Thought Pops - 5th Blogiversary, Tomatoes and Ponds

("Thought Pops" started in September 2006 - this is Edition 7)

At the Start of Year Six
On June 7, 2006, the Transplantable Rose blog featured a photo of 'Blue River II' Hibiscus. In swift succession came a complaint about hot pink crepe myrtles, a link list of other blogs in the sidebar, my thoughts on three movies (Prairie Home Companion, Jumping Off Bridges and The Puffy Chair) , a lively discussion with several commenters about mislabled plants, dips into genealogy & passalong plants, notes on a local nursery, ruminations on the botany found in the book Gone With the Wind, a look at the Austin Pond Tour and a photo of a bowl of tomatoes.
During the first few weeks comments came from local Austin people and others very far away. MSS of Zanthan Gardens, Pam/Digging, RSorrell, pioneer bloggers MarthaChick and Linda Ball were all from Austin. But Amy Stewart, Trey Pitsenberger, Andrea & Bliss-ful Angela were in California, Anthony was in New Jersey, Amy in Alabama, May Dreams Carol in Indiana, Illegal Hannah and Blackswamp Kim were in Ohio, Lost Roses in Colorado, Xris in Brooklyn, Kerri in New York State, Janet in Ontario, Christopher in Hawaii (he's now in Carolina), Silvia in Ireland, La Gringa in Honduras and Stuart in Australia. What a thrill! Visiting one blog led to another and I reordered the ever-growing linklist by geographic location. It made me feel good when people said my idea helped them find other gardeners with similar conditions.

Five years isn't long ago by most standards but blog-years may be more like dog years. Many blogs I loved to visit are now dormant or disappeared (oh, Hank! How we miss the County Clerk!). Some of those first commenters are gardenblogging superstars! Blogs both active & dormant are in the old sidebar list. Active blogs are also in the blogger list module on Annie's Addendum.

As for me, I'm still here - the posts are less frequent and more conversations take place on Twitter than in the comments, but it's still good to be part of the garden blog world.

Hibiscus 'Blue River II' and Crepe Myrtles

The 'Blue River II' Hibiscus moscheutos, subject of my first post, has bloomed for me every year since 1993, moved from Illinois to Austin house #1 to this house. Early heat & no rain have kept the stalks under 4-feet tall this year... in rainy years they've stretched to more than seven feet. Although the pink crepes in post #2 still reign in the neighborhood, my crepe myrtles also bloom in white and purple. I love the white of the hibiscus with the purple of this young 'Catawba' crepe myrtle, which is about the same height as the Blue River 2. Another youngun was labeled 'Zuni', but until it blooms we can't be sure.

Tomatoes of 2011
In cooler 2006 the tomatoes didn't even get going until late June. In super hot, super dry, super windy June 2011 we already had tomatoes in late May ... some large enough to slice for tomato & red onion sandwiches,
Most of the larger tomatoes are already gone and what's left has been pulled off their crisping stems to ripen inside. The regular tomatoes turn red slowly, 2 or 3 at a time along with a few Juliets. We'll enjoy the steady, modest supply while it lasts. ('Juliet' and a couple of cherry tomatoes are the only tomatoes still forming new fruit.)
This year we even savored vine ripened(!!) tomatoes thanks to a couple of passalong wire compost bins from the Wabi-Sabi Home & Garden. (And thank you RBell/ The Lazy Shady Gardener for loading them into my car!)Instead of using the bins for compost, my idea was to flip them over to keep squirrels from eating the tomatoes. The protective cages looked pretty cool after Philo painted them and added handles salvaged from previous projects. (That counts as Wabi Sabi, doesn't it?)This cage covered a container planted with 'German Johnson'. MayDreams Carol calls this her favorite tomato, a memory of her grandmother, and I wanted to try it! Would it grow in a pot? With plenty of compost, organic fertilizer and water it did OK - we harvested 5 beautiful tomatoes - true slicing size and absolutely delicious. Since critters have swiped most of the netted 'Black Krim' tomatoes that were planted in the garden, my plan is to try 'Black Krim' in a pot under wire next time!

Those are NOT 'Black Pearl' Peppers
In 2011 I bought a couple of 'Black Pearl' ornamental peppers and quite liked them, although birds or critters also liked them so the peppers didn't stay on the plants very long. In late fall I potted one for the windowsill. It survives and now decorates the patio table with its round, almost black fruits.
This spring I noticed unlabeled, dark-leaved peppers in the vegetable section at Countryside Nursery and planted three of them nearer the house. Well, surprise, surprise... my original ID was obviously wrong since the once-dark leaves surrounding the almost-black peppers are purple and green and cream. A search of varieties makes me pretty sure this is 'Purple Flash' pepper. 'Black Pearl' looked good in the triangle bed last year with the orange cosmos, but this one looks just fine in the wall bed.
The Annual Pond Tour
In July 2006 I made four short posts about the Austin Pond Society's annual Pond Tour (at the time, it was really difficult to upload more than one photo per post to Blogger). We returned for the next tour in July 2007
For 2008 we did something a little different - my husband Philo made a music video of my Garden Pond Song filled with photos and video footage of many beautiful gardens we'd visited on the tours. We couldn't attend the 2009 tour but reported on both Saturday and Sunday in 2010.

The 2011 Pond Tour will be held this weekend, June 11th & 12th. Details are at the Austin Pond Society website, linked above, with a preview at KLRU-TV's Central Texas Gardener You-Tube site. One of this year's ponds was a favorite in 2008 - a genuine original home made Austintacious tropical paradise - where even the humble water closet became a water feature:

Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to leave a comment over the past 5 years. I will keep hoping to meet many of you in person some day.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

Thought Pops, Edition 6: Roofs, Roots, Retrospection and Lavender

THE NEW ROOF
The Hail-damaged roof is gone and the new one seems to suit our cottage very well! I had been dreading the process, fearful for the many, many plants both in the ground and in containers on all sides of the house. Then someone in our extended family recommended Mitchell Construction. In addition to the way the roof itself was done, I was pleased that the company treated my concerns seriously and the way all the hard-working people involved avoided damage to the garden. Attention to detail and care with picking up every bit of debris made it much more pleasant than a previous roofing experience. When the work was finished Alan Barber asked Philo to climb on the roof with him to survey the new shingles. From this angle you can see the stacks painted to blend with roof - a nice touch.


ROOTS
For the last week I've been on a genealogy bender, ever since my friend Ruth recommended that I give the Pilot Search feature at FamilySearch.org a look. I've used the site before, but hadn't tried that particular search engine. Just about every name on my lists was plugged in and many records appeared that I hadn't seen before. One part of the family tree used to stop with Kunigunda but not any more! It was amusing but not surprising that my great-great-great grandparents turned out to be 'Joseph' and 'Elizabeth'... those names appear over and over through the generations.

A WHOLE DECADE
Ten years ago today, I snapped the garden photo above, then my youngest son & I drove to O'Hare Airport in Chicago, flying to the old Mueller Airport during its last days of operation. We got off the plane, met Philo, and took our first look at our future hometown of Austin, Texas. Philo had been working here for a few months, commuting back and forth to Illinois so this was his chance to show us around the new territory. We drove through likely neighborhoods, walked around downtown and saw 6th Street, checked out the University area, drove along the scenic Capital of Texas highway over the Pennybacker Bridge, ate at The Old Pecan Street Cafe and became acquainted with Taco Cabana. We returned to Illinois, then a month later we flew into the brand-new Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and went househunting. These flowers opened today on a daylily called 'Vi's Apricot', a plant that was happy in our llinois garden. We brought it along with us, to bloom and grow in Texas. The original deal was we'd stay 3 years. We're all still here.

LAVENDER STICKS

This year a couple of Sweet Lavender plants lived over winter, then made enough long stems to make a sweet and simple Lavender Stick as described by Elizabeth Lawrence in Through The Garden Gate. You can find step-by-step instructions at my other blog, Annie's Addendum. A lot of stuff seems to end up over there lately! You might also enjoy old Illinois iris lists or the photo of a Cactus with daffodils.

Thought Pops, Edition 5: Buds to Iron Man to Rain

COMPANY IS COMING:

This Michelia figo was in bloom on April 3rd, 2008 when MSS of Zanthan Gardens brought MayDreams Carol to my garden but this year the flowers are open in March. We're expecting visitors in a few weeks and I hope a few flowers hold on so the guests can feel the silkiness of the petals and catch the fragrance that gives this plant its common name "Banana Shrub".

My April guests won't be here in time to drink in the grape soda scent of the "Big Drunk Bean" above (Nicknames for Sophora secundiflora include Mescal Bean, Big Drunk Bean and Texas Mountain Laurel) but this March guest buzzed in on time.

A month from now the Coral Honeysuckle/Lonicera sempervirens might still be blooming but the 'Lady Banks' rose/Rosa banksiae 'Lutea' will be done. The entwined green leaves enhance the metal arch year-round but this electric combination happens only briefly each spring.

ROBERT DOWNY JR
Philo was quite surprised when I moved Iron Man to the top of the queue because he didn't think it was my kind of movie. We watched it last night. It was pretty silly, and it sure would be great to see Jeff Bridges in a more Dude-like role instead of as a typecast power-driven executive with a shaved head. But I enjoyed most of it. Apparently any movie that has Robert Downey Jr in it is my kind of movie.

SLOW GARDENING
When our guests come the white iris will be done but the native Red Yucca above should be flaunting its first flowers along that stalk. In Spring 2005 I paid less than $2 for a tiny plant of Hesperaloe parviflora, but had no flower bed ready for it. The small plant grew and I repotted it into a larger container. Then in March 2007 Philo and I began the Pink Entrance Garden and the Hesperaloe had a home.
Could I have had instant impact by buying a blooming-size plant right away? Of course - but I would have lost the pleasure of seeing it grow and develop until it become mature enough to bloom.


PALM FLOWERS Do those weird yellow growths on the Mediterranean Fan Palm look like a promise of flowers to you? If Kerri hadn't blogged about flowers on her potted palm I might have thought it was some kind of fungus. Isn't it cool that an Illinois-born woman gardening in Austin, Texas can learn about Palm flowers from an Australian-born woman who gardens in upstate, snowbound, non-Mediterranean New York?


DRY SPRING IN TEXAS
The white iris (probably Iris albicans) are blooming in three borders - seen here with some snapdragons that just started reblooming after making it through a second winter.
In two facing borders the tall, fragrant, pale peach iris are in full bloom. Now 'Amethyst Fire' iris from Pam/Digging are in flower, too.
I hope Henry Mitchell is wrong, and that the perfection of the iris will not call down a major hailstorm. But if the iris must be sacrificed to make the clouds rain down on us so be it - we need rain that badly!
The Leucophyllum frutescens, AKA Cenizo AKA Purple Sage AKA Texas Barometer Bush says it might rain and so does Jim Spencer. And I have a new rain gauge ready to go.

Thought Pops, Edition 4: Tropic Thunder

This post, Thought Pops, Edition 4: Tropic Thunder , was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.



Can it really be almost two years since the last "Thought Pops" post? That tag was made up to designate a post with unconnected ideas, so it's useful for this misty day in January. We're getting only mist- not rain - but with possibilities for freezing sleet and rain tomorrow night. The pale peach iris that opened this morning may be in for an unpleasant surprise.


Texas Home and Garden Show
Philo and I went to the Texas Home and Garden Show yesterday courtesy of Lindsey George. Thanks, Lindsey! We didn't expect a lot of gardening products so weren't disappointed that the emphasis was home improvement. After interesting conversations with many of the exhibitors we came home with a few purchases and lots of information and literature about future house projects. Philo likes browsing (and grazing) at the food booths - he found some good stuff at Joy Peppers of Austin. We bought the Blueberry jalapeno jelly and love it!


Someone Has Eaten My Daylily
For GBBD on the 15th I showed you a confused daylily in bud. That bud opened and more buds were in waiting. How odd to see a daylily in flower with narcissus!

There are no buds in waiting now - the entire stalk has been bitten off - by a squirrel, no doubt.



Another Flower Open
The Camellia japonica 'Pius X' had no open flower for Bloom Day, but there's one today. Only two more buds left - sure hope squirrels don't find them delicious, too.

Attn Ben Stiller!
Although the all-male cast was irresistible (Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Steve Coogan, Matthew McConaughey, Nick Nolte, etc.), I refrained from seeing Tropic Thunder at the theater last summer. Seeing Mamma Mia with an audience was fun, but I wasn't so sure about seeing this rowdy comedy with a crowd. When Robert Downey Jr was nominated for the Oscar for best supporting actor last week, the DVD was serendipitously waiting on the coffee table.
Did anyone else see this loud, violent, funny, very 'R', over-the-top movie about making a movie? Should I admit how much I liked it? I also watched the actors' commentary track and if there were an Oscar for acting on the extra tracks of a DVD, Robert Downey Jr. should probably get that one!
The commentary told which scenes on the DVD were not in the original movie - including many of the scenes I liked best. Directors feel obliged to cut out exposition and dialogue and amusing asides to move a movie forward and make it commercially viable.


But like Tristram Shandy, I'm all about the asides.



This post, Thought Pops, Edition 4: Tropic Thunder , was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.

THOUGHT POPS, Edition Three

I WON A MAJOR AWARD! And it was Fra-gi-lé!

Did any Christmas Story fans immediately think “leg lamp”? The box was smaller, but I won something equally cool, and all I had to do was identify this mysterious photo on La Gringa’s Blogocito:

There are lots of cycads, including Sago Palms at the Hartman Gardens, and this photo sure looked like new growth unfurling to me. Then La Gringa showed the Cycad, fully unfurled, and said that I was the winner.

La Gringa has been my guide to so many fascinating people, plants, creatures, customs and places that I was a winner just by visiting her blogocito, but she also sent me a surprise, all the way from Honduras.

First some Honduras souvenirs – note pads. Then out came a bag of Honduran-grown coffee. Philo & I brewed coffee and like it a lot – it’s a very smooth brew.

And then even more prizes appeared!


La Gringa sent the cute magnet girls to represent the ‘Divas of the Dirt’, along with this very useful case for glasses with zippered pocket and neck cord, and a beautiful windchime made of polished coconut shells, which makes a cool, clicketty-kind of sound. La Gringa put such thought into the prize that she even wrapped these treasures in interesting pages from the Honduran newspapers - even the packaging was fun!

Thank you so much, La Gringa and El Jefe ~ you made me feel very lucky, and very special!

BLOOM REPORT

The Lady Banks opened fully earlier this week and is blooming with the Coral Honeysuckle. When I planted the new honeysuckle last year my hope was that the yellow centers of this coral-colored vine would harmonize with the pale yellow of the Lady Banks. I’m pretty happy with this ephemeral combination – what do you think?

In the side garden three Bridal Wreath spiraeas are blooming with a few bluebonnets.

Can you see that iris foliage at far right? My friend Ellen was given some iris last spring and the person who gave it to her promised that it was purple. Ellen shared some with me, and now we’re both hoping they will bloom in the violet shades that we crave.

Above are both varieties of spiraea and the Lady Banks to compare their bloom and leaves. That’s Rosa Lady Banks Yellow at left, with the longer-leaved, larger flowered Spiraea cantoniensis(?) in the center. I’m not sure of the botanical name for the other, rounder-leaved Spiraea at right, but this is the kind that grew in our Illinois gardens.

FLORARAMA WEEKEND
This name is no longer in use – our annual horticultural extravaganza was already called the Zilker Garden Festival when we moved here, but some longtime Austinites like M Sinclair Stevens prefer the original name, and so do I.
The festival may be somewhat soggy – we have had some tremendous downpours here in the last few days – but the weather forecasters are still promising that the rain will have moved out by mid-Saturday.

Now for the part guaranteed to turn some of you green with envy – the bigshot speaker this year is none other than FELDER RUSHING!! Yes, the coauthor of the beloved book Passalong Plants, which has already been announced as the next choice of the Garden Bloggers’ Book Club.
Will my luck hold? Will I get to hear Felder speak in person? Will I even make it to Florarama? Will I find new Duranta plants to replace the ones that died over winter? Watch this space – I hope the answers will all be Yes.

THOUGHT POPS, Edition Two

A NEW BLOG DIRECTORY FROM AUSTRALIA Stuart at Gardening Tips’n’Ideas has set up a garden blog directory featuring a blog search engine and a world map dotted with Garden Bloggers. Go to his website , also linked at left, and click the banner to see how it works. You can also add your garden blog to the map. Guess what city has the most blogs so far!

DIVAS OF THE DIRTLate January is the time each year when our annual edition of the Divas of the Dirt Diary is posted, and it went up late last night. If you’re interested in reading about what the Divas have done lately - garden projects, photos, theme song and new recipes - the adventures from 2006 can be found on the Divas of the website, http://www.divasofthedirt.com/

SATURDAY- Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center! Diva Candy relayed this notice:
Tree Talk and Winter Walk 2007, January 27, 9 am - 5 pm.
Join the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in celebrating our annual Tree Talk & Winter Walk on Saturday, January 27, where we will be helping you in “Barking Up the Right Tree”. Our event features a robust Tree Sale, with more than 80 species from which to choose. Purchase the perfect native tree for your urban landscape. Join us for walks and talks, such as how to identify & maintain native trees, & explore the importance of trees in the urban landscape. The day will include a Tree Planting demonstration, and activities for children & families. Don't forget to stop on by our Gift Store, where children's author Michael Todd will be signing copies of his book Texas State Bird Pageant from noon to 3 p.m. You can also get a 20% discount on selected items while shopping at the store (what a deal)!
This one-day free event is packed with organized walks, talks, demonstrations, children’s activities, and useful information on trees including proper tree care, maintenance, planning and landscaping with trees. Join tree experts including: arborist Don Gardner, forester Jim Houser with Texas Forest Service, arborist Guy LeBlanc, and Flo Oxley and Philip Schulze with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center . Also on hand will be participating organizations providing information about their tree related programs: TreeFolks, FireCap, and the Texas Forest Service. Enjoy the Urban-Wildland Interface exhibit, and discover information you can use for landscape planning and maintenance regarding fire safety.
Sponsored by KGSR. For more information and schedule, visit our website, at: www.wildflower.org.
Stephen Brueggerhoff, Public Programs Manager
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
4801 La Crosse Avenue
Austin, TX 78739-1702
THINKING ABOUT COMPOST Carol in Indiana [May Dreams Garden] runs the Garden Bloggers book club, with the January title called Teaming with Microbes. I’m looking forward to reading all the posts and plan to read this book eventually. While I can't do a book club post, I do have thoughts about compost.
We were composting long before we read books by Roger Swain, Eric Grissell and Michael Pollan, or had even heard the name Ruth Stout, practically the Patron Saint of Composting. We began subscribing to Organic Gardening Magazine in the middle seventies, receiving this issue in 1978.
I grew up knowing about composting in a general way: Grandma Anna had a cement bin in the alley behind her Chicago garden, complete with access door set into the front, and my dad made compost from the time we moved out to the suburbs. Philo built a compost enclosure at our first house, and when moving from one house to another in 1987, although he was willing to leave the firewood for the new owner, the whole compost pile was shoveled into sacks and hauled to our new garden.

Now our mulching mower helps the grass clippings break down where they fall. We also use this mower to chop most of the fallen leaves, digging them into the vegetable garden so they can compost over winter. We chop some leaves to use as mulch on some woodland-style beds and borders. I crack & snip smaller sticks to mix in with the mulch, and occasionally put citrus peels through the blender with water, pouring the slurry in garden beds. But we no longer have a designated compost pile or bin.

Our Northern yards were narrow and long with space for a compost pile a reasonable distance from the house. But this neighborhood has irregularly-shaped lots that are wide but very shallow, with short, winding streets. Our lot and the other 4 lots with which we share property lines don’t have right angles – they’re more like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Since we have no ‘out-of-the-way corners’, from any given location in my yard it’s a very short distance to a dwelling, whether my neighbors’ or my own. Instead of being manufacturers of compost, we have decided to be consumers of compost.

And you know what? It feels pretty valid to me. We can buy all sorts of compost from local organic dealers, sometimes going to the you-dig places like Garden-Ville and the Natural Gardener. We buy a great deal of Texas Native Hardwood Mulch, made by a firm here in Central Texas; using it helps keep tree trimmings out of the landfills. We buy organic liquid composts and soil activators like Medina Soil Activator and Terra-Tonic, Medina Hasta-Grow and LadyBug products.
Although we enjoyed our years of making our own compost, buying organic compost products is a good thing, too, encouraging these companies to continue composting on a large scale.

THOUGHT POPS

This photo was taken at a place I dearly love, the Elisabet Ney museum in the Hyde Park area of our town.
Tomorrow is Museum Day in Austin – some locations are open free of charge, others have special events for the day and a few have food involved. Here’s a link to the Austin Museum Partnership.



There’s an Iris sale at Zilker Botanical Gardens, [today and tomorrow] sorry - it was Saturday only - so no new iris for me, darn it!.

Scroll to September 9th for details.
I grew at least 50 varieties of Iris in Illinois; some were hybrid cultivars with fancy names and fancy pricetags, while my passalong plants bore personal names like "Ruth's prairie iris", "Dad's blue Siberian" or "Vi's dwarf white".
I liked them all, and planted many tall-bearded, quite a few dwarf-bearded, a handful of Siberian and a few species like reticulata and pseudocorus.
In this 10-year old photo you can see a couple of the bearded iris that grew in our front garden in Illinois. [I have no resistance to the purple shades.]
The varieties of bearded iris is stuck at #4 in our present garden, but the numbers may go higher as more lawn is converted to mixed borders. Along with producing lovely flowers, the plants seem to do well here, so why not?

This is an interesting time to be an Austin gardener who also enjoys reading about Austin gardening. In addition to long-time local garden sites like Soul of the Garden, [from our tireless public-media multi-tasker Tom Spencer], Garden Bits by naturalist/photographer Valerie, and Zanthan Gardens from M Sinclair Stevens, there is a site on herbs and herb gardening called Horsetail Haven from Ann Marie.

While not primarily a garden blog, 'Rantor' also posts entries about what's in bloom in South Austin at Rantomat. The Hill Country landscape is frequently the subject at Lifescapes, by mystery writer Susan Wittig Albert, the creator of the herb-themed 'China Bales' series. Susan Albert lives to the west of Austin, but we'll count her as one of us!

Pam Penick has been writing and posting incredible photos at Digging for quite awhile, with newer blogs R Sorrell’s Great Experiment and my Transplantable Rose beginning within weeks of each other in June.

On August 28th, we heard a welcome new voice when Austin Susan started telling us garden stories at South of the River. A few other sites that sometimes talked about gardening, like Martha's, are not active now, but may return some day. Are there any more local garden writers that I've missed?

I'm happy to be one of the Austin Garden Bloggers in such an interesting town.

Sunday AM: I think the Susan Albert link will work now.