Back Gate: The Gate Installed

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

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

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

Japanese Lantern

Sigh...

Golden Gate Park. San Francisco, Calif.

Back Gate: Slats

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.