Early December: My only bloomers

It's early December, and I currently only have two plants in bloom. One is our massive rosemary bush, and the other is a rogue lantana that popped up in my neighbor's land, but spills over into my garden.

We're due for a freeze on Wednesday, and I wonder if the blooms will go away after the freeze.

Lantana on the left, leaning over from the neighbor's land into my garden (no complaints).

Close up on the pink and yellow blooms. I think it's a very pretty color combo.

The monster rosemary (I will prune in spring, but I'm afraid to prune it now because the winter freezes might damage it)

Nice flowers if you look at the rosemary up close.

Christmas Lights and a photo of the entire front yard garden

Today was a big first for me. I hung up Christmas lights. It wasn't as fun as I imagined as a kid.

Here's a photo of the lights and our pink lawn poodle that Christine's Aunt Peggy gave us.

I think this photo is the first one I've posted that shows the garden in its entirety. Winter is kind of a drag. The plants are putting in good roots, but they aren't showing me much to enjoy. I cannot wait for spring, when the plants will all burst to life and color.

Daytime, after I put up the lights (with a view of the garden)

Illuminated

Neighborhood Fauna: Blue

This post is the first in an occasional series I shall call "Neighborhood Fauna." Today we feature Blue. Blue is a big puppy from down the street. He likes to jump in my face when I bend over to weed. He is a sweetheart but he's damn annoying.

This is Blue. He is contemplating which of my plants to destroy and how.

When Blue walks around in my garden, he likes to destroy my plants by trampling on them. 

You can see in this photo that Blue also likes to destroy my plants by ripping pieces off them.

Blue's favorite garden activity to do is to take giant dumps.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of "Neighborhood Fauna." Catch you next time.

How are my plants six weeks on?

I put most of my plants in six weeks ago. That was documented in yesterday's post. So how are my plants doing after six weeks of warm fall weather?

The happiest plants are definitely the silver ponyfoot. It is starting to grow in volume and send some runners out. I built the rock border on the curb and driveway in the hope that the silver pony foot will drape over it and get a nice color contrast with the limestone.

Silver ponyfoot filling out.

The indigo spires are also really happy. They have put on a few stalks and grown a ton of leaves. They are getting so top heavy that they flop over.

Indigo spires putting on size and getting floppy.

RIP ghost plant. Blue, the neighbor dog, demolished one of my tiny ghost plants with one strike of his paw. There are still two ghost plants growing. One has a beautiful shape and purple color, and the other is struggling along. One concern I have for them is that my Eat Austin soil might not drain quickly enough for them, and the roots will rot. We'll see, and I'll update.

Happy ghost plant.

Struggling ghost plant.

 Gopher plants seem to be a little bit larger, but not much action there. I'm just glad they are alive.

Gopher plant seems like it's happy, but I'm not too sure.

I got my lindheimer muhly's for a dollar on sale at Barton Springs nursery. They did not look so hot when I bought them, but they were cheap. Still not looking too hot now, but there is the occasional hint of green. Hopefully all the action is happening below the ground, and it is establishing itself. If they doesn't make it, no big loss. I bought 3 for whopping $3.

Not so happy lindheimer muhly.

My berkeley sedge and firecracker fern look about the same as when I planted them. I'm glad they're not dead, but I hope they start to put on some size eventually.

Unchanged berkeley sedge and firecracker fern.

I got these blue grey sedges (back corner of the garden) (can't seem to find much about it online) for cheap on sale at Barton Springs Nursery with the lindheimer muhly. It was also not in peak condition. It does not appear to have a changed at all since planting. Same size, no color difference. I hope it takes off eventually, because it's got a great color. The fire bush has done well. It was really thirsty for the first few weeks. The leaves would get really limp, so I watered it a lot. That surprised me since I read they are very drought tolerant. Since we got the rain a few weeks ago, I haven't watered it, and it looks happy, so I think this one is doing well now.

Blue grey sedge is plodding along, but fire bush seems to be doing well.

That's pretty much it. I also planted some Turk's cap, American beauty berry, and coral honeysuckle in the backyard, but I'll a separate update on those later.

Initial planting

I put in most of my plants around the beginning of October. Here are some shots of what I put in. Apologies for the camera quality. I got a new phone recently, so that won't be a problem anymore. You can see that I started with a big rosemary and flame acanthus. Also an amazing mountain laurel and a crape myrtle (not my favorite, but Christine likes the flowers and wants to keep it).

A couple of red yuccas, two tiny ghost plants, and a gopher plant are seen here.

Some silver ponyfoot, gopher plants, a tiny ghost plant, indigo spires sage, lindheimer muhly, and dwarf bottlebrush in this shot.

Berkeley sedge in back, and some unhappy firecracker fern that I moved from containers to the ground.

Inidigo spires sage and in back fire bush.

Bermuda grass: an update

My war against the bermuda grass is proceeding nicely. As mentioned in a previous post, I solarized the yard late this summer, and since then things have been under control. A few spears of grass pop through the mulch each day, but I pull those out, and everything is good.

Well, we got some nice rain here in Austin a few weeks ago, and the advantage shifted to the bermuda grass. A ton of it popped up in some localized areas. The interesting thing is that it popped up in the areas that were not well solarized. The worst area, seen below, was hard to cover with plastic, because there was a dying red oak tree (you can see the stump) there. It makes me feel good that the areas with good solarizing did not experience a return of bermuda.

There are simply too many blades of grass to pull every one.

Time for solarizing round two. I'm using a black plastic this time, because it's what I happen to have in the shed. This should wipe out my biggest problem area.

The borders of my garden are also vulnerable to bermuda grass. The bermuda grass is really dense right up next to my garden, and so I'm seeing that it can easily spread into the my mulched garden area. That's not my land, so I'm not going to try and solarize that.

My solution is to define the border of the garden with rocks. Now it makes weeding a much simpler task. If I see bermuda on my side of the rocks, I'm pulling it. Building my rock border is going to take some time, because my rock supply (left over from previous owners of the house) is dwindling. Luckily my friend Bob has a ranch in Blanco, so I can slowly rebuild by supply with rocks I find when I visit out there.

My new rock border between my garden and the neighbor's small strip of abundant bermuda grass (I don't knock them for having the bermuda. Not everyone wants to wage a war on it like I do).

Gardens are different in San Francisco

I went to San Francisco for a conference last week. It was my first trip away from Austin since I started my garden, and I found out how fun it is to observe new plants and new gardening styles in a different place.

A few discoveries...

San Francisco is all about hedges. Everybody there makes their bushes into hedges. I think it can look cool, but it's not what I'm going for in my garden. Here's a shot of a pretty amazing hedge:

Similar to the hedges, they really go for a manicured look over there. Here are some grotesque trees that appear to get constantly cut back for a certain look and size.

There are a couple of plants I saw all over that are gorgeous. One of them is this yucca tree looking thing. It seems like it would be right at home in Austin. The other are these large trees with long leaves. They are like jumbo olive trees, and they are very attractive.

In the city, space is limited, and people do some cool mini gardens. I spotted some really cool succulent gardens, which were a surprise, because I don't think of San Francisco as having a climate for a succulent garden. However, when I looked it up, Austin gets 10 more inches of rain per year than San Francisco, so it makes sense (SF) (AUS). 

Bluebonnets

About a week ago, I planted bluebonnet seeds in a sunny strip along the fence in the backyard.

I used seeds from Native American Seed company. The pack cost about 20 bucks, and the label stated it was enough seed for 50-100 square feet. I had read that it's a good idea to get seeds inoculated with rhizobium. As I understand it, rhizobium helps the seed fix nitrogen from the air, helping the plant grow. When I emailed them, Native American Seed told me their seeds aren't inoculated:

Our Bluebonnets have not been inoculated or scarified.  We sell them just how The bluebonnets go to seed in the wild.

I don't really know what to make of that, so I just decided not to worry about inoculation.

I started by weed whacking the planting area down to the dirt. Then I tossed the seeds out over my area. I stomped my feet up and down the area to push the seeds into the dirt. And finally, I hung some twine (barely visible in the photo) to indicate to our yard guy not to mow there.

Here's the before photo, taken from our porch. In the spring I'll post the after photo. The area is definitely larger than the 100 square feet on the label, but I hope the flowers come in well from my top-notch planting job.

Bluebonnet seeds are planted in the dirt strip on the left.

EDIT March 2017: Here's an updated on my planting: http://eastaustingardener.blogspot.com/2017/03/bluebonnets-in-bloom-and-in-seed.html

My Composting Setup

This summer I bought a used composter off Craigslist. I have never composted before, but I've learned that it's pretty fun.

I am going to start a veggie patch in the backyard in the spring, so right now I'm making compost for that.

My setup is pretty sweet. In the backyard, I have my 2 chamber composter off the side of the deck. Currently it's kind of an eyesore, but I need it in the sun to get heat. When I'm better at getting my compost hot, I'll move it to a less conspicuous spot.

My composter as seen from the side of the house. I need it in the sun for heat, but once I'm a better composter, I'll move it back into this unseen pocket of side-yard which has become my work zone.

The leaf silo is long-term storage. The leaves drop in fall, but I'll need them all year to make compost. To make a big enough container, I bought this welded wire stuff. I cut enough to make a tube of about 3.5 foot diameter with plenty of overlap to help keep the shape. I used plastic zip ties to hold it together. I cut out a little opening on the bottom so that I can grab the oldest leaves from bottom, rather than grabbing the fresh leaves from the top.

My DIY leaf silo in the back corner of the side yard. I might make another one because I already filled it up with just 5 of those brown paper yard trimming bags. 

To fill my silo, I take the paper bags of leaves that my neighbors put on the street for pickup, and I dump those bags into the top of the silo. I have permission from my neighbors to take their leaves. They always see me working in the yard, and they are happy to give me their leaves. This being Texas, I don't recommend taking random leaves from strangers. I like not having to rake my leaves, and it's good for my yard to let the leaves break down into the soil.

My first batch of compost is almost ready. I think starting during Texas summer was a nice cheat that let this batch achieve the hot temperatures needed for quick breakdown. I'm getting better at mixing the compost to the right proportions and moisture levels, so I'm looking forward to see how my pile does now that it's getting colder.

Ben

Solarizing My Lawn

Our entire front yard was bermuda grass. I decided I wanted to get rid of the grass and install a garden. In doing research, I learned that bermuda grass is hard to get rid of. It is extremely persistent. And even if you get rid of it, a grass seed will just blow in from your neighbor's yard into your yard and bermuda's back.

Whatever. Bermuda grass has never met a challenger as dogged as me.

I got started a little late, toward the end of July. I did my research by reading articles published by various extension offices and by calling my local master gardener hotline.

Our front yard is west-facing with no shade and a ton of sun. I decided to solarize the grass. What you do is till up the grass. Then you get the soil wet. And then you place a clear plastic sheet over the grass to let the sun steam the roots and seeds until they die.

Solarizing in full swing

In Austin, late July was probably a little late. The days start getting shorter toward the end of summer, so you miss out on sunlight. I'd recommend starting early July and letting it go through September.

Anyway, I started in late July, and things were going great. It was hot and the grass was turning yellow. But then August hit and we had a very wet and mild month--not enough heat. In September, my plastic started to get tons of holes. I think the holes were due to the heat and the UV from the sun breaking down the plastic over time. Another cause is that when I put down the plastic, I stretched it kind of taut, removing wrinkles. I think the plastic was stressed by that.

Because it was breaking down, I pulled the plastic mid-September.

A disappointing start to my solarizing.

If I do it again, the main improvements I'll make are:
-making a much tighter seal between the plastic and the ground. (I used rocks to keep the plastic on the ground, but next time I'll dig mini-trenches and then bury the plastic in them, creating a super seal)
-starting earlier in the summer and going later
-not stretching plastic, allowing some slack
-possibly buying thicker mil plastic that would last longer in our hot Texas summer (I used 3 mil from Home Depot).
-mowing the bermuda grass down really low before tilling, then clearing clumps of dead grass after tilling and before laying down plastic. Then raking soil pretty flat. That's because some clumps of dead grass became very brittle and poked holes in my plastic. A couple dried out clumps of soil did the same.


When I pulled the plastic, the grass was pretty much dead in the bulk of the yard (at least at the surface). Shortly after, I put down compost and mulch.

Several weeks later, there are many green leaves of bermuda grass that pop up through my mulch. I have decided that solarizing was a great start, but it was just a start. Now the next phase is to just pull every single leaf that I see. My hope and plan is that if I pull every single leaf of remaining bermuda, then after a couple of years the root system will run out of energy and die out.

I will pull every single one of these for the next several years until the roots are dead. I will succeed.

First Post for a First-time Gardener

Welcome to my blog. I am a first time gardener in 78721, Austin, TX.

The story is that in November of 2015 I moved out of my south Austin condo and into my fiance's house. In my condo I didn't have a yard, but in the house, I do. The front yard was basically bermuda grass with a few large rosemary bushes, a dying red oak (planted during 2011 drought), and one huge and awesome flame acanthus.

I didn't know anything about gardening. In the beginning, I just wanted to cut the oak and replace it. My research into trees led me down a rabbit hole, and eventually I decided to redo the entire front yard.

It is October 22, 2016. My work on the yard really got started in late July. I tilled and solarized the soil. Then I bought compost/soil mix and spread it over the yard. Then I bought mulch and spread that. And finally, I got most of my initial wave of plants in the ground in early October.

It was a bunch of work during the end of this summer, and I realized that I should have been better at documenting it. Well now I am starting.