Awesome Joolie

My beloved ocotillo died in the stupid freeze last winter, so this year I had to put our little strings of solar-powered Christmas lights on a Texas sotol instead. That bloom stalk came up a year ago and is now completely spent, so when it comes time to take the lights down we can probably chop it down and pull the lights off that way.

I think the sotol will be happier when the stalk is gone, too. They don't die after they bloom like century plants, but it has been looking noticeably grumpy lately. (I don't think I'm projecting here.)

Here's the ocotillo in better days. I knew that planting one in Austin was a risk, since they're from a warmer, drier climate than ours, but I had to try. Eric and I took our honeymoon in West Texas and they were blooming like crazy that spring. On the last day of our trip I opened the back door to our hotel room and gasped because the back fence was made of ocotillo stalks--they were all blooming and it looked a little like the fence was on fire, and I was like, god damn! So cool. When I got home my friend Katherine and I built a drainage mound to compensate for the heavier rainfall here in Central Texas and plunked one in, and all was well for years until a week of ice and snow and single-digit temperatures did it in.

It never did bloom for me, though; I think it has to go through some serious drought cycles or something to produce flowers. Still, it was a very striking plant. Someday I might plant another one, or I might go all in on the native-and-adapted thing for the front yard instead of hosting a plant that doesn't really want to live here.  

All that is a very roundabout way of saying we put up some Christmas lights this afternoon. I also finished the mermaid mosaic this morning--the demo a couple weeks ago was fun and went well, though it was lightly attended--and I'm happy with how it turned out. I have a Christmas commission to do for a friend and then I want to start experimenting, getting a little weird. I'm not even sure what that means yet, exactly, but I think I'm technically adept enough now to start playing around.

According to our resident green thumb guy, Bryan, the office redbuds were finally big enough to be transplanted into bigger pots a couple of weeks ago. The only thing was, though lush and luxuriant, they were also pitiably weak and floppy from spending their whole lives indoors, protected from wind and temperature spikes and enjoying thrice-weekly watering.

There they are to the right, sharing the window and the beautiful Dumpster view with another coworker's large-scale jade propagation experiment. 

To compare: I planted these from seed from the same tree the same week as the giants up above, but they've been outside on the back patio this whole time. They've endured frost, heat, neglect, and not-terribly-regular watering. As a result, they are tiny but tough--the stems are rigid and the leaves are like leather. 

Bryan gave me some metro shelves and recommended I take the floppy indoor guys home to my patio for a few weeks so they'd harden off a bit before transplanting. They do indeed seem to have a little more backbone than before. 

(I have better pictures of the shelf setup, but I really wanted to show off the 1.75 inches of rain we got yesterday afternoon. The temperature dropped from 100 to 75 in about 20 minutes after the sky opened up. It was great.) 

Bryan had become so dedicated to the cause he even came over to the house yesterday to transplant the seedlings into gallon pots so they'll have more soil and therefore moisture to grow in. In exchange we let him hang out with Üter.

Eric and I also cooked him Tandoori chicken and homemade naan on my new gas grill, which I am sure you will read all about in due time; I am deeply in love with it.

So now we just water, and wait. As soon as it cools off this fall it'll be time to put them in the ground. 

In the meantime, I just put some Texas mountain laurel seeds in some pots in the front office, and I notice the redbud seeds from this spring are also about ready to pick and plant. Maybe I'll just keep doing this every year until my entire yard is choked with redbuds and becomes a vast cloud of pink for two weeks every March. 

I know! It's so exciting!

We now have a total of six redbud plants growing in the front office.

Since the last update, several more seeds sprouted, grew a little, and then failed to thrive, but these dudes seem pretty stable. I have several growing in little pots at home, too--those probably sprouted later because they are outside and subject to the whims of our winterless weather.

Anyway, another couple inches and then it's time to put them in bigger pots. I'll probably keep them on my back porch at home until they're ready to plant next winter. There's a nice blend of shade and sun back there, and I won't forget to water them if they're in a spot I walk past several times a day. 

The end about redbuds. For now. 

Bluebonnets! Last year there was a huge smashed-down dent right in the middle of our display where someone presumably plopped their kid down for pictures, the cornballs. So far, though, this season our patch has remained unmolested. The firewheels are starting to poke their orange heads up and will gradually eclipse the bluebonnets over the next several weeks.

Our neighbor's trumpet vine is going bananas right now. It seems unfair that the display is so much more robust on our side of the fence, but we aren't going to complain.

These aren't flowers, but holy crap, look at the rosemary. Here's the same bed about six years ago, for comparison. Also there appears to be a handsome man sprouting from the prickly pear. Not sure what his story is.

I don't remember what these are called, but they really are that color in real life. If anything, the blue-violet is even more intense when you lay eyes on it. I need to figure out what they are so I can buy more and put them everywhere--does anyone know?

I got a packet of Indian paintbrush seeds and planted them last fall. Exactly one has bloomed.

The link assures me that a sparse paintbrush year is normal during a bluebonnet bumper crop year, though, which makes me feel a little better, not least because those seeds are really expensive! Maybe they're just waiting for the right time.

Not pictured: lantana, four-nerve daisy, and fragrant lime and lemon blossoms. Our yard is exuberant with blooms, butterflies, and bees this month. Sometimes hard work does pay off.

Please indulge me by looking at one more picture of the bluebonnets, plus some salvia and bulbines, as seen looking up the hill yesterday afternoon. Happy spring, y'all!

After almost a whole week of rain, the sun came out and the world is blooming. I have a lot of really beautiful flowering plants around the yard I'd like to show you, but first, let's visit some of the, uh, less conventionally attractive ones.

The arugula flower is almost aggressively homely: four sparse petals with dark veins. I'll be seeing a lot of these as they bolt and go to seed. I plan to collect all the veggies' seeds this year. I mean, they come free with the plant, so why not try to save a few bucks next year?

Sometimes I stick the root ends of used green onions around the edges of pots to get another round or two out of them--they grow back pretty well. I accidentally let these get really big, and now they are flowering. The flowers are tiny and unremarkable, although it's been fun to watch them burst out of their papery pods. I guess they will produce seeds too. Probably a lot of them, judging by the looks of these things. Anyone want to plant onions this spring?

I didn't know paddle plants flowered! But this year they did, sending up big, cream-colored stalks. This particular pot of them served as our wedding table centerpiece, so I am particularly fond of it. I don't know if they produce viable seeds--they seem to propagate just fine on their own. We've got paddle plants all over the damn place here.

Anyway, the flowers themselves are small, crowded, and kind of weird looking, but that's okay. This bee sure doesn't seem to mind.

Next time: Pretty flowers!

So far two of the 18 redbud seeds I planted have sprouted. More may sprout yet. So not a spectacular success rate, no, but it's not nothing. 

Update! 1/29/16: Two more have begun to poke out. So that's 22 percent so far. 

I was puttering around the front yard this afternoon when I noticed the profusion of seed pods hanging from the leafless redbud tree. I'd had moderate luck in getting mountain laurel* seeds to grow and stunning success in planting the red yucca**, *** seeds my coworker Sarah gave me. So hell, let's plant some redbuds!

According the the Wildflower Center, you can conduct a test to see which seeds are capable of sprouting.

As in a witch trial, the ones that sink are good and the ones that float are bad.

^{"And this isn't my nose; it's a false one!"}

Unlike in witch trials, the good ones were then carefully pulled out of the water and roughed up with a piece of sandpaper.

I have them in the freezer now and will wallop them with boiling water and a long soak before I go to bed.

I really hope these sprout. I want to plant a bunch of these so I can have pretty little redbud trees all over the yard, and I want to give some away, and I just might plant some more on a neglected strip of dirt here and there.

^{Photo by Marcia Cirillo, Creative Commons}

They are great little trees for Austin--drought tolerant and attractive. They like a range of light conditions, and of course their hazy pink blooms light up the city for about two weeks every spring. The blooms and the immature seed pods are edible too, although I haven't tried that beyond popping an exploratory flower into my mouth last spring. I don't remember it tasting like much, maybe a little fruity and a little perfume-y.

^{*AKA the grape Kool-Aid tree, for its fragrant spring blossoms that just smell...purple.}

^{**Not really a yucca, I just learned.}

^{***I should really give the Wildflower Center some scratch one of these days. Their plant database is indispensable.} 

I am ready for it to be tomorrow. We're smoking a bird and having a few people over to eat it, which is one of the best things in life. The weather is supposed to be shitty, which is too bad, because I love hanging out in the backyard while the smoker runs, working in the garden and playing with the dogs and maybe doing a little day drinking. But that's okay. We can move the smoker under the patio cover and watch the rain instead.

I think I'm going to liveblog the bird smoking tomorrow, too, just because that sounds kind of fun. So I'll stop writing now; I'd hate to wear my typing fingers out.

Photo credit: Len Burgess

Today I planted the passionflower vine my friend Phyllis* gave me the other week. It was tricky, since I was planting it in sloping clay soil, and it took a lot of effort to dig a big level hole in that sticky dirt. Also there was apparently a little city of mosquitoes living in the pot it came in, so even though I had coated myself in DEET I had a tiny cloud of observers hovering a few inches from my efforts.

No problem; I got it in. I hope it likes its new home.

I put it next to the deck in hopes that it will twine up the railings. The plant itself is not nearly as dramatic as its Seussian flower, is it?

It didn't seem that thrilled about being moved to begin with, and the caterpillars were feasting on it heartily, so it looks a little sickly. But if this is a good spot for it, I'm sure it will do fine.

This caterpillar tried to hitch a ride on my gardening glove. Nice try, buddy.

Photo credit: Vicki DeLoach

My friend and coworker Larry told me these guys will eventually become Gulf fritillary butterflies, and I'm really looking forward to having them around. I noticed a few of the caterpillars strayed from the plant when I was driving it home--I peeled one off the gear shift the next morning--so maybe I'll have butterflies in the cabin of my car, too.

*Yep, there's Phyllis again. Some people have this way about them that you spend one evening with them and they influence you for weeks, or sometimes years.

Ooh, shiny!

Ok, this first one is boring because it's just the weather. But oh, wow, today. Cool air, yellow sun, blue skies, green everything else from the rain. Days like this are a Texan's reward for putting up with August.

The next thing I liked is a little boring too. Ok, boring's not fair at all; it was slow and contemplative, as is only fitting about a documentary about a topiary gardener.

I think A Man Named Pearl is only available on DVD right now, but it was worth waiting for. A really sweet movie, with lots of greenery to enjoy if you like that kind of thing. Many thanks to Phyllis for recommending it.

(I don't have a picture of Phyllis at the moment, so here's a picture of her dog Bow Wow instead.)

The last thing I liked today, or at least liked enough to write about it, is this blog. It looks like it hasn't been updated in a while, but it's written by Mad Mike, a man who spends his days walking around Austin looking for, and often finding, drugs on the ground. His lengthy account of the week he spent in jail is excellent. This Vice interview gives a quick background of the guy if you're curious.

Now, sadly, I must stop looking at things I like and go to bed. I hope your day was full of things you like too.