variegatagal – Page 80 – gardening in zone 8a tx

Half a hale o’ bay

There she is, Miss Midnight Blue!

The rose has at least 15 buds on it and promises to give us another show before the onset of winter.

The orange mums in the lily bed have aged into a beautiful golden color. Notice the new tenant (Oertel’s Rose yarrow) is putting on new foliage? It seems to be happy in that spot, but then again, it appears to adapt to any situation I’ve thrown at it so far. The two cuttings I planted in the full shade bed appear to be thriving as well

The sedum basket appears to be doing well despite the danger of frost looming in the distance. It sits in the rosemary bed along with the ornamental kale, who are still homeless. The rosemary topiary has filled out, but there are some dried out/dead patches–mostly located at the base–that have not filled out. I am considering trimming the base to coax it into a topiary shape, maybe a ball on a stick. Geez, my camera still can’t capture that true yellow bloom color of the Moonglow salvia.

The salvias on the opposite wall are bloomin’ crazy. The intense red and multiple whites are stunning. They will most likely continue to bloom with the occasional rain we get in the next few weeks.

The Licker decided to finally sit and poise for me after much coaxing.

I couldn’t resist the $2 sale on these new Cherry Pie Coreopsis at Calloway’s. I read up on these Terra Nova introductions and learned that they had some frost tolerance and therefore suited to fall plantings. So I am eager to give them a test drive in the front flower bed.

Yes, I also did purchase “half a hale o’ bay” while I was at the store. I caught myself repeating it again–then questioned whether I should have skipped breakfast. To my relief, the cashier made the same error too and we were both chuckling at the tongue twister. I installed it on my Halloween porch display along with the obligatory holiday signage (also 50% off, I might add).

Wishlist plant of the day: Coreopsis Cherry Lemonade.

It’s starting to look a lot like…

…well, it looks like fall, but feels a little bit like winter. Today is the first day that rain and cold collided to form a prologue to winter, with highs in the 50s and lows in the 40s. I dispensed with tank tops and flip-flops today, working the garden in sneakers, sweatpants and long-sleeved thermal top. Most of the work involved finishing the man’s mulching job. He had added another layer to the front flower bed, the shade bed, purple bed, and began the camellia bed. He happened to leave nearly half a bag of cedar mulch left…so I covered up the rest of the camellia bed.

I also ripped out some of the scraggly vinca in the front flower bed. As much as I dislike removing still-blooming plants, the vinca grew into an unattractive shade of yellow and flopped around due to the lack of support. A stand of vinca still remains; I’ll be ripping that out soon. Hopefully, we’ll have a good amount of re-seedlings next year.

I got around to repotting my new Dallas (?) red lantana–not sure if this specimen is winter-hardy. No freezes yet, but I’m slowly transplanting the tender perennials and tropicals into their winter pots. I’m fairly confident I have all the pepper plants and basils I’ll need to carry me through winter, but I wouldn’t mind some color and variety either. (Remind self to bring sedum planter indoors during first freeze.)

I did get to observe a new bloom on the Midnight Blue rose, but it was yet too early in the morning to take a proper picture of it. If the weather permits, I’ll try to post it tomorrow. This may be the last flush of rose blooms before we prune it back.

Tomorrow’s forecast: highs in the 60s, lows in the 40s. Good-bye, flip-flop weather, for now.

Late year, young plants…and the wand of precipitation

Rarely do I see more than two blooms on the Valentine dianthus. I’m looking forward to seeing more in spring.

The new dianthus plantings are calling the lily bed home. They will provide a vivid border early next year. Notice the oxalis triangulis and columbine sharing the bed? Both are same year plantings. The oxalis eked by this summer, just liked its purple siblings, giving rise to the occasional flower. The columbine is one of three surviving seedlings: 2 in the lily bed and one in the shade bed. I considered them delicate, but they persevered. Let’s hope the lily bed columbines are both red.

Here lies before you a broken wand. Early this week, we discovered that the hose had expanded, disallowing the detachment of the wand head. The trigger was destroyed by our forceful attempts to remove it. I finally managed to disconnect it peacefully this morning. Now the search begins for a new wand of destiny…

Moving dianthus

No pictures today, but after my morning walk, I took my hand spade and transplanted my newest dianthus purchases as well as 3 Valentine dianthus into the lily bed. I hope the extra cool shade will spur the Valentines into vigorous growth this winter and coming spring. The new dianthus chinensis (one white and one red flowered), you may remember, were from a shopping trip nearly 2 weekends ago. The three Valentine dianthus originally came from seed and resided in the blue garden (after mis-identification).

In part sun and under heavy mulch, the Valentine dianthus seedlings struggled for the year, but one or two specimens provided some blooms. I would describe their original location as to consist of dry to average moisture, with some protection offered by neighboring oxalis. The foliage resembles other chinensis cultivars, varying from bright green to bluish green depending on temperature and season. The Valentine blooms measure larger than other chinensis flowers; the eye is more of a rose pink or washed-out red, unlike the brilliant red depicted in PanamSeed’s catalog. I believe that with full shade, the color might become more vivid.

I hope to see some vigorous and early dianthus blooms next year.

Sights and places

October proves to be a stellar month to return to the garden. Here in Texas, it’s particularly welcome after watching so many new plantings succumb to the heat this year. Only the vigorous annuals like vinca, lantana, cosmos, and marigolds have remained colorful despite the vicious summer we experienced. Now that temperatures have become more reasonable and what little rainfall we received so far has refreshed the garden, I found that not everything was lost. What a relief!

It’s like a second spring out here. Notice that I finally got the last of the pansy flats planted into the lily bed. They’ll provide a nice rich colorful border come spring. The mums I carefully selected this season are finally in full bloom. They look so much bigger since I first planted them. I am cautious about their survival, planting them late in the year when they haven’t had much time to establish themselves before winter. I plan on mulching them heavily before frost hits. Also note the yarrow cutting behind them, along with that irrepressible dichondra/kidneyweed I mentioned in an earlier post.

In the (not-so) blue bed, the yarrow has produced several more bloom clusters. The Valentine dianthus has another flower to show off, with the promise of yet another in bud.

The Ping Tung Chinese eggplant fruit is coming along nicely. I have kept it potted throughout the year but it persists in growing out of the bottom of the pot in the herb garden. I’ve refrained from moving it while this little beauty puts on weight.

We interrupt the refreshing sights currently offered by the garden to inspect the empty spaces. Yes, those garden markers are all that remain of yet another disappointing effort to foster heucheras. Both the Purple Palace and the Amber Waves just couldn’t make it this year, which incidentally was the banner year for losing new plantings. But I’ve had terrible luck with heucheras here in Texas, which has been altogether too expensive an experiment to continue. I’ve blogged about the Caramels, the Obsidian, the Purple Palaces and the Amber Waves, the latter both dying this year. These plants just cannot take a dry heat and are too much maintenance to keep looking lush and beautiful like those in Terra Nova’s catalog.

However, some of the best comeback stories are to be discovered in this dry shade bed. We had a good rainstorm Saturday night and here is the amazing result: a Japanese painted fern resurrection. This is one of two plantings in the shade bed; this particular section gets a little more light and warmth under the crape myrtle canopy. So while it is the first to go dormant when summer hits, it is also the first to revive when weather becomes amenable. I’d love to find a way to keep these two ferns happy since they always make such an effort to put out a frond or two when I least suspect it.

Other sights and places of note: the front flower bed with the Hot Lips salvia and ever-blooming vinca show (which happens to be winding down), the planter boxes and beds filled with these tiny salvia coccinea seedlings, and the bowl which is home to a White Delight caladium and the hardy Easy Wave petunias.