End of Month View - July 2015

It has been several months since I last had an End of the Month View of my garden.  I haven't had much time for gardening in general recently, and even less time to do any type of blogging.  Besides not having time, I haven't been inclined to spend much time in the garden with our 100+ degree Fahrenheit days in Central Texas right now, where I only get a little time very early in the morning when the sun is rising, or a little time before the sun sets each night to enjoy the garden.

Needless to say, all the gardens are in desperate need of some TLC.  I'm hoping we get some rains soon and that the temperatures cool off so I can get back out there and beautify things.

VEGGIE BEDS

I might as well start with the worst of the gardens - the veggie beds.  The heat has really killed off most everything in the veggie beds.  It also hasn't helped that I've only been watering by hand once a week.  Last year I had a soaker hose going, which extended my summer season.  I also had a hose set up this year, but I never quite got it functioning right and didn't want to waste water by having it going and soaking one or two beds and doing nothing to the others.  Next summer I'll definitely have to make sure the hose is working, and may want to look into drip irrigation instead.  For now, I might as well clean out the beds and get them ready for fall planting.

SHADE TREE GARDEN

The shade tree garden is doing alright, mainly because the big shade trees are preventing the intense sun from burning up the plants.  This garden could still use a bit of clean up, and the trees definitely need some pruning.  There isn't anything blooming other than a stray Turk's cap bloom here and there.

HERB GARDEN

Another unsightly garden is the herb garden.  The lack of rainfall/watering and high heat has killed off most of my springtime herbs.  The only things still going strong are the lemon balm, garlic chives, and artichokes (but just barely).  I do have a trellis of morning glories that help redeem the pathetic look of the rest of the beds, thankfully.

CENTER BEDS and NEIGHBOR FENCELINE

There is not too much of interest going on in the center beds at this time of year.  Not really any blooms and the foliage is looking a bit worse for wear.  Everything is longing for the cooler autumn temperatures.

The fenceline has alternating rose bushes and lavender.  The roses aren't blooming much at the moment, but the lavender looks like it is getting ready to put on a show in the next month or so.  The only splash of color in the center gardens are my orange cosmos, which the bees are thankful for.

POMEGRANATE BED

The canna lilies and black-eyed susans have ended their showy displays, so their isn't much to look at in this bed other than the excessive amounts of weeds that I'll need to pull up in the next few weeks.  Sigh.

BULB BED

As this month's theme goes, so goes the bulb bed.  No blooms to brighten up the bed, wilting and burn leaves from the hot TX sun, and a surplus of weeds calling my name.

FRONT FENCELINE

Not much to see here.

FRONT OF HOUSE

Or here.

FRONT BORDER

At least the front of the house looks pretty green despite the hot weather and lack of rain.  Still, no blooms right now.  That will definitely change, come September.  Until then, I just need to try to keep everything alive.

Thanks to Helen over at The Patient Gardener for hosting the End of Month View every month, where gardeners all over the world post pictures of how their gardens are progressing.

End of Month View - May 2015

As you might have gathered from reading my or other Central Texas garden blogs or listening to the news, our area has been getting a lot of rain over the past month, including torrential downpours during the last several weeks, which has led to severe flooding and destruction in some parts of the region.

The rain has positive and negative effects on my garden.  On the positive side, it is getting plenty of water and I don't have to use supplemental watering.  On the negative side, too much water makes the garden soggy and results in root rot.  Not to mention, the heavy rains and strong winds have taken a beating on some of the plants, especially some of the tall varieties in the garden.

Let's take a look around to see how the garden is fairing after our record-setting rainfalls:

Veggie Bed

The vegetables are generally doing well, despite a couple of the tomato cages being knocked over by the strong winds.  The tomatoes, eggplant and green beans have been producing well.  The peppers are getting a slower start than normal.  I don't think they are as big of fans of the cooler temperatures and heavy rain.

You can even see a little pond has formed in the park behind our house.  This has dried up significantly in the last week.  After last Monday's heavy rains, the water was nearly at the level of the gravel path.


Shade Bed

The shade bed is filling out with summer-time plants, though there isn't much blooming right now.  Over the past month, I added some Mexican petunia pass along plants from a neighbor, as well as some Frostweed transplant pass alongs from fellow Central Texas garden blogger Tina of My Gardener Says.  I look forward to the new additions blooming later this year.


Deck

The deck border also doesn't have much blooming at this point.  Many of my parsley plants were cleared out after they toppled over from root rot or pests (I couldn't quite decipher what caused the root damage).  The artichoke additions from earlier this year are filling out and I hope they will produce next year.


Bulb Bed

Gladiolas, day-lilies and Black-Eyed Susans are going strong in the bulb bed.  I still have some open spots that I hope to fill with some perennials that will help keep year-round interest.


Central Beds

The middle beds are a bit sparse at the moment.  There are some zinnias, cosmos, and shasta daisies blooming, but most of the beds are full of spent bluebonnet, sweet pea, and larkspur plants that have dried up.  However, I don't want to remove the plants because I'm hoping they will reseed so I can enjoy the same blooms next year.

Rose Border

This is the first season for my rose border, so the plants are still quite small and only produce a couple blooms from time to time.  I keep looking forward to what this bed will look like a couple years from now.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying the sunflowers that bloomed in part of the bed.  I tried to do succession planting with the sunflowers, but seeds planted after the first round didn't take.

Pomegranate Bed

The main eye-catcher in this bed is the foliage of the canna lilies.  There are even a few plants started to show off their orange blooms.  Since I did a lot of dividing of the canna's last year, I won't be surprised if a lot of them don't flower this year.  Then again, I won't be surprised if they do flower, since they are very resilient plants.


Front Fenceline

As is the theme in my garden right now, not too much is blooming in this bed.  The only blooms are some purple ones, found in both the spikes of the Mystic Spires salvia, as well as the Black Knight butterfly bush.


Front of House

The front house borders have really filled out from this time last year when many new plants were added.  The yellow oleander is finishing up blooming while the lantana are just getting started.

In the very front bed, the vitex is putting on quite a show with its lavender blossoms, which are highly favored by many butterflies and other insects.

All in all, the gardens are doing well after the heavy rains.  I just hope the rains will lighten up to limit future flooding, but I wouldn't mind some steady rains continuing throughout the summer to help Texas continue out of drought and fill up the lakes again.

Thanks, as always to Helen over at The Patient Gardener for hosting the End of Month View garden meme.

End of Month View - April 2015

The look of the garden has changed quite a bit since last month.  In the last week or so, the garden went from a spring-garden look to an early summer look.  Spring blooms have come and gone and there is a bit of a lull in my garden blooms until the summer plants start budding out.

Veggie Beds

The spring planted veggies have really taken off.  After this picture was taken, I even had to prune up the indeterminate tomatoes a bit since they were a bit overgrown and putting too much energy into their leaves versus producing fruit.  The eggplant and peppers are also doing well - I harvest my first three peppers of the season and the eggplant have started to flower.  Some of the fall/winter greens (chard, spinach, lettuce) that were left in the spring garden have gone to seed, so it is time to pull them up and plant some other summer veggies in their place.

Shade Tree

The shade tree bed has started to fill out after mostly going dormant through the winter.  The turk's caps and American beautyberries have really leafed out.  I've added a few new plants as well - some holly ferns and some inland sea oats for some different textures to the shade bed.  I even have some volunteer sunflowers from wayward birdseed.  The sunflowers started growing before the trees filled out with their spring growth.  It will be interesting to see if they will still blossom now that they are primarily in shade.

Deck

The back deck garden doesn't look too drastically different from last month, other than the parsley, dill and cilantro that I had to remove which started to topple over, I think because some pests (grubs? snails?) were gnawing at the roots and base of the plant.  I've replanted the plants from seeds in other areas of the garden.  Thankfully, I have some fennel up in containers of the deck to keep the swallowtail caterpillars happy in the meantime.

Center Beds

The bluebonnets have gone to seed, so the center beds don't have much color at the moment other than from some snap peas, larkspur and poppies.  Most of the red oriental poppies have started to topple over, so I'll pull out a bunch of them to make rooms for some summertime annuals, but I'll leave enough that will hopefully reseed for next season.

Pomegranate

The lighting on this one isn't great, but the garnet sash pomegranate tree has finally started to put on growth.  I was worried that it might be dead, or maybe didn't get enough chill hours.  The pomegranate was purchased from the Natural Gardener, so I figured they wouldn't be selling me any varieties that aren't well suited for our area.  In this bed, the orange canna lilies have started to unfurl. I did a lot of dividing and transplanting of them last year, so I'm interested to see how much they flower this year.

Neighbor Fenceline

There isn't much to see here.  The rose bushes will send out a bud every once and awhile, but being their first year in this bed, I'm not expecting any big shows from them this year.  The neighbor's bushes are a different story though.  They are covered in fragrant white flowers that are attracting swarms of red admiral butterflies, so I'm glad I'm getting to enjoy some benefit from their yard.

Bulb Bed

The spring bulbs of daffodils and irises have stopped blooming and I'm in a lull of bulb blooms until the gladiolas and daylilies put on their show later this summer.  I should really try to find some other perennials to fill in a few of my holes that would have some nice color for late spring.  Any suggestions?

Front Fenceline

All the plants in this bed that were planted a year ago are really starting to fill out.  The black-foot daisies are going strong and the coral honeysuckle is looking healthy after looking a bit questionable last year.  My purple feathergrass plants died (due to freezing temps), so I've replaced it with a pampas grass plant.  I was originally looking for a dwarf pampas grass but could only find the regular size.  The normal sized one might end up being too big for the space I want it to fill.  If so, I'll just move the plant to another area of the front yard later.

Courtyard

The courtyard has gotten some much-needed TLC this spring.  Besides planting our new Chinese Pistache shade tree, we removed the Chinese wisteria from the tall trellis (which would grow like crazy but never flower), and replaced it with an evergreen and sweet smelling star jasmine.  The fragrance can now greet our guests as they come through the threshold of our home.  Also recently added to a corner was the Japanese Aralia, which was selected for its lush evergreen and shade-loving foliage.

Front of House

In the front, the yellow oleander that flanks our gate entrance is in bloom.  The salvias and guara are also in bloom.  My bi-colored iris are blooming for the first time this year and the lantana are starting to sprawl and getting ready for their heat-loving blooms.

I tried planting a gopher plant and sedum in my very front bed, and while claiming to be deer-resistant, it seems the deer still thought these plants were a delectable treat, so I'll need to plant these in a fenced space in the yard in the future.

Thanks, as always, to Helen of The Patient Gardener for hosting this monthly meme where we can look at the transformation of our gardens every month.

End of Month View - March 2015

So much has happened in the garden in the last month.  With the last freezes behind us, decent rains throughout the month, and warm and sunny days now, it seems there is something new popping up in the garden every day.

Veggie Beds

The vegetable beds got a big springtime planing overhaul over the last week or so.  I tore up most of the beds, pulled out all but a few wintertime greens (chard, spinach and lettuce remain), turned in compost and manure into the soil, weeded out as many Bermuda grass rhizomes as possible, and planted spring and summer veggies.  The first bed (from the left) still has Swiss chard and also has watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, green beans, and edamame added.  The second bed is full of tomatoes, the third has a few tomatoes, lots of eggplants and peppers and one tomatillo.  The fourth bed remains a "greens" bed.  It gets the least amount of sun, so it is best that I plant veggies that prefer a bit of shade in the summertime heat (I have kale, collards, spinach, lettuce, green onions and leeks planted here).


Shade Tree

The shade tree bed is littered with tree debris (fallen fuzzy blossoms) right now and doesn't look nearly as tidy as last month when I placed new mulch down.  There are a handful of narcissus still blooming, which were newly planted last fall.  I'm hoping they naturalize quickly and fill up the space in years to come.  I still have a mission to add more evergreens to this space so that it is not nearly as bare next winter.

Deck

The deck border is lush and green - full of leafy parsley, poppies, and springtime bulbs like hyacinths and irises.  Today, the border is in between blooms.  I had a couple weeks of beautiful pink and purple hyacinths earlier this month, and I see the irises and some of the herbs starting to bud out, but no big bloomers at the moment.


Pomegranate

The pomegranate has not yet started blooming.  I hope it is still sleeping and not dead.  I guess I should find out in the next month or so.  But all the spring bulbs are doing well.  I'm especially looking forward to the irises blooming.  They were a pass-along from a neighbor who couldn't remember what color they were, so I have a surprise waiting for me in the next week or so.

Neighbor Fenceline

The bed that has changed the most in the last month (besides the veggie beds) was definitely the neighbor fenceline, or the rose shrub border.  I got six new antique roses planted here in the last month.  Mrs. B. R. Cant rose (second from the left) is already putting out a few blooms, and I see buds appearing on the others.  Between each rose plant, I planted a lavender plant.  I'm also planning to plant sections of sunflowers at the back of the border every few weeks so that I have sunflowers all summer long.  This is the bed I'm most looking forward to seeing transform over the next year or so.


Bulb Bed

The bulb bed is full of the beauty of the dusty pink-peachy bearded irises that I got as pass along plants from my neighbor.  These are arguably the most striking flowers in the garden at the moment.


Front Fenceline

While this bed is still lacking any blossoms at the moment, I see a lot of new growth emerging.  The blackfoot daisies are spreading out, the sages show new foliage and the butterfly bush is multiplying its size.  I look forward to the color and wildlife this bed will attract this year.


Front of House

The front beds aren't showing anything spectacular at the moment.  However, I do notice the general size increase of the plants since they were planted last spring.  More mature plants are sure to give a more fantastic showing later this year.

The very front bed is definitely in need of a few more succulents this year.  I look forward to adding some variety here.

Still too much lawn, but I guess I need to be patient.  I'll work on chipping away at this little by little and try to add at least one more garden bed each year.

Please stop by The Patient Gardener, where Helen hosts this meme each month and where other gardeners showcase the monthly transformations in their gardens.