May 2018 Garden Scrapbook

It’s already July. The temperature is around 100°F every day, the world is a mess and good friends are in the hospital and/or rehab. So what can I do?
I can’t march but I can be registered to vote. I can send contributions to the food bank and Beto and RAICES. I can make phone calls to people in rehab. I can work on my songs. And I can still put up garden photos once in awhile. Here are a few from May.

A yellow warbler stopped by on May 3^rd. Some of the little birds like to hop around the bottom of the birdbath fountain… maybe they feel safer there? They sometimes sip from the side of the stone.

Tiny leaves appeared on the over-wintered Musical Notes clerodendron/Clerodendrum incisa on May 10^th. Every spring I watch and wait and wonder if this will be the year it stays dormant and doesn’t wake up. That will no doubt happen some spring but it’s alive this year!

By May 11^th both the pomegranate and the pineapple guava were in bloom. When they flower together the secret garden is gorgeous and gaudy. Unfortunately they never do make any fruit (the orchardist equivalent of All Hat and No Cattle?) but what lovely hats.

A couple of days later the fragrant double Mock Orange was in bloom. A decade ago I carried a tiny rooted piece from my parents’ home in Illinois here to my Texas garden. Their house belongs to other people now but I have this sweet memory.

I had an Oak Leaf Hydrangea in Illinois 20 years ago and am glad I tried it here. The shrub does well in partial shade but that comes with a side effect in my yard. The pecan trees create shade but they also drop vast amounts of spent pollen tassels on everything under their canopy.

Most of the daylilies had flowers but the number of stalks and blooms was half of what they can do in a good year. 'Best of Friends’ is pleasing even with fewer stalks and flowers.

Before snapping this photo I should have groomed the daylily by removing the spent flower. This is ‘Echo Canyon’ and it’s a spider daylily.

 Did you watch or read about any of the Royal Wedding? Some articles mentioned the components of Meghan Markle’s bouquet as being myrtle. My dwarf Greek myrtle had quarter-sized flowers in bloom that day. I think the myrtle grown in England is slightly different but this variety can survive in Austin, it’s fragrant and pretty and bouquet-worthy!

 The original division of this Shasta daisy came from a dear friend fifteen years ago. 

Last year I noticed a small shrubby plant that had popped up in a border. It looked vaguely familiar so I let it grow until fall. After it went dormant I chopped it down to 12 inches. The plant woke up, made leaves and by May 28^th a few flowers had opened. So far it looks like an American Beautyberry/ Callicarpa americana but I’m not sure yet. Will this gift from the birds be a good gift or a bad surprise? 

This post May 2018 Garden Scrapbook was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog

Clerodendrum incisa - the Musical Notes Plant

DECEMBER 5, 2014: Are you seeing this blog post on blogspot? Or are you seeing it at TexasOutdoorsmen dot com? 

if you're seeing my posts and photos on the TexasOutdoorsmen dot com site, it is absolutely without my permission. This website has been copying my garden blog and garden blogs belonging to many of my garden friends, and we want it to stop.


If you live in Central Texas you probably know one of the most interesting nurseries in Austin- Barton Springs Nursery on Bee Caves Road

It's a fine place to buy full-size plants, shrubs, trees, native plants and roses. For experimentally minded gardeners, it's a great place to find odd little inexpensive rooted cuttings to play around with.

The thermometer stood at 100F one afternoon in June 2013 but my friend Carole and I felt like poking around a nursery so we headed to Barton Springs. I was familiar with some of the small plants I brought home  -Salvia discolor/Andean Silver Sage; variegated Jewels of Opar, and Dicliptera suberecta/Uruguayan Hummingbird Plant. Here are the Jewels of Opar with portulaca last summer.

Those three plants lived for awhile, made a few flowers and died over winter.

Another little starter plant was on a table with annuals and herbs - it was some previously unheard of kind of Clerodendron and my internal Plant-Collector sensor started chiming. I needed it! Once repotted and on the part sun/part shade patio, I made sure the little Clerodendrum incisa was handwatered every couple of days. It survived, grew at a reasonable rate from June until October, and was totally ignorable. Then surprise! 

One stem on the plant developed white buds that looked a little like musical notes - and even more like golf clubs. The plant popped a few more flowers in November.

According to the Dave's Garden information on Clerodendrum incisa, it's only hardy to zone 9, so would almost certainly die if left outside in my part of Austin in winter. The pot is somewhere in this photo, one of dozens of marginal plants that spent last winter jammed into the garage.

The winter had some very harsh spells and some of the plants froze inside the garage. The Clerodendrum incisum lost its leaves and looked dormant but the stems were still flexible so I had hope. The pot went outside again in spring and the plant slowly woke up. Once again it grew steadily, looking plain but not unattractive. I kept it watered and a few times gave it a little diluted John's Recipe.

This year the first bloom cycle started with uncurling buds in late August and I found myself completely entranced.

The fully developed flowers don't last long but are bewitching.

One stem would rest for awhile then another flush of buds developed. These began in early September.

After a few days, they once again begin to resemble musical notes.

Sometimes the buds became very elongated.

Once open, the delicate flowers don't last long.

This flush has many clusters of buds so you can see the flowers in different stages.

Even the fallen flowers are decorative scattered on the ground near the pot.

After another short rest, a flush of new buds is expanding by Sept 17th.

In this photo from September 22nd, I think there are tiny ants crawling on the buds.

September 23rd - the elongated buds have arranged themselves into a chord.

September 24 - fully opened flowers in closeup.

Also September 24 - a few feet away is a tall plant of a Clerodendron relative, the Blue Butterfly plant, Clerodendrum ugandense AKA Rotheca myricoides 'Ugandense'

In a milder climate the Musical Notes Plant can grow into a small shrub, but it will be treated like a tender plant here and come inside for winter.



The post, Clerodendrum Incisa - the Musical Notes Plant, was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog, and is dedicated to my music-making friends.