the bark tree

Low budget daffodils

Always a good idea to throw in a few more daffodils.  Possibly the best delayed gratification for the least effort in a plant that will perennialize in Texas.

Then again, I thought I was adding to my collection.  My limited budget, combined with my nagging addiction, says that I must add a few each year to bulk up over time, but the bulbs I planted last year did not return.  Boo!  These and the ones planted last year are 'Fortune' which have lovely larger blooms, but are apparently unreliable.

There are several clumps of inherited daffodils in too much shade around my backyard which I've been meaning to dig up and move to sunnier spots, but somehow my low budget method hasn't been motivational in this regard.

Lawn elimination

 

Way too much lawn.

Waaaaaaay too much.  It has long bothered me, when looking out the window (behind the orange chairs), that all I can see is St. Augustine and my neighbors house. 

In effort to reduce this oversized lawn and blur the view of both neighbors and the street, I've been slowly extending this bed along the edge of my yard, seen here as it looked during the first spring we lived here – 2011.

Last fall, I had the bed stretched out to just beyond my 'Easy Does It,' rose.

In early winter, I plopped in a Mexican Buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa), along with a couple of little companions over to one side where I could see it from the aforemention window.  

The Buckeye is a native that I've been considering for some time since their large winter seed pods grabbed my attention outside Oak Cliff's Belmont Hotel where they are beautifully planted along a walkway.

The idea of this stupid looking isolated planting was to motivate myself to dig out the area in between. Same thing I did when I first began curving this bed around the front of the yard.

You can kind of see the cut lines I made with my edger. 

Doing all the work myself with a shovel and mattock, it did not happen quickly, but the bed is now one long curvy snake, ammended with compost and worm castings, that will be widened and stuffed with plants over time.

Clashy

Loropetalum chinensis in bloom in late winter when there is precious little color.

 

Nothing special, but this holly provides some interest in winter when not much else is going on.

Aaaaaggggggh!  The two together?!  Hideous!

Add new orange hose!  Ick.

Garden guilty pleasures

My dear friend and fellow gardener says she chooses roses mentioned in the garden writings of Vita Sackville-West.  Instead of these well-bred flowers, I am enjoying some new varieties, that despite their annoying trademarked names, have big, beautiful blooms and excellent fragrance.

The two beauties pictured above and below sound like they belong in a paperback of Gardening for Dummies: 'Easy Does It' and 'Livin' Easy.'  

Ug!  These names were so embarassingly stupid to me that I avoided them until I saw the actual plants in full glory in another dear friend's garden.

I adore flowers in a color that I believe is more elusive than blue — apricot, peach or salmon. Needless to say, I immediately fell for these gorgeous roses, which bloomed quite well though just planted in my garden last spring. 

They were named to sell, or more acurately re-named — their original cultivar names: 'HARpageant' and 'Harwelcome' are uninspiring to say the least.  But they live up to the hype — they require little care and they bloom their heads off.  

My feelings of shame about these garden guilty pleasures are validated by Amy Stewart's 2010 post about 'Easy Does It' on Garden Rant.

Perhaps even more trashy is this obnoxious hot pink (but fragrant!) rose I inherited from a previous gardener — very likely my landlord's mother.  Much like the Barbie pink rose I allowed in my Brooklyn garden, it needs little care.  I let it flourish as I am sentimental about the idea that someone gardened here before me, even if her choices weren't always ones I would make.

Late season Lepidoptera

We observed a few butterfly species we don't regularly see in the garden well into December this year, due to lingering fall temperatures.  The Queen butterfly looks like a smaller brown monarch and also feeds on milkweeds.

A Varigated Fritillary takes nectar from a self-sown Echinacea purpurea.

 

I recently purchased this wonderful butterfly field guide by well known bird author Kenn Kaufman and lepidopterist Jim P. Brock.

 

Also check out this interesting butterfly website:
www.butterfliesandmoths.org

Please forgive these two horrible iphone photos of the Gulf Fritillary and the Buckeye butterfly.  If you run inside for the better camera, the lovely butterfly will be gone by the time you return.  Anyway, I thought it was interesting to show the range of visitors and remaining fall nectar sources.

Mourning Cloak

From a pile of wood brought indoors for a fire, something flew from the underside of a log.  A Mourning Cloak butterfly had flown over to the window!  

He seemed rather sleepy and confused so Brandon carefully captured him, brought him back outside and snapped a few pictures. Mourning Cloaks prefer tree sap, especially that of oaks, only occasionally feeding on flower nectar.