Holiday Garden Additions

It was a good holiday for the garden.

I got a new pair of my favorite gardening gloves, which are stretchy and close fitting, so no bulk hanging off the ends of one's fingers, but with nice leather on the palms and insides of the fingers for dealing with thorny roses.

Mom and Dad gave me a bird feeder with pole for my birthday.  It's made by a company called "Droll Yankee," which they assure me is the best.  So far, it seems to have defied the squirrels and doves, so it's an all-round success.  (Also, I've switched to safflower seeds, which are said not to appeal to S & D and which fit better in my existing bird feeder anyway.)

New bird feeder in G-n-R bed, embellished with new baby grasses

 The climax, of course, was the awesome new Savio 2050 pond pump, which is currently sending gushing torrents of water through our waterfall. It's so strong, it picks pebbles up from the bottom of the pond and sends them through the waterfall. Yowza.

The amazing pumping power of the our new Savio 2050.  Actually, the camera doesn't really capture the full volume.  It's like this, only more.

 Then the denouement was my birthday present from Matt--eight (EIGHT!) new 'White Cloud' Muhlenbergia capillaris (the grass we saw at the Atlanta Bot Gar that almost made me miss my cousin's wedding) and a sample pack of 12 more grasses that Matt picked out for me from Dove Creek Gardens in Tennessee.  (Why isn't there a major grass nursery here in Texas???  We have lots of grass. And not a lot of water. No brainer.)

Matt's sampler of interesting grasses

Here's what was in the sampler pack:

Andropogon scoparius 'Prairie Blues' (little bluestem--some debate as to whether this cultivar is in Andropogon or Schizochyrium)
Carex buchananii (leatherleaf sedge )
C. pendula (weeping sedge)
C. testacea 'Prairie Fire' (sedge)
Eragrostis elliotii 'Blue Eros' (blue lovegrass)
Festuca actae 'Banks Peninsula Blue' (blue fescue)
Miscanthus sinensis 'Nippon' (maidengrass)
Panicum virgatum 'Heavy Metal' (switchgrass)
Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Moudry' (fountain grass)
P. messiacum 'Red Buttons' (fountain grass)
P. villosum 'Cream Falls' (feathertop)

We're using the 'White Cloud' as the background matrix for the Grass-n-Roses bed, studded with the various sampler grasses.  So far, everything is tiny little dry tufts, so it's a little hard to tell what it will ultimately look like.  I imagine some fine-tuning will eventually be required, just as it was for the Mexican feathergrass (Stipa/Nasella tenuissima), 'Dwarf Hamlin' fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides), and 'Blonde Ambition' big grama grass (Bouteloua gracilis) we had already planted.  Oh, and the cute little nimblewill (Muhlenbergia shreberi), sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula), and big muhly (Muhlenbergia lindheimeri).

Pennisetum messiacum 'Red Buttons,'
glowing in the sun

 All told, that makes 18 kinds of grasses in the G-n-R bed.  Plus inland sea oats in the shade bed: 19!  Not bad.  It's not quite the Grass Garden at Kew, but still--not bad.

Another view of waterfall & G-n-R bed

Twenty Percent More Color!

 

This birdseed is the shizz

Well, I'll be monkey's uncle (or aunt?). It worked!  That bird seed just about did attract twenty percent more color.

See this thing?  It's... kinda small.  But I swear, it's a bird!  Not a sick leaf!  And it's very yellow.

 

A tiny yellow bird, attracted to our color-beguiling birdseed

Here's a perfectly awful closeup (I can see that our new bird feeders will require me to buy a new camera).  You can see... well, you can see that it's yellow, anyway.  I'm currently guessing that it's a yellow-throated vireo, but given my knowledge of ornithology, I wouldn't be shocked to learn that it was a Miniature Amber-Chested Mexican Vulture.  Or a Great Gulf Dwarf Primrose Whooping Crane.  But for now we'll call it a vireo.

A vireo.  Or a small vulture.  One of the two.

We've also been attracting Carolina chickadees (I assume that's what this is).  They aren't exactly roseate spoonbills, but they're cute enough.

A jumpy little chickadee

I didn't get a picture of the neatest birds--a pair of tiny, dusky blue things. The closest species I could find for our area are the blue-crowned vireo and the eastern kingbird, though neither of those are really very blue, and I would have sworn that our visitors were. Dark and slatey, but definitely blue.

On the other hand, this hummingbird obligingly paused for a number of blurry, indistinct photos.  I don't know what kind it is either, except that it doesn't appear to have a ruby throat.  I imagine it's here for the Chitalpa though (blooming away cheerfully, drought be damned), not for the birdseed.

A pointy-snouted little hummingbird

Speaking of nectar feeders, I was reminded the other day to put out nectar for the bees & butterflies.  It's migratory butterfly season, apparently, and we're really low on nice, nectary flowers across the state.  And the bees, of course, always seem to be having a rough time of it.  I read the other day that their wax starts to melt above ~110F.  So on top of everything else this summer, they had to cope with melty hives.

For the nectar lovers, I was told to put a piece or red or orange sponge out in a pie plate with some sugar water (3 parts water to 1 part sugar) and orange quarters.  We've had a couple of these little bird feeders kicking around for years in the garage, so they're finally getting their day in the sun.  Haven't seen many butterflies, but every bee in the neighborhood has heard about our nectar sponges.  I froze extra nectar in 1/3 cup servings, and every morning (when I remember), I drop a chunk of frozen nectar on each sponge and let it melt in.

In a similar vein of folksy strategies for a crappy climate, we're giving our trees a deep soak via kitty litter buckets.  I used an ice pick to pound 5 small holes in the bottom of 3 kitty litter buckets.  I placed the buckets around the drip line of this little Lacey oak, filled them, and let them slowly drip out for a nice, deep drink.  I think three buckets is enough for this little tree, but I'll probably move & refill them 1-4 times for the larger trees.

Because we can't stop ourselves, we've been putting in a few new plants.  This is Bouteloua gracilis 'Blonde Ambition' blue grama grass.  Those white-gold horizontal flower heads are pleasantly sparky, especially in front of that red shield hibiscus.

 

We've also planted this interesting hesperaloe, 'Brakelights' (stupid name, as per usual. Have breeders been outsourcing their branding to some sort of cheapo advertising sweatshops overseas?  How are the connotations of brake lights--stop!--traffic!--you can't go!--eek! accident!--what you want associated with a nice landscape plant???).  Yuccado has an interesting comparison of BL flower versus a standard red yucca.

Meantime, some of the 50 or so oxbloods that I planted in that same bed earlier this year--and which have receive ZERO water all summer--are poking their brave little crimson heads above a cracked and parched earth.  Oxblood lilies are STRONG and BRAVE!  And, by happy coincidence, they look quite nice with 'Brakelights.'

  

Oxblood lilies:  horticultural heroes.  And new Hesperaloe parviflora cvr 'Brakelights'

I've always vaguely meant to add more wildlife-friendly plants to the yard.  Who doesn't want butterflies and birds, after all?  But we've been much more focused on finding homes for our roses and more general landscaping priorities since moving in.  But now that the Grass-n-Roses bed is taking shape (grasses being generally rather WF by virtue of providing habitat, apparently),now that the pond is providing a copious water source for the thirsty, and now that the climate is in such a homicidal and faunicidal rage, now seems like the right time to get serious about lending our furry, feathered, froggy, and chitinous brethren a hand.

We installed our first two bird feeders around the pond this weekend, an activity that for some reason made me feel more than usually married. Somehow, it just seems so homey and pleasantly settled to have bird feeders.  Matt said it made him feel like an 80-year-old.  I said, but a married eighty-year-old, right?  (Side note: is there anything we should know about which birdseed to use?  We just bought whatever they had at Lowe's, a mix that promised--I kid you not--"20% more color!"  We haven't yet figured out if that means the birds will be 20% more colorful than they used to be, or we'd get 20% more highly colored bird species than we used to.  At present, it appears to be netting us 2,000% more mourning doves, but whatever.  We did see one bright yellow thing, one cardinal, and a sort of titmouse kind of a fellow, which was nice.  Oh, and an inexplicable hummingbird.)

And I also trolled through Austin's Grow Green Guide for ideas of plants we could add to the yard.  What came as a pleasant surprise is how many WF plants we already have.  This begs the question: where are all the bunnies, herons, pumas, foxes, and other furry friends?  But perhaps we don't have a high enough density of WF plants.  Must work on that.

Wildlife-friendly Plants We Have
Baldcypress (Taxodium distichum)
Montezuma Cypress (Taxodium mucronatum)
Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa)
Lacey Oak (Quercus laceyi)
Mexican White Oak (Quercus polymorpha)
Live Oak (Quercus virginiana)
Eve's Necklace (Sophora affinis)
Kidneywood (Eysenhardtia texana)
Texas Mountain Laurel (Sophora secundiflora)
Cordia (Cordia boissieri) - a new one; our previous specimen croaked last winter.  If at first you don't succeed...
Pomegranate (Punica granatum)
Evergreen Sumac (Rhus virens)
Abelia (Abelia sp.)
Chitalpa (X Chitalpa tashkentensis 'Morning Cloud')
American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)
White Boneset (Eupatorium havanense)
Turk's Cap (Malvaviscus arboreus 'Pam Puryear')
Red Columbine (Aquilegia sp.)
Obedient Plant (Physostegia sp.)
Echinacea (Echinacea purpurea - butterflies)
Pavonia (Pavonia braziliensis - butterflies)
Salvia spp (Salvia spp. - hummingbirds)
Red Yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora - hummingbirds)
Inland Sea Oats (Chasmanthium latifolium)
Big Muhly (Muhlenbergia lindheimeri)
Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata - butterflies)
Horseherb (Calyptocarpus vialis - a volunteer that acts as a proxy lawn for us--not sure if it will have survived the Great Dryness)

But more is required!  So I'd like to start working some of these species in, mostly in the G-n-R bed, the bed around the pond, and the shade bed.

Wildlife-friendly Plants We Want
Fragrant Sumac (Rhus aromatica)
Barbados Cherry (Malpighia glabra)
Buddleia (Buddleia sp.)
Chile Pequin (Capsicum annuum)
Fall Aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium - nectar)
Gaura (Gaura lindheimeri - butterflies)
Purple Skullcap (Scutellaria sp - butterflies)
Perennial Winecup (Callirhoe involucrata - Hairstreak butterfly)
Yarrow (Achillea sp. - Painted Lady butterfly)
Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium - Skipper butterflies)
Bamboo Muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa)
Gulf Muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris)
Wood Violet (Viola sp.)
Echincea Sombrero series 'Sandy Yellow' or 'Hot Coral' (Echinacea purpurea)

Also--and Matt doesn't know this yet, lucky guy! --I'd like to make a rain garden.  The Guide had this really cool pic of rain garden, and I realized that something like that would really add pizazz to the the shade bed, plus we'll need and overflow spot anyway when (as I hope will someday happen) we get that old cistern under our house back in operation.  Think of all the nice boggy plants we could grow, like cardinal flower!

Pretty, no?  And the shade bed would adore the extra water.