I just realized I haven’t written any gardening posts for a month, and so much has changed already! Now that the temperatures have stabilized (mostly… where did this cold front come from??), we know what has survived and what didn’t. We pulled some things out, and added a lot of new things, and moved some things around. The last month has been a wild ride! Let’s start with the front yard.
We added a couple of red salvias, an echevaria, and some potted Easter lilies to the bluebonnet corner.
The bluebonnets are just about spent now and are forming seed pods, but the poppies are starting to bloom. They’re popping up in the most random places in the yard. The lilies have also stopped blooming.
In the main bed by the house, we took out the three big bushes in front of the gingers. They were still alive, but needed such a strong haircut they looked really ugly. We never liked them anyway, so we replaced them with two Crossandra and moved one of the Society Garlics that kept getting stepped on when we took the truck.
The gingers have really started to shine this week. Even the photo I’m including doesn’t show the amount of growth they’ve had since we put the mulch down last weekend. It’s crazy.
We took the bougainvillea out only to realize the roots still looked healthy. So we moved it to a pot to try to nurse it back to health. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed. I had dug up a shoot from one of the honeysuckles in the back to put in its place. That is doing very well and has lots of new growth already.
Behind the gingers in the orange pot, we lost the purslane and crotons, so we replaced them with sweet potato vines and asiatic lilies. The lilies have stopped blooming, but they were pretty. In the blue Texas pot, we added a yellow hibiscus for my daughter, since I’m pretty sure we lost all three hibiscus in the back yard.
The lime tree never recovered, so we replaced it with a crepe myrtle sapling we had in the back yard. Last year, the Arbor Foundation sent me ten free trees for a donation I sent them. I ignored the trees for three weeks, then decided I should probably plant them. Five were still alive, so they got potted. I was only interested in the redbuds, so when they died, I stopped trying. This guy’s pot was turned over and had been ignored for at least six or eight months, including during the freeze. And it was still alive. We decided it deserved to live and have a place of honor. It is now thriving.
In the very front, we pulled out all the bulbines and replaced them with Blackfoot daisies.
This morning, the gaura opened up its first blooms. Those plants have nearly tripled in size since the freeze, and so have the society garlics. I’m going to have spit those plants next year to make some space for everyone!
We’ve been doing a lot of crazy work in the back yard. Stay tuned to see what’s new there!
Don't Be Latte! 