The Shadiest Time of the Year

This is our fifth autumn in this house and as each October ends we've noticed that the air-conditioner seldom kicks on no matter how warm the day. The sun is so low that it can't penetrate the still-full, green canopy of the two tall pecan trees to heat the rooms on that end of the house. The east end of the garden gets sun in the morning, but by the middle of the day the back garden is all shadows. As the sun swings around to the west around 3 PM, it illuminates the outside edge of the garden along the fence and then shines on the vegetable patch. After barely surviving the long hot summer, the pepper plants obey their biological imperative, using the sun at low power to reproduce and set a couple of dozen peppers. We'll let the peppers run their race to grow until the freeze warning comes - and will be glad to have even a small crop!

In late afternoon enough sun falls on the Secret Garden to trigger a few Confederate Rose blooms. Hibiscus mutabilis is a close relative of hardy Hibiscus like my 'Blue River II'. Confederate Rose can grow to tree size in Austin if sited well, but my small plant is new this year - a passalong from my friend Carole, it's still in a 10" container.


Enough sun fell through the pecan leaves to set buds on the Camellia sasanqua 'Shishi Gashira' a few months ago. The taller, older Camellia japonica did not enjoy this summer. It looks stressed and may have a handful of flowers this winter. In contrast this little sasanqua didn't seem to suffer one bit and is prepared to open dozens of blossoms.


When I wrote about berries in October I had to leave out the most spectacular berry in our yard - a tall Yaupon near the gate. The paperbark type of birch tree was always something I admired for decades but could never own. They didn't do well in Illinois and could not survive here. Now the sight of bright berries, beautiful trunks and white bark have vanquished any longing for birches... I love my yaupon!



The morning sun is enough to make these Brugmansia set buds but they develop more slowly than they did a month ago. If frost comes too soon these buds will never become yellow trumpets and the peppers and warm weather annuals will die and these passionvines will turn to threads, but the garden won't go to sleep.



Instead, as the pecans let loose their leaves, the winter sun will shine through the spaces between the bare branches. When the shadows turn again to sun it will be time to plant pansies and snapdragons, alyssum and dianthus. The loquat will keep opening fragrant flowers and when we take our coffee out to the patio, we'll be glad to have the patio umbrella over our heads.

Design Workshop - Decks, Porches and Patios

Annie in Austin wrote this post about her patio as part of Gardening Gone Wild's Garden Bloggers Design Workshop- Decks, Porches and Patios.


Each month the designers at Gardening Gone Wild ask bloggers to post about a different element in their gardens' design. I've enjoyed reading those linked posts and would like to join in this one. We like the long narrow veranda across the front of our house - but the space we use the most is the patio.

A realtor took this photo of the back of the house before we moved here in late summer 2004. We were glad to have that slab of level concrete - it would give us somewhere to put the metal table and chairs and the grill. But would anyone want to sit out there? It took a couple of years to change that barren rectangle into a place we want to be.
In October 2006 I wrote about the evolution of our patio, describing how we'd dug out grass and used packed decomposed granite to extend the usable area of our patio. We didn't want to add more concrete, but we wanted more space... the granite worked for us, and it's also permeable rather than a hard surface to encourage water runoff.
We added an arch with a Lady Banks rose, a coral honeysuckle and a clematis taking turns at bloom. We used flowers, shrubs and trees in large containers around the perimeter and made an herb garden in hypertufa troughs at the sunny end. Now the patio feels more like an outdoor room.Earlier this year I wrote about adding a disappearing fountain to the granite area right outside our breakfast room window. So far this seems like one of the best projects we've ever done. The fountain is not only beautiful, but it's been life-giving for insects, birds and animals in this hot, dry year.

Instead of a hard line between inside and outside, we now have someplace that blurs the line and connects the spaces where we live. The back of the house faces southeast, so from October to April, this is a good place to sit and have coffee, watch the birds, read, snack, converse, relax.
But in summer, when daytime temperatures are in the normal nineties, or when we get a scorcher of a year like this one, when the high temperature approaches 100°F/37ºC each day, the chairs are used more by birds waiting for a turn at the fountain than by us.

In the afternoon the sun swings around the end of the house, and pecan trees shadow the patio, giving the plants a break. The table is handy as a work bench or to set things down as I go in and out for short stretches of time - to look at what's blooming, to water the containers, to watch the birds or to do a little gardening. The sound of the fountain is pleasant as I putter around. I use the long axis to travel from one end of the yard to the other within the shadow of the house.
The grill is in shade by afternoon - we seldom eat outdoors in summer but cooking out here keeps heat out of the kitchen. If we want to sit outside we use citronella cones, oil lamps and torches to discourage mosquitoes on these hot and humid evenings.

Sometimes the mornings aren't too humid, and it's pleasant enough for coffee and a newspaper. But midsummer is not Austin's finest season. We're more likely to stay in the air conditioning and wait - remembering how wonderful it felt last winter to sit at this table, in a space open to the south and protected by the bulk of the house. That's when we'll really appreciate the patio, as we eat lunch and bask in the sun under the bare pecan tree, with a nearby sweet olive wafting its scent on the pleasantly cool air.

Here's a link to Nan's wrap-up of gardeners who wrote about Decks, Porches and Patios.

Annie in Austin wrote this post about her patio as part of Gardening Gone Wild's Garden Bloggers Design Workshop- Decks, Porches and Patios.

Midsummer Visit from Puck

"Midsummer Visit from Puck" was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.


Until the solstice on June 20th the 'Cupani' sweet peas managed to open new flowers each day, but they turned to straw over the weekend. I pulled them up today and looked for seeds but found only three small undeveloped pods on the vines - did the 'Cupani' use all its strength to bloom instead rather than make seeds?

Once the sweet peas were gone light fell on a few seedlings from last year's Blue Pea Vine, Clitoria ternatea, also known as Blue Butterfly Pea. Their growth was so rampant last year that the obelisk could barely hold them so this late start may work better. There should be a Moon Vine, Ipomoea alba, on the obelisk, too - I don't see any sprouts so am soaking a few saved seeds.

The very last flower of Hemerocallis 'Prairie Blue Eyes' opened yesterday for Midsummer's Eve. This daylily is pretty tough, opening every one of the flowers on the scapes as the blooms grew progressively smaller through the days of relentless heat.


I thought about celebrating Midsummer's Eve - but if any fairies were dumb enough to stay in Austin this summer they're lying low now! Squirrels disturbed some of the work done by the Fairy Garden consultant last spring, but until a couple of weeks ago the little pool was in place. I'm only showing you a few feathers, but one morning there were wings on the lawn of the secret garden - ripped off and left by one of the many cats whose owners let them roam the neighborhood.Finding bird wings was bad enough - what if it had been a pair of ripped-off fairy wings, instead? So I closed the pool by turning it upside down... it can still shelter a fairy from a hailstorm, or allow a toads to hide underneath.Frances of Faire Garden is a sort of fairy garden expert, who stocks her garden with plants fairies like - ferns and mossy beds and elfin thyme. Although the pink false indigo is alive, the ferns are drying up here, the sparrows keep the thyme clipped short and moss dislikes hot, dry alkaline soil. I think most fairies have moved to Tennessee or Washington State or Maryland, but it seems that the mischievous Puck has less fear of heat and drought.



Since we moved here nearly four years ago the trees behind our back fenceline grew unmolested, leafing out each spring and casting dappled shade. In response I've chosen plants that were suitable for shade and have enjoyed the illusion of privacy provided by those leaves, especially admiring the saucer magnolia which draped down on my side of the fence, masking the bulk of the looming house on the other side, with its windows and balcony all seemingly designed to look into our yard.


Who else but Puck could have been at work yesterday, whispering into my neighbor's ear? Why else would anyone employ a tree service to raise the canopy of the trees on June 23rd with the temperatures rising to our daily 100 degrees?

From our back door and from the breakfast room windows we now see ugly bare trunks and that looming stone blockhouse instead of leaves. Since their house is on a slope the pruning allows them a much better view into our garden and windows. It looks much worse than in the photo; I'm trying to respect their privacy.



We on small lots are always at the mercy of what happens next door and this year's storms have changed many of your gardens. MSS at Zanthan is dealing with sun on shade lovers since a neighbor's tree fell in a storm, Garden Girl Linda suddenly lost her private spaces, Zoey will soon have a view of a huge garage, and back in fall 2006 a gigantic house was built behind Ki. Several of the Divas of the Dirt have seen shade gardens suddenly exposed to sun when trees were removed on the other side of the fence and then had to scramble to redesign their gardens.


Now it's my turn to try to see a pruning as an opportunity instead of a minor disaster. I repotted the larger plumeria and stood its pot in the border - maybe it can cast enough shade to keep the plants below from dying from the sudden increase in light. I also rearranged the pots on the 'growing on' table so the most sun tolerant can act as parasols for others - and will need to monitor them closely. I will fertilize and water my young evergreens while urging them to grow taller than the fence and I'm already planning what will be planted in late fall.

Luckily the area where the 'San Antonio Rose' hippeastrum grows was unaffected by the pruning and it still has dappled shade.

Yesterday was a very unsettling day. It was good to get a few tomatoes big enough to slice for sandwiches. It was bad to lose our privacy. But it was even worse to lose George Carlin. That news put the tree trimming into perspective.

My favorite routine was his comparison of baseball and football.



There are many versions of this classic comedic comparison, including one he used for the very first Saturday Night Live show, but this one was on YouTube.


Thank you, dear readers, for letting me vent about my unhappy Midsummer's Eve experience! Now if you'd like to see someone properly celebrate this ancient festival, go over to Faire Garden where Frances describes an evening filled with whimsy and glitter.

"Midsummer Visit from Puck" was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.

He Saw/She Saw

He Saw/She Saw was written by Annie in Austin for the Transplantable Rose


She said

I love to look across the fountain

At the green and white caladium

Under the tree

It looks so peaceful

In the shade


He said

I like to look across the fountain

Where the chair glows yellow

At the vegetable garden

Where tomatoes grow

In the sunWhat would happen if they switched chairs?


Happy Garden Bloggers Muse Day from Philo and Annie!