A floral follow-up: The photo-defying shadows made this flower late for blooming day. The little bulbs, labeled Ixia/Corn Lilies, were on sale last fall so I stuck them in the temporary front bed. The package showed all kinds of pastel colors but mine are the colors of ears of corn. Has anyone else tried Ixia? Did it return for you the following spring?
Maybe this follow-up can count for Earth Day. Blackswamp Kim requested a photo of the Passionvine trellis - it's a recycled coatrack, once brass-colored plastic and aluminum, now painted antique white like the repurposed old iron fencework. Philo and I were at the semi-annual Settlement Home Garage Sale last fall and the second I saw it this idea popped into my head. The passionvine likes it, too.
One of the things I miss most about Illinois are Lilacs - when my Pacific Northwest daughter told me about her budding lilacs I was happy for her... but when Lily emailed this photo of what happened last weekend she didn't sound like a happy gardener! With any luck they'll still bloom - lilacs are pretty tough.
Last weekend my friend Pam/Digging and her lovely garden were featured on PBS-TV for the Central Texas Gardener. If you didn't get to see the show, go to the Central Texas Gardener website this week to see the clip - soon it will be available on YouTube.
I didn't take the camera when Rachel/In Bloom and I got to see the new rainwater collection system put in by Vicki/Playin' Outside. Here's her first post about the installation saga. Not only is the system impressive - the way she and her husband have integrated the huge tank into their garden is even more impressive - and the garden is filled with roses, herbs and frog songs.
At Spring Fling we met brother and sister Geoff and Anneliese of Cobrahead Blog. I was the lucky winner of a Cobrahead tool and took it for a test run. I'm used to my Cape Cod weeder, and still prefer that for picky weeding between the flowers in my crowded perennial beds, but the Cobrahead works much better in the vegetable garden, where weeds and grass sprouted overnight.
The action allows the head to go under weeds to get out more of the roots. It didn't take very long to do the tomato patch. [ and to you heirloom growers, yes - those potato-like leaves belong to 'Brandywine'.]
I took my prize Cobrahead along for the most recent Divas of the Dirt workday, and asked the other Divas to try it out and see if they liked it... the answer was a resounding 'yes' - it was especially good at getting weeds out of flowerbeds where they meet sidewalks & drives. It can mix soils and amendments, too.
The weather is warming up so these fragrant purple iris won't be around much longer. While I hope people on my block enjoy them, it's become more important that you enjoy them! What the heck has happened here?
It seems that in some way, the world of garden blogs has become the neighborhood of my heart and mind, so when the nominations for the Mouse & Trowel Awards were announced, it was overwhelming to be nominated a second time as the Garden Blogger You’d Most Like as a Neighbor. Last year the other nominees were May Dreams Carol, Blackswamp Kim and Pam/Digging and it amused me to imagine a neighborhood where we four could make horticultural waves. This year our imaginary neighborhood would let May Dreams Carol of Indianapolis, Jodi/Bloomingwriter of Nova Scotia, Canada, and myself from Austin, Texas have international fun with climate zones!
If you'd like to vote for this year's Mousies - please go here to the Mouse & Trowel website. You do not have to be a garden blogger to vote.
It's been a joy to meet so many of you in person during the past two years and with any luck those real life meetings will continue to happen...maybe someday you and I can sip a root beer float out on the veranda with our feet up on the iron rail and the fragrance of jasmine floating on the air.
No comments:
Post a Comment