Monte’s zinnias are starting to bloom. These are the first ones we’ve brought inside to enjoy.
First zinnies.
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Tag Archives: gardening
Waiting for Spring.
Though we’re already a few days into Spring, a chill has been in the air from the latest cold front. Monte and I weeded the flower bed along the fence. It’s ready for some spring flower sets. I think I’ll wait another week. St. Francis will have to hold down the fort a little longer.
Scenes from out back.
Whew, what a long week! After work I walked around our yard out back to see what I could see. My plumbago is thriving with little to no water, as usual.
The hardest working retiree has been busy this week. He spent an entire day cleaning the house (thanks sweetie!) and today he spent all day tilling and planting his garden out in the way back. Tomatoes, basil, chives, parsley, dill… and zinnies! Can’t wait.
Then I surveyed the trees out back. One day there’s no leaves. The next day they are covered in green.
At the base of this red oak I saw something I’ve never seen. Neon green golf ball sized balls growing on the branches. Very odd. Google tells me they are a sign of oak apple gall. Home to the apple gall wasp larvae till it hatches. Learn something new every day!
Enjoy your weekend!
Made it!
Yes, one more.
Yay Friday! Made it through another week. Got a very early start.
Monte worked in the shop all day. After work we picked up Julie and went out for Indian.
I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend. I hope yours is, as well.
My cousin and Aunt will be visiting tomorrow morning. After that we’ll be headed to the lake.
Late tomorrow night, Saturday, August 11, and early morning Sunday, August 12, the Perseids Meteor shower hits its peak. In Austin the moon won’t rise until about 3AM, so I’m hoping we’ll have a great view and get to see some good burners. There’s supposed to be 30-50 meteors an hour. We’ll be watching from our boat, anchored up in a dark cove on the lake. 
If you want to take a peek as well, here’s a link with more info on where and when to look.
The shot above is of yet another zinnia in the garden. Have a great weekend!
Watering day.
Liriope muscari (aka lilyturf)
Austin recently relaxed the restrictions on watering that we have been under for over a year — moving from drought stage 2 to 1. That means that we can now water 2 days a week, as opposed to 1. Our days are Thursday and Sunday. We can only water before 5 AM or after 7PM on those days. We are trying to take advantage of both our scheduled days to give our trees and flowers water to thrive in this heat. It’s been a bit of a challenge since our automatic sprinkler system has been kaput for the last 2 years. So it means schlepping hoses.
This is a shot of one of the liriope plants on the front porch. I replanted these this spring because the ones that used to flank our front door were wiped out from either the drought or the freezes during the winter.
I’m trying to remember to water them. So far, so good. They’re rewarding me with lots of flower spikes. Very dainty.
Basil invasion.
More basil.
The basil patch overfloweth. We’ve started handing out basil to our neighbors. Come and get some!
Humongous Morning Glory?
Big bloom.
I saw these huge blooms on a plant near the marina. They look like Morning Glories, but the blooms are about 4 inches across! I’ve never seen one so large. This shot below shows the plant in its larger setting, to give you a better sense of its size.
Big blooms.
Baby broccoli!
My broccoli is growing!
I planted broccoli a few months ago. The plants have grown to about 2 feet high, and now the floret heads are getting big. I can’t wait for the harvest!
Orange you glad to see another zinnie pic?
Zinnie in the garden.
The rains have been sucked up by very thirsty trees, flowers and lawn. This is a shot of one of the zinnias in the garden — a pretty fiery orange one.
Zinnies and zinnies and zinnies, oh my!
More zinnias from the garden.
First zinnie of the year.
Pretty pink zinnia.
We headed to the lake today to spend the night. Before going we spent time in the yard watering, trimming and tidying. This is one of 2 zinnias that Monte cut to bring in the house. These were the first ones to bloom. Many more to come.
Florae and faunae. And Friday.
Florae.
Yay Friday! This was a great Friday though. I got to sleep in until 7:30AM (!). Then I finished my last meeting at 3:00, so that I could run to a couple of non-work related appointments, one of which was a well-deserved, self-indulgent, overdue pedicure.
Then we went to dinner at one of our favorites, and the best Indian restaurant in Austin, in my opinion, Bombay Bistro.
Monte planted a huge patch of basil from seed earlier this spring. Today he thinned out the patch and brought some inside. It’s gonna be a great year for basil!
Then, i saw our resident deer grazing in the front yard, munching on grass and the leaves of the crepe myrtles. He, or she, was not very startled by us tapping on the window to get it to look our way for a shot. I think this is the same deer that we saw a few months ago with an injured leg nesting next to the window of our guest room. The leg looks like it has healed, but there’s a huge knob on the knee of its right foreleg. I’m glad to see it grown up and fending for itself.
Faunae.
Unfortunately, the light wasn’t great, as the deer was standing in the shade of the red oak out front. But he did strike a great pose.
Have a great weekend!
Robert Plant, age 25.
Born again – Dracaena marginata.
August 1987. I had just flown across the country to attend graduate school, and moved into a small 1 bedroom apartment. I bought myself a small 3″ potted plant – a dracaena. I thought it would brighten up the place. It didn’t even reach to the bottom of the power outlet when it was sitting on the floor. I christened him Robert Plant.
As I moved from place to place, i dragged Robert along with me – 25 years, 6 moves, 3 states.
In the past few years Robert grew to tower 11 or 12 feet high, with three or four trunks. But, this last winter, I left Robert out one night too many – and he experienced a hard freeze. I thought it was the end for my green friend. He sat in the garage untended all winter and most of the spring with brown leaves, showing no signs of life.
A couple of months ago, we hauled a dead Robert out into the backyard and cut off all his stalks. Monte was thinking about reusing the pot. But we didn’t dump out the pot; left it there for a while, and it was watered along with all the other plants nearby.
And, just a few weeks back, what to my wondering eyes did appear? But a tiny green tuft of leaves growing bigger every day. Robert lives! Welcome back, buddy!
18 carrot gold.
1st batch o carrots from the garden.
When I planted the carrot seeds, I put them way too close together. They really need to be thinned out. This is the first batch of carrots from the garden. They are small, but this will hopefully help thin out the bed, allowing the others to grow bigger.
They’re small, but they’re tasty!
