Hi everyone,
Seems like this has been a hard summer. They are all hot and mostly dry, but this year is really taking a toll. I could sure use a break, how ‘bout you? When you need a break, I invite you come sit a spell, and visit in this garden. I’ve got plenty of water, iced tea and home-made lemonade – I even made some lemonade w/watermelon juice, quite refreshing!
A good friend of mine and her husband follow a hard and fast rule in their garden – no cross words may be spoken, they have to go indoors if they want to argue about something. And so it is in this garden. Anything spoken here is automatically presumed to be innocent and friendly.
In this garden the ambient temperature rarely reaches above 78, though the heat-loving plants thrive. The sun shines brightly, but not in your eyes, and there is shade exactly where you want it. A nice breeze flows through, enough to get the “wind-dancer” plants swaying and the River Birch leaves fluttering, but not enough to knock the butterflies around.
Speaking of butterflies, what a haven they have here! I’ve never seen so many different types in one place! Beautiful dragonflies buzz around and light on the fountains. The ladybugs are always fun to watch, and at dusk… lightening bugs! There must certainly be mosquitoes here, but they don’t seek us. It’s lovely also to hear and watch the chirping birds and chattering squirrels, who seem especially playful today.
As we come and go, there are always enough chairs, benches and swings for everyone. The garden is as spacious or as intimate as we want it to be. It’s a place to come for some friendly chat about this and that. A place to escape the heat or a dried-out garden bed for a while. A rest from the harried Summer activities that crop up when the kids are out of school. An escape from workplace worries. A place to rest your feet. A place to hear and speak a kind word. A place to laugh.
So c’mon, sit a spell! Let’s enjoy the garden, and each other.
Did anyone bring something to eat?
:-)
C’mon, sit a spell
I have 6 or so melons ready to take off the vine right now... what do ya know now we have food to eat.
Summer here is TX is really hard on plants! This was my first real year here in TX to have in ground beds - yikes! I changed a lot os the yard to plant trees! I was so happy when we bough to have the full sun... now I am planting trees in a grid over a lot of the yard. What can you do (other then watering like a mad man and mulching) to keep your plants in summer?
Thanks maggie for starting this - btw your oleander is looking great ready for its new home in Sept!
Mitch
Good morning Mitch, isn't it a beautiful day? And I love watermelon, thanks for bringing it! (One of the great things about this garden is that the flies won't bother us.)
I'm going to have to keep a list of plants I've forgotten about. I'm looking forward to the oleander, but need to figure out where I'm going to put it, lol!
It stays small - I could see a pot, tierra cotta maybe?
It is the best day - butterflybush is at long last in bloom and my new daylily too! Ah I just love going out there and seeing what is new... Mitch
Oh, I'm glad to hear the oleander will do well in a container, that will make it very easy.
Is your butterfly bush a buddleia (sp)? After I complained that mine didn't like me, it started doing much better, lol. Isn't that just the way of things?
How is your son (I forget his name)? Do you start back to school soon?
Good morning,
I have tomatos straight of the plant and still have some bell peppers too. Yesterday I picked most of the grapes, it wasn't a huge crop be any means, but it is the first year for the vine so I hope for better things in years to come.
I have two figs but this year they haven't set any fruit. I'm not sure why they are both very healthy and growing strongly.
I have noticed that a lot of stuff needs the dappled shade provided by taller plantings. Trees are abviously top of the pyramid, but smaller growth, like my standard wisteria, provides enough shade for the stuff around it to do better than the same plant a few yards away in full sun.
Trouble is you can't hurry the taller stuff along.
Thanks for providing this cool and shady spot to sit Maggie! I'm like my plants, love the warmth but prefer to enjoy it from the shade, or the water.
Carol
Hi Carol!
"love the warmth but prefer to enjoy it from the shade, or the water."
Amen! :-)
Ooo, tomatoes... I haven't been successful with those yet (maybe I should try them in this garden.) I'm going to try planting a couple for fall. What kind are you growing?
Yep buddleia - sharp dark purple no name I got in a trade. It is only 6 in high but three huge blooms!
Malachi (Chi for short) is doing great! Life is good when you are 2!
School - yes Aug 8th I go back with the kids the week after... .. ... I really have to get cracking on lesson plans now - two weeks until go time and all I have is ideas... got to start some time I guess!
Tomatos - here is a question. 10 Plants, 1000s of blooms (before it got hot) and not one mater. .. what did I do wrong?
I've forgotten what variety of Toms I bought - I cheated and bought plants from Walmart back in late March. Some are plum shaped and some are round - the round have more flavor though. I have had fruit since early May and haven't bought a Tom since.
Have you wartered with fertilizer 75154 (I'm going to have to call you Zippy, I can't remeber numbers!!)? We did them every third day till the fruit started to ripen. Then forgot and it stopped setting, but I think they cropped out anyway.
The other thing that may affect things is spraying for bugs. We have a bugman and he does round the outside of the house for spiders and fire ants. I have to tell him to stay away from the veg patch and avoid the grapes etc. They won't get pollinated if you kill the bugs.
My favourite Tom is one called Gardeners Delight. Fruit about an inch across and veryy sweet. I'm going to try some from seed next year.
I have loads of things to do for 'next year' but its too darn hot right now!
Some of my fondest tomato memories are of going to my boyfriend's house, and his mother would have a plate of sliced tomatos waiting for me. They had a large veg garden in their back yard, I couldn't get enough of those maters! She would just sit there and smile at me while I ate them. She loved that I loved them. She was a sweet lady.
If you don't mind me joining you, I'll bring the hor d'hourves made with fruits and vegetables from the garden.
When I went back to California in March of 2004 to get our house ready to sell, I couldn't bare to leave some of my plants behind. As long as the plants are healthy, have a certificate from the state you are leaving and they are not on theTexas quarantine list, you can bring them into the state. One of the plants I brought was a dwarf pink orleander. The tag said the max height is 6 feet. I've been keeping it in a pot because the Texas gardening books I have say it doesn't survive in the ground here in this part of central Texas, although, I have seen a few of the regular sized ones growing nearby. Every time I think I've spot one, it usually turns out to be a crape myrtle, but there are a few. I'm just afraid of losing one of the few reminders of home.
The pot I have it in is a 10" pot, but it is just surviving. It put out a few inches of top growth and a few flowers, but nothing as spectacular as when it's in the ground. It needs a much bigger pot, but it has to be a terra cotta pot for stability. Here in central Texas, I would have to move the pot into the greenhouse, but in your area, Mary, you could leave the pot outside during the winter if you decided to put the oleander into a pot.
I forgot to ask. Is your oleander a dwarf variety?
Mitch, when I moved here 4 years ago, I had been gardening for over 25 years, but still felt like such a novice. Most of the plants I love, won't do well here. I soon discovered that TAMU has a wealth of information. Also Neil Perry, who lives somewhere near Dallas has several books and a bi-monthly magazine that have been very useful. I think he is somehow associated with the Dallas Arboretum, because his magazine advertises a lot of workshops that take place there.
I've been spending most of my spare time lately looking at house plans. I think I told you, Mary, when we were on our way to San Antonio with Kip and Amanda, that we were planning to build a house here on the ranch. We wanted to have a good idea of what we wanted the exterior and the interior to look like before we went to an architect. I thought we had pretty much decided when I showed Ed some photos of a house in Architectural Design and was able to find the plan online. He loved the exterior, but it was too big for us. Not enough of the features I wanted. Some things I didn't want. Ed wanted this, but not that... The porches all around the house for both stories was his idea — help to keep the house cooler. We had a firm idea, had a copy in hand, but were having troubles finding an architect here in the boondocks. Suddently Ed changed his mind about those plans so it was back to square one.
Every spare moment since then has been spent on looking at house plans. After weeks of searching, debating, and trying to convince each other, we found something and have contacted tthe architect who designed the plan. If he can make a few modifications, that's the house we want to build.
I've had very little time participate much in DG's, other than look in on some of the threads to see what was happening. Suddenly, things blew up. I didn't feel comfortable with that so I've pretty much stayed out of things.
I like this garden, may I stay?
Veronica
Hey Maggie, you forgot something in your first post: fragrance. each way you turn your head you smell something sweet and different, your nose may identify, may not, but it is all heavenly! Your brain tries a little harder to identify scent but, just as quickly, it decides it doesn't matter, and motions you to sip on that lemonade.
Hi Veronica,
Nice of you to join us. It is great here in the shade, I'll hitch up and you can share the bench, or Maggie has lots of other chairs around if you prefer.
We almost bought a place in La Grange ourselves! I loved that little town, but in the end we decided that it was too far from the family. We moved across the Atlantic to be nearer them so it seemed a bit silly to live 300 miles away when we got here.
Guess what, now we are settled here in Keller, DS says in a year or so they think they will move down to the Austin / San Antonio area!! Thats kids for you. He expects us to follow, and I expect we will after DH has finished muttering, so we may be neighbours yet.
Carol
Mitch, tomatoes don't set fruit when the temperature goes over the mid-90's. That's why A & M recommends planting short season varieties so you' ve tomatoes before summer starts. Putting in new plants this month will give you tomatoes until the frost kills the plants. The local farm and ranch supply store starts selling tomato plants in February. With protection against frost, the plants are well on their way long before the end of our last frost. I like to snack on tomatoes as I garden, at least those chores I can do one handed.
Veronica
Hello Mary, thank you for inviting me to your party. I have no fruits or vegetables to bring from the garden, but I could bring some garlic to spice things up, and some parsley to refresh the breath afterwards. We could add that to the tomatoes for a dressing.
Just kidding, I hope you will have many visitors, you are a kind and lovely lady.
Josephine.
Welcome Veronica, have a seat! And thanks for the hor d'hourves, they are scrumptious!
Nery, you are exactly right. I like the way you put it, too, I couldn't have come up with that, lol.
Veronica, wow, building a home is so exciting. I know it can also be a headache, but I suspect it's much like giving birth - the end result is worth it.
When I first tried my hand at gardening, the back yard was full of pine straw and heavy, dense shade. I played with it for two years, just starting to learn about gardening. Then the pines came down and I had sun! It meant starting all over again, nothing at all was the same. Gardening is sure an adventure! It never ceases to make me marvel at God's creation.
I can bring fresh picked bananas, guavas and lemons for the lemonade.
Hi Carol,
Thanks, I'll join you on the bench. Our children didn't leave home, we did. At the end of our younger son's college freshman year, we moved halfway across the country. Both our sons attended Baylor University for their freshman year, didn't like it and went back to California. They continued to live in our home for 3 years after we'd left. Right now, they both insist they won't live in Texas ever. We'll see.
If you do move, you'll see a change in the weather. The winters are not as severe and last frost is the first or second week of March.
La Grange is within 120 miles from Houston and San Antonio and far enough away from Austin that the little town is thriving, but not suffering growing pains the way towns closer to Austin are.
Veronica
My Bananas, Oranges, and Persimmons are still green. Not very many things are blooming this summer, likely because our water that we must use has considerable calcium in it. Other years watered with rain have produced many more blooms. We are just tired. We had company for several days, 4 from North of Seattle, where it never gets above 72, has no bugs, and they had no interest in plants. They did have an interest in bugs, mostly fear from the big Orb spiders and the Scribblers. They panicked at the sight of a wasp nest, even though it was 15 feet above their heads. Now we rest.
Ah, Trois, this is a good place to rest after all that company. Whew! I can just imagine what this weather did to them! I have a sister in Tecoma, she is very pointed about not coming down anywhere near summertime. :-)
Josephine and Susie, welcome! Anything you bring is appreciated. Susie, do you really have ripe bananas? I guess everything survived Emily alright.
I was just doing a little weed-eating and mowing in the back, does anybody mind if I cool off in one of the fountains? :-) One of my dreams would be to have, not a water feature, but a water frolic feature. A pretty fountain that is large enough to splash in and maybe stand under the water, like I always wanted to do as a child.
Well, lets put one of those features in. After all, it is the perfect garden! Hey, thanks for the use of the swing to relax in, I really appreciate that! Lemonade?! Thanks, don't mind if I do. Here, I brought some choc chip cookies to share, 'cuz my garden goodies aren't ripe yet. ~ Suzi ♥
Glad to see you, Suzi! I never turn down choc chip cookies, lol, as you can tell from my size!
In what part of PA are you? My mother grew up in Bradford Woods and Latrobe, in the Pitt area. It's been ages since I've been up there, have always wanted to show my son where we used to go and visit my grandparents. I wonder if they still have Storybook Forest? It was before the Disney Age, I remember how enchanted we were to see "sets" of our favorite childhood stories.
Veronica, have you guys decided on a site for the new house? Which way will the house face?
Lol, guess they didn't know about the cottonmouths and gators! The bugs and heat would have been the least of their worries. Hope you showed them the picture of Barbera with her shotgun and gator before they left.
They had already seen the pictures and refused to go to the big pond.
Real scaredy cats. Also, hard to entertain. I am still not sure what their interest is as they don't even have TV in their houses. Probably books, but they have no idea about what is going on in the world.
trois
I feed my mators and dont use any type of bug spray... bet ya it is just to hot... I did pinch the growths and started new plants.
This is really starting to get me starving...I had to stop and eat then come back!
The last place I had a garden was Poza Rica Veracruz Mexico... hot hot hot but tons of rain almost everyday! All through high school I had a huge yard and loved it . . I am right with you nothing I used to grow there grows here and I got in trouble for having water lettuce (long story from college). Just got to figure out how to get this hot dry weather to work. Really not a very easy thing to do. .
maggie - you do have a pool or something for us to cool off in at this little get together right? Just wanted to splash in!
John that would have been unkind!! (At least until just before they left.)
Hi Trois, this is just the place to recuperate, I am enjoying the delightful sound of flowing water and bird song, even the odd cricket.
That fountain sounds fun, it will have to be pretty large though to accommodate the more padded of us!!
Speaking of grandparents, I always thought mine had a huge garden full of apple and pear trees and surrounded by roses. I was about 15 when they passed on, but I was back in their village for the first time a year or so ago. So I looked up the old house, I found a fairly small front yard and the back half the size of the front. The trees had gone but there wasn't room for more than 2 in back and maybe in front another two. If there was room for 6 roses that would have been it given that most was down to grass even then. Its all grass now. Doesn't memory play funny tricks!
Carol
Hi John, good to see you! Yeah, I'd like to know if they saw that picture, too, lol!
Years ago I got to go to Jamaica for "four days, three nights". It was the middle of Summer. When we boarded the plane in Houston, It was half full of people coming from Ill. When we arrived in Jamaica, the temps were mid 80's. Throughout the trip you could easily identify who got on in Ill and who got on in Houston. All the Texicans were marvelling at the wonderful, cool temps. The poor people from Illinois were all melting!
John, how did you (or have you done so yet) make the transition from Alaska to TX?
Veronica - I do have a oleander that lives here year round in Dallas. It is full of seed pods and I can take cuttings if you would like to try in there. It is a bright pink color and blooms all summer. I would be more then happy to get some to you. I have tried to root cuttings but they never make it for me - I know it can be done just not sure how to go about doing it.
Let Me Know Mitch
TV! Part of me wants to rid myself of it. The other part says I want an HDTV!
Right now I am waiting for morning so I can do something outside.
We have. I's near the large stock pond (We have to work that one out.). It would be located where Ed could sit in his rocking chair on the porch and look out over some of the pastures and close enough to some large oaks and pecans so I can have a shade garden. I've gotten interested in growing Brugmansias this year. They need some afternoon shade or most of the leaves turn yellow. Right now, I have them all in pots to keep the Bermuda grass out of them, but I would like to put them in the ground after the new house is built. It's funny. I have never liked Victorian houses and of the thousands of houses, I looked at, guess what. The house we've picked has some exterior Victorian features: 2 covered gazebos, porches, a mass of different rooflines and peaks. The fish scales will have to go. The other modifications will involve using limestone instead of brick and stucco instead of fishscales and getting rid of the thing-a-mes that decorate the exterior of a Victorian. I'll have to get suggestions on shade loving plants that would love living on a porch.
The interior is very open and definitely not Victorian. What sold me on the house was that the master bedroom, which is on the first floor, has an octagonal sitting room on the second floor. I'll be able to get a comfortable lounge chair of some sort for reading...my own private retreat. Two guest bedrooms for visiting friends. Life on a ranch can be peaceful, if you don't mind a few mooooos.
There is a down side to that site. Duke Energy has a low pressure gas line about 100 feet from it. I done some research. We'll be alright unless we break the pipe. Plan on marking that very well. We can plant over the line (If we don't mind it being dug up if the line needs repairs.) No permanent structures, but driveways are OK.
LOL, John! I know that feeling!
Veronica, I meant to say earlier that the oleander Mitch is saving for me is a dwarf.
I have a burgansia in the ground in full sun - but I just started it from seed and so far it is looking fine. I was told that if you start them from seed they can take a little more heat. Now to see if it lives through the winter - I have been told it will but we will see.
Mitch, let me look for information on the best time for oleander cuttings and I'll get back to you. Thanks for the offer.
Carol, I had the same type of experience when I visited my Grandmother's house years later. Everything seemed to have shrunk. I've noticed that many of the plants she had in her garden are now in mine.
We started a family bed - there are plants from both our grandparents homes, and even a few great gradparents. They dont look great to the passerby maybe but they take us back to the places we loved to be.
Veronica - no problem just let me know when they would be ready and I will get them ready for ya.
Dont you love just kicking back with a few gardeners?
Mitch, if this place has water frolic features, it sure has pools, too. Be my guest! (Just don't splash anyone who doesn't want to be splashed, lol.
Veronica, I have seen some Victorian-style homes done with limestone and something other than the fish scales, etc. They are stunning. Your home will be beautiful!
Speaking of the mooing, years ago I rented a tiny house in the country outside of Nacogdoches. The owners had cattle on acreage, they lived in Houston, and they rented out this little place that sat on the land. It was great - down a dirt road that you'd have to be lost to find, a couple of ag ponds, and they let me use the canoes. There were wooded areas to walk in, and fields to wander (being sure to keep a wary eye out for any fresh cow-patties.) There was a wire fence around the house, so the cattle really couldn't get too close. One morning I woke up to see a huge cow staring in the window at me. She looked at me for a long time, mooed at me, then moved on.
Ah! Life in the country!
I will be splashing for the rest of the afternoon then anyone want to join me?
We wish for the laid back country life! Someday... maybe...
Maggie,
Storybook Forest is part of Idlewild Park http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Storybook+Forest+PA now. We went there one year for our work picnic. Pretty good for little ones, but the older one wasn't interested. It wasn't Kennywood, which is an amusement park with roller coasters! ~ Suzi ♥
Yeah, not the razzle-dazzle and electronic wonders of most amusement parks. We were easy to please, lol! Probaly because we had such a "hard life" - you know, walking uphill both ways to & from school, lucky if we got a piece of fruit for Christmas, etc, lol!
edited to take out bombed out joke - Mitch
This message was edited Aug 1, 2005 3:04 PM
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That reminds me, Mitch. You mentioned that you are planting trees in a sort of grid. Have you done so already? If not, I wanted to mention that I saw something once on This Old House that was really neat (if I had the room, I would do it.) They wanted to bring a little shade to an area that would sort of bridge the garage structure (which was a barn they converted to an in-law's apt) to the main house. They planted six or eight fruit trees, it was litke a mini-orchard. It looked like an orchard because of the way the trees were set out, and they made a nice lined walk way. Plus, fruit!