My, how the time has gone by. When I last blogged we were in a 4 month rainless drought event and the grass and most of my plants were just plain struggling. Lack of water and a very cold late winter snap really left everything in dormancy and looking positively pitiful!

There were some plants however, that did not mind the drought – the very reason I planted them in the first place. This cactus for instance. Yes it might be a tad dangerous to garden around, especially if you accidentally lean into it and have to ask a close friend to remove the stickers from your butt…, but even so – it’s almost all worth it when the little sucker blooms!

It’s also a good pollinator plant.

The bees are really able to get down there into those buttery blooms!

The red yucca was also performing beautifully for the slow spring start. This plant has not let me down. Every year since I’ve planted it, it seems to just get better and better.

And the hummingbirds absolutely love it’s blooms.

Moving along to the pond area, the garden around it was seriously struggling. Not to mention the grass. Bi-weekly waterings of plants did not help at all, what with the nearby tree roots sucking up the only available moisture around. I didn’t mind though. Trees this old are precious resources and impossible to replace.

I was begining to fear that we had another 2011 drought event on our hands. That year it did not rain until October. But thankfully the rains started falling in May and after several welcome showers, things slowly started perking up around here. These photos were taken the morning after a lovely sprinkle. I just love the morning light here in my back yard.

The water lilies finally decided to look more enthusiastic too. Even though they obviously did not care about the drought, they had become seriously pot-bound and I had to repot several of them this year. They were literally jumping ship – err I mean planter. Their roots and tubers were so little, I thought they would never set root and grow large enough to flower this year. How wrong I was! Within 3 weeks they were up and blooming!

Having thought that it had died last year in the strong sunlight, the lotus made a surprisingly strong comeback and was catching and holding onto the raindrops with its finely haired leaves.Oh and its blooms! Just lovely as can be…

In the back garden, the lambs ears were virtually smiling with the welcome moisture.

The grass has been looking so much greener too. So soothing to the eyes.And back yard plants filled in vigorously with all that welcome precipitation!

Local birds are happy too. Newly fledged cardinals have been checking out my back patio and trying to find the courage to jump into the fountain. You can practically see the innocence in its little eyes. So sweet.And lesser goldfinches are enjoying the new avian jacuzzi.

The things I do for those little critters. 🙂

More rain has just fallen. Time to get outside and deadhead all the fading blooms for another spell of summer color.

How I love those pretty chives.

And the bees do too!

I might have mentioned it a time or two…. 🙂 but I love spring! Here are some more reasons why. I took a walk around the pond today and was just delighted with what I found.

This week the irises in my bog garden started to bloom. Oh how I adore them. I am glad I decided to add them to the bog garden. Every day a new color appears and the bog is getting prettier by the minute.And talk about easy care! When I bought them in 2012, I just stuck them into the bog and walked away. No fertilizer, no compost, no nothing! They have thrived through heat, cold and windy weather without any work from me, and then loyally offered their stunning blooms every spring since. An added bonus is that they are ever-green in winter. A welcome reprieve from all the grey and brown dullness of that season.

First the deep purples started to bloom on Monday, and then the blues and reds appeared. Now it’s just a rainbow of colors.

In the background you can see my banana tree, which I put out this week. Hopefully he’ll do well there. But since he’s in a pot he will be easy enough to move if he struggles with the bright Texas sun.

And here is what the iris world looks like from a frog’s eye view. Not too shabby either.

This is what my pond looked like on Monday of this week. We were to have a freeze that evening and we frantically covered all the gardens with frost cloth and blankets. Nary a sheet was left in the house. Thankfully the effort paid off and even though it went down to 31 degrees nothing was damaged. That should be the last frost for the season…knock on wood!

The pond is really starting to look good now. I replanted my water lilies and it will take them much longer to send out leaf stalks and flower heads this year. That means they will not be shading out the hot summer sun in the pond and I might be fighting a lot of algae in summer. Hopefully they’ll recover soon and give us a lovely show.

Happy Spring and Easter everyone!

Spring and yellow. I have lots of yellow in my back yard this year. Maybe its my garden’s way of  welcoming the sun back to the northern hemisphere. “Welcome Back!! We missed you!”

Thanks to the Four Nerve Daisy and Calylophus, which are both making and early and much welcomed spring appearance.

Even though I have lived in both hemispheres, and in two distinctly different climate zones, (crazy hot and bone-chilling-what-the-heck-am-I-doing-here-cold) my favorite time of year has been and still is Spring. In New England it was in May that my heart started to sing with joy, as the trees finally budded out with fresh crisp green leaves.  The grass became an intense emerald green that was soothing to the eyes and spirit, especially after a hard, grey winter. And the lilacs and azaleas burst out in vibrant purples and pinks that brought happiness just by glancing at them. Everything came to life and you could literally feel the energy of the earth rushing to the surface and infuse everything with vitality.

Here in Texas it is a little different.  Mid March is the time things begin to come to life. Wildflowers pop up in expansive fields and the birds sing frantically for a mate. The winters here are usually much warmer, but the grass becomes dormant and dull too. Many trees loose their leaves and the landscape becomes positively drab. Especially after a cold winter, such as the one we’ve just had.  After many hard freezes the shrubs and perennials in my garden were looking sticky, dead and messy:This tangled garden offers excellent shelter for hibernating lizards, caterpillars and some brave butterflies, as well as various other insects hiding in hidden nooks and crannies, and I usually leave it alone till March when it has warmed up some. In late March though, I usually can’t stand the unkempt look any more and fervently start cleaning out the dead sticks and foliage. I fertilize, compost and mulch the area in hopes of creating new homes for any displaced critters and feeding the plant roots below. But the end result is so much neater and for me much more pleasing to the eye.

The cleared out foliage makes it’s way to my compost bin (which I desperately need to screen and scatter), and the new sprouts now have the room to grow without competing with the old twigs.

Some plants really went dormant this year with no signs of life. I am hoping they are still alive and that I will see foliage popping out in the next week or two. I had some losses already this year. All but one Golden Thryallis died from the cold, leaving me with a puzzle on what to replace the now empty spot it left behind. I need something bright, tall and yellow that can handle some shade. Hmmmmm I guess I will need to go nursery shopping. Oh the horror!……. hehehehehe.

We love my view from the back patio. So much in fact, we often sit there and admire the view with a glass of wine at the end of each day.

Below is a shot from behind the back of the garden before cleanup.

After cleanup, everything is ready to grow. The Inland Sea Oats are providing the only fresh greenery in the garden at this time. Hardy stuff it is for sure. You would only need to buy one Inland Sea Oats plant if you want some in your garden… The plant readily self seeds , but not in an obnoxious way as seedlings are easily pulled out. I like the way it has filled in the bare patches in the back of this mainly shady spot, where not many other plants will grow well.

The pond too was looking messy and tired from winter. The reeds and Cannas had frozen and died and even though they looked ugly, I left them in the pond for two reasons:

Firstly, the Eastern Phoebe (a winter resident here in my neck of the woods) loved to perch on the stalks and look for unsuspecting fish and pond wildlife, before skimming just above the water to grab a tasty snack. Quite an aerial acrobat!

And secondly and perhaps more importantly, it was way too cold to get in and cut them off!!

Here’s the pond before the spring cleanup. Waterlilies all died down and deeply hibernating, leaving their cement perches exposed to the world.

Below is a picture of the start of a major spring cleanup that always takes much longer than anticipated. Especially if the water is still cool and we have a cold front come in. 🙂

The reeds are gone and the water lilies are sending out leaf pads. The water grass and cannas are also sprouting new tender growth.

And while I am waiting for the gardens to fill in, and the pond water to warm up, (all of which is taking especially long this year), Texas spring provides me with an assortment of wildflowers to keep me entertained.

Calylophus is showing some lovely vibrant buttery yellows:

While the Blackfoot Daisy is making a valiant effort, peeking out with it’s first bloom of the year.

Some native Spiderwort  (oh how I love this plant!) just showed up in a particularly unforgiving rocky dry area of the front field. I wouldn’t even have noticed it, had I not ventured out there to plant another Flame Leaf Sumac. I had to drop everything and run for my camera to get this shot.This little native Wild Onion was hanging out with some pretty Blue-Eyed grass. Wild Onion is a wonderful little native and has been used for many centuries by native people as a food staple. (Note: only eat if it smells like onion when crushed.)

Speaking of Blue eyed grass – what a color!….

One of my favorites – even the bugs love it:

I recently also planted an Anacacho Orchid treelet. It is small but already putting on a pretty show for spring. It’s a native to the Hill Country and even the bees are showing their approval. The scent is lovely – an added bonus. I just hope that it will be cold hardy enough for my area.

Spring! When the grass finally greens up a little, and the wildflowers show off their pretty colors. The birds sing loudly and every bug known to man it seems, comes to life to root around the garden and even venture into the house.

I am forging on ahead with more planting and tidying as the days warm up. I just hope no last minute frost comes along to dampen this pretty color display.

After another nasty ice storm, that left us with frosticles all over our trees……

things have finally warmed up around here and some spectacular signs of life are starting to appear. Not without leaving us some damage however. Sadly the last cold blast had temps go down to 15 degrees, which killed off the flower buds on our mature Redbud trees. So now instead of lovely pinkish-red covered trees in our field, all we see are sticks and dead buds. Thankfully the leaf buds did not get killed off and they are quickly pushing through.

Below you can see the wilted greyish black flower buds and the fresh pink and green leaf buds on one of the Redbud branches.

Below is what it should be looking like! What a shame. This picture was from one of our newly planted Redbud trees that apparently bud out a little later in the spring than the old native ones. We planted three of these since the drought in 2011 killed off 2 of the older ones. I am just grateful that we at least get to see some redbud color – as small as it may be.These little trees were planted just last year and it will take a long time before they get to be noteworthy spring bloomers.

Having the larger trees on the property  not flower this spring is bad news for the honey and native bees, since Redbud trees provide important early season pollen and nectar that they depend on to feed their newly hatched larvae. Butterflies depend on them too.

Looking gloomily around my back field I was very happy to see that my Mexican Plum did not get damaged by the late season freeze. And what wonderful display it was!

Bees and butterflies covered the prolific blooms and the smell was just heavenly!

When I checked on the beehive I was happy to see a very busy scene. They were obviously taking full advantage of the blooming Mexican plum.

Here are my cute ladies causing a bit of a traffic jam coming and going from into the hive, loaded with much needed pollen. It’s almost like they need some traffic lanes to ease the backup. Maybe a traffic cop would do?

Seeing this kind of activity means that the queen and the colony probably survived the winter successfully. A neighbor recently told me that he had lost several hives over this unusually cold winter. He told me they had starved and frozen to death. So sad. I made sure that I kept my bees plenty fed with pollen patties that I placed into the hive twice over the last 4 months, and weekly doses of sugar water for them to enjoy when the temps were warm enough to roam out of their cluster. From the outside they look good, but only a thorough inspection inside the hive will let me know if there is a viable queen busily laying eggs. Hope all goes well. Their welcome buzzing is a sure sign of spring indeed!

We weren’t complete slackers this winter. A new blue fountain was setup in the back garden.This replaced a small in-ground water pond. I should say a water trough – that’s how small it was. It had become filled with sediment and rotting leaves, overgrown with an unruly marsh plant and positively heaving with mosquito larvae. The water had started to smell too. I eagerly dumped it out under some trees which probably appreciated the very compost rich water. Much to the distress of a small leopard frog however, who unbeknownst to me had taken up residence in that smelly, yet obviously food-rich home. I quickly caught him and delivered him to the big pond. He seemed to be a little shell-shocked at the size of this pond and hesitated to leave my hand as I gently settled him down on one of the pond rocks. The world had just gotten a whole lot bigger for him I guess. Culture shock?

No sooner had we setup up the fountain and turned on the water, a pretty little Lesser Goldfinch came to check things out. We didn’t even have time to remove the price tag ….

He must’ve thought it was a very nifty, little place to refresh himself, because he brought along his friends too.

Soon there was a little Lesser Goldfinch fountain party going on.A cardinal had to get in on the action too!

Ahh, I love spring. Balmy weather, birds are chirping and building nests, insects are buzzing and butterflies are searching for flowers to feed on.

Plants are slowly starting to come out of their winter slumber too.And it’s still pleasantly cool enough to get busy on all my spring time cleaning and gardening chores. Off I go!