GBBD April 2015

April in Bloom!

Perfume Delight or Pink Peace

 Garden Blogger Bloom Day posts visit May Dreams Gardens

 At the house

Dr. Huey

Dr. Huey rootstock won!

Red Knock-Out

Mystery Bud

Salvia (Salvia Greggii White)

Blooms like Hemlock
Looks like Wild Carrot

Blue-Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium)

Blooms from the field at Work

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

This weekend Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center held there spring plant sale.  So with much excitement a day trip was planned.  So much is in bloom right now everything looked so beautiful.

Front wetland pond

Our group arrived at the gardens in the middle of the afternoon in between rain sprinkling storms.  Parking was kinda hard because of the plant sale but inside the wildflower center it was not very crowded.  You couldn't tell the streets had been lined with cars.

Every home should have this feature

We spent a little while wandering around some of the gardens.  We got hung up in the Woodland garden area.  The stream that meandered through the garden was captivating. 

Texas bluebonnets and Winecups

The theme gardens where also a big hit.  Not so much for the themes of the garden but because of the amount of flowers and plants in each square garden.

Mexican Poppy

Snowbell

Antelope Milkweed

Of course we did not make it around all the gardens, arboretum, or trails.  But we did purchase a membership for future trips.  Most of the garden is wheelchair accessible and kid friendly.  This made for a very pleasant family outing for our family.

The plant sale was my main focus this trip.  With the purchase of a membership our group received a coupon for three free 4-inch plants.  I ended up picking up seventeen plants in all.  I had a long list but I also had a budget.  A large number of the plants I wanted had already been sold out that also helped keep my spending on a short leash.  Well a garden is a process.  Even in the wild it is ever changing and adapting.  Time and patience is the key to gardens. 

Good luck planting everyone!

Plant wish list

Well it is the start of spring.  I  am going to list some of the plants that we are interested in growing in our little garden.  The list looks a lot like what we had in Florida.  I will be adding the scientific name, size of each plant, location to be planted, and host plant information.  This is just a starting point.  We have plenty of room to add more plants but it is easy for me to get carried away.

Texas bluebonnet

• -Lupinus texensis
• -1ft to 2ft high(bloom)and 1ft wide
• -front walk
• -Northern Cloudywing, Gray Hairstreak, Henry's Elfin, Painted & American Lady, Orange Sulphur host plant

Phlox

• -Phlox drummondii
• -1ft high and 1ft to 2ft wide
• -front walk

Indian Paintbrush

• -Castilleja indivisa Engelm
• -under 1ft high
• -Hanging pot deck

Winecup

• -Callirhoe involucrata
• -1ft high and 3ft wide 
• -butterfly garden
• -Gray Hairstreak

Indian blanket

• -Gaillardia pulchella
• -1ft high and 1ft wide
• -butterfly garden
• -Bordered Patch host plant

Eastern Red Columbine

• -Aquilegia canadensis L.
• -2ft high and 16in to 18in wide
• -Hanging pot deck
• -Hummingbird nectar plant

Four-o’clocks

• -Mirabilis linearis
• -2ft high and 1ft wide
• -hanging pot deck
• -Hummingbird nectar plant

Cosmos

• -Cosmos sulphureus
• -2ft to 4ft high and 1ft wide
• -butterfly garden

Purple Coneflower

• -Echinacea
• -2ft to 5ft high and 2ft wide
• -butterfly garden

Milkweed

• -Asclepias tuberosa
• -2 to 3ft High 1ft wide
• -butterfly garden
• -Monarch host plant

Brown-eyed susan

• -Rudbeckia hirta
• -4ft high and 3ft wide
• -butterly garden
• -Silvery Checkerspot host plant

Sunflower

• -Mammoth Russian
• -8-12ft high 20in wide
• -side yard
• -possible host plant?

Pipevine

• -Aristolochia reticulata (Texas dutchman's pipe)or Aristolochia serpentaria (Virginia snakeroot)or Aristolochia tomentosa (woolly dutchman's pipe)
• -Vine
• -back right fence
• -Swallowtail host plant

Maypop

• -Passiflora incarnata
• -Vine
• -back left corner
• -Variegated Fritillary, Gulf Fritillary host plant 

OR
Passionflower

• -Passiflora suberosa
• -vine
• -Julia Heliconian, Mexican Silverspot, Gulf Fritillary, Zebra Heliconian

Common frogfruit

• -Phyla incisa
• -groundcover
• -Phaon Crescent

The problem plant

After much deliberation and research the looks like Hemlock-Conium maculatum weed is really Wild Carrot-Daucus carota.  Thankfully a local nursery gave us a positive identification on the plant.  

Now we can begin the rebuilding of the garden.  All the garden beds are covered in weeds.  That is ok since they grow so nice and green right?  The back left corner is going to be the butterfly landing pad.  I have the seed for Milkweed-Asclepias tuberosa they just need to get started.  I really should have started them already.

I just planted Black Krim and Stripped German tomatoes this weekend so we will see how well those do.

Day late and a dollar short on the blooms I took for bloggers bloom day. Oh well maybe next month.

What plant is this Texas edition

The game is find the mystery plants in the yard and I.D. them. I usually have the best luck with Dave's Garden.

Honeysuckle?

Mystery rose

Henbit - Lamium amplexicaule just a weed

Nandina Domestica Invasive

Chinese Privet, Ligustrum lucidum Invasive

False Garlic, Nothoscordum Bivalve

Large patch with another mystery plant

Hemlock? Poisonous!!!

 

So if we have poison hemlock in the WHOLE backyard what do we do?  Short of burn it I don't know yet.

Incomplete list of Butterflies

Texas has roughly 450 different types of butterflies depending on what sources you use.  This is not including moth species.  Florida has around 211 and I believe that is including moth species.  The United States has around 750 butterfly species and 11,000 moth species.  The following is a small sampling of the list my daughter started writing.  I think we will need to decide on a short list of host plants to start introducing.

The incomplete list

The Soldier-Danaus Erecimus
Larval food-Milkweed
Flight period-All year

Monarch-Danaus Plexippus
Larval food-Milkweed
Flight period-Spring to Winter

Gulf Fritillary-Agraulis Vanillae
Larval food-Passion flower vine-Passiflora
Flight period-All year

Zebra Longwing-Heliconius Charitonius
Larval food-Passion flower vine-Passiflora
Flight period-All year

Red Postman-Heliconiidae
Larval food-Passion flower vine-Passiflora
Flight period- All year

Golden-banded Skipper-Autochton Cellus
Larval food-Pea family
Flight period-May through August

Silver-spotted Skipper-Epargyreus Elarus
Larval food-Pea family
Flight period-May through September

Long-tailed Skipper-Urbanus Proteas
Larval food-Mallows
Flight period-All year

Marina Blue-Leptotes Marina
Larval food-Legumes/Fabaceae
Flight period-All year

Melissa Blue-Plebejus Melissa
Larval food-Legumes
Flight period-April through October

Brown Peacock-Anartia Fatima
Larval food-Ruellia(Wild Petunia)
Flight period-All year

Now for research

Now I have decided to just make the butterfly garden.  We will put off the vegetable stuff until fall planting time.  I know the weather here is similar to Florida in the meaning that I will possibly be able to plant veggies year round.  Of course winter and summer being pretty tough on the plants.

Any way...Even before I made the decision on the garden my daughter had already checked out a butterfly book from her school library.  First book in the new school, Mama is proud.  She mark the pages that had butterflies that live in our region and then made a list of plants for hosting.  Yep my girl.  We are researchers.  We love to write things down and then I lose said paper.  That is why I made the blog.

Research is important!  It is important to know what plants are invasive, if they will prosper,  are they waterwise?  

The first Internet stop I made was Lady Bird Johnson Wildlife Center.  I used this all the time back in Florida.  By the way it is just up the road from here!!!! Spittin' distance as my Dad used to say.  So much information for native plants for all your gardening needs.  Of course the Internet has a wealth of information on gardening but this is just up the road.

Next I looked up some local blogs. I have to say and, it maybe the population difference, but folks here are more of the bloggin' type.  Garden blogs are kinda like reading someones garden journal.  It's first hand experiences that will really help me figure out this new area.  Now I feel like a blog stalker because I am reading all kinds of past blog post to get a feel for gardening here.  

Finally my favorite the library and book store stops.  Always a wealth of knowledge found between the covers of a good book.  Ok, just FYI there is a place called Half Priced Books.  I have no idea if we had one in Florida but there is one in my area.  I am in love.  

From here I have a pretty good idea of what I would like to do.  I am also very please that some of my favorite plants are native here also.  Spiderwort, Coneflower, Mistflower, Phlox, just to list a few special flowers to grow here.  Now just to get them all.

Good luck gardening everyone!

Where to start

So where do you start with a new garden?  In my opinion it is best to assess the area.  Where could you put a garden in your yard.  Is it an easy to access area, safe from heavy traffic like kid, animal, car?  Are you in a rental?  What restrictions do you have on planting with property managers or HOA's?

Here are pictures of the skeletons of a garden.

Two mystery roses

Pretty sure this was a sandbox

This far corner is filled with small branches 

The only thing holding this together is the mystery plant

I am not really sure what exactly each planting area was meant for.  I know the original gardener had some plan.  The soil looks amazing.  Rich black earth for planting.  Now we need to measure the areas and decide what would be best for vegetables or butterflies.  I am so excited!

Good luck gardening everyone.

So quite

The blog has been so quite for SOOO long.  A lot has happened over the last few months (years).  We finally gave up that house.  It was a had decision but the family couldn't pass this opportunity up.  So this little born and raised Floridian is now living in Texas!

Even after a month it is still strange to say "I live in Texas".  I am still marveling at the difference from Florida.  Texas has real honest to goodness dirt as apposed to the sand in Florida.  They also have something called Fall and Winter instead of Monsoon and Sauna.   Texas also has this strange obsession with orange and white Longhorn cattle.

I am currently filling my little garden book with the planting dates and variety of vegetables suitable for this area.  Planting times are similar here as they are in Florida.  Some veggies can get start very early, like lettuce.  Of course I am not sure if that will happen just yet as we are currently sitting at 34 degrees Fahrenheit. (WHAT!!)

Good luck gardening everyone.  I'm going to just stay in for a few more days and drink hot coffee.