A Big Bulbous Lie

It happens every year.

I tell myself I'm not going to order bulbs for next spring. I'll just stick with the perennials already in the ground and be happy with what I have.

But, inevitably, it's all a big fat lie.

The lie happens in stages. The catalogs start showing up displaying tulips in varying shades of glorious color, and my mind drifts back to the spring a few years ago.

When you see those first tulips start to poke through the ground in late winter, it's such a wonderful, reassuring reminder that better weather is on it's way. By early March, I had a rainbow of hyacinths lining the sidewalk, lily and parrot tulips dancing across the beds...it was lovely. Cars slowed down as they passed my house. People walking by would stop and nod in appreciation. Ah, how it made my head swell.

What's funny is that you'd think tulips and hyacinths would perennialize ok here in Texas, but they really don't. Daffodils do well, but I don't particularly care for them. So, each year I've set about buying new bulbs...and have had terrible luck ever since my big-headed experience of a couple of years ago.

Thankfully, I do keep better gardening records than I used to. After my husband and I moved late last summer (almost a year ago...wow!), I ordered a modest amount of bulbs -- tulips and daffodils -- for the new landscape, not knowing what might already be there. Well, the ones I ordered did horribly. Most didn't come up, and the ones that did were not the color I'd ordered. So I'll be avoiding that particular company for bulbs and trying another this year.

Here's what I've ordered so far (from Van Bourgondien):
Tulip 'Ballade Dream' (shown at right)
Tulip violacea 'Pallida'
Muscari 'Dark Eyes'
Muscari white
With my order I'll also get 10 free red species tulips.

(Lots of people have given VB a bad rating over at Garden Watchdog, but I've been ok with them so far.)

I'm looking to pair the 'Ballade Dream' with some solid yellow lily-flowering tulips. A black/purple Triumph Tulip variety called 'Jackpot' has also caught my eye, and I think they would be lovely paired with some solid white, similar-shaped tulips. So, credit card in hand, here I go...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch here in Texas:

It is a miserable 97° with a "feels-like" temp of 102°. The remnants of Hurricane Emily are spinning northward from South Texas as I type this, but I doubt we'll see much of anything in the way of rain.

We have had weird, individual stormcells strike various parts of DFW over the past 10 days. Last Friday I couldn't even leave my office at 6 p.m., the rain was so torrential. When I got to the house just 11 miles away, we'd barely received a drop. The next day was a different story, though. My two 75-gallon rainbarrels got a good filling.

Just one passionflower has opened on my Passiflora 'Blue Horizon' plant so far. My reaction: slack-jawed wonder, followed by the uttering of "that's the coolest thing I've ever seen", followed by a frenzied Internet search for a place to buy more, even cooler passionflowers. The search brought me to Grassy Knoll Exotic Plants, from whom I ordered four more passiflora.

Incidentally, my 6' Blue Horizon vine is now covered in forming flower buds, so I'll be taking the coolest picture ever in a couple of days. Will be sure to share, of course. (The picture at left is not from my plant.)

I picked up a Brugmansia Double Purple at North Haven Gardens on Friday for the bargain basement price of $9. It is about 4' tall and was in desperate need of repotting, which I did this morning. Once it recovers a little and the blooms resume, I'll take a picture of that too. It's breathtaking.

The tomatoes have been late in forming this year. Usually I enjoy two harvests here in North Texas -- one in June and a smaller lot in late October -- but our rainfall has been nothing short of pathetic this summer. Plus, we had a run-in with a family of rodents a month or so ago, and they especially loved my tender young tomatoes as they were forming. One rat also apparently liked chewing the stem of my eggplant...until I found the creature dead under a hydrangea. All parts of eggplants except the fruit are highly toxic, so I'm just speculating here, of course...

I enlisted the help of a Rat Zapper to get rid of the rest of them. Usually I am very welcoming of animals in my landscape but with rats, it's a different story. We ended up zapping two adults and two babies, in addition to the adult who encountered Death By Eggplant.

I have been accepted for the Master Gardener program of Collin County. Class starts Aug. 15. I feel honored and excited to be participating in this program.

It is interesting to walk around the Test Gardens at the Texas A&M Research Center where our classes will be held. If a plant survives the test period (four years, I think they said) without any pesticides or fertilizers, it is declared a Texas Superstar.

While walking through the test garden, I of course found myself rummaging through my purse for pencil and paper to write down the names of plants that caught my eye.

It's an addiction, you know, this gardening thing.

Project: Whiskey Barrel Water Garden

I don't know why or when it suddenly struck me to do it, but I dove into creating two whiskey barrel water gardens this weekend.

The whole project was a study in perfectly-timed bargain shopping. Garden Ridge had the foam/lite whiskey barrels on sale for $19 each, so I scooped up two of 'em, along with a bag of polished river rocks. Lowe's had their water plants at half price, and I also found two large Black Magic Elephant Ear plants on a clearance shelf for $5 each. (Both looked a little abused, but each had new leaves emerging and healthy-looking white roots.)

Also, I had bought three gorgeous variegated irises at Home Depot last week and inserted these in the barrels as well. They were only $3 each, and were tagged with a Latin name of Iris Pumila 'Argentea' and the common name Variegated Sweet Iris, but those names don't match...Variegated Sweet Irises are generally bog plants falling under the Latin name Iris Pallida, so I'll be watching these carefully, in case they shouldn't be bog plants at all.

Needless to say, I was way pleased with the score: about $30 for each barrel, including plants!

I drilled a small runoff hole about 1-1/2" below the lip of each barrel, filled the barrels with water and placed the plants -- pot, dirt and all -- in the water, weighing each down with the rocks. The finishing touch was 1/4 of a mosquito dunk.

It'll take awhile for the other water plants to get going, as they were sitting in boggy water in the store and not receiving any sunlight, but I think the barrels look pretty good already.

A few minutes ago, I broke down and ordered three ultra-cool (and carnivorous!) Sarracenia leucophylla pitcher plants from my friends down in Florida at Sun Coast Orchids. They are great people to deal with, especially if you're looking for some cool orchids.

On another note, thanks for your patience the past month as I got my new domain up and running. Happy Independence Day, and be sure to look for a new Organic Gardening column over at Suite101.com in the next couple of days.

Transferring Domain

Please bear with me as I transfer to a new web hosting service...thanks!

More Photos From My Garden

Rudbeckia Goldsturm


Daylily (these are huge!)


Strawflower - feels like crisp paper...thus the name.


I'm not crazy about hydrangeas in general, but these do brighten up the back yard.


Couldn't resist this Pitcher Plant at Lowe's for $10.


The dahlia bed is looking good...


Pelargonium Vancouver Centennial - one of my new favorite additions.


Orange Meadowbrite Echinacae


Some kind of clematis...Hagley Hybrid, maybe?

Mistress In Training

Well, I got the magic letter from Collin County the other day...the invitation to attend the Master Gardener Training Program this fall. Woo-hoo! (Can I be a "Mistress Gardener"? It doesn't sound as commanding as "Master", but...)

This program is only offered once a year to a few people. It doesn't mean I'm special or anything, believe me - it's just that my name came up on what is apparently a very long waiting list. Each applicant is just that; you must be accepted into the program.

The class is every Monday for 13 weeks. Luckily, my employer is super-cool about this sort of thing; I met with my two immediate bosses this morning and they were very supportive.

I've wanted to get involved in some kind of volunteer work for quite some time, and this will be perfect. You see, once the training program is completed, Master Gardeners are expected to perform at least 65 hours of community service each year thereafter to maintain their status. They do everything from assisting the County Extension Service with phone questions to giving plant presentations at schools and garden clubs. I figure I can help out with the website when needed too. Fun!

Ninety-Freakin'-Seven!

Yes, it's 97° here today, with a "feels like" temp of 102°. Lovely, eh?

This is quite unusual, even for Texas, actually. May and June are routinely our most comfortable and enjoyable months until Fall comes.

Yeah, tell that to my poor plants. I rushed out yesterday morning to put mulch on all the flower beds and got about 80% done before I had to come inside. Just too darn hot.

On the plus side, I had my first swim in our "new" pool today. First one I've had since we moved in, anyways. Still a bit on the chilly side (surprisingly), but it felt mighty good.

In flower news, I've been taking advantage of some of the online nurseries' end of season sales. Wayside Gardens, in particular, had some great prices on summer flowering bulbs like Cannas, gladiolas, and callas. I even got a large (and I mean LARGE) arisaema bulb for only $3.95.

Gardeners, be sure to sign up for various newsletters and other alerts from these online retailers in order to take advantage of what rock bottom prices they may be offering this time of year.

Greener Choices

I just ran across a great new website put together by Consumer Reports - it's called Greener Choices, and it's a fantastic, free resource for shoppers to find more environmentally-friendly products.

Just recently launched on Earth Day of this year, the Greener Choices site also has a lot of information about how to recycle phones & appliances, economical automobile choices and what the auto industry is doing (or not doing) about fuel alternatives, and more.

Where No Iris Has Gone Before...

I've written and posted a new Organic Gardening article over at Suite101.com...click here to check it out.

After a 1.5" downpour last night, things are looking lovely around my garden.

Behold, the 'Starship Enterprise' iris which just bloomed. The loveliest iris I've ever seen in person, I must say.




Also, my chives are beginning to flower with their pretty pink/purple blooms:



And, last but not least, the first of probably very many Round French zucchinis to emerge:

More Photos from My Garden

A Wild Yellow Ladyslipper Orchid I recently bought from www.wildorchidcompany.com



Iris 'Stellar Lights'



Iris 'Earl of Essex'



Daylily (bought bareroot from Wal-Mart!)



Tiarella 'Crowfeather'



Mom (bottom left) and baby (top center) ladybugs doing cleanup duty of some aphids



Clematis (Jackmanii...? Not sure, as this was here before we moved in. Beautiful, yes?)

Say No to Arctic Drilling

Contact your state's representatives and voice your disapproval over the shady, dangerous, inaccurate and unnecessary drilling effort into the Arctic Refuge:

http://www.nrdc.org/

Call Bayer on 4/21!

I just received this notice from the NRDC - please spread the word.

Although it is most famous for making and selling aspirin, the chemical giant Bayer also sells the highly toxic pesticide lindane, even though the chemical has been banned in more than 35 countries around the world. Please join a national call-in day to urge Bayer to stop selling this dangerous pesticide.

== What to do ==
Join a national call-in day to Bayer's Crop Sciences North American headquarters tomorrow, Thursday, April 21st, from 9am - 5pm eastern time. The call-in number is:
1-919-549-2828
where you can leave a message for Wayne Carlson, the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs (please note, this is not a toll-free call).

Please tell Mr. Carlson that you are calling to urge Bayer to stop selling lindane. You might also mention that:
-- lindane is an old, dangerous and unnecessary pesticide;
-- lindane has been banned in more than 35 countries, including Germany, Japan and Brazil;
-- any of your own reasons why you think Bayer should stop selling lindane (see below for more information about this toxic chemical).

== More about lindane ==
Lindane is an old, dangerous pesticide that targets the central nervous system and can cause dizziness, nausea, vomiting, seizures and coma. The chemical builds up in our bodies, and is found in blood and breast milk in people worldwide (children are especially vulnerable to its toxic effects). Lindane is also highly toxic to wildlife, including fish, bees and birds.

More than 35 countries have already banned lindane -- but the United States isn't one of them. Bayer distributes lindane for agricultural purposes here, despite threats to our health, environment and food supply.

Please call Bayer tomorrow at 1-919-549-2828 and urge it to stop distributing lindane immediately.

Please also forward this message to others, and urge them to call Bayer tomorrow as well.

Thank you!

Go Organic for the Butterflies

If you need an additional reason to stop using toxic pesticides, here's a good one.

Cake or Compost?

Our environmentally-conscious friends over in Scotland have recruited one of my favorite entertainers, Eddie Izzard, to narrate composting advertisements to be broadcast across the U.K.

Celebrating the Wonder of Life

Yesterday, our friend Mike made a couple of small, purposeful movements. Doctors are taking this as a good sign, at least for now.

Life is truly a gift, isn't it? As I bask in this good news about my friend, I will also take a moment to once again share the beauty of life around me.

Please, everyone...don't ever forget to stop and smell the roses, ok?

A nice shady corner of my East side/front garden



Magnolia 'Jane' (if only you could smell this too...)



Flowers that will eventually find their way into my front beds



Cirrhopetalum Elizabeth Ann X putidum orchid

Brief Update

I apologize for not updating recently. If you read my regular blog, you know that I lost a close friend over this past week in a traffic accident.

Gardening is hard at the moment - it allows me too much time to think about my friend Mike, who will probably never regain consciousness and will never again be the outstanding, happy go-lucky guy that he was.

I will miss him terribly.

Seed Starting Part Deux

Happy Easter, everyone. My dear hubby and I are about to enjoy a little private champagne brunch, but I wanted to update you on the latest garden happenings, since readership is starting to pick up a bit and I haven't written for several days. (By the way, a Big Thanks to everyone who is linking to Can You Dig It? Please let me know if I can add your link to my ever-growing list.)

Last Sunday, I started the following seeds. The dryer technique described in my recent Suite101.com article caused some seeds to germinate in just one day! The Lemon cuke seedlings are already 3" high.

Seeds Started:

Cuke:
Lemon
White Wonder

Squash:
Round French
Zephyr
Luffa

Watermelon:
Festival F1

Cantaloupe:
Superstar

Peppers:
Caribbean Red
Super Heavyweight Hybrid
Purple Marconi
Gypsy
Nu-Mex Twilight Chile
Fish

Eggplant:
Rosa Bianca

Today, I planted a long narrow windowbox-type planter with Melody Hybrid Spinach seeds. Melody is supposed to be more heat tolerant than most other spinachs, and I'm all about heat tolerance down here in Zone 7b/8.

Although...it's a nasty 43° today with more rain than you can shake an umbrella at. It started around 5 a.m. Saturday morning and hasn't let up since. I'm sort of glad, though; I sprayed beneficial nematodes on the lawn late Friday afternoon and they are supposed to remain wet after that. Boy, are they ever!

I've gotten very lucky with the lawn treatments overall. Last weekend, I applied corn gluten meal just before a big rain, which worked out well. We then had a nice dry period for several days before I received the nematodes in the mail and had to apply them Friday (they don't last long in their little plastic packet).

Also on Friday, the chimney guys who had placed a screen over our caps to keep the birds out came out to the house again, as they had forgotten to mount my bat house like I asked. I don't think they were very happy about it, but hey. I had agreed to pay them an extra $20 just to nail the thing onto the chimney, which I think is a pretty easy task. Took 'em about 30 seconds. Anyway, the bat house is now in place -- facing east to get good morning sun -- and we'll see if I get any bats. (I'm sure the chimney guys thought I had plenty of "bats in the belfry" already).

For those who don't know, bats are a wonderful mosquito controller. I just think they're cool! Big thanks to my brother for giving me the bat house as a gift in the first place.

I've added a Gurney's link to the vendors along the side. (Don't worry, I'm going to be cleaning up that area soon...I know it looks like the online version of Gardening Las Vegas-style.) I got a Gurney's catalog in the mail yesterday advertising a big sale, but none of the sale prices were registering when I got on the site to buy some stuff today. Hmm. Will give them a day or two to get it together, I guess. Some great prices on plants in the sale, including Pink Pampass Grass or Butterfly Bushes for only $4.95 each.

Well, that's about it...I'm off to drink some bubbly and eat chocolate with my sweetie.

Mother Nature's A Dom

If anyone wants to paint a picture of Mother Nature, I advise they depict her in head-to-toe black leather with a whip. She can be a beautiful but cruel b*tch sometimes.

Case in point: Today is the Official Final Frost Day for my Zone (7b or 8, depending on who you ask). The temperature? A chilly 43° with the "feels like" temp at around 35°. Grrr...and Brrr. No wonder the juncos hung around.

It's not freezing yet, I realize, but I did leave my Sago palms outside today. Luckily, however, I elected not to put the baby tomato plants out. They've taken enough of a beating lately; the wind has been horrific here the past couple of days and I actually scorched one plant to death (the Pineapple tom variety, which I didn't care much for anyway) because it was so darned hot on Saturday. Hot, I said. As in 80°+.

Moving on to other, less ungrateful topics...

I have taken several pictures of the separate beds in my yard and will be creating pages for each of them. That way, we can all enjoy the progression together. :) The photos will also help me to plan what should go where; I just got Photoshop at home and am going to use it to "virtually" plot the plants in the landscape with my computer. Should work out pretty well, I think, since Photoshop allows you to create layers and move them around, etc. I use it a lot at work and just love it.

Up to this week's nasty weather, the march toward spring has been pretty spectacular. The leaves are coming out on many of the trees (including my Japanese Maples) and the daffodils are giving way to vibrant masses of tulips.

My tasks for this weekend tentatively include mowing the yard and applying beneficial nematodes and corn gluten meal (if it's ok to put them both on...I have to check), and planting some 50 dahlia tubers, as my Dutch Gardens order is supposed to arrive today.

Taking Off

I took yesterday off to play in the dirt a little. It was a clear, bright day here and I really enjoyed working in the back yard and spending the day with my doggies. (It's also nice to now have outdoor speakers so I can listen to music as I work.)

My target was the bed that flanks our brick patio and faces East. It gets just a few hours of morning sun and will make a spectacular shade plant area, I think. I yanked the landscape cloth out with relative ease, but the wild strawberries growing there were another matter. Those pesky things are nearly impossible to clear. (And so much for the effectiveness of the cloth, eh?)

Once done, I dumped some composted bark chips onto the soil and worked it in with a pitchfork, leaving deep aerating holes as I went. The soil is pretty dark clay here too. *sigh*

I couldn't resist doing a little planting in the bed - I put in a variegated Japanese Maple called 'Searles' and a Hosta 'Red October' (both from Wayside) just for kicks.

I also potted up all seven of my tomatoes into gallon pots. Now begins the daily ritual of putting them in the sunny driveway every morning and bringing them in at night until they're ready to go in the ground, probably in a couple of weeks or so.

Reading Tom Spencer's Daily Muse has inspired me to pursue Passiflora aka Passion Flower vines, too. I ordered a plant-and-seed combo off of eBay last night for a mere $7.99.

Signs of Spring

Scenes of hope and beauty from around my yard...

Various Heucheras

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Mexican Plum tree

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Emerging Ferns

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Shredded Umbrella Plant

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Magnolia 'Ann'

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Cloudy Can Be Sunny, Sometimes

It has remained overcast and around 60° all day today...which is just about perfect for planting stuff.

And plant I did, now that several of the backyard beds are cleared of debris. I put two of my three Devil's Tongue (dracunculus vulgaris) bulbs -- already sending out a large cone on top and lots of roots below -- and a Lilac "Sensation" (Syringa vulgaris 'Sensation' ) by the driveway gate. Hopefully the nice scent of the lilac will cancel out the stench of the dracunculus, the latter of which many have compared to rotting flesh.

Maybe I should refer to this as The Vulgaris Bed, eh?

Apparently the Devil's Tongue only smells bad for a day or two. This is a new plant for me, and while I think the look of it is totally cool (and not a little erotic), I don't want anything that smells like rotting flesh right by my back door, thank you very much, although my two doggies would probably like to put it to a vote.

I also put my little cauliflower and broccoli seedlings into the ground. The soil in that bed is just fabulous, although I think I'll have a problem with Bermuda grass later on during the summer. There are earthworms everywhere...surprising since the previous owners had Chemlawn out on a regular basis.

Got to visit a very sweet lady neighbor who lives directly behind us. She too is a gardener and has offered to divide and share stuff. "I have lots of Coral Bells," she said, "do you know what those are?" I didn't tell her I wrote a gardening column or anything...no sense coming off like a smarty-pants know-it-all...especially since I ain't one in the first place.

This lady (I can't for the life of me remember her name) has a serious orchid greenhouse too. Gorgeous vandas hanging everywhere. I need to ask her for some growing tips, for sure.

The rest of the afternoon was spent ripping out more landscape cloth from the long back flower bed that runs parallel to the swimming pool. I was afraid of yanking too hard on the cloth and tumbling into the frigid water, but luckily that didn't happen. Between staying dry and only chipping one fingernail, I think I did pretty well today.

If the rain holds off tomorrow, I'll tackle the rest of the landscape cloth and the wild strawberry growing in the patio bed. Ugh.