in Phoenix.

Retama at Balmorhea

2011-10-18T09:02:00.000-05:00

Retama branches stretch beside the cute hacienda-style rooms at Balmorhea State Park, Texas. Too bad those fireplaces don't work any more...

Back Veggie Garden Beds Finished

2011-10-16T20:59:00.000-05:00

This weekend, we got up the gumption to move dirt and lift limestone to complete the redesign of the back vegetable garden beds. We've now gone completely from the three rotten wooden raised beds to four small squares of limestone.

I'm extremely satisfied with these. Their form brings some much needed design structure to the back utility area, and the limestone and square grid pattern really plays well with the rest of the garden design.

For now, we're testing out having the Mexican lime tree in the center, but that may change with weather and whimsy.

Truthfully, part of the motivation for redoing these beds (aside from the rotting wood of the old beds) is to reduce the amount of space that we have devoted to growing vegetables. Veggies are just really difficult and time consuming to grow, and though I still delight in having fresh, homegrown veggies, I want to limit their pull on my life.

Now, we have a bed or two for seasonal veggies, one devoted to herbs, and I'd like the last of these to be devoted to flowering perennials, both for using as cut flowers and as a nursery bed to grow seedlings to place in other parts of the garden.

This is also really a step forward in making the garden even more drought proof. Veggies require a lot of water and the old wood beds dried out very quickly. Hopefully, these smaller, lower beds edged by water-retaining stone and planted with more drought tolerant herbs and perennials will lesson our load.

Sunset Over the Davis Mountains

2011-10-15T09:00:00.000-05:00

Monarch Migration in West Texas

2011-10-13T19:01:00.000-05:00

The monarch butterflies were on the move this past weekend (Oct 8-9, 2011) across Texas. It was everything we could do to not kill hundreds of them as they flitted southward to Mexico and we sped down I-10 to Balmorhea State Park. (It's really tragic to kill such a beautiful creature that has been flying so hard and so long across the vast plains of this country, trying its best to get to Mexico.)

When we arrived, we found ourselves in a magical enchanted land, with thousands of monarchs flying all around us, finding roosts in the trees of the state park on a windy West Texas day.

Airstream Studio

2011-10-05T11:58:00.004-05:00

I've seen this landscape architect's Airstream studio in other design mags before. Pretty neat. I love Stavropoulous' analogy that beginning a landscape design is like stepping into a jazz trio where all the musicians are already improvising; that you have to figure out where you fit into that scene.

Video courtesy of The Werehaus via The Atlantic.

A "Fall" Sunday at the Grackle

2011-10-02T18:03:00.002-05:00

It's possible that our 100 degree days have passed for the season, but I'm not counting my chickens yet. Still, the mornings and evenings are waxing gorgeous, with temps in the 60s. So this Sunday morning, John and I grabbed our dark French-pressed Revolution coffee (from Just Coffee in Madison, WI) and set ourselves upon the front patio in front of this new cactus I just bought at Barton Creek Nursery. I think it looks like a miniature forest of pine cones.

The Barbados cherries (Malpighia glabra) are beginning to bloom in the front garden. The flowers don't look like much from afar, but they are quite beautiful up close and smell nice too. I expect to see the bees swarming them any moment now.

The flowers will give way to bright red cherries that the birds will devour before we hardly get a chance to notice them. These Barbados cherries have frozen back to the nubs the past two winters with our crazy freezes, but they keep returning in full shrubby glory. I'd say this is a proven winner for our area, and seems to be able to handle the random freezes and droughts.

The Blackfoot daisy continues to bloom these days too.

And a self-sown, lemon-yellow sunflower arched it's neck toward the rising sun.

After perusing around the garden with the camera this morning, I whipped up a special Southern-style eggs benedict, with homemade buttermilk biscuits, bacon and poached backyard eggs delivered by the chickens of some good friends down the road a spell. What a great start to a beautiful day!

Gyo Wall

2011-09-25T20:06:00.001-05:00

I stumbled across this absolutely gorgeous limestone wall in the Brentwood neighborhood today. It screams "gyo," where controlled stones are mixed with natural stones to create a wall that seems highly precise, yet organic. The combination of sawn limestone with natural aquifer karst and other patio limestone is just incredible. Very well done. Actually, this whole garden was nice, but I hated to lurk to long in front of it with my iPhone out snapping photos...I'm such a garden stalker...

New Stone Garden Beds

2011-09-18T17:34:00.002-05:00

Back in July, I posted about how our wooden raised veggie beds were rotting and falling apart. Last night, John poetically referred to them as large sinking battleships, falling into a sea of pea gravel. They've certainly provided us with a lot of food over the last few years, so a silent salute...

Any good Southerner will know the answer to the following question: what happens when you have untreated wood in contact with soil, especially moist soil?

Yep, you guessed it: termites.

The wooden raised beds are home to happy colonies of the farkers. Hopefully, they don't make their way to the casa itself. Yikes.

The first step in making new lower beds was removing the dirt from one of them and replacing it with new limestone (6in Blanco Chop in this case). That one then became the planting ground for the herbs growing in the second bed.

This photo shows the first completed one with its new plants. The second wooden bed has been dismantled in the back.

Here are the first two completed and mulched with pine straw.

The new beds are smaller, further apart and lower. I just don't need that much space to grow veggies. Their lower profiles and stone will also prevent the heavy evaporation and drying that occurred with the wood (oh, and termites too!).

Next step will be to replace the really large wooden bed with two smaller 4' x 4' ones to match the others. It'll be a nice little grid. Very pleasing to my orderly sensibilities. And then I'll have to get the drip irrigation all hooked up again.

Here's a beautiful okra flower and okra fruit from the plants growing now in the larger bed. They love the heat.

Here is my attempt to keep the spearmint in check, planting it in metal buckets buried in the ground.

Hopefully, that will prevent runners from taking over. But if they do, so be it. I love mint.

Grama Bats Her Eyelashes

2011-09-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

When we first moved into this house, we experimented with planting a couple of lawn circles of native buffalo grass and blue grama. The buffalo grass was sod and the blue grama, Bouteloua gracilis, was seeded to fill in the spaces.

Since then, we've done some major remodeling in the front garden, getting rid of one of the circles. But one circle of buffalo-grama remains to date, and it does relatively well on its own.

There are a couple of blue grama plants that have grown this year to substantial size (meaning about 6 inches high) and they are now sporting their lovely eyelash-like seed heads. Some people compare them to little flags, but I think they are more seductive than that, especially when they are spent and curled over.

Blue grama is a gorgeous little native grass, that is particularly difficult to capture on camera in my yard with all of its crazy textures (sorry, squint hard and you can make it out in the foreground above). I'm hoping that it will spread. Either that, or I'm going to plant more of them in strategic places that capture the sun's light. A full lawn of this grass would be absolutely wonderful, but we don't have the right conditions for that anymore.

John's Cactus Garden

2011-09-11T12:20:00.000-05:00

What does one do when faced with the most ridiculous drought in the history of his life, but the burning desire to plant something and try to create some beauty from the madness?

He heads to the Austin Cactus & Succulent Society sale at Zilker Botanical Garden.

We've been slowing creating John's cactus garden along the back patio path, planting cacti and succulents in pots.

Cacti and succulents are so wonderful for their curious forms and ability to withstand heat and drought. (That said, they aren't completely maintenance free. Many of them can't handle our cold snaps, most of them actually don't do the best when it's 110 degrees without a little water, and succulents, in particular, actually like a bit of shade around these parts.)

Potting them is always a fun challenge. Adding these cacti and succulents to the garden is satisfying, but still, it's an ugly world out there in Central Texas right now. Everything is dried to a crisp and catching on fire. My thoughts are going out to all those folks who lost their homes in the current fires. I'm particularly saddened by all those losses in Bastrop, and depressed that one of my favorite spots in Texas - the Lost Pines - have been so heavily damaged.

Mexican Feather Grass in a Pot

2011-09-05T18:11:00.002-05:00

I was in San Francisco recently and stumbled across this (and many other) really neat little urban garden scenes. I really like the use of the Mexican feather grass in this container. It's a great contrast to the fiery red succulent and the purple leaves of some yucca-like plant that is very popularly used in the Bay Area. The whole thing looks awesome in front of the blue, round-shingled backdrop. I'm going to have to remember that feather grass looks good in a container and makes for a modern arrangement.

Muy Tropical

2011-09-05T18:07:00.003-05:00

Despite the insane drought and the Summer-from-Hell, I spied this developing scene by the front wall and it was looking very tropical to me.

The big army green leaves of the loquats (non-native fruit producers) make a nice backdrop for the pink morning blooms of the native rock rose. A native dwarf palmetto also adds to the tropical, understory vibe (though I'm suspicious that it was mislabeled as such at the nursery and might have more of the larger Sabal texana in its genes than the diminutive Sabal minor). To the far left are the gray leaves of a volunteer datura (jimson weed) that is filling in nicely.

I smiled to see something that wasn't crispy and brown. Had to snap the photo with my iPhone (so the quality it a bit fuzzy).

Kidneywood Ecosystem

2011-08-21T12:13:00.004-05:00

Despite the heat and drought, the kidneywood (Eysenhardtia texana) is beginning to bloom. It's making the best of a bad situation. And the critters are happy too. This drought has meant that there are very few bugs flitting about. A summer of almost no butterflies, few cicadas, no locusts. I hate that.

But staring out the front window from a cool repose on the couch, I watched bugs like the beautiful little native bee (below), honey bee and beetles (above) flit about the opening blooms.

Then, I saw this fence lizard, Sceloporus undulatus, jumping from branch to branch munching on the bugs. A full on ecosystem! I love that.

And, in real time right now, a pair of lesser goldfinches - the male black and yellow, the female dusty yellow - just alighted on the a small bunch of spent echinacea seed heads just in front of my window. They are picking out the seeds. Lovely. There's a reason I leave those ugly black things around. Too bad I don't have a telephoto lens...

But back to the kidneywood. It's pretty much painful to be outside right now, even for a heat-lover like myself. So, it's nice to have these little pleasures, and to occasionally catch a whiff of the sweet sent of the kidneywood flowers wafting over the yard in the hot breeze. There's not much else to recommend being outside these days.

Coming Soon: A Vast Desert

2011-08-18T13:37:00.003-05:00

Quick Retaining Wall

2011-08-13T17:29:00.001-05:00

I threw together this quick and dirty limestone wall today, since it was cool and cloudy out (yep, 98 degrees feels cool). We had some limestone left over from our big front wall project, and this berm in the back needed something to anchor it.

The goal is to get more level soil around the mountain laurel and loquat so that those two retain a bit of water when it does ever come. Otherwise, the water just runs off the berm. Plus, it gives me new planting possibilities.

It's definitely not high design. Very wabi-sabi. Just reuse of materials we already have and hopefully something useful too. It'll be fun to plant little things in front of the wall and perhaps some behind it that drape over the top.

Jimsonweed

2011-08-11T09:09:00.000-05:00

The Datura wrightii is back in full bloom again, perfuming the hot, dry evening air with its white trumpet flowers.

I love the swirl of the petals just before they open.

Datura, also known as jimsonweed, Angel trumpet and even moon flower around these parts, is highly toxic and has been used regularly as a hallucinogenic in rituals in the New World. The name jimsonweed is actually derived from Jamestown weed, where early settlers purportedly accidentally ate the leaves and went on a crazy Magic Trip for s few days.

In the book, the "Serpent and the Rainbow" (from which a creepy bad movie was made), Harvard ethnobotanist makes a pretty good case that it's datura, at least in part, that is responsible for creating the zombies of the voodoo tradition in Haiti. Highly fascinating book, by the way.

Another fun source for information about the cultural history of plants is "Remarkable Plants of Texas," by Matt Turner. Matt is an Austinite, and I couldn't recommend this book more for the plant enthusiast who likes a good story and background. It's full of interesting facts about the medicinal and economic uses of plants and their original distributions, and Matt is a great writer.

Portal to a Wetter Universe?

2011-08-10T09:43:00.000-05:00

On the other side of this portal, is there a parallel universe where Austin has rain and 95 degree summer weather of olden days?

Grilled Japanese Eggplant

2011-08-08T13:41:00.000-05:00

Farm-to-table ya'll. Yum.

Falling Waters

2011-08-07T10:36:00.003-05:00

In a pause from our usual programming - ack! the drought - a regale you just a sampling of with beautiful and very liveable California gardens from Ryan Prange and Falling Waters Landscape.

And the Drought Plays On

2011-07-30T10:49:00.001-05:00

If you live in Central Texas, you know the current situation. Dry. Dry. Dry.

"The nine months between October 2010 and June 2011 have been the driest in Texas for that three-quarter period since 1895, when the state began keeping rainfall records," reports the Austin Chronicle. Ouch. And it sounds like we are in for an even hotter and drier August.

The thing that worries me most are all of the big, mature trees that I see dying, especially on our side of town where people don't necessarily have the money or motivation to keep them watered. Around my hood, we are losing huge old American elms, pecans, and many of our younger trees planted over the past years are turning crispy brown too.

Still, I went out with the camera in the garden yesterday and found some beauty, like these inland sea oats catching the afternoon light.

Also, our American beautyberries are starting to turn purple (the ones that don't have dried, shriveled fruit).

The datura seed pods are always interesting.

But the poor datura looks like this in the evening. Droopy.

We'll survive the drought (I hope), but I venture to guess that it's going to have some lasting effects on our landscapes. It will be interesting to see how this all turns out...

Raised Veggie Beds, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

2011-07-22T09:11:00.000-05:00

I've been growing veggies in raised beds now for about 7 years, choosing the method for three reasons. One, we live in an urban area and I just thought it easier to bring in uncontaminated, fertile soil rather than till down. Two, I like the modern confinement and lines of raised beds and always heard they could be really productive in a tight space. Three (and this is actually the biggest reason), for most of that time we had a blind black lab that knew no boundaries. That last reason was also cause for us to build the beds more than 14 inches high. Good bumpers for a dog of Libby's size.

Unfortunately, those beds - which were installed in August 2008 to replace an older rotting set that came with the house - are already buckling and breaking apart. They are only 3 years old!

For sure I should've used cedar instead of untreated pine (it was cheaper and I knew it was a risk). For sure, our construction is not ideal (I recommend using some metal braces on the corners instead of screwing the sides into a post). And for sure, I would never use wood to build raised beds again nor probably recommend it, especially in our climate. Wood doesn't last, meaning it's really less sustainable in the long run, and the soil dries out extraordinarily fast, particularly because these beds are too tall.

In a hot, dry climate like Central Texas, raised wood beds just don't seem to be the best way to go. Now, that being said, I've seen some that are extremely successful for some reason or another. Those are much lower to the ground and bracketed, which are big pluses. And maybe someone is replacing the wood every year or using treated wood filled with chemicals. At any rate, I've pretty much sworn them off.

The bloggers over at Root Simple, based in L.A., have also been questioning the wisdom of raised beds, and I really like their list of trade-offs:

Raised beds have some pluses and minuses. Lately I've been thinking about their drawbacks. Namely:
Cost
How fast they dry out in a hot climate.
Now I can also think of a few reasons one might want to grow vegetables in a raised bed:
You do a soil test (and you should do a soil test, especially if you live in an urban area) and the results come back showing that you have heavy metals in your soil.
You live in a very wet climate.
A disability prevents you from kneeling or leaning over to garden.
Your soil has no contaminants, but has some other problem, say bad texture or lots of buried rocks/chunks of concrete.
You have dogs/rabbits/chupacabras, etc.
I've come to the conclusion that for Southern California and, by extension, any dry climate, raised beds are a bad idea unless, of course, you have any of the issues mentioned above.

For more on the topic, check out "Are Raised Beds a Good Idea?"

My plan when these fall apart for good, which unfortunately I believe to be sooner than later, is to keep the raised bed idea, but use native limestone for the walls and sink the beds much lower. If I have pets that needs some boundaries, I'll install a little waddle fence or something around them. I think the stone will prevent drying, and of course, will last a lifetime.

But it'll also mean a lot of heavy lifting and, I'm saying "hell to the no" on that chore this summer for sure!

Recommended: Portraits of Wildflowers

2011-07-21T11:15:00.000-05:00

Gorgeous right? I was just turned on to Steven Schwartzman's photography site, "Portraits of Wildflowers," for plants here in Central Texas. I highly recommend a visit! His ground-level perspective and framing is just beautiful. The flowers and their forms really come alive. Plus, he includes a lot of great information about each of the species he's photographing.

Milkweed Mania

2011-07-15T15:54:00.001-05:00

Ever since my visit northward, I'm completely obsessed with milkweeds. There are so many species of these important plants native to the U.S. and they are really all very beautiful. Here in Central Texas, we see a lot of antelope horn (Asclepius asperula) and tropical milkweed (Asclepius curassavica), which is native to Mexico.

But there are many others that are common (or used to be common) in the state. Here are three of those that I photographed in Wisconsin at Riveredge Nature Center.

The common "weedy" milkweed, Asclepius syriaca.

This one is really beautiful and grows in large spreading clumps in ditches all over the place up there. Here it is also growing in a prairie restoration. Look at those beautiful pinkish pom-pom flowers. This milkweed exudes a great floral scent as well.

I'd like to plant some of the common milkweed real bad, but am afraid of its potential weediness. It's got a great upright form and beautiful flowers.

Here's the bright and bossy butterflyweed, Asclepius tuberosa.

It's really the star of a meadow or prairie garden and found very commonly in the nursery trade in the northern part of the country.

And here is swamp milkweed (Asclepius incarnata), which is just about to bloom. This one gets tall and likes to have its feet wet. It also looks a bit more like our tropical milkweed in form.

One of the greatest things about the milkweeds is that they support a large number of insects, despite the fact that they exude a milky, white sap that is toxic. There are many insects that have evolved to be able to handle those defenses, and in fact some, like the famous monarch butterfly, sequester the toxin in their bodies when they are leaf-munching larvae to protect from bird predators when they are adult butterflies. Almost all of the milkweed-associated species that I've seen are colored orange and black during some part of their life stage to ward away the predators.

If it's the right time of year, it just takes a bit of poking around the milkweed (especially common milkweed) to find a monarch larvae. Just look for the signs of munching or little black frass pellets collecting on leaves.

This particular caterpillar will probably become an adult in mid-August sometime. Though that generation may have time for one more generation up in the north, I waiger this is the generation of adults that will make the long migration back to Mexico in the fall. Maybe the butterfly that emerges from this particular larva will flit past The Grackle garden in October...

Here's a site with photos of the Texas milkweeds.

Wisconsin Prairie at Riveredge Nature Center

2011-07-12T08:00:00.001-05:00

Purple coneflowers bloom amongst the prairie grasses.

Traveling south to north along a route that once held vast prairies comes with an advantage. First, the daily high temps go from 104 degrees F to about 85 degrees. {Sigh.} Second, one also sees a succession of prairie plants maturing; it's a little like traveling through time. It's also an opportunity to see things a bit like the migrating birds and butterflies might see them. The further north they go, they come across plants that are just at the right stage of growth to suit their seed- or leaf-eating ways.

In Texas, the spring-blooming prairie plants are way done. They have gone to seed and stand brown awaiting for next year. Further north, the spring-blooming Kansas prairie plants were just at their end. Beebalm and a few others are still blooming, but the show is mostly over. The big yellow-blooming asters and grasses are just getting ready for their fall show.

In Wisconsin, especially along Lake Michigan where spring is always late and this year it was even later, the early prairie plants are in full form. John and I visited Riveredge Nature Center outside of Newburg, Wisconsin with his parents and had a great time checking out the native prairies in bloom. John's parents actually worked out here decades ago, helping to sort and plant seeds and convert this center from agricultural fields to prairie. They even spent some time cavorting with Lorrie Otto, the "Prairie Queen," and Andy Larsen, the center's director for several decades.

If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend a visit. The 370-acre center features an array of native Wisconsin ecosystems, from river bottoms to tallgrass prairies. Here are a few photos from the day:

Prairie blooming with some kind of yellow aster, butterfly weed (Asclepius tuberosa), and pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida).

Beautiful, ghostlike pale purple coneflower, Echinacea pallida.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), leadplant and pale purple coneflower, among others.

Happy prairie.

White wild indigo (Baptisia alba)

Butterfly weed (Asclepius tuberosa) was putting on quite a show.

Stump Pot

2011-07-10T18:07:00.000-05:00

You know, it's possible that a gas station on the frontage road on I-35 is one of the ugliest places on this planet. But it really means everything when owners of such desperate way stations take a moment to try to make it pretty. It's even better when they do something creative, like turning old hollow logs from a tree trunk into nifty (and thrifty) little planters. Found a set of these gussying up a gas station near Temple, Texas somewheres.

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve

2011-07-07T15:36:00.002-05:00

The tallgrass prairie is a highly overlooked and important ecosystem that quickly fell prey to the plow despite its significant role in our continent's ecology. The prairie once spread from Canada to Texas, and though the plant and animal species composition changes across such a huge north-south range, there are many species that occur commonly. From Texas to Wisconsin, you can find little bluestem, big bluestem, Indian grass, switchgrass, beebalm, black-eyed susans, butterfly weed and much more. The prairie is (or was) home to a beautiful array of plant and animal species.

When Lewis and Clark ventured forth into the once prairies, they came across sights that are almost impossible to imagine today: rumbling herds of thousands upon thousands of bison rolling across the Missouri prairies with wolf packs nipping at their heels. Mountain lions and grizzly bears slinked through the shoulder high grasses and forbes. (Those two predators seem to us like mountain species only because we have forced them to retreat to those higher, more untouched ecosystems.)

Sadly, you can't find very many true prairies in the wild. What once covered more than 140 million acres of the United States is now less than 4% of its original area. Most commonly, you can stumble across small remnants along roadsides, in cemeteries and on land that wasn't good for agriculture.

It's that last reason that we can thank for the existence of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, which is a 10,000-plus acre piece of prairie in the Flint Hills of Kansas outside of Strong City.

During a recent visit, the prairie was very much in its mid-summer dormant phase, transitioning from shorter spring bloomers to taller fall plants, like the tall grasses and asters. It was 100 degrees.

Still, we found a few things blooming - or just finished blooming - and the skies were wide open.

Hoary vervain (Verbena stricta)

Purple prairie clover (Dalea pupurea var. purpurea) (Just finishing blooming)

Leadplant (Amorpha canescens) (Just finished blooming)

Beebalm (Monarda fistulosa)

Butterflyweed (Asclepius tuberosa)

I would love to come back to this prairie in the spring or fall to watch the real show, and to have more time to hike further into the backcountry to see the bison. The prairie is a real treat - it takes time for the eyes and mind to refocus and truly appreciate its beauty.

Hummingbird Hollow

2011-06-30T18:03:00.001-05:00

If you want hummingbirds in your garden in Central Texas, plant turk's cap. Simple. Low maintenance. One of my all time favorites.

An Unaccustomed View

2011-06-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

Very rarely do I get a chance to see the yard from the perspective of our neighbors - from the end (or beginning, as it were) of the path. I'm usually only over there to pull weeds or trim things, and that, quite frankly, is pretty rare, particularly in the summer months around here. Anyway, this view of the front garden looks quite different from the one I'm used to. Here, the scene seems simpler (don't laugh), with the sedges and yuccas really holding it together. The pair of datura frame the path, and the germander and goldenrod sprawl forth in the foreground. The Mexican feathergrass on the left seems more prominent too, than it does from the other direction. I guess this is all for the mailman...

New Vintage Patio Furniture Hand Me Down

2011-06-25T09:50:00.003-05:00

The square pea gravel patio out front was designed to eventually house a table and four chairs. We built it so that we could sit out in the shade, and provide enough space for neighbors and passersby to plop down and sit a spell. Up till now, we've had these 2 cool old vintage chairs out there (pictured below), and then we brought the bench up that John had made out of scrap wood.

We've definitely been using those and hanging out on the patio, but it still felt like a solitary act with not the best room for others to sit with us. So, we've still been scouting for the right patio set. I've had my mind set on modern, low-slung Santorini chairs and a matching low round table for a while, but haven't come across them, or rather any that I could afford. I've coveted them on various websites, but they are rare to find, and extremely expensive. Still, a guy can dream.

But as fate would have it, our friend Stephanie was moving and looking for a home for her grandmother's old patio furniture. It is not our modern Santorini set, but it is so awesome! (Thanks Steph!!)

This set goes all the way back to Kerrville, Texas and was bought many years ago by grandma. It's in great condition, has bouncy comfortable chairs and there is nothing better than having something with a story and history. Plus the style matches our 50's central Texas ranch. It even has a slight New Orleans vibe (in my mind anyway). And the very day that we put this out there, a neighbor walked past, stopped, plopped and chatted for a good long time. Perfect!

(Pay no attention to the ugly watering hose!)

We actually plan on powder coating this set teal blue once we can afford it, but for now, it is just fabulous. The perfect place to sit in the mornings, especially with a good cup of French press coffee!

Patterns from Above

2011-06-23T12:50:00.000-05:00

Even though our intense manipulation of the land saddens me in so many ways (I know the irony of that statement as a gardener), I'm forever fascinated by the beauty of our human machinations on the Earth from above.

I got lost in Google Maps the other day, thinking about water and desert ecosystems...

Go Wild with the Wild Petunias

2011-06-21T13:33:00.000-05:00

The wild petunias started showing up in the garden a couple of years back, and I have to admit that I'm happy they did. This is probably considered a weed by some, but this native is really pretty and obviously doesn't mind the drought. The papery purple flowers open in the morning. I guess they like the cooler time of the day too...

Since showing up, the wild petunias have since spread all about, so I can see that it could be problematic for folks with more formal arrangements. But our gardens are a bit on the wild side here, so I've let it grow on the edges of pea gravel walks and in between pavers. Plus, I like to encourage things to grow where they want, rather than forcing them.

I believe this one is the wild petunia, Ruellia nudiflora, which interestingly is in the Acanthaceae (along with Flame Acanthus, another great native shrubby plant). The wild petunia is also a good butterfly host for several species, including the common buckeye.

Flavin-Esque Light Beams

2011-06-19T21:12:00.000-05:00

A Dan Flavin light sculpture...

Or the light streaming in from our new pergola splashing against the garage wall?

Retama

2011-06-16T12:12:00.004-05:00

The retama, Parkinsonia aculeata, is one of my favorite native trees. It's beautiful and fragrant in bloom, filled with bright yellow flowers and framed by bright green leaves and stems.

Ranging naturally from Central Texas all the way to South America, this is a great drought tolerant tree that can look a bit scruffy, perhaps, but should be used more in landscapes. It is very reliable in droughts and freezes and the bees love it too.

Reuse and Recycle to Make a Table

2011-06-14T20:03:00.000-05:00

One side effect of a typical project around here is that we always mismeasure a bit or screw something up or both. So, in the end, there's usually extra materials or scraps. In the case of the pergola/gate project, we screwed up and had some extra cedar boards laying around.

John happened to be ambling by the hippie house down the street and they were tossing out a glam silver table base. I imagine it used to support some smoked, beveled glass top.

Based on some inspiration from a bench built over at The Brick House out of an old fence, John had the cool idea to make a small table with the scrap cedar boards and the silver base.

The three-board top is secured to the base by the cross-boards that hold them together. The cross boards fit nice and snug and secure the top to the base.

The finished table is a great combo of the natural wood and the circa 80s manufactured base. Now it sits all purty next to the bed.

It still needs a good sanding and maybe a finishing oil, but for now, it's holding up the books and alarm just fine. I love reusing things and finding stuff in the garbage! (Our other garbage finds - among so many - include this white chair, the gray old Adirondack chairs on the back patio, and this planter.)

Bodi is Such a Star

2011-06-10T15:32:00.000-05:00

Well, Grackle readers, I've mostly maintained a rather anonymous profile, but here we are on the T.V.!

That's me in all my angular and goofy self. John, of course, is fabulous. And if you don't know much about me, the reason I need an 8-foot bench to nap on is well, because I'm really dang' tall.

No but seriously. We couldn't be proud enough to be featured on the illustrious Central Texas Gardener, which is a program so masterfully produced by the folks at KLRU, including Tom Spencer and Linda Lehmusvirta and her crew. How did we come so far, just designing and building our little personal garden oasis? Crazy. It's really nice to be recognized for the effort, especially amongst the company of so many amazing garden spaces around the area crafted by equally talented gardeners.

Linda is such a pleasure to know, and I highly recommend you visit her blog to get to know her rabbits, cats and fabulous plants.

Bodi, of course, is the real star (screw the patio!), and he is such a camera hog, I tell ya.

We are also so pleased to have the lovely Austin-based Balmorhea playing gently beneath all of our clap-trap. The song, "We Will Rebuild with Smooth Stones" is so very aptly titled, I must say. If you are in the area, I highly recommend seenig them live and trancing out to their West Texas landscape of sound. If you aren't, feel free to purchase some albums of theirs here.

Oh, and watch the rest of the Central Texas Gardener programming on Saturdays at 11 a.m or right there on the Interwebs!

Donald Judd as Inspiration

2011-06-06T18:18:00.000-05:00

Seeing the completed back gate and pergola reminded me of one of our inspirations: Donald Judd.

Judd is a relatively iconic modernest artist (and architect, frankly) of the 20th century. I was introduced to his life and work first in Marfa, Texas, his adopted home. There he made quite a mark, adopting the landscape and the area's buildings as a palate for his stark modernist works. He purchased an abandoned airfield and its buildings and many of the buildings in the town of Marfa itself.

In my opinion, one of the best places to visit on a trip to Marfa is Judd's home, called La Mansana. His home complex sits in the middle of town, and is only open by scheduled tour. Docents no longer allow photography, which in my mind is complete ridiculousness, but when we visit in 2006, photos were allowed. And I post some of those here.

Here, inside the tall adobe walls are some of the inspiring views from Judd's personal compound, including this substantial pergola covered in grape vines that conceals a dark black Judd outdoor table and seats.

Judd's work is very geometric, with squares as a major theme. He seems to place a lot of emphasis on objects aligning on axes as well as object spacing and repetition with variation.

The pergola above was most definitely a conscious and subconscious inspiration for our own. The wide slats and spacing, the geometrical precision. The heftiness.

Next to the pergola is a stand of cottonwood in rows and this beautiful raised pool made of cement.

Gorgeous and simple. Strangely organic and natural but also very controlled and linear. I'm not sure if Judd invented the idea of the raised concrete pool, but it can be readily found in modern landscapes around this state and beyond. Either he was picking up on a trend, or he's influenced a number of landscape architects and architects around Texas.

Here's another table, placed right in the middle of the harsh West Texas courtyard. No shade. But completely in line with the entrance to the main house in the background. This is probably an amazing table to sit out on a cool West Texas evening as the sun goes down and the Milky Way appears across the night sky. Candles. Barbacoa tacos. Ceramic plates. Thick glasses with cool sangria. Can you imagine?

Even the chicken coops below are built with Judd's typical square cross-beam style. No chickens now, unfortunately, but inspirational nonetheless.

There are hundreds more inspirations than Judd, of course, as they infuse our minds both subtlety and not. And anyway these are just a very paltry example of Judd's legacy that I'm including. I highly recommend a visit.

Back Gate and Pergola: And Done

2011-06-02T21:30:00.001-05:00

And...complete. The back gate and pergola project has come (basically) to an end, with only minimal cursing and mis-measurements (oops). I really love working on these projects with my partner in crime, John. It's truly a pleasure to work along side someone on a project like this. To share happiness and frustration, to analyze the technical issues that arise, and to see it to completion. Happy go lucky, yo.

Hello sweet shade and beautiful shadows!

This pergola completely transforms our back pathway area into a full-on space. It's shady and cooler and the trickling sound of the new fountain just beckons me in every time I arrive home.

It's a great way to enter the backyard, and so very nice to be able to not have the hot afternoon sun blasting down on us and the house.

There are certainly temptations to grow vines on this baby, or put in chairs and a bistro table, or hang hammocks. But we are going to try our damdest to resist some of that in order to keep the space simple.

Complete non sequitur: the new Death Cab for Cutie album is just.really.good. "We are all the same, underneath the sycamores." Indeed.

Just a reminder to self: here is the before and after shot.

There were some fears expressed before we started - would it be too shady? and etc. - but they were completely unfounded. It worked out just great...whoo hoo!

Back Gate: Building Process

2011-06-01T17:00:00.000-05:00

This is how Bodi watches us work. He's a damned ranch dog at heart.

Back Gate: The Gate Installed

2011-05-31T17:00:00.000-05:00

We're marching forward like the little ants that we are, building and building on the back gate and pergola project.

The swinging gate has been installed.

And already making fantastic patterns of shadow and light on the wall and limestone path.

Mr. Ed is hanging his head over the gate. Perfect height...Is he tired or just greeting the neighbor? I vote for tired. Real frickin' tired...

Golden Thryallis and Coneflowers

2011-05-30T20:38:00.000-05:00

It's not all work and no play here at the Grackle. Despite the drought, some of the stalwarts are blooming away, including the purple coneflower...

and the golden thryallis.

This cat's claw cactus (I think that's right) is making the most amazing looking fruit. I wonder if we call these "átun" also? Well, either way I ain't trying to eat that!

Cenizo Glory / March of the Chihuahuan Desert

2011-05-26T20:42:00.001-05:00

The cenizo is on fire right now, blooming in all its great glory. Hallelujah I say!

We planted these cenizo (also called barometer bush and Texas sage) as a hedge to shield our neighbors' unsightly air conditioning unit from our living room windows. I also wanted to begin creating an edge to the driveway side of our garden, which currently has no boundary.

It's tricky, because I want to shield out the neighbors a bit, but not too much. Still want to be neighborly and say hi. Also, there's a small borrowed view that we can take advantage of, which is the greenbelt across the street that we've been slowly restoring. That's also a great place to see people wander by. So, I don't want to completely close that off.

The cenizo can be trimmed to shape and this particular variety should grow up to 5 or 6 feet, I hope. Of course, trimming will reduce the production of all of these amazing pink blooms, so I don't necessarily recommend it. AMAZING! Look how gorgeous they are.

Did I say they were amazing? Looking out the living room windows and seeing this pink and silver mass is such a joy.

Cenizo is a fantastic, low-water shrub and doesn't take well to saturated, clayey soils. Nor does it really like shade. Full sun and good drainage are best for this shrub.

Cenizo is a Texas native, and it is now used very widely in the nursery trade around Central Texas and maybe further afield in Texas. But, it's actually a native to western Texas and the Chihuahuan Desert. (In Texas, we have the benefit of planting "natives" that are from 800 miles away.)

Though I've been out to the Trans-Pecos of Texas, I don't recall actually ever seeing them out there growing wild (though I'm sure they do). However, I did venture into the Chihuahuan Desert in Mexico a few years back in the hot days of August, and the pink balls of cenizo dotted the landscape all over the place. Quite beautiful.

Speaking of the Chihuahuan Desert, have you seen this drought map of Texas? John made the poetic conclusion after looking at this map that it looks like the Chihuahan Desert itself is extending it's long, hot fingers up further into our great state. Maybe it is. Perhaps that is our destiny.

The cenizo will probably be cool with that. Just sayin'.

For more on that drought topic, check out the U.S. Drought Monitor website, from which I this map came.

Some Garden Scenes

2011-05-25T23:44:00.000-05:00

Japanese Lantern

2011-05-25T11:00:00.000-05:00

Sigh...

Golden Gate Park. San Francisco, Calif.

Back Gate: Slats

2011-05-23T20:33:00.001-05:00

Whew. We made it this far this weekend on the back entry gate project. After finishing the initial frame, we installed the slats on the frame, requiring much measuring, precision, and leveling. Breath in, breath out...

For this entire project, like all of the other fencing in the garden, we've chosen "rough" cedar. Cedar is naturally resistant to most pests, including termites, and looks lovely fresh and full of color and aged and gray. That process of hand-making things and loving them as they age is very wabi-sabi, wouldn't you agree Ms. Holt? I love the cedar in its young fresh reds and oranges, but equally enjoy the mellowness of its aging grays.

The posts are simple and easy to obtain 4x4s, the header is a slightly larger 4x6 and the slats are 1x4s.

Next steps will be to finish the gate, and then on to the pergola. I can't wait!

Back Gate Part Uno

2011-05-21T18:53:00.000-05:00

Today was the first day of the new Back Gate and Pergola project. We had the requisite visit to Lowe's...

...and then demolition of the old gate.

We got as far as the new support beams today, and the shape is starting to take, well, shape.

Here's our over-engineering of the top support, which is really never a bad idea.

And the whole fiasco was being watched over by our burgeoning Texas Spotted Whiptail and Fence lizard population.

Bet those lizards wish they were drinking a gin and tonic right now. Yum. Unfortunately, this project necessitated the missing of what was sure to be a fabulous A-Go-Go event with some local garden masters and mavens, and some fancy-dancy tour of outside gardens in Austin that looked to feature lots of pools and waterfalls and expensive things in the suburbs.... (Oh but it would've been cool!)...

New Back Gate: Planning

2011-05-20T08:00:00.002-05:00

This little hogwire and cedar gate is the very first thing that we built when we moved in the house 5 years ago - long before we got moving on the garden, path and patio behind it. We had a dog and needed to close in the space. This style of fence is very Central Texas.

I love love love this cute little gate, and I'm going to miss it when it's gone. BUT, I'm sure going to love the new one two.

It's now come time to replace the hogwire gate with something a bit more substantial, but more importantly (and the impetus for the forthcoming project), we need to shield the back of the house from the very very hot late afternoon Texas sun. Summer is coming on fast and that sun peels the paint off of the house and heats it up like an oven.

John has been diligently (with subtle input from me, I'm sure) designing our new entrance gate and pergola.

I can't wait, but of course have my fears. Will the pergola enclose the space too much or do what we want: create a cozy entrance that leads to the expansive garden? Will we enjoy the added privacy of the slatted gate or will it feel stuffy?

We're still debating what material to use as a screen on the pergola top (over the main slats). Our first thought was willow fencing, but that shit comes all the way from China. Not sustainable at all! So, we've been seriously pondering heading down to our local greenspace and helping out with a little invasive bamboo removal and then constructing our own screen. We'll see! China may win this one, depending...

Construction begins this weekend!

The Biggest Garden / Taming the Mississippi

2011-05-19T08:03:00.000-05:00

At our homes and gardens, we frankly often try to control or subdue nature, even those of us that steer clear of lawns, herbicides and pesticides. We build berms and creek beds to direct water or french drains to move it away from our houses. We bring in soil and mulch that gets washed away. We battle "weeds," chop down trees, and plant new things. We construct a new kind of nature and topography around us. At least, that's what many of us do.

Moving up a notch in the scale - away from the home to the level of community and society - we build drainage ditches along roads, artificial wetlands, parks, ski slopes and more. We manufacture entire landscapes from nothing.

And then moving up yet another notch (or ten) in scale, we try our damndest to control rivers, like the Mississippi, by building levees and dams, straightening rivers, and dredging them.

On the Mississippi, we are attempting to control nature at such a large level that it could almost be considered art. From above, perhaps it looks like a garden designed by a god.

"This continent is not draining the way I want it to," he might expound in a loud and low beardly voice. "It is interfering with this little town I'm growing here." Or, perhaps it's just designed by the U.S. Corps of Engineers.

"Old River," where the Red River and Mississippi River kiss hello, and where the Atchafalaya begins its ploy to drain the Mississippi. Also, where the U.S. Corp of Engineers has done a lot of design work...

I recently read this article in the New Yorker and it is a must read: Atchafalaya, by John McPhee.

Written pre-Katrina, it's a fascinating look at the systems of levees, spillways and floodgates that have been constructed, dredged and deconstructed to try and tame a river that wants to swing back and forth across the continent like a yak's tail swatting at flies on its ass.

"Man against nature. That’s what life’s all about."

It describes how badly the Mississippi wants to take over the Atchafalaya River, bypassing the shores of New Orleans to create a new path to the sea. And it fully explains why the river levels in that city are so much higher than the city itself. Basically, the Corps of Engineers has engineered the river to such a great extent that the Mississippi has no where else to dissipate upstream, and all that water needs to go somewhere.

"Even at normal stages, the Mississippi was beginning to stand up like a large vein on the back of a hand."

Development along 308, snaking along the eastern border of the Atchafalaya swamp. Mississippi River in the top right. Morgan City in the lower left.

If the U.S. Corps of Engineers is not successful at controlling the river (which no doubt it will be someday), Morgan City could possibly sit pretty on the shores of a new major port, stealing the NOLA throne. But for now...

"Morgan City is sort of like a large tumbler glued to the bottom of an aquarium."

...and like in NOLA, water must be continually pumped and diverted around the cities to keep them dry.

"In terms of hydrology, what we’ve done here at Old River is stop time. We have, in effect, stopped time in terms of the distribution of flows. Man is directing the maturing process of the Atchafalaya and the lower Mississippi."

Good luck with that. As a gardener - not a qualified engineer mind you - I'd say that controlling nature is a crook's game. You can steal for a while, but you'll get caught eventually.

"Whenever you try to control nature, you’ve got one strike against you."

Fence Lizard Rescue

2011-05-17T19:42:00.000-05:00

Saved this perfectly charming little fence lizard, Sceloporus undulatus, from near death in a bucket filled with old water from the rain last week. It was floating in there with its nose held above water. I wonder for how long?

For a bit, he thought I was a tree branch, wrapping its legs around me tight. Maybe so, maybe so.

Purple Passion

2011-05-10T21:20:00.000-05:00

Ya'll remember that nasty stuff Purple Passion? That grape juicy, sweet crap than came in two liter bottles spiked with what? Was that Everclear? Hoo-wee. Crazy bad.

Well I've traded in the Purple Passion for finer wines and tequila-n-tonics (la-tee-da), and my purple passions now are these two plants blooming now.

Thank goodness for the Mexican oregano and purple coneflowers. They are holding it all together right now, fighting against the drought with all of their might.

The coneflowers aren't as flush as they are in wet years, but still pop with color. And while some of the blooms are fading fading away, I have other plants that are just sending up buds. So, hopefully, we'll get the benefit of these purple passions for a few weeks more...

Building a New Fountain, Sounds of Falling Water

2011-05-01T18:10:00.000-05:00

Speaking of water...

We've tried a number of fountain variations here at The Grackle. There was the bubbler made from a stack of old barbell weights left by the previous owner. That didn't last long, and is now a dry sculpture. Just didn't make enough sound. The weights were replaced with a lovely little cement bowl, but that one just wasn't quite right either. It didn't make enough sound, and the water also evaporated so damn quick it was impossible to keep up with. If I was going to be spending precious water on a fountain, I want to hear it trickling away in the background.

So, I stored the pump and tubes in the garage and waited to inspiration to strike. And, in came opportunity number three, thanks to this winter's freeze.

Our friend Alex gave us this cement trough planter filled with four yuccas.

They were beautiful and doing just great for several years until this year's freeze. That turned them into mushy mush (and super stinky too).

The planter could have been re-filled, but I had the idea that the trough could make for a great self-contained water feature.

So, I emptied out all of the soil and got to work.

We had an old copper tube left over from some plumbing project in the house (who knows) and I figured it would do just the trick with a little shaping. (I made the nice arched curve in the copper by rolling it over a steel cylindrical container.

This is me trying to figure out if I wanted the water spout to fall in the center or on the side. I opted for center, so it would align with the back door and the solar/moon ceramic sculpture on the wall. Plus, I didn't want it to resemble a bath tub.

Here's what it looks like almost complete.

This is really just testing mode. I'll need to drill a hole in the cement planter for the pump's electric cord (don't want that visible) and get the copper spout all lined up and in perfect position. We'd like to add a small plant, and perhaps a little fishy too. I figure this is about the size of a ten gallon fish tank, so we could put a minnow or two in there pretty easily.

Alternatively, we could keep it simple and modern, with just the water, the copper spout and the falling water.

This biggest bonus of this fountain thus far is the sound of that falling water that greets us as we enter the back gate, and right now, with the back door open and the cool front breezing through the screendoor, we can hear the sound of the falling water lilting through the house. A perfect perfect sound.

Sigh....

The Banded Sphinx Moth

2011-05-01T17:37:00.000-05:00

This marks the first time I've seen this hawkmoth, Eumorpha fasciatus fasciatus, (also called the banded sphinx moth) at the Grackle. It was just cold chillin' on the xylosma last night.

This hawkmoth seems to be mostly found in the southern parts of the U.S. and way down into South America. Larvae feed on plants in the evening primrose family, as well as grapes and Virginia creeper. It looks like it is often found on Ludwigia, or water primroses, but I don't have any of those here. Lots of Virginia creeper though.

Skullcaps and Milkweed Seeds

2011-04-28T22:14:00.000-05:00

The tropical milkweed has gone to seed and the little furry umbrella seeds have burst forth from the crusty, horn-like husks.

They are floating over the newly blooming heartleaf skullcap, which looks pretty damn cool.

The skullcaps are sending forth their blueish-purple spikes of flowers.

When these die back in the summer, I'm hoping that the shrubby boneset that I interplanted will grow and take over the space.

Visualizing Drought and Draw

2011-04-26T20:26:00.000-05:00

I keep a keen eye on my water use - not because of the cost, per se, but because it is a precious, limited resource in this world and especially in our Central Texas environment. Much of my decision-making regarding plants is impacted by whether or not the plant is native or adapted to drought and/or crazy fluxes in amounts of water over time.

I don't want to have to provide supplemental water, but I do. I think it's one of the greatest struggles that I have. I want to have a garden. I want to support plants and wildlife. And even though I don't have a lawn and use drought-tolerant plants, I still have to water. Or do I?

I suppose I could just let things be. Let them turn brown. Let those plants come back that will when the rain comes back. But then, there is that huge investment in design and cash that we've put into these plants, just to let them whither away and die?

John made a great point to me the other day about one of the consequences we have of living, almost literally, on the edge of the desert - in that narrow transition zone between the lush Gulf environment and the drier west. It's a border that is always in flux over time; the desert pushing forward some years (or centuries) and the prairies pushing back in others. Plants and natural ecosystems come and go, shift and change, but we don't want our gardens to do that. We want to control them, and we strive for managed change. It ain't easy, and maybe it's just wrong.

The visualization below shows our Austin area rainfall (in inches) versus our water use (in thousands of gallons) for March in 2009, 2010 and 2011. We are having a very dry year, and you can see that there is not much water coming in, but a lot of water moving out of the system, as I try to keep things alive. Sad.

What is a gardener to do? Does anyone else out there struggle with this issue? How do you feel when you turn on the faucet and let fly that water?

Ode to Herbs

2011-04-17T19:01:00.001-05:00

Kitchen herbs are one of the simplest and most pleasurable things that we grow in the garden. A bonus in Central Texas is that many of herbs can be grown year round, or pretty near close to year round. When warmed by the sun, they infuse the garden with scent and we use them infinitely in our cooking.

In fact, I'd say that growing fresh herbs has completely transformed our cooking here. We almost never use dried flaky bits of herbs any more. Though we grow enough herbs to dry some and store them, we almost never need to do so.

Growing around the garden, and not all picture here, we have: flat leaf parsley, curly parsley, Thai basil, Italian basil, cilantro (coriander), speariment, peppermint, lemon balm, lavender, culinary sage, rosemary, bay, Greek oregano, Mexican oregano, Mexican mint marigold, thymes, savory, lemon verbena and marjoram.

We are forever chopping up fresh flat leaf parsley. Toss it in with many dishes to freshen things up a bit. Throw it in with some papardelle pasta, bacon, peas, parmesan and raw egg for a quick carbonara.

Chop up some spearmint and parsley, and mix with a can of whole tomatoes (chopped), a tablespoon of pre-soaked bulgur wheat, some lemon juice and oil, and you have a quick and lovely tabouleh.

And of course, I've sung the song of the bay tree in a previous post.

Rosemary and sage can be tossed in just about anything.

Thyme is something that I've always struggled with, though it's supposed to be "easy" to grow. I read a great article by Vicki Blachman in Texas Gardener magazine and she recommended trying it in a pot, which has worked wonders. Mostly, the pot method has worked because I can move the darn thing around until it finds happy sun situation. I've also learned, too, that most herbs need more water than you might think in the hot Texas summer.

Cilantro is great for the winter garden because it bolts so quickly in the warm weather. It's kind of ironic, because it's a key ingredient in salsas and picos, and those tomatoes are hot weather fruits. Not sure how that marriage ever happened unless someone was growing cilantro in cooler upper altitudes in Mexico just up the mountain from someone growing tomatoes in the hot valley.

Here is the cilantro bolting and flowering. The seeds, of course, are coriander.

Iris Oh Iris

2011-04-14T22:02:00.002-05:00

What Used to Be a Peach Tree

2011-04-12T15:46:00.000-05:00

This 4-in-1 shot shows the part of the garden that used to be inhabited by a beautiful peach tree that produced beautiful flowers but super nasty gooey black and gross peaches. We had to remove the peach tree this past fall because it split apart in the wind (it would've been in the far right panel of this photo).

I missed the pink blossoms of the peach this spring, but am really happy with the way this area is growing in anyway. We've got grapes (left) and a small pomegranate tree (left-center), and lemon balms (right). Then there are the masses of gulf penstemon, heart-leaf skullcap, Texas betony and sedge. In about 15 or 20 years, the small live oak in the background (right-center) will be a much much bigger presence. It was a volunteer planted by a squirrel, and we are happy to have it.

A Sage for a Sage

2011-04-08T10:00:00.001-05:00

Bernard Trainor California Landscapes

2011-04-07T11:31:00.000-05:00

I could spend hours drooling over just about every landscape designed by Bernard Trainor + Associates from Monterrey, California. They are particularly good, in my opinion, in breaking huge spaces into smaller living rooms and taking advantage of killer, billionaire views.

Here's a sampler of images, but check out the website for the full monty, especially the landscapes with views.

Steel Ants

2011-04-06T17:18:00.001-05:00

My brother of patio light fame is a creative genius. Genius Example Number 1: He created his own plasma cutter to slice into steel. Genius Example Number 2: He has created all these awesome little creatures with the steel cutter based on patterns from those wooden models we've all put together at some point in our lives.

Just got three of these little ants in the mail.

Look how cute they are...And they are small and intricate enough to fit in my (yikes, old looking) hand.

Haven't quite figured out the best home yet for these steel ants, but I'll just keep moving them around until something clicks.

Thanks bro! You were brilliant even before the Ph.D...

Spring Blooms, A Sampler

2011-04-05T20:17:00.001-05:00

A quick sampler of some of the plants blooming around the Grackle right now.

Blackfoot daisy

Purple coneflower and hymenoxys

Datura

Gulf penstemon against the cedar fence

A patch of Gulf penstemon makes the honey bees happy

Texas betony is attracting the hummingbirds (I see them now too!)

Spiderwort (not sure if this is the native T. accidentalis or some other wild thing)

Not pictured: coral honeysuckle, rose, Confederate jasmine, Engelmann's daisy, lantana, rock rose, Jerusalem sage, pomegranate.

Coral Honeysuckle Vine

2011-04-01T08:24:00.000-06:00

Though it's taken several years, the coral honeysuckle vine, Lonicera sempervirens, is really beginning to fill in and have a lot of blooms. This is a fantastic vine with flowers that are perfect for hummingbirds and is a host to snowberry clearwing hawkmoth larvae.

This native vine doesn't have that sweet, perfumey smell that the invasive Japanese honeysuckle has, which is probably why it wasn't traditionally planted as much in gardens around here (though it is pretty common now, actually).

I have pretty strong memories of pulling out the stamen from those non-native honeysuckle flowers and sucking on the nectar as a child, so even though they can take over the planet, I have a soft spot in my heart for them.

We're trying to train this coral honeysuckle to cross the entire front porch. The only thing is, no hummingbirds yet...where are they? Looks like they are already in San Antonio.

Tale of Two Columbines

2011-03-27T16:39:00.000-06:00

Columbines are gorgeous flowers, aren't they? This fabulous specimen of wild red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) appeared randomly this year in the back yard and is putting on quite a show, despite the drought. Well, I say "randomly," but the P.O.s left a couple of plants of A. canadensis in the front yard. It's random, because I would have never expected it to show up in the back on its own accord. Plants get around, I guess.

The columbine that we planted is the yellow columbine Aquilegia chrysantha var. hinckleyana.

It too is very beautiful, but in my opinion, the red rocketship glory of the red columbine is pretty hard to beat. This yellow columbine variety is pretty popular, but apparently is native only to a waterfall in far west Texas. The red columbine, on the other hand, is much more common all over the eastern U.S.

Shin-Gyo-So

2011-03-26T16:37:00.000-06:00

In the Japanese gardening style, there is a ranking system known as "shin-gyo-so" which basically correlates to formal, semiformal and informal. According to the book Japanese Garden Design, by Marc P. Keane, "shin" is used to reference things that are highly controlled or shaped by man. It implies cleanliness and sparseness. The opposite would be "so," where materials are left in their natural state. "Gyo" is a mixture of the two ideas.

We happen to have several examples of the concept at play in our garden paths.

Here on the back patio is an example where the limestone is "shin" and the design is also "shin." Everything is very cut and placed with purpose.

In the following path, the limestone is left in its natural state ("so") and the arrangement of the stones is also very natural, thus also "so."

Here is a case where the "shin/shin" garden path meets with the "so/so" path, a very interesting dynamic.

The front path below uses "shin" limestone blocks, but the design is a bit more "so" in a random way. This one is a bit harder for me to categorize, but I think that fits.

We don't have any examples of "gyo" here, where controlled objects are used in conjunction with natural ones. Do you?

Screening the Ugly

2011-03-21T17:56:00.004-06:00

Every garden has some awful place that looks like this:

Yuck.

That's because all gardeners need places to throw all that crazy crap that we end up getting: old pots, stakes, tomato cages, unused hoses. You name it. Some people build nice little sheds, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

So, I constructed this nifty cedar fence over the weekend to hide all this messy ugly from the patio. There's nothing worse than relaxing on the patio with a gin and looking at a hose and other random garbage.

This is a style of fence I see around Texas, and using cedar is pretty sustainable. We harvested the sticks from a friend's property 3 or 4 years ago, and they are still good for stuff. And there is plenty of cedar out there (of course, they did say that about the great flocks of passenger pigeons of the South back in the day. R.I.P.).

Here's the view from the patio. Ah, cocktail hour never looked so clean! So much easier to relax...

This screen is a more natural version, in some ways, of the one we built to screen off our ugly tankless water heater. Pam over at Digging also recently made a nice screen to hide her ugly bits.

Crossvine!

2011-03-20T17:55:00.000-06:00

Crossvine is a welcome sign in the spring. It creates a temporary orange wall all across the back of the garden, and the three vines I planted a couple of seasons ago and beginning to really cover that awful black chain link fence. Whoo hoo!

Carnival in the Streets

2011-03-14T20:00:00.001-06:00

"Just as an individual person dreams fantastic happenings to release the inner forces which cannot be encompassed by ordinary events, so too a city needs its dreams."

In other words, every city needs a place for people to be freaky.

That's one of the many simple messages from "A Pattern Language," a classic, influential book about towns, communities, homes and landscapes by Christopher Alexander et. al.

Compared to a lots of the more staid cities in this country, Austin has a pretty good amount of freakiness, and more importantly, we have public spaces and events where we allow people to let their freak flags fly.

We have our trannies and thong-wearers, drum circles, and jugglers. We have Barton Springs, where people gather to hula hoop and walk on tightropes throughout the summer. We have Eeyore's birthday party. We have bike zoos and community street bands. Even Sixth Street could be considered a "carnival space," with the Esther's Follies stage spilling out on the street and all the crazy people out and about.

Do we need more? Of course we do! And frankly, the police ought to be more accomodating to street performances and general community disruption, as long as its healthy. They are getting better, but its not like Brasil or New Orleans. Just sayin'.

And now, thank the baby jeebus, we have HONK!TX, which just completed its inaugural year. A fantastic example of Alexander's "Carnival Pattern," where costumed musicians and dancers bring their performances to the street, disrupting the normal flow of the city. Healthy cities need surprises like that.

The two videos posted here are from one night of this 3-day festival and feature the What Cheer? Brigade from Providence, RI. Man, oh man. Just amazing. Local groups, like the Minor Mishap Marching Band and Austin Samba School, also brought their sounds to the streets. Highly recommended event for next year!

And just to bring this all back 'round to the garden, since this is a garden blog after all, I'll just say that I think it's important for gardens to have secret spaces for people to get freaky, and you can take that however you want. But I guess what I really mean is that you need a protected space where you can sing to the birds if you want, you can laze around nekkid if you want, or you can just turn on the music and just plain dance dance dance. Everyone needs it.

A Mysterious Path

2011-03-10T22:05:00.000-06:00

There's nothing more inviting than a winding path curving through a garden. Hard to resist strolling down it to see what one can see. This is a nice little green scene before it springs to life with spring flowers.

Of course, this path really doesn't go anywhere. Just a quick loop spits you right back out where you started. But this view through the bay laurel and wax myrtle is a great deception like that.

Spring Green

2011-03-10T22:02:00.000-06:00

Not sure if I will ever tire of this combination, the sedge (Carex retroflexa) and heartleaf skullcap. I just love the pale gray fuzzy leaves of the skullcap. This plant is a spreader, oh boy. One of many that have decided to really stretch their arms our wide in our garden beds this year. The sedge too has reseeded itself about the place. But I'm not complaining (yet). Lots of space to fill.

This gaudy orange and red tropical milkweed was planted just in time to meet the monarch butterflies on their journey northward. They should be arriving in April sometime weighed down with eggs, and will be happy to have some milkweeds to deposit them on.

Bay Laurel Finally Flowers

2011-03-06T09:31:00.003-06:00

One of my favorite all time non-native, culinary shrubs in the garden is the bay laurel. It grows quite well here in Central Texas, we are forever plucking aromatic leaves off the thing for stews, soups and shepherd's pies. Bay is a fantastic fresh herb to have around, and while some people don't like to use the leaves fresh in their cooking, I personally love the fresh green taste of bay.

We bought this shrub when we fist moved to Texas 5 years ago and kept it in a pot on the patio. The first time we had a 98 degree day, the bay laurel fried to a total crisp. Thankfully, that coincided with our move to the current house. We quickly put the bay into the ground. It rejuvenated and has thrived ever since. Well, it got knocked back a bit by last year's super cold freeze, but I think that actually made it happier.

I've been waiting and waiting over the years for the thing to bloom and this year it finally produced! Lots of small, pale white flowers. They don't seem to have a smell, and now I wonder if they will produce berries? The ants are definitely enjoying the nectar, and perhaps they are also pollinating.

Anyway, I highly recommend planting one of these in your yard. A great, evergreen shrub or small tree that can be hedged or let run wild.

Agarita Blooms

2011-03-05T09:30:00.000-06:00

Agarita, Mahonia trifoliolata, never ceases to amaze me with it's beautiful yellow flowers in the spring. This native shrub is one of our first spring bloomers around here, and the smell is intoxicating. I keep saying that I need to plant more of these prickly plants around the Grackle, but I've yet to follow up. So, mental note: plant more agarita! The birds love the bright red berries, which can also be made into a yummy jam.

Pollinator Penthouses

2011-03-02T19:54:00.002-06:00

It's not too late in the season to create a nest box for our native bees! These little boxes are easy to make, and the various hole sizes attract mason bees and any number of other various shiny, non-stinging bees.

A native bee box is a great addition to a garden, and helps support these really important pollinator populations. I call them Pollinator Penthouses.

Here are some basic building instructions:

Find some scrap wood. The big chunk of wood ought to be about 5-6 inches deep, so I used some old 4x6s that were laying around. Make sure your wood is preservative free.

Drill a bunch o' holes of all sorts of sizes. Holes should be between 3/32” and 3/8” in diameter, and drilled at approximate 3/4” centers. The holes should be smooth inside, and closed at one end. The height of the nest is not critical, but the depth of the holes is. Holes less than 1/4” diameter should be 3-4” deep. For holes 1/4” or larger, go with a 5-6” depth.

Hang the nests so they are sheltered from bad weather, and with entrance holes facing towards east or southeast, so they get the morning sun. The nests can be hung any height from the ground, but I've always put them about chest high.

There are 4,000 species of native bees in North America, and they are a hugely important pollinator group.

This is an easy thing to make and the bees are lots of fun to watch. They will scurry into the holes, lay eggs and then seal off the chambers with a muddy-pulp mixture. Sometimes, the original bee will be parasitized by other bees that swoop in and lay their eggs in with resident egg. These are called cuckoo bees, I believe. The only maintenance is to go through in the winter and clean out in debris left in the holes from previous tenants.

That's a small amount of landlording for a great cause.

Great Purple Hairstreak

2011-03-01T19:49:00.000-06:00

I found this lovely Great Purple Hairstreak, Atlides halesus, resting in the middle of the street. I imagine she emerged a bit early and it just wasn't quite warm enough for her. I say "she" because her abdomen looked plump with eggs. She was docile enough that I could carry her home with me and place her on this white background.

If you have mistletoe in your area, you probably have these beautiful butterflies. It's their sole larval food source.

The upper sides of the butterfly's wings flash bright blue-purple in the sun. And they wave those little squiggly things on the back of their wings together so that it looks like a head with antennae. It's pretty convincing, even for the human eye. If a bird were to chomp at the hind wings, the butterfly loses very little but gains an opportunity to fly away free.

Dog Day Daffodils

2011-02-28T20:09:00.000-06:00

Bodi found the daffodils a nice place to lay for the day.

All Lit Up

2011-02-28T19:48:00.000-06:00

Wow, it is really difficult to capture the new patio posts in the evening with the lights aglow. This'll just have to do it. If you are wondering about the process, here's how we did it. I couldn't be more pleased. The feeling is in some ways similar to when the lights were hung randomly across the middle of the patio in a V shape, but slightly more linear and enclosed feeling. Perfect.

garden: Making a Patio into an Outdoor Room

2011-02-20T21:50:00.001-06:00

For Christmas, my brother gave me a set of really cool industrial outdoor lights for the back patio. I love them. But then, I noticed they were slowly getting lower and lower. And I noticed why one evening: they were pulling down the slender fence post I had attached them to and the fence was getting all wanky-jawed. Combined with wind and freezing temperatures, the night I discovered this was a night I didn't get much sleep. With every gust, I awoke imagining all the lights smashing against the ground.

So, I reluctantly pulled the lights down the next day. It was them or the fence.

But, what it meant was that I could put into play a design idea I'd had since creating the back patio: installing four large posts in each corner and stringing lights around them in a square shape. Possibly even growing vines on the posts.

What this would do, I figured, was enclose the space just enough to make it feel like a room. But without a ceiling and traditional pergola, it would still feel open to the night and day skies and allow for fire pits and outdoor movie nights.

John, thankfully, was game.

This is what the patio looked like with the lights just removed and before we installed the posts.

Here's our post installation process.

We opted for 6 in x 6 in x 10 ft cedar posts, which are not common. In fact, we had to special order them from McCoy's (and I can't say enough about how nice they are there.) I wanted them to be tall enough after being sunk 2 feet into the ground that my tall self could pass beneath them without ducking. Four-inch cedar posts are more common. But I figured - like the fence before them - they would begin to buckle from the weight and start to bow. The 6 x 6 posts would be substantial with no risk of bending.

We began by digging the post holes, filling the holes with about 2 inches of gravel and then placing the posts in the holes.

Once the posts were centered and leveled, we supported them in place with easily removable 2x4s.

Once all of that ground work was laid, we got started with the concrete. Turns out that the holes, at 28 inches deep and about 12 inches in diameter, required A LOT OF QUIKRETE to fill. Oh my. Each post required about four 80 pound bags of concrete, meaning that each post is supported by about 320 lbs of concrete. Ridiculous!

John had the brilliant idea to finish the top of the concrete with a nice square. This would help water run off from the post which prevents rotting, but also added a nice finishing touch. So, he built small frames that we stuffed with the concrete.

After curing for about 24 hours, we removed the frames.

And then removed the supports and moved all the pea gravel back into place.

And voila!, we have four big honkin' posts defining our patio space.

Indeed, it already gives the patio a slightly more enclosed feeling without being overbearing. The posts clearly define the edges of this social space.

Next steps after the posts cure for a bit will be to add the lights. That will be the finishing touch, and will really bring the complete space into being. Even more exciting: these posts are hammock ready. We've been searching for hammock hanging space for years, and now we've got it!

critters: From the South Carolina Sea

2011-02-14T18:30:00.015-06:00

When in South Carolina over the holidays, we took some great beach walks and I collected a bunch of critters. I'm like my mom and aunt in that way. Put me on a beach and I can't help it; I leave with pockets full of shells and bags of random stuff, like sharks teeth, sea urchin tests and whelks. It's kind of an addiction. (My mom, in fact, recently started cataloging her shelling adventures on her own blog, Tidelines.)

Anyway, I collected the finger sponges, starfish and horseshoe crab you see above. Thankfully, John let me stow these stinky creatures in the trunk for the ride home. Since then, they've been drying a getting slightly less stinky outside, where they will probably remain.

Inspired this weekend, I created an ocean scene in one of my cement planters.

This trio is made of two sponges and a ceramic sculpture by an artist from Madison (sorry, can't remember her name as it was many years ago now). I was drawn to buy the piece because it reminded me of a sea sponge or some other living critter from the depths of the ocean. I think it goes perfect with the real thing!

cold: Assessing the Damage

2011-02-13T18:30:00.000-06:00

Strolled around the garden this weekend assessing the damage from the Great Cold of 2011 (it better be done, by the way, because this weekend was amazing). Most things at the Grackle actually fared pretty well, but there are some things that are freeze dried and mushy. Mostly the zone pushers and non-natives. Here they are:

These pretty little yellow and green agaves are toast.

Barbados cherry, as last year after the frost. Crispy and freeze dried.

The lavender is not looking so hot either.

Anacua, or sandpaper tree, with brown sandpapery leaves. If it doesn't freeze, this is an evergreen. This year, as with last, it is freeze dried.

The bamboo muhly - so green just a week ago - is yellow and toasty. It's still pretty though, catching the sunlight.