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).