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Dadgum weeds

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:36 pm

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I sure thought I would have a few months before I had to start weeding the beds again. Nooooo, these weeds have become immune to cold temps and the days of 50 -65 degree temps are contributing to their growth spurts too.

My youngest grandson wanted to take a tour of the garden this afternoon. Out of the yard he was picking dandelion flowers for me and the wishing puffs for himself. He did offer to help me pull weeds out the garden area but then got sidetracked adding sticks to his growing collection and by the puppy next door wanting some attention.

When we took them to lunch before going to the HalfPriced Book store, he found a lemon seed from the lemon Amanda had in her glass of iced tea and brought it to me so I could plant it. I need to get a pretty pot and next Tuesday evening when they are over for a while he and I will plant it.......and hope it grows. Think I will buy a lemon at the store and plant several seeds so we might have a better chance of one sprouting.

It is supposed to be rainy both Wed and Thurs, but maybe I can get out back for a while and get caught up out there.

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Row, Row, Row your boat

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 1:20 am

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gently thru my yard. The rain started a little before noon and has stopped a few times but never for more than 20 minutes at a time. Most of the time the rain is nice, gentle rain then there are the waves of bucketsfull hitting the roof. Those waves usually last about 15 minutes. If we were getting constant waves like that it would be really bad around here. With mostly gentle rainfall the really large rain gauge out back only shows just under 2 inches.

The path from the backdoor to about 15 feet into the yard is under roughly 3 inches of water, I have not been able to get out into the rest of the yard to check things out but I am sure the gnomes are building rafts for thier escape. I guess if we had crawdads here there would be some of those crawdad chimneys out there too.

There was a tornado on the ground about 3 hours south of me and we are under tornado watches until after 8.
Two tornado warnings about an hour south of us.
There was a tornado warning that caused some stress out at DFW Internation Airport.
A tornado watch means that weather conditions are ripe for the formation of a funnel cloud.
A tornado warning means one has been spotted either in the clouds or on the ground.

This is weather we should have been getting in the spring not in December. But since we do not get much real winter, we have had tornadoes year round...there really is no tornado season down here.

The rain had let up here for about 10 minutes then just now the lightening got really bright and the rain is back. Supposed to last all night with some of the heaviest rain coming overnight.


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Bees and Buds and Blooms...Oh, My

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 6:33 pm

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Just checking the garden yesterday and found not only new life but some perennials still hanging on and one in bloom again.

The Iris bulbs I moved a couple of months ago have stayed strong and even the baby bulbs have pushed green leaves above ground now.

The Snapdragons are not only doing great after the freezes we have had but are putting out new growth.
The Yarrow, Lavender and Fall Asters are still green and growing. The Mealy Sage died back with the first few nights of freezing temps but they have started putting out new growth at ground level, same thing with the Lemon Balm. The Lipstick Autumn Sage never went dormant, neither did the White Autumn Sage.

Several of the Hollyhock plants are still green and hardy. There are two small Black Eyed Susan plants just laying around waiting for more sunshine.

The Fig tree is setting leaf buds too.
The mini-yellow Rose is still green and strong.
The Hyacinths started pushing up in November and are getting pretty tall. The Daffodils are starting to push up too. The Snowdrops are coming up.

The Rue and Fennel I potted up in October are still alive and the Rue is actually growing.

The really huge Tuscan Blue Rosemary is blooming again. Several stems almost covered in small blue flowers. That has brought the bees out of hiding too.

There isn't much in the way of spring type colors but there is still a lot of green around.

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FRED under a patchy white blanket

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 8:16 pm

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The snow was coming down steady and hard for a couple of hours but the flakes were small so they didn't really amount to a whole lot. The flakes are larger now but fewer and our snow day appears to be just about over.

A lonely Zinnia













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Formerly known as Raspberry Tangle

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 9:40 pm

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Do NOT ever plant Raspberry vines unless you have a large field you want covered. 5-6 years ago I put a couple of Raspberry vines in the ground, Amanda loves Raspberries. They didn't do well and by summers end there was no sign of them. The next summer they came back not only where I planted them but had also moved themselves around the corner to get more sun, over under the Peach tree, into the middle of the Horseherb bed and were heading towards the back fence. Repeatedly mowing them down finally put an end of the escapees. The ones that had moved to the sunnier side of the house stayed, bloomed, set fruit and quickly became dinner for the squirrels. Even those brambles have not been doing very well lately so this afternoon I cut down and dug up all that I could get out of the ground. I sprinkled Lime on the ground to hopefully prevent any future vines, covered the area with plastic and mulch.

It is now the home to my growing mushroom collection, the Kalanchoe in the cart, mini-yellow rose in the purple wishing well and the birdhouse on the stick planter. I also found some Hyacinths already peeking above ground, they needed to be divided and moved so they are in the planter box under the birdhouse.





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Fred is looking a little frayed around the edges

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2006 6:39 pm

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And across the middle, up one side and down the other and generally all over. Last week I was hoping to fight this "crud" successfully so I stayed inside instead of getting out in the cool weather. Failing to successfully fight it means that since Saturday I have barely been able to go out to fill the birdbaths and feeders.

The yard and beds are pretty much covered with Pecan leaves. Did you know that pecan leaves do not fall individually, the short stems each holding 10-12 leaves fall off in one piece. That makes for a much messier look. And the Hackberry tree has not even started dropping it's leaves.

I need at least another 10 bags of mulch out there. There is one good sized section that I totally forgot to put extra mulch on back in Sept, therefore the weeds have gained confidence enough in their strength that they have begun to advance over the entire area. My Friday project will be to set upon them like ducks on June bugs and show them who is really in charge out there.

The Cannas have to be thinned out and replanted. Some are going to Lisa and some to a friend of Randy's. I really need to do the new extension of the main bed so I can get the lavender plants in the ground.

And for readers unaware of the identity of Fred
http://www.gardenstew.com/blog/e285-1-why-the-name-fred.html



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He started to say the "S" word

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 3:18 pm

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I was watching the morning news and weather report on my favorite TV station this morning. Actually not really watching it, using it for background noise while I was reading the newest posts on the Stew.

The weekend weatherman was giving the standard one week forecast when my ears pricked up at what he had begun talking about. He said that it looked like our weather pattern would be changing drastically around the end of November. That could mean either we were going back to summer weather or heading into something called winter weather which we have not seen much of in the last few years.
I left the computer and gave him my full attention....with apprehension tho, because I was so afraid he would use the term "warm up" or worse yet "heating up" somewhere in the comments.

So I am standing in the doorway between my room and the livingroom listening intently. He says that around the end of November the atmosphere would do a complete flip.....that usually means either a High pressure system will move in or leave and since we have been having much cooler temps, there has not been a High pressure system over us. This left me with a feeling of dread, remembering the extremely high temps we have when the High pressure system is there. So there I stand chanting "cold and rain, cold and rain, cold and rain" My heart is saying PLEASE and my head is saying don't get your hopes up.

I must have some power that has been previously unknow to me, because he started saying that this "atmospheric flip" would bring us some temperatures colder than we have had in a long time. WooooHoooo, sounds good. Then I notice he has a big smile on his face and is saying that it could even bring us some ........but he doesn't say the "S" word. He hesitates (I'm holding my breath), his smile gets bigger (I'm about to pass out standing there) and says "lets call it really cold rain for now".
I don't think we have had ice or snow this time of year since the freak ice storm on Thanksgiving day 1993.

All too well, I know that those forecasts can and more often than not, do change as the date of the predicted event gets closer. I have had the "weather rug" pulled out from under me hundreds of times. But that doesn't mean I can stop myself from getting a little excited about the prospect. After all, so far this fall we have had more cool weather than we have in a few years....and.....there was that ice storm in 1993....and....in early December 1983 we had 10 days with temps never going above freezing and snow on the ground for all of those days....and....in the early 1980's we had snow flurries on Christmas Day. So see there is proof that hell has frozen over in the past, so there is a chance it will again.

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When will I stop buying plants....this year?

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:11 pm

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The problem is all Amanda's fault. She is attending the local community college and since she still doesn't drive I have to take her and pick her up. No biggie except that between our house and the college is a really nice garden center. Or maybe it is my car's fault....it seems that all I have to do after dropping her off is to think of a plant or comment (to no one but myself) on a plant I see along the street and the car turns into the parking lot of the garden center. Or it could be the fault of the garden center... if they opened up an hour later each morning I would already be home at that time, if they didn't have a 50% off sale on this summers plants going on.
But then it could just be that I am weak and even after whining this summer about the death of my garden in the drought, I find that I can not resist more plants.

This morning, as a case in point, I found myself sitting in front of said garden center looking at the big yellow 50% OFF signs. After wandering thru the center and passing right by table after table of Pansy...I really do not like Pansies. I found the Herbs....4 small pots of Rue and 2 pots of Fennel jumped onto the cart that I was pushing. I really don't know how I came to be pushing that cart, I was just going to enjoy a few minutes wandering and looking at the plants, but there it was, with 6 small pots of herbs sitting on it and my hands on the handle. Wandering some more I suddenly found the cart now also held an end of season Turk's Cap, two Fall Aster's in lavender and deep purple, a Carolina Jessimine and a miniature Caladium for that little cart I pictured with the birdhouse on a stick in another blog entry. Okay, this is enough I thought and headed for the check out counter....passing some Toadstool statuary on the way. One of the salesmen asked if I could read the price....not referring to my age but the fact that it had been sitting out in the rain and sun for several weeks. I couldn't, he could (okay maybe it was my old eyes) but the price was 10 times what I was willing to pay. He wandered up to the front of the inside store area and found a smaller one for $30....no thank you, I said, if it was under $20 I would.....he said you can have it for $15.....I guess I reminded him of his grandmother which sometimes is a good thing and sometimes just ruins the way I imagine myself looking. So the toadstool piece joined the plants on the cart.
At the checkout counter there was a display of mini plants....ornamental peppers and Kalanchoe. I have a really cool green cone shaped planter on a cool stand and this bright red Kalanchoe was just perfect for it.

So the newest plants are out back waiting to be planted. But since by buying so many plants over the last two months I have probably assured that we will indeed have a cold winter, I needed pots to put them in so they can be brought into the back room on those freezing nights. Not liking the plain, ordinary clay pots very much I headed off to the thrift stores in search of something completely different. I already had two old stockpots for two of the Rue, these will hold the others.


So tonight Randy and his pickup truck will take me to the Home Depot Landscaping center for potting soil. I need about 6 large bags, for these plants and some large Halloween cauldrons I got for transplanting the Lantana this fall. I have three that need to be moved out front but they will spend the winter in the large pots until the front yard is ready for them.
Tomorrow I will be potting the newest plants and moving my precious purple Iris.




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This week in the garden

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 4:10 pm

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Got a Mexican Heather in the ground this morning. Also moved the white Autumn Sage from the planter box out front where it was not getting enough sun to the back garden. Divided the Liatris and replanted on the other side of the headboards, I had expanded that area earlier this week too.

There is a new Nanho Blue Butterfly bush where the Liatris used to be. And a Guara "Ballerina Rose Whirling Butterflies" not far from the wheelbarrow.
Also got 34 Daffodil bulbs in the expanded bed in front display of my Dad's birds.

Sorry to say I had better not buy any more plants, at least until spring. There are several things that have to be moved, especially from around the Oak tree that has been growing like a weed this year inspite of the drought. I want to get them moved before there is a chance of damaging the tree roots. The two Mealy Sage, Texas Betony, Blue&Black Salvia and a Coreopsis will need new homes this spring. By the time I get those moved around, there won't be room for new ones..............until I get a couple of new beds made :) And the Rosemary is now reaching 4 feet tall and wide, I need to trim it.

Now I need to get started on dividing/moving my precious Iris, moving the lilies to a sunnier spot and digging up the Cannas/dividing and giving some away/and replanting them.

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Have fork will expand

Category: FRED - the garden | Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 7:48 pm

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Whether it's a dessert fork and half a chocolate cake or a garden fork and untilled land, expansion is inevitable.

But in this case I am referring to the new garden fork I bought last week. A nice strong one.....Randy was with me and forced me (picture me holding out my arm so he can twist it and make me to buy it) to buy the good one, lifetime warranty and really nice. If I had been shopping alone, I would still be forkless because I wouldn't have spent that much money on it.

Along with the fork came the required new plants....4 small pots of Snapdragons, two pinky-purple and two dark wine red...a pot of burnt orange colored garden mums...and a Hyacinth bean vine which even tho it is an annual in most parts of the northern hemisphere can be a perennial here if the weather conditions are right....and 10 bags of cedar mulch, three of which are on the newest bed expansion you see.



The snaps are in front of the wheelbarrow, the garden mum is in the "witchy" planter to the left and the vine is planted way in the back hopefully to climb the purple "fence" trellis.

I started expanding over on the far side of the bed but found an ant bed, sprinkled some power on them and will get back to it when they are gone.

Worked on expanding the bed at the back of the house where that holder of my Dad's birds is, but the sun came out, I started smelling something burning, figured it was me since I can't stay in the sun for very long and left that one for a cloudy day.

So I moved and started on the expansion to take place on the other side of the headboards and was just way too sore and tired to do any more. Will get back to that part tomorrow.





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