In a Vase on Monday: At the End of the Storm is a Golden Sky...

...and the sweet silver song of a lark
Walk on, through the wind
Walk on, through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone...

With all the storms we've been having in Texas recently, I can't help but sing the words of one of my favorite songs, "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel.  For those not familiar with the song, here is my favorite arrangement and performance of the piece, sung by favorite musical organization - The Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps, which I was honored to part of back in 2005.

It reminds me how no matter how terrible the "storms" you are going through may be (literally or figuratively), there is hope that things will get better with the help of others, through strength found in God, and with your own grit and determination.

This week's vase demonstrates the beauty that comes after the storms.

This vase, inspired by Cathy's weekly meme over at Rambling in the Garden is filled with a light pink and magenta gladiola, that were knocked down during our recent strong winds.

There is one Mrs. B. R. Cant rose,

A couple of volunteer sunflowers, planted by the birds over the winter,

As well as a handful of zinnias to brighten up the bouquet.

The actual storms in Texas completely filled the retention pond in the park behind our house (normally does not have any water in it, but was filled within an hour or two last week).

As well as brought some funky cool mammatus clouds to the area after the severe storms, which reminded me of something out of a Dr. Seuss or other fantasy book

But those were only minor impacts of the area storms.  The real damage was done down in Hays County.  My husband and I dropped off some flood clean-up supplies in Wimberley, TX over the weekend, where I snapped a couple phone pictures in areas that weren't completely closed off to civilians.

Many trees were completely knocked down or up-rooted, including cypress trees that were centuries old.  Homes and buildings were swept off of their foundations and carried miles downstream (if not completely demolished).  The force of the flood waters was unreal, and the devastation was overwhelming.

I continue to think about all those impacted by the floods and I'm grateful for the volunteers that are helping to clean up the communities that were hit.  There is hope that things will get better.  Walk on and know that you'll never walk alone.

End of Month View - May 2015

As you might have gathered from reading my or other Central Texas garden blogs or listening to the news, our area has been getting a lot of rain over the past month, including torrential downpours during the last several weeks, which has led to severe flooding and destruction in some parts of the region.

The rain has positive and negative effects on my garden.  On the positive side, it is getting plenty of water and I don't have to use supplemental watering.  On the negative side, too much water makes the garden soggy and results in root rot.  Not to mention, the heavy rains and strong winds have taken a beating on some of the plants, especially some of the tall varieties in the garden.

Let's take a look around to see how the garden is fairing after our record-setting rainfalls:

Veggie Bed

The vegetables are generally doing well, despite a couple of the tomato cages being knocked over by the strong winds.  The tomatoes, eggplant and green beans have been producing well.  The peppers are getting a slower start than normal.  I don't think they are as big of fans of the cooler temperatures and heavy rain.

You can even see a little pond has formed in the park behind our house.  This has dried up significantly in the last week.  After last Monday's heavy rains, the water was nearly at the level of the gravel path.


Shade Bed

The shade bed is filling out with summer-time plants, though there isn't much blooming right now.  Over the past month, I added some Mexican petunia pass along plants from a neighbor, as well as some Frostweed transplant pass alongs from fellow Central Texas garden blogger Tina of My Gardener Says.  I look forward to the new additions blooming later this year.


Deck

The deck border also doesn't have much blooming at this point.  Many of my parsley plants were cleared out after they toppled over from root rot or pests (I couldn't quite decipher what caused the root damage).  The artichoke additions from earlier this year are filling out and I hope they will produce next year.


Bulb Bed

Gladiolas, day-lilies and Black-Eyed Susans are going strong in the bulb bed.  I still have some open spots that I hope to fill with some perennials that will help keep year-round interest.


Central Beds

The middle beds are a bit sparse at the moment.  There are some zinnias, cosmos, and shasta daisies blooming, but most of the beds are full of spent bluebonnet, sweet pea, and larkspur plants that have dried up.  However, I don't want to remove the plants because I'm hoping they will reseed so I can enjoy the same blooms next year.

Rose Border

This is the first season for my rose border, so the plants are still quite small and only produce a couple blooms from time to time.  I keep looking forward to what this bed will look like a couple years from now.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying the sunflowers that bloomed in part of the bed.  I tried to do succession planting with the sunflowers, but seeds planted after the first round didn't take.

Pomegranate Bed

The main eye-catcher in this bed is the foliage of the canna lilies.  There are even a few plants started to show off their orange blooms.  Since I did a lot of dividing of the canna's last year, I won't be surprised if a lot of them don't flower this year.  Then again, I won't be surprised if they do flower, since they are very resilient plants.


Front Fenceline

As is the theme in my garden right now, not too much is blooming in this bed.  The only blooms are some purple ones, found in both the spikes of the Mystic Spires salvia, as well as the Black Knight butterfly bush.


Front of House

The front house borders have really filled out from this time last year when many new plants were added.  The yellow oleander is finishing up blooming while the lantana are just getting started.

In the very front bed, the vitex is putting on quite a show with its lavender blossoms, which are highly favored by many butterflies and other insects.

All in all, the gardens are doing well after the heavy rains.  I just hope the rains will lighten up to limit future flooding, but I wouldn't mind some steady rains continuing throughout the summer to help Texas continue out of drought and fill up the lakes again.

Thanks, as always to Helen over at The Patient Gardener for hosting the End of Month View garden meme.

More Rain and Today's Harvest

It has been about seven straight days of rain here in Central Texas, and the garden is loving it - not to mention all the wildlife around here that is enjoying the wet weather and break from the Texas heat.  It has rained so much that there is now a pond in the park behind our house!  It is actually a retention pond for instances such as this, but most of the year it is completely dry.

The wet weather has really been making the garden grow.  Today I harvested a large bunch of basil that I have growing next to my tomatoes.  I cut the basil back, but left enough of the stems so that it will grow back and I can harvest it again in a couple of weeks.  Now is time to make a little pesto to put in pastas and on chicken sandwiches. 

I also pulled one radish from the garden today.  It looked picture perfect, but wasn't the best tasting in my opinion.  It was definitely fresh enough, just too-radishy.  I think I had them in the garden a little too long, so they got overwhelmingly flavorful.  I also planted radish during the Texas summer, which is not the suggested season for them.  They prefer the cooler spring and fall months.  I think the heat made them extra potent and a bit too much for me.  I'll be planting radishes only in the spring and fall now.

I was able to plant some seeds indoors on my new grow shelves as well.  Yesterday I planted:

• Fruit/Veggies
• Eggplant - Early Long Purple (Martha Stuart Organic)
• Eggplant - Black Beauty (Ferry-Morse)
• Watermelon - Tasty Sweet (Burpee)
• Pablano Pepper (Ferry-Morse)
• Pepper - California Wonder 300 TMR (Ferry-Morse)
• Tomato - Supersweet 100 VF Hybrid (Ferry-Morse)
• Swiss Chard - Fordhook Giant (Burpee)
• Swiss Chard - Ruby Red (Burpee)
• Herbs
• Sweet Basil (Burpee)
• Spanish Cilantro (Burpee)
• Flowers
• Marigold - Best Mix (Burpee)
• Morning Glory - Tall Mix (Burpee)
• Lupine - Russell's Hybrid Mixed Colors (Ferry-Morse)
• Painted Daisy - Giant Mixed Colors (Burpee)

Note - I soaked the morning glory and lupine seeds for about 18 hours before planting to soften the hard seed shells to hasten germination.

Finally Some Rain!

We got a break in the 100+ degree Texas weather and a relief from the dry spell, finally!  It rained maybe and inch between last night and today, which isn't a lot by most standards, but it has become a rarity in Central Texas.  My yard and garden are definitely loving it.  I just hope we continue to get rain over the summer.  A nice big thunderstorm would be more than welcome too.  The rain is hard to see in the picture, but it happened, I promise!