Texas Native Volunteer Plants

There has been a morning glory, that I did not plant, growing under the bird feeder in the courtyard. I haven’t been able to identify it up until now because there were no blooms on it, but yesterday I noticed that a couple of very small white blooms were appearing. I did a Goggle search on white morning glory and identified this plant as a White Star morning glory (Ipomoea lacunosa). I was delighted to validate that it is a native species. It is working well as a ground cover in the spot that it is growing, is tolerating full sun and 100+ degree temperatures with very little water being applied. Although the blooms are not large and showy, they are quite beautiful.

Manage Fire Ants Organically

One of the most annoying pests in my garden is fire ants. They seem to infest any area that is moist, which means that all of my plantings are susceptible to becoming infested with these industrious creatures. I frequently encounter them as I am weeding or planting, and I have seen them infest root areas of plants so completely that they actually kill the plant. Add to this the painful bites that they inflict on humans and animals, and they quickly become number one on my hit list.

Hello Dolly

I’m sitting in my office watching Ron watering the vegetable garden wondering if we are going to get any rain from Dolly up here in Austin. I was hoping for an inch or so at least, but the local forecast at noon wasn’t very reassuring at all. Oh well….I guess that’s why Ron is out there watering.

We have been installing drip irrigation systems in all of the vegetable and courtyard beds, and we have laid soaker hoses in the in-ground planting areas. I have also been applying an inch of compost and a couple of inches of native Texas mulch to all of the beds. These are the best insurance against the relentless heat and dry conditions that have become the norm around here this summer.

Laying Rock in the Courtyard

Work on laying out rock in the courtyard has been going slowly. It’s just too darn hot to move rocks for more than an hour or so at a time. It was 102 today! Brutal. But in the afternoon, rain developed north of us and the outflow cooled it down to 90 so we worked […]

First Passion Vine Flower

I have never grown passion vine before, so this is my very first passion vine flower. I like the scarlet color of this variety, Passiflora Coccinea. It works well with the red knock out rose hedge that lines the fence that the passion vines are growing on. I also like the large dark green foliage […]

Nightshades, Ferns, Bamboos and Ponytail Palms

The front yard beds are full of volunteer nightshades that are now blooming profusely. I don’t know how many of these I have pulled, but they keep on sprouting, so I sort of gave up trying to remove all of them for the time being. I am keeping them from smothering and crowding the plants […]