Lost Valley Gardens Blog

The weather here in Central Texas has been ‘as good as it gets’ for the past few weeks. The temperatures have been a little below normal, and the humidity has been low. Even the wind has been more gentle lately. All of this means that the gardens are growing rapidly. I am struggling to keep up with the watering and weeding, but with the pleasant temperatures (low 70s in the afternoons), even these are enjoyable chores. I just wish there were more hours in the day, and that I had unlimited energy to do all the things that I want to do. Sigh.

I have been taking numerous pictures, mostly for my future on-line garden journal (one of those things that I can’t ever seem to get to…), but some are worth posting to my blog. So here are my favorites, and the rest are on my Flickr page.

I direct seeded this larkspur Beauty Spires Mix last fall, and they are at their height of blooming right now. I love the combination of colors in this mix; white, purple, and pink. They remind me of the delphiniums that I used to grow in Wisconsin.

Larkspurs, Salvias, Pansies, Prairie Primroses, and Knock Out Rose

The native wisteria started to bloom this week. It gets thicker every year, and is starting to cover the oak tree adjacent to the deck. I collected some seeds from this plant a couple of years ago which germinated easily, and is becoming well established in the west garden area.

View of the Deck, Arbor, and Valley

Wisteria on the Deck Arbor

This rusty blackhaw viburnum was here when we moved in, but was stunted with the upper branches growing more horizontally than vertically due to low hanging oak branches above it. Several years ago we opened up the canopy above the blackhaw, and trimmed the possumhaw that is growing next to it, and it is now starting to send up vertical limbs again. This tree is lovely in the spring, summer, and fall. I think I need another one closer to the house.

Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum

Rusty Blackhaw Bloom Close Up

I have been wanting some copper canyon daisies for years, and I finally got some. I planted three around a big boulder in the front courtyard, and they are all in bloom now.

Copper Canyon Daisies

The knock out rose hedge on the north side of the courtyard is filling in nicely and is blooming vigorously. I am very pleased with how this bed is looking as it begins to take shape.

Knock Out Rose Hedge in Courtyard

I am a sucker for pink roses, and this Belinda’s Dream pink rose is destined to be one of my favorites I think. This photo was taken just as this bud was opening three days ago. This same bloom is now wide open and is absolutely beautiful.

Belinda’s Dream Rose

Well, it’s time to go move the sprinkler.
Adios for now.

The long awaited Garden Bloggers Spring Fling took place this weekend, and it was well worth the wait. It was a picture perfect spring day in Central Texas. There was only a slight chill in the air when we met the group at 9:00 am at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and almost no wind at all. We spent over an hour strolling through the gardens, checking out the view from the observation tower, looking at the information in the library, and getting to know each other.

Although I am a rather introverted and somewhat shy person, I felt very much at ease with this group of almost total strangers right away. The tour of the Wildflower Center was completely enjoyable, with many well-known favorites on display, but also lots of plants that I had not seen before, or which I had misidentified in the past. One of the most impressive features of these gardens to me was the hardscaping and building architecture. The cisterns and aquaduct structure were absolutely enchanting, and there were several beautiful arbor structures covered with vines of every sort.

I only took a few pictures, but they came out pretty well. Here are some of my favorites.

Louisiana Swamp Iris Near Deep Pool

Texas Huisache Tree in Bloom

Scarlet Penstemon

Mixed Wildflower Bed

Lunch was a tasty Mexican fare, with lots of lively conversation and a lovely talk by Tom Spencer. The highlights of Tom’s talk for me were the description of his meditation on a yellow flower, which eventually took him back to a perfect moment in his childhood when all was exactly as it should be, and his writing to his Father on the theme of gathered stones.

The afternoon began with a trip to the Natural Gardener nursery, which has grown dramatically since I was last there several years ago. The variety and volume of plants at this nursery are remarkable, especially considering that most of them are native or adapted to our area, and that they are organically grown. I spent alot of time looking at the trees and the display gardens all of which were impressive. Highlights here were the purple martins over the vegetable gardens busily doing whatever it is martins do, and the new pondless water feature that they are building.

The last stop of the day for us was the visit to James David’s garden. I was completely overwhelmed by this garden. There were so many plants that I had never seen before, and many familiar ones as well. But it was the sheer size and density of the garden that amazed me. There were massive fig trees at the back of the property, and an incredible pomegranite tree perched high on the hill at the back of the patio. There were two striking water features, and some of the most beautiful orchids I have ever seen. It was a feast for all of the senses. So full of sights, sounds, and smells.

At this point we had to take our leave of the group to head home and relieve our dog sitter. It was a truly memorable day which I am grateful that I was able to share with so many unique and creative people. I look forward to virtually visiting with everyone in the days, weeks, and months to come.

Blessings,
Carol

There is so much to do in the gardens at this time of the year it is easy to get engrossed in the work and to forget to step back and observe the miracle of spring happening everywhere. The whole valley behind our house is literally turning green before our eyes. New wildflowers are sprouting everywhere. Squash bugs are back - ugh. Birds of every type abound; woodpeckers, finches, crows, hawks, vultures, black-capped vireos, cedar wax wings, scrub jays, purple martins, hummingbirds, cardinals, and many others I can’t easily identify. More butterflies are spotted every day now; pipevine swallowtails, sulphurs, giant swallowtails, fritillaries, buckeyes, and admirals. It is all such a feast for the senses.

It’s always a rush to use the valuable time between the really cold weather and the really hot weather to get new trees, shrubs and perennials planted (or moved to new locations), and this spring has been no exception. We inherited many new plants over the past year or so from friends or job sites which were needing to be put in the ground. Among them were a beautiful sycamore tree, two large wax myrtles, a persimmon tree, a pear tree, and a fig tree, which we have now settled into their new garden homes. We also removed all of our pyracanthas as they are quite invasive in our area, and are seen as extremely undesireable.

For the past couple of days I have been hunting small perennials to dig up and move to the new courtyard beds. So far I have transplated an agave pup, some coreopsis, licorice mint, catnip, native red penstemons, and cedar sage. This is a great way to save time and money in getting a new perennial bed going.

Lastly, I  began direct seeding some summer annuals like Laura Bush petunias, African daisies, and dwarf zinnias two days ago, and some of them have already germinated.

An early morning walk with the dogs and Ron this morning provided a perfect opportunity for taking some photos of the gardens. I selected some of the best shots and put them into the slideshow below. There are many more on my Flickr page, and the full sized jpegs are there as well if you want to see the large, detailed versions of them.

You will see the bluebonnets, paint brushes, and other native Texas wildflowers that are growing in the wildflower area on the north side of our land. There is also a picture of my dog Duffer - a very large golden-lab mix. There are close up shots of an Indian paintbrush, our new red passionvine, the Grand Primo narcissus, and a Mexican buckeye bloom spike. There is a feeble attempt at catching a hummingbird at the hummingbird feeder, and a shot of the water lilly in our stock tank water garden. Finally, there are some views of the new garden beds in our front courtyard area featuring the rock garden area, the new copper canyon daisies grouped around a boulder, a shot of my larkspurs, the Mexican buckeye, and a couple of others.

Looks like the Horns are going to have a tough time winning today. Memphis is up 59 to 43 with 8 minutes left…..Go Horns!!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

This is the first time I have tried direct seeding poppies. I planted them in the fall, and they are finally rewarding me for keeping them alive through the winter.

The ice plant over-wintered well and I expect it will produce many blooms this year. I am planning to take some cuttings off this plant so I can get some started in my new rock garden in the courtyard.

The Cyclamineus Narcissus is just beginning to bloom. I love the delicate yellow color. Kind of creamy yellow - not too bright.

Cyclamineus Narcissus

This Grand Primo Narcissus is quite pretty. The red yucca behind it is sending up a bloom spike and should be in bloom soon as well.

Grand Primo Narcissus

Eowen has decided to brave the dogs in the back yard so she can hunt birds from the arbor.

Eowen in the Arbor

I spotted new fruit on both our apricot and plum trees today for the first time this spring. The few fruits we harvested from these trees last year were really tasty. It looks like we might get a much bigger harvest this year. Perhaps enough to make a little jam or preserves.

Baby Apricot

Baby Plum

I’ve been trying to get a shot of this moth for several days now. This is the best shot I’ve gotten so far, and it is mediocre at best, but this moth is beautiful. It is a white-lined sphinx moth, and it mimics a humming bird in the way it feeds.

White-lined Sphinx Moth

This is the first evening primrose I have spotted this spring. I wish I had more of these on my land. They seem to be hearty in that they come back every year, but they don’t seem to spread much.

Evening Primrose

Every day seems to bring new joys. I love spring.

I took a walk around the property looking for signs of spring yesterday, and I found them everywhere I looked. Here are some samples. If you click on them you will link to larger versions of the photos on my Flickr page.

I found several nice clumps of bluebonnets near the green house. Ron has been watering and spraying them with compost tea, and they seem to be responding nicely.

There were many of these four-nerve daisies all over the place. They look so stunning when they are combined with bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush.

I tried to take some shots of bees in flight, and a couple of them came out fairly well. I definitely need more practice with these type of action shots with the telephoto zoomed out to the max.

These are the first primrose I have seen in bloom on our place, but there are many more that will be blooming soon.

This red buckeye is looking great this year. I had it planted in a much too sunny location when I first got it, and it almost died so I transplanted it in dappled shade and it is finally starting to get healthy and hearty. The hummers love this plant.

I really like this profile shot of this native columbine. I also took a close up of a bloom front on that you can view on my Flickr page that is also a pretty good shot.

Hope you are having a wonderful Easter weekend.
Carol

I continue to be impressed with the Mac’s functionality and ease of use. I was anxious to see how iPhoto’s functionality compared to Photoshop on my PC. iPhoto did not disappoint. I took the photo below with my digital camera, and when I plugged the camera into the Mac using a USB connection, iPhoto immediately kicked in and presented a completely intuitive interface for downloading the images and organizing them in various ways.

iPhoto has all the basic functions that you need to accomplish basic photo editing in an easy to use package. I was able to quickly find and use the enhancement tools and cropping options to get the photo into a format suitable for publishing to my blog. Exporting the image to a jpg was also a snap. Once I was done though the image was still too large to post as it was so I decided to upload it to Flickr and serve it up from there rather than from my server. I found a Flickr uploader for Mac OS X on the Flickr site, downloaded and installed it, and used it to upload my image. Again, everything went smoothly and easily.

I never thought I would be blogging from a Macintosh - ever. I used Apple IIs and Macs in the early days (80s) of the PC, and I thought they were nice machines that had no place in the business arena, but were great for graphic designers and educational purposes. So I stayed firmly rooted in the IBM PC camp while keeping an eye on the Mac world. Now, more than twenty years later, I have finally decided to purchase my first Mac, and I am very pleased with my decision thus far.

From the ease and speed of the selection, configuration, and ordering process on the Apple.com site, to the timely delivery of the machine, to the intuitive setup process and user interface, this has been the most positive and exciting experience I have ever had in acquiring a new PC. It is hard to believe that I am using a completely new operating system, and was up, running, productive (with my Google tools), and playing (on SecondLife) within an hour of powering up the machine for the first time. I cannot get over how well engineered both the hardware and the GUI are. So elegant and yet useable.

I have really missed not having a laptop for the past year. When my ThinkPad finally bit the dust last spring I decided to replace it with an HP mini tower with a high end graphics card and monitor so I could enjoy my SecondLife experience more fully, as well as for more speed and precision when editing photos and graphics. I have been pretty happy with the HP, but I hated being tied to the office all the time. I yearned for the freedom to work from other locations. I wanted to be able to watch UT basketball while blogging at the same time - as I am doing right now. This is as close to heaven as I have been in a long time.

This OS X Leopard operating system beats the pants off Windows. The networking is effortless and fast. Upon bootup - with an Ethernet cable attached to our office LAN - the OS found the network, found the internet, and attached me to every shared device and directory available without any action from me whatsoever. Try that with Windows. So far, the most annoying problem I’m having that I haven’t been able to resolve is the locating the ‘end’ key or function. But I haven’t cracked a manual yet, or looked at any online help yet either.

Well, I’m off to learn more about the features and functions of my new ‘toy’.

Happy Easter!

Although the mornings are still quite cool here in the hill country, there are definitely signs of spring showing. Our new redbud tree started blooming several days ago. The golden leadball tree that we planted over the winter is also just starting to bud out. Narcissus and gladiolus bulbs are sprouting. The larkspurs that I direct seeded in November are almost ready to bloom, and the native columbines have just started to open their blooms. The Carolina jessamine outside my office is now covered with blooms, and butterflies are showing up on warm days. All sure signs that spring’s arrival is imminent.

We have made some additions to the front courtyard beds over the past few weeks which are worth mentioning (at least I am pretty excited about them). In the perennial bed on the west side of the yard I added two ‘The Fairy’ roses near the center of the bed. I also planted horsetail reed, rock penstemon, pink gaura, ‘Husker Red’ penstemon, and four nerve daisy in this bed.

In the north bed I added a Belinda’s Dream and a Caldwell Pink rose, and started to build a rock garden area in front of the Knock Out rose hedge. The rock garden plants installed so far include green santolina, Mexican sedum, sedum ‘Golden Acre’, sedum ‘Tricolor’, and a cactus of some sort (lost the label). We have added many interesting rocks to all of the beds for added interest.

Carolina Jessamine

Coral Honeysuckle

Vinca

Redbud Blooms

Native Columbine

Apricot Blooms

Plum Blooms

Apple Blooms

Rock Garden

Narcissus Sprouts

Eowen Under the Dolly

Eowen Attacking Dillon

Complete Flickr Set

I chose the seed varieties below for the late winter garden. I love the new Seeds of Change seed packaging. It is much easier to use, waterproof, re-sealable, and environmentally friendly. The descriptions below were copied from the Seeds of Change web site (with a few comments added by me), and links are provided to each page for easy reference and ordering.

Ruby Orach (Mountain Spinach)
Atriplex hortensis
Heirloom; 4-6 ft. Hardy Annual

Brilliant magenta mountain spinach, cultivated since at least last century. Quite striking, it makes a fine addition to salads. Magenta leaves turn green when cooked. Seeds are edible. Direct seed as soon as soil can be worked for early crop. Can be planted throughout summer for a later harvest. Harvesting tips: harvest young 2-3 in. leaves.

America Spinach
Spinacea oleracea
12-16 in. Hardy Annual

Introduced in 1952, this variety has first-rate flavor. Thick, deep-green, savoy-leafed plant grows to a foot in width. Medium-to-slow bolting. Can be spring or fall sown and can overwinter with mulch Direct seed in early spring as soon as the soil can be worked for a spring crop, and in early August for harvest in the late fall. Enrich soil well with mature compost. Acidic soils will benefit from the addition of lime. Harvesting tips. Harvest leaves or the whole plant before it goes to seed.

Four Seasons Lettuce
Lactuca sativa
Heirloom
6-10 in. head Hardy Annual

A classic heirloom lettuce from France introduced before 1885, this round, red butterhead has incredible taste and reddish-brown outer leaves that cradle a creamy heart. Fast-maturing, all-season compact head. Easy to grow. Sow 2 seeds per inch directly into soil as soon as it begins to warm, 6-8 weeks before the last spring frost. For earlier plants, start indoors 4-6 weeks before transplanting into the garden. Enrich soil well with mature compost. Harvesting tips. Thin plants when they have 4 true leaves. Harvest outer leaves when young, entire head when mature.

Little Gem Lettuce
Lactuca sativa

Diminutive, sweet romaine from England. Compact heads with dense, blanching hearts and fine long standing flavor. The small size and tight heavy heads are a real space saver. Thinned seedlings can be replanted. Keep soil evenly moist but not wet. Heat will cause lettuce to bolt, so plant in fall and winter in zones 8 and 9. Pick outer leaves as they grow or harvest all at once. Harvesting when weather or day temperature is cooler will result in crisper leaves.

Emerald Oak Lettuce
Latuca sativa
10″-14″ plant width Hardy Annual

This unique cultivar forms a beautiful, compact rosette of oak-shaped leaves with sweet, succulent midribs. Leaf texture is between the standard oak leaf (crispy) and a butterhead (soft, buttery). Broad leaves fit nicely on a plate or sandwich. This is a long producing lettuce which is slow to bolt in the cool fall and spring months in Central Texas.

Georgia Southern Collard
Brassica oleracea
24-30″ Plant, 10-20″ Leaves
Hardy Biennial

Big, dark green, rounded, slightly savoyed leaves have a mild cabbage-like flavor that improves with a light frost. This variety does very well in Central Texas all winter long. It is extremely cold hardy once established, and is tasty steamed and in soups and stews.