Who Wears White?

Posted on October 2, 2022 by Tina

There’s an old saying that one should never wear white after Labor Day. My garden is gleefully bucking that tradition; Labor Day has come and gone, but snowy blooms abound! Autumn is a rich time in Central Texas gardens: a little rain (very little) and gentler temperatures, (somewhat…), are just the ingredients for September and October floral madness. All the flowers are lovely, but cool white flowers are radiant in the autumn sun.

Once my front garden became a full sun space, Gaura, also known as Butterfly Gaura, Oenothera lindheimeri, was a plant on my must-have list.

The flowers look delicate and sweet, but this long-blooming perennial is tough and a sunshine-n-heat lover. It’s also proved a great pollinator plant. I’m hoping for a seedling (or several) for more gaura goodness in my garden.

Mexican Orchid tree, Bauhinia mexicana, is also in full-bloom mode, though like the Gaura, it’s bloomed throughout this long, hellish summer.

While I’m touting the virtues of white blooms, you’ll notice that both the Gaura and the Orchid tree sport blooms with a slight blush of pink.

The front garden Orchid tree sits among some Martha Gonzales roses and Mexican Honeysuckle, Justicia spicigera. A couple of volunteer White Tropical sage plants, Salvia coccinea, have joined the crew, adding more dollops of cream in the garden.

Garlic Chives, Allium tuberosum are reliable bloomers in late summer and early fall. Typically, it’s a challenge to find a cluster without an attending honeybee–they love this plant! I’ve always wondered what honey produced exclusively from chives would taste like. Amazing, I imagine. In addition to attractive foliage and sweet, snowy blooms, the chives are also edible: bulbs, leaves, and flowers!

An old-fashioned pass-along plant, Four-o-clock, Mirabilis jalapa, is happily blooming white, dainty flowers while invading the space of a Soft-leaf Yucca.

Red flowering Turk’s Cap, *Malvaviscus arboreus,* joins the scene, top left.

The Four-o-clocks open in late afternoon, providing for nighttime pollinators, specifically Sphinx moths. By mid-morning they’ve closed up shop and new blooms will open later in the day.

I also grow a deep pink four-o-clock–a stunning color–but it’s the white flowers that are blooming beasts.

Softleaf Yucca, Yucca recurvifolia, are favorite evergreen ‘staple’ plants in my gardens. Most of mine have resided in areas too shady for bloom development, but I like their size, their pretty blue-green foliage, and their ability to withstand heat, drought, and cold. I also appreciate that they’re not too spiky in the garden–I don’t like plants that hurt! I was content with them as an evergreen, architectural presence, only occasionally lamenting a lack of yucca flowers.

This one, near the pond in my back garden, has never bloomed, so when I spotted its bloom stalk, I was thrilled.

I’ve long accepted that the back garden yuccas would never produce any beautiful, bell-shaped blooms. But after the February 2021 deep freeze, one of my oak trees was damaged and now doesn’t provide the shade it once did. I’m guessing that maturity, plus a tad more sunlight, allowed the yucca confidence to send up its bloom stalk and flower.

Nearly a year ago, I transplanted five small Softleaf Yuccas from my back garden to my front, newly full-sun garden, and look forward to their growth and future flower production. They’ll be quite happy in their new home: foliage and blooms–a win!

No Central Texas fall flower fawning is complete without mentioning Frostweed, Verbesina virginica. This stately perennial sometimes begins its blooming in summer (mine did) but the zenith of flowering usually occurs in October, well-timed with Monarch butterfly migration. Clusters of milky flowerets are magnets for a huge variety of pollinators.

My honeybee gals are all over the Frostweed flowers, slurping the sweet stuff and gathering rich, creamy pollen.

I like a garden with plenty of color and textural diversity. But in a colorful garden, white blooms have a place: cooling and calming, they temper brighter colors and are restful to the eye. Even in full sun, white blooms are luminous and beautiful.

Foliage and Bird

Posted on September 30, 2020 by Tina

It was a sprinkling of snowy Four O’Clock flowers, Mirabilis jalapa, that caught my eye one evening, not too long before sundown. My two Four O’Clock plants (the other one blooms a stunning hot pink) are pass-alongs from a gardener and former blogger. This old-timey, Southern garden addition-by-way-of-Central and South America, is a night bloomer and grows from a fleshy root which can become quite large. The creamy flowers brighten a shady area close near my pond; the flowers open in late afternoon, bloom all night, and close by late morning.

But it was the metal bird, standing in a diversity of foliage, that resonated as a garden story. Even though I planted this crew, I didn’t recognize just how different the various leaf forms are and how well they complement one another as they mature.

Sometimes, it’s challenging to see consciously what will be as a garden evolves.

Clockwise from top left, the blue-tinged Soft-leaf Yucca, Yucca recurvifolia, sits next to the tropical green foliage of the Four O’Clock. To its right, another grey-blue foliage plant, Drummond’s Ruellia, Ruellia drummondiana, serves as backing for three individuals of strappy, stripy Carex phyllocephala ‘Sparkler’ sedge–and that’s where the quirky bird perches. A couple of iris straps and dangles of autumnal seeds of Inland Sea Oats, Chasmanthium latifolium complete the oddball group.

The Drummond’s Ruellia and ‘Sparkler’ sedges will grow and will require management: the ruellia will need pruning and the ‘Sparklers’ transplanting. Maybe the bird will migrate elsewhere.

For now, the group is simpatico and the gardener is pleased.

It was Anna’s own lovely foliage photo which reminded me of my foliage and bird. Check out her Wednesday Vignette for garden happenings.

Irrigation SNAFU

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Tina

You can’t pick your neighbors.

A pithy statement, to be sure. While it might be true, another saying I’d like to introduce–Friends don’t let friends over water–also appeals to me. I don’t live in a neighborhood that is particularly, um, progressive in the realm of home gardening. Especially for a neighborhood in a region which is experiencing severe drought conditions. Each of the mostly sterile, water-wasting landscapes throughout my neighborhood showcases a blank slate of water-guzzling St. Augustine lawn as the major “garden” feature and many are situated in full Texas sun. These properties require loads of mowing, edging, fertilizing, and irrigating.

There are a couple of folks who understand the value of home gardening and landscaping as a low-maintenance, water-conserving, perennial and wildlife friendly endeavor, but not many.

And I don’t live next door to either of those folks.

This is the result of over watering a Soft-leaf Yucca,Yucca recurvifolia, compliments of a neighbor who is an enthusiastic St. Augustine lawn waterer.

Beginning in early August, this poor thing developed spots on its straps, which quickly spread, rendering each strap a mottled mess, which then died. I couldn’t figure out what the cause of the diseased foliage was, but I pruned the disfigured and dying foliage, strap by strap.

Damage from an insect infestation? I searched and couldn’t find any offenders. Some sort of disease of Soft-leaf Yucca? Always a possibility, though literature doesn’t suggest this species has any real disease problems. Additionally, I have eight other Soft-leaf Yucca plants thriving in my gardens, from full sun,

…to deep shade,

…and everything in between.

There were and are no disease issues with any of those other yuccas. The only variable with the sickly yucca that differed from the others was the weekly irrigation courtesy of the neighbor. I don’t water often–primarily my gardens are watered only with rain. I pruned the mottled and dead foliage in hopes of stopping the necrosis and eventually the yucca sported a tree-like shape which was fun and quirky. I thought the yucca might survive.

One morning though, I found a rotted and toppled-over yucca.

Yuck-ah.

Well, there wasn’t much I could do, except to cut my losses, or rather, the yucca, toss the mess into the yard waste can and stand there, hands on hips mulling my next step. I considered digging up the whole root, but alas, the yucca root is too large for that. Of course it is. It’s a xeric plant and its xeric-ness comes from the massive root system, really a type of rhizome, that the mature plant develops. Also, there were pups growing,

…and rather than disturb them, I left the yucca root in place with its new, seemingly healthy growth.

My neighbor, Mr. I-Gotta-Water-Every-Week-No-Matter-What, watered his St. Augustine grass. Every week! You could set your clock by his schedule. I couldn’t really complain because he watered on his assigned day, during the accepted hours, and though more water than necessary ran down the curb, it wasn’t horrible. Trust me, I’ve seen worse. What I didn’t realize during those months was that the yucca was probably watered every week. I never thought to check if his overhead sprinkler was watering my garden, which borders his property. Because of its massive root, the yucca doesn’t require much irrigation. Once I connected the rotted yucca with weekly summer irrigation, I realized the cause of the once-healthy yucca’s demise. The hardy Soft-leaf Yucca had received much too much water for its needs.

I should add that Y. recurvifolia is not native to Texas, but to the Southeastern part of the U.S. I doesn’t mind a little irrigation from time-to-time, but certainly doesn’t like wet feet or require regular watering.

That’s why I plant what I plant–so that I don’t need to water often. There are many benefits to using native and well-adapted, drought-tolerant plants in a home garden, and conserving water is certainly at or near the top of that list. But the prevalence of St. Augustine grass, especially in full sun and as a primary landscape feature, is not a regionally appropriate choice for Texas. To look good, it requires more water than should be wasted on a landscape.

I left the little pups that were emerging,

…and they’ve grown. I’ll talk to my neighbor next summer to explain why I don’t want extra water on my garden. With our lakes (the prime water source for Austin and surrounding areas) down to about 30% capacity and heading toward a historic low, he might not be able to water anyway because of tighter water restrictions.

His grass will struggle with those restrictions, but my gardens will continue to blossom and boom.