Mid-April 2015

The days are in the mid 70's - perfect weather interspersed with rainy days makes for beautiful flowers and a healthy and growing vegetable garden.

The Louisiana iris are coming up now. 

Blackberries and climbing antique roses are both in full bloom now.

 This rose is very large - about eight tall.

 The bald cypress are starting to bud out now.

My butterfly rose (Mutabulis) is a climbing antique that has many colored petals.  It is huge.

And yet another beautiful antique rose.  Souvenir de la Malmaison.  I love all the petals.

Our vegetable garden is looking good now.

Onions in the foreground.  A wisteria vine has been trained into a tree in the background.

Tomatoes

Festus is sniffing around for bunnies.

 The bush beans are coming up, but not everywhere, so we are overseeding.

Tiny carrots are starting to come up now.


 The artichokes continue to grow larger.

An antique rose bush, Old Blush,  in the front yard is in full bloom right now.  You can see our 3000 gallon water cistern in this picture.

The pink indian hawthorne is in full bloom right now.

Climbing clemantis.

The lemon balm smells wonderful. 

 The front porch looks nice.  The bearded iris are almost ready to burst forth.

  The golden columbine is in full bloom now!

Pink indian hawthorne is in the foreground with a red knockout rose in the background.  

And finally, our first snake, looks like it just hatched - about 6" long, of the season - not sure what it is - in the pool!

Easter Weekend 2015

It is Easter weekend in North Texas - my favorite time of year.  Saturday was a beautiful sunny day, Sunday we got rain all day.  Time to check out what is going on around here. The petunias in a pot on the front porch Saturday morning look lovely in the early morning sunshine.

The first blooms of the golden columbine are out now.

A Eurasian collared dove visited the backyard today.  This dove was imported and is not native to Texas.

The petunias in a pot continue to grow and spill out on the sides.

 The Russian quince is blooming now.  It is probably 12-13 feet tall now.  We planted it about 4 years ago.

This is the first year we have had so many blooms - we will have lots of fruit this year.

 

 We ordered this tree bare root through the mail.

Look who got caught getting a snort of catnip - Merlin!

Pretty pansies on the front porch.

The Nellie R. Stevens holly bushes are covered in blooms and swarming with honey bees now.  These are tough evergreen bushes with glossy leaves that are drought tolerant.  Mine are getting very tall - about 8 - 10 feet.

The Japanese black pine is putting out new shoots.

In the vegetable garden, we found a bunny hole - uh oh.  The rosemary is getting so big that it is a good spot to hide behind.  Asparagus is on top.  It is starting to get out of control.

The blackberry bushes are blooming now.

The wisteria vine is also blooming now.

And finally - this past week when a front began to blow through, the clouds were lovely - at dusk.

The Spring 2015 Vegetable Garden is Planted - Purple Martins - Fire Ants

I'm happy to report that so far we have 10 purple martins that have taken up residence this year (5 pairs).  We have 7 gourds left although I noticed a house sparrow family has also moved in.  Hopefully some more martins will move in.

 The martins constantly trill while hanging out at their gourd tree which overlooks the raised garden beds.  Here is a link so you can listen to their songs.  http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Purple_Martin/sounds

We planted a variety of tomatoes, bell peppers, and jalapeno peppers this past weekend of the spring equinox.  

The cottontail bunnies are taking over the yard.  My little rat terrier can't catch them anymore - he's getting too old.

 A view of the entire garden this year.  The edge of the raised bed in the foreground hasn't been planted yet - we will plant it with bush beans, squash and zucchini seeds.  We'll also plant those seeds in the remaining areas of the center tiered beds.  The peach tree is covered in pink blooms now.

 Uh-oh - look who got caught in the garden!

 Here are the cool season vegetables - spinach, broccoli, swiss chard, and cabbage.  These were planted in early February along with the onions.  They all withstood the freezing the temperatures well - the bunnies however are doing their best to decimate them.

 We put in 4 bunches of onions this year.  They all survived the freezing weather and super wet conditions from all the rain we've had in March.

The artichokes came back after a freezing winter!

 I planted two types of garlic - regular size and elephant.  I got both garlic bulbs in the produce section.  It is a lot cheaper to purchase them there than in the garden section.  I took a chance that the bulbs were not treated to prevent them from sprouting.

The asparagus is starting to come up now. 

 We have a lot of catnip that came up volunteer from last years seeds.  My kitties love this.
 
 The grape hyacinths are blooming now.

We always have Kildeers visit the yard - they look like they belong on the shore.

We poured a large stock pot of water on an fire ant bed in the raised garden bed.  Even though several gallons of boiling water was poured on the mound, there were enough ants that survived to bring all the dead ants to the surface!

I can't imagine that enough ants actually survived to do all this work?

Here is a close up shot of the dead fire ants.

We planted marigolds throughout the vegetable garden.  I've read that they deter insects - however there is conflicting information on it.  Even if they don't, they add some pretty color to the garden.   

And finally, this year I've noticed huge flocks of grackles moving into my neighborhood.  They always squawk in the trees behind my property.  I usually see large flocks of them in downtown Dallas, not here, in what I consider a more rural area.