“My” Little Owl Family

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Tina

Four years ago on Mother’s Day, my sweet husband and sweet son gave to me an Eastern Screech Owl-house that they jointly made. It’s probably the best gift I’ve ever received. Later that year we put the house about fifteen feet high in a Red Oak tree in our backyard. We’ve had a couple raise three broods in that house (and its replacement, after the house was damaged when we had honeybees removed last year). The first year, Mom and Dad raised four owlets and last year, two.

This is one of the four owlets from two years ago, just after they left the house. All of them roosted in a Mountain Laurel for a few days.

I rescued one from the ground and was awed at the strength and grip of its talons (mice and rats, beware!), as well as the softness of its feathers. Mom and Dad were cool with my handling their little one, though they kept their big, intelligent eyes on me all the while.

This baby is one of the two from last year.

And this cutie is one of the parents, alert during the day after its offspring left the house.

Each late fall/beginning of winter, I wait with anticipation to hear the male trill to his partner late at night and into the wee hours of the morning, indicating the beginning of courtship and mating rituals. Last year, I was able to witness their canoodling–it’s very quick and sometimes, on the fence.

Interesting….

I usually saw them at sundown as they met up after a long, sleepy day. One stayed in the house and the other in a thicket at the back of a neighbor’s property. The owls were a little late (and more discreet…) this year in their courtship. I heard Dad’s signature trill of plenty of times in January and February, but only had a few sightings of them until this past month or so.

Through most of April, Mom was in the house daily.

Mostly, she snoozed and showed concern only when a male squirrel romped too close to her and her brood.

She completely ignored the Bluejays who regularly perch on the branches in front of the house and “caw” loudly and obnoxiously at her, offended at the presence of this fierce (though cute!!) predator amongst them.

Dad roosts in my neighbor’s thicket. This past week, both parents have flown to the house from the thicket, so things are apparently a little cramped with the growing owlets.

Earlier this week, I briefly saw a little bit of fuzzy, grey head before it darted back into the hole. Owlet!!

Finally this:

He (maybe she, I have no clue), sat looking out at the big, wide world that he is about to enter, for about 20 minutes.

He wasn’t shy at all with the three of us gawking at him. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that, either. From a personal standpoint, I’m thrilled. To be in the presence of these shy, elusive animals is such a gift. But from a biological standpoint, I wish he was a little more skittish about these weird humans talking to him and making kissing sounds. (Okay, it was only me doing the kissing thing.) Maybe he wasn’t particularly nervous because owls (like the rest of us) love being told how darling they are.

Now that the owlet(s) are making regular appearances at the hole, it’s a matter of a couple of days before they leave the house for good. They’ll roost in the tree for a few days more, then, they’ll be gone. Hopefully, they’ll have plenty to hunt and avoid cars and the Great Horned Owls that are around.

I always mourn a little after they leave. These past two years, I’ve occasionally seen an Eastern Screech Owl in the early summer. But I’ll have to wait until next winter to re-engage an observational relationship with these magnificent birds.

Go forth, little owls and live happy, productive owl lives!!

Blues In The Garden

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Tina

I love blue. Blue flowers, especially.

Blue–Plumbago (Plumbago auriculata),

Blue–Majestic Sage (Salvia guaranitica),

and Blue–Heartleaf Skullcap (Scutelleria ovata sp.bracteata).

In truth, most of what I consider “blue” in my gardens has a tinge of lavender or purple, like this Heartleaf Skullcap,

which is currently at its peak of loveliness in gardens all around Austin.

It’s difficult to capture the beauty of this plant with my little point ‘n shoot camera because of the subtlety of the blue/lilac bloom paired with the grey/green foliage.

I especially love it with my bright blue, well-used (by the birds, not me!) bird bath.

Or combined with the cultivar Mealy Blue Sage and small, light blue bird bath situated on a bed of City of Austin recycled glass.

The Henry Duelberg Sage is a great blue-blooming perennial for Central Texas. This particular plant is the most purple of the Henrys in my garden,

but, it’s still mostly blue to my eyes.

I’ve noticed that the blues that I grow in my gardens are blue in real-time, but often show purple in photographs. Conversely, the native bog plant, Pickerel Weed (Pontederia cordata), is blue to me in this photo,

but in real life, I see it as purple.

I favor blue accents in my garden art as well. I usually refer to accent items as my garden ‘do-dads’. I’m easy to buy gifts for because it’s fun to have funky or silly or interesting do-dads in the garden. Do-dads–like my groovy gazing ball,

or my blue glazed pots for plants,

flanked by pots in the other colors I gravitate toward. I augment the blues in the garden with do-dads in these other colors.

But I tend to prefer garden accent pieces in hues of blues. I chose tile and glass pieces primarily in blues for the mosaic stepping stone under the archway,

although I could use a few more blue bottles on the bottle tree.

My tree tipped over during a heavy wind a few weeks ago and two of the four blue bottles that were on the tree smashed–I’m still finding shards of blue glass in that bed. Sigh. I’ll have to buy more of this high sugar/caffeine soda for the bottle tree. I’ll let The Boy drink those, though.

Oops. Well, this isn’t in the garden and my favorite thing here isn’t the blue wall, either. He’s studying hard for the SAT. (More like hardly studying….)

Oh, and not to forget, my wonderful new, blue Sky Chairs.

My old ones finally ripped through ‘n through, requiring replacement. I loooove these soporific chairs. Many a snoozy (usually) weekend afternoon/evening I’ve spent lolling about in one or the other of these chairs–listening to the waterfall of the pond, watching birds/owls/bees/butterflies and enjoying the fruits (or veggies) of my gardening labors.

What colors do you love in your gardens?

Hill Country Blues

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Tina

I love blue flowers in the garden and my current favorite blue flowering perennial is the Henry Duelberg Sage (Salvia farinacea ‘Henry Duelberg’).

(As a disclaimer, many of these photos show the flowers of this post as more purple than they are in real life. I don’t know if it’s me or the camera. It’s probably me.)

It’s lovely planted with other mid-to-late spring bloomers.

I’ve grown the compact cultivar Mealy Blue Sage for a many years in my gardens.

The true native Mealy Blue Sage is taller and typically a lighter blue than the cultivar Mealy Blue. The cultivar has a darker blue bloom and is compact in form, reaching a height of about eighteen inches. It is a terrific addition to the garden. They’re happiest and most striking when they’re blasted by the hot, Texas sun.

These three have been in this spot for several years and bloom stunningly in spring, with a second, less dramatic bloom cycle in the fall. During the summer, the Mealy Blue Sage tend to bloom less and typically, I’ll cut them back to the ground in July or August. The plants bloom again in the fall but once the temperatures are consistently chilly and the days are short, I prune the spent bloom stalks down to the base rosette for winter. The rosette is evergreen for winter here in zone 8b. This plant is so pretty when planted en masse and is excellent for the xeric garden, especially because of its compact form.

I fell in love with the Henry Duelberg S. farinacea when I started working at Zilker Botanical Gardens a few years ago. I manage the Grow Green Gardens as Zilker Botanical Gardens (ZBG) and these demonstration gardens are designed to showcase low maintenance, native and non-native plants. The City of Austin’s Grow Green program provides a wealth of information for homeowners and businesses about proper landscape plant choices and irrigation techniques to enhance water conservation. Many folks who live in and around Austin are familiar with the free Plant Guide (located in the above Grow Green link, bottom right hand side of page) where some of the more popular landscape plants for Central Texas are profiled. The Henry Duelberg Sage is listed in the Plant Guide, but when I started working at ZBG, there wasn’t one planted in the Green Garden.

So, I fixed that.

This beautiful specimen blooms three-quarters of the year and is a dramatic addition to the entry of the Green Garden. It’s produced loads of seedlings (which will be planted in other gardens at ZBG). This spring, a white blooming hybrid seedling, the Augusta Duelberg, has joined the mix.

Nice!!

I was so entranced with the Henry Duelberg and its performance at ZBG, that I bought several for my gardens.

The Henry Duelberg is larger than the cultivar Mealy Blue Sage and has a graceful, open form. The stems are two to three feet tall and the flower spikes atop the stems are three to four inches long. This gorgeous bloomer is probably a hybrid of the native Mealy Blue Sage (S. farinacea).

The leaves are lance shaped and are located along the length of the stem. The Henry Duelberg will bloom from mid-spring, through early summer. In my gardens, it experienced a dormant period during the hottest part of last summer. I pruned mine to the ground and once the rains began again, the Henrys enjoyed a nice fall bloom cycle. Like the cultivar Mealy Blue, the Henry Duelberg can be pruned to its evergreen winter rosette at the end of the growing season.

The Henry Duelberg at the Green Garden bloomed all of last summer, but it’s more established and receives more water than my personal plants.

Both the Mealy Blue Sage and the Henry Duelberg are favorites of bees and butterflies, as well, though I’ve noticed more pollinators visiting the Henry Duelberg than the Mealy Blue. I planted two, four-inch pots of Henry Duelberg in the fall of 2010 and they have re-seeded, so I have six of these plants now. Thus far, all of mine are blue–none have hybridized to the white ‘Augusta’ form.

As with most plants in the salvia family, the hybrids and cultivars of S. farinacea are generally considered deer resistant.

The Henry Duelberg Sage was discovered growing without care in a Texas cemetery by Texas horticulturist and garden writer, Greg Grant. He named the blue flowering plant after Henry Duelberg and the white variety after Henry’s wife, Augusta. If this plant can survive neglected in an old cemetery, surely it’ll perform beautifully for you in your gardens. So go ahead–plant a Salvia farinacea (‘Henry Duelberg’) in your garden.