Spring Tour - Backyard

The earth is awake and alive for Spring. Before I get carried away with photos of individual plants, I want to orient you in my yard. I love wide shots of gardens. They give you a sense the space and help you picture how the plant combinations work together. Seeing plants from afar also helps me learn about their light and moisture requirements.

So join me on the tour... first up, the backyard.


When you open the side gate and step a few feet down that gravel path, you can see espaliered figs and coral honeysuckle on the left and veggie and herb beds ahead and on the right.


When you round the corner, another veggie bed and the arbor come into view.


Turn around and you will see the side bed veggies, the beginnings of our air conditioner screen and a rain barrel.

I'd love to have a bunch of sun-loving tall flowers along this wall (maybe roses), but veggies take priority. There are plenty of flowers that I can plant in part-sun, but veggies require full sun, which is in short supply, so this spot goes to them.


The view from the back corner looking toward the house. Note the beautiful Miss Bailey sitting pretty on the patio for the tour.


Our summer relief, the arbor.


The view from the back door toward the grassy area. As you can see my two-year-old xylosma hedge was hit very hard by the freeze. I hope this was an isolated incident because I am counting on those plants create some privacy from my neighbors' yards.


Along the side of the arbor is my part-sun, full-sun and even shady flower bed (depending on where you are relative to the rose bush) that eases the transition to Bailey's grass.

One more shot of the pillared rose since this is its big season and it's about to undergo a major pruning.


Bailey's grass and my slow-to-grow foundation plants.


Around the corner on the other side of the house is No Man's Land. This area used to have a horrible slope, but we added some railroad ties and leveled the ground with mulch. We also built a second compost bin out of pallets.

Every yard is entitled to its ugly area, but I'm trying make this space pretty by tucking some shade-lovers into the pocket between the railroad ties and the fence. (We left a gap so we wouldn't trap moisture or put weight against the fence.) I'm hoping that MomMom will give me some fire spike cuttings when we visit her soon. I might paint the new compost bin too. I found a can of dark blue outdoor grade paint in the garage. We shall see...


The last stop on today's tour, a view from the compost toward the xylosma.

Bulbs

I'm branching into an area of gardening that I've never tried before: flowering bulbs. In the San Antonio, growing bulbs is and intermediate gardening skill. Here, the classic spring bulbs (tulips, daffodils, crocus, hyacinth) don't get enough chilling time to perennialize so if you want swaths of flowers year after year, you have to dig and refrigerate the bulbs (too much work) or buy varieties that don't need eight to sixteen weeks of cold.


There aren't many nurseries in town (even independent ones) that sell naturalizing bulbs. Shades of Green does, however, and that's where I picked up some huge narcissi -- sugar cups and avalanche. One bad thing about bulbs is that you need to plant at least twelve in a clump to make an impact, and at $2.25 a bulb, the cost adds up fast. But if they multiply each year, it will be a good investment.


Travis bought me these little grape hyacinths from a big box store as a thank you gift. (You know you're a garden nut when your husband buys you bulbs instead of flowers.) Muscari neglectum perennialize easily here, but I think these are muscari armeniacum so I'm probably just whetting my appetite for a big purchase of neglectums next year (neglect 'em, what a descriptive name). I planted the grape hyacinths along with the big narcissus near the driveway where they will be noticed but aren't so close to the sidewalk that neighbors will be tempted to help themselves to a bouquet.


The grape hyacinths came in a bag with some regular hyacinths that I'm certain won't naturalize here, but that's ok. I planted them in my backyard border garden where they will look exotic while I'm waiting for my other plants to fill in.


Another challenging thing about spring bulbs is that you need to buy them in late September when stores start stocking them, but you have to wait until almost November to plant them. (Very hard for an anxious gardener to do.) If you plant them too early, the bulbs misread our warm weather and think it's spring and time to grow (similar to the effect you create when you force bulbs indoors). If you wait to buy them, only the small ones will be left (if there are any at all), and small bulbs mean small flowers.

I waited until mid-October to look for bulbs at Rainbow Gardens and there were only six left. This was one of the best narcissi specimens they had. (The close crop makes it look much bigger than it is). Bummer. Of course I bought all six bulbs because I was afraid Shades of Green would be out too. Kudos to them for keeping a good stock.


This is a ranunculus tuber. It's an annual flower in San Antonio. Travis' special request was for 24 of these -- 12 white and 12 red. I planted them in the backyard between the foundation shrubs. It would be a treat if the ranunculus bloom during Valentine's season.


To get the bulbs off to the best start, I soaked them for a few minutes in a mix of seaweed and liquid fertilizer and then rolled them in dry organic fertilizer. Central Texas Gardener recommended a similar technique in this week's segment about bulbs. (Skip ahead 20 minutes in the episode. If you're interested in bulbs for South Texas, it's a very informative segment. This list of bulbs for San Antonio is also helpful.)


If everything goes as planned, I'll have beautiful flowers to show you in February and March.

In other news, this weekend we planted several veggies and herbs. We're a little late, but maybe they will work out. We planted swiss chard, spinach, leaf lettuce, parsley, cilantro and onions. I also put out the Larkspur seeds that we collected last year.

Walking Joy

I was in the right place at the right time and found the last plants I needed for my new bed. Since March, I have been looking for an iris with strappy foliage. I was inspired by the Siberian Iris, but they don't do well in San Antonio. At the GVST booth at CPS Energy's Live Green Fest a few weeks ago, I bought two Walking Irises for $10.


I'm not familiar with Walking Irises, but I'm excited to learn. They can grow in part sun, which is good because my climbing rose is creating more shade than I anticipated. In the early spring, Walking Irises produce buds at junctures along the sides of the foliage. The buds swell and then unfold into silky flowers (click the link; you won't regret it) that last only one day. The plant gets its name because, after the flower shrivels, new leaves and roots form at the juncture. The growth forces the mother strap to bend to the ground, allowing the new plant to root in the soil, thus the "Walking" Iris.


You might have wondered from my first photo whether Bailey broke my Autumn Joy Sedum. 'Tis true. The plants were too small and her paws are too big.

Luckily, plant addict that I am, I always enter big box stores through the garden center and I found these Autumn Minies (minies, is that the plural?) for $4 each. Whoot!

So with my new irises and my replacement sedums, my bed is complete. Now I'm waiting for things to fill in. (And holding my breath to see how much shade the rose creates.) Click the photo if you want to see tags identifying each plant.

Black and Blue . . . and Purple Too

Tropical Storm Hermine created some wash out that did a little damage to the base of our black and blue salvia (salvia guaranitica). While I was fixing things up, I noticed for the first time what beautiful purple stems this plant has. They aren't touted as one of its selling features, but they should be. They're gorgeous!

We bought our black and blue when it was only a foot tall without a single flower. The nursery signage sold us on the plant, but when I got home and read some reviews from other Texans, I was concerned that it might become a garden thug. It spreads by rhizomes. [Shutter] When we moved in, we spent many frustrating months pulling out purple heart, which also spreads by rhizomes, so I had some reservations.

Thankfully we haven't had any trouble with our black and blue. We grow it near a fence so it gets more shade than it would prefer, and maybe that is what is keeping it in check. It's a little leggy but not too much and the looser form means that I'll be able to put some extra plants near its base.

Fall Aster

I was so excited to see the first bloom ever on an aster that I planted at the end of May. I wasn't expecting it to flower until the fall so I went back to the American Meadows page to read up on what I bought. Evidently this cultivar, aster frikartii Monch, starts blooming in early summer and goes through the fall. That means that next year I can expect blooms even earlier. Awesome.

Spring Challenge

My challenge this spring is to create a pleasing transition from the gravel to the grass in our backyard. This will be my first solo foray into landscaping design. To prepare, I've been studying The Perennial Garden's Design Primer. I highly recommend the book. The authors show lots of examples of good design then break apart the elements to show you why the design works.