One of my favorite Spring destinations

March in Minneapolis from a friend

Last Thursday with a strange morning of 60°, overcast, drizzly feeling and a promise of 80's later in the day, I headed for one of my favorite destinations. Not that far really, but I don't drive the freeways much anymore and wasn't looking forward to that part.

Redenta's Garden in Arlington, Texas is one of our better known organic gardening nurseries.
I was not disappointed.  I have been struggling with lavender plants dying over and over again. That was my mission, to get help and ideas on what I can do to keep them alive.  The lovely lady there took time out to explain the types they are selling and even gave me a note pad and pen to jot down information.

Don't forget
to click on a 
picture to see larger

They have quite a selection of lavender plants

Once that was taken care of, I got to take time out and just wander the area. They never fail to have new and inspiring ideas for the garden as well as a potting "bar". This is so enchanting. I wanted to do some potting there myself.

These jars look like they are filled with jelly beans, they are stones and such

 They have the "bar" set up under cover and these jars are on a wall with a huge  old fashioned BAR sign with marque lights that unfortunately wasn't lit. .  They sell the lighted letters and have them hung and lit all over the shop.

 I have been seeing these "fairy gardens" a lot lately.  There are so many creative people in gardening that the ideas are endless and charming.

They look  so life like and they are really so tiny sort of like a garden doll house.

The gotta have that rack. Always something different

I can see this succulent planting with "fairy" additions

A green house you just want to walk through the door and stay awhile.

I didn't get the names of these succulents, just enjoyed closeups with my Bolggie camera. 

But each spring...a gardening instinct, sure as the sap rising in the trees, stirs within us. We look about and decide to tame another little bit of ground. ~ Lewis Gantt

Gardeners, I think, dream bigger dreams than Emperor's. ~ Mary Cantwell


 Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination. ~ Mrs. C.W. Earle, Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden, 1897

March weeds and peach blossoms

Chickweed

A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.  ~Doug Larson

 This being Spring, the chilly temperatures have not slowed the weeds at all. In a way, there is beauty in the flowers and the green. It is best to take pictures of the flowers and not think of how MANY of them there are.

Lovely, tiny blossoms. Too bad they aren't what we want in the yard

Don't forget to click on picture to enlarge

Common Stork's Bill

Common Stork's Bill

  It is fascinating to look up a flower, wild flower or weed with the
picture at hand.  I have lived with these weeds and wild flowers and
never tried to remember their names.

The weed blossoms are every bit as lovely as a wild flower. Unfortunately, they are not very well behaved and will take over an entire yard. The blossom is less than 1/2 inch across.


There is a wild flower called the Texas Stork's Bill.  The blossom is not the same other than five petals.  The Texas Stork's Bill is purple.

It is interesting to wonder why one is considered a "flower" and the other a "weed".

Common Stork's Bill

Ranger peach 20+ year old tree

More on weeds later.
The old peach trees are blooming.  The tired old trees may surprise us again this year. Nature got everything right in 2012 and we had peaches enough to share as well as dehydrate and freeze and make jam.
It would be lovely to share again.We are still asked if we have any peaches in summer.

Chocolate's okay, but I prefer a really intense fruit taste. You know when a peach is absolutely perfect... it's sublime. I'd like to capture that and then use it in a dessert.
fruit quote by Kathy Mattea

 

 

It could still freeze even in March and take away the hope of peaches

A friend told me this reminds her of a skirt blowing in the wind and leggings

This is the peach with it's blossom "hat"

 The ripest peach is highest on the tree.
fruit quote by James Whitcomb Riley

If well managed, nothing is more beautiful than the kitchen garden: the earliest blossoms come there: we shall in vain seek for flowering shrubs to equal the peaches, nectarines, apricots, and plums.
fruit quote by William Cobbett

Just cuz March is windy....................

 The color of springtime is in the flowers; the color of winter is in the imagination. ~Terri Guillemets

Today, Tuesday == the wind is gusting to 35 mph. The odd Texas temperature 82°. Not a day for pictures or work.  Weeds need attention. They are thriving after over an inch of much needed rain a few days ago.

While dealing with new hearing issues, I decided to just go to the garden and take it all in. I stand amazed at what my hands, feet and back have accomplished.  I miss hearing the birds close by.  I saw a pair checking out the bird houses in the center of the garden.  By the time I went to get the binoculars and returned they were gone.

Then, Bloggie camera in hand I spotted a new flower.  It turns out to be a Ten Petal Anemone.  Joy!  Thank God I can still see!!  I know no reason why it should appear in the old flag stone path but there it is!

 The wind may blow, the soil may dry, 
Our health may go, I will not cry.

Oh, puleeeze,,,,,,,, I am just so very grateful I can see and walk around in my garden.

My garden will never be lush nor grandiose. It will never be just the way
I want it. Plants will bloom one year and die the next.  It will have weeds, rabbits and (thank God) BEES AND BUTTERFLIES.

I prefer winter and Fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape — the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show. ~Andrew Wyeth

We have rain!

It's spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.  And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!  ~Mark Twain

 Yesterday, Saturday, I decided to "believe" the weather guessers.  They are so notorious for putting out a 7 day forecast and I guess hope that it will be "accurate"?

All that aside, I did my usual of putting a rock in the bottom of my accumulated 5 gallon buckets to keep them from blowing around in the event wind comes with the rain and lined them up to collect much needed rain.  The soil has been so dry that when I raise a digging fork full to move a plant the dirt flies off.  Have I mentioned wind?  Of course I have. This has been the windiest winter!! Each bucket looks as if there is a good inch. Every little bit helps.

I also cut back the Ravennae Grass.  Time consuming work with a pair of scissors.  I have tried whacking it down with the weed whacker or hedge trimmer and spent the rest of the year picking up stray blades of grass.  The best for me is to patiently give it a "hair cut" and put the 6" pieces in a bag.  Lots of saved up compost and mulch bags come in handy.  The morning was perfect for the task.  It was overcast, not too windy and 58°.  It took several hours off and on to get most of it cut back and I am happy for that much anyway. 

Mulch bags and the 5 gallon buckets are going to have to wait for warmer weather!

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.  ~Margaret Atwood

The grass really looks nice like this but still needs cutting back.
The spikes are hollow and more or less dry making them too hard to snip off with scissors. Will have to break them off as close to the ground as I can.

The dry grass needs to be cut back more to allow the green that is already sending up shoots to flourish.  I am also going to fertilize heavier than last year.  The grass really doesn't have a spreading root system that I can tell so this means (in my mind) the fertilizer needs to go down at the "core".

In the heat of summer, the grass's long blades will spill over the black edging. It doesn't have the feathery plumes of the Pampas grass but supposed to be less invasive.

The concrete bench in the lower left is  10 inches away from the edging and will have grass blades draping over it as well.

Indoors or out, no one relaxes in March, that month of wind and taxes, the wind will presently disappear, the taxes last us all the year.  ~Ogden Nash

March and it is cold again

Winter is a time of promise because there is so little to do — or because you can now and then permit yourself the luxury of thinking so. ~Stanley Crawford, A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small New Mexico Farm, 1992

The garlic I planted looks as if it will survive the cold?

 

Yesterday, March 8th, I spent a lovely 2 or 3 hours in 45 degree weather "piddlin'" in the garden.  The joy of finally being outside on an overcast morning with no urgency to get things done.  I cleaned a bit, moved pots and filled with new soil, raked the gravel path, pulled a few weeds, and then, stopped to look at a winter beauty.
When I purchased this plant, I had my misgivings.  The garden center gal recommended it as a plant that is prettiest in the winter.  Last winter I was not impressed.  A year later I am hoping it will survive the heat of summer and my enthusiastic watering so I can enjoy it again.  Who can be in the winter garden doldrums when such loveliness is there...in MY garden.

Don't forget to click on the picture to enlarge.

Donkey tail Spurge and wine bottle border

Donkey tail Spurge

 There are weeds called Prostrate Spurge, Leafy Spurge are two.  These summer weeds sprawl and block sunlight for any seeds that may want to germinate.

Pink? This is a fascinating plant!

The stems seem so brittle I was afraid to disturb the plant. They are actually tougher than I thought

  Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as  warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. ~Author Unknown

  We feel cold, but we don't mind it, because we will not come to harm. And if we wrapped up against the cold, we wouldn't feel other things, like the bright tingle of the stars, or the music of the Aurora, or best of all the silky feeling of moonlight on our skin. It's worth being cold for that. ~Philip Pullman, Northern Lights

"The color of springtime is in the flowers, the color of winter is in the imagination." ~Ward Elliot Hour

Who knew rosemary blooms in February

 

 I know it is odd to not post a lovely, snowy scene.  I am always amazed at  the hardiness of plants.  To have green and blooming plants in February and now March is a miracle. 

This has been a "different" winter for North Texas.   Our difficulties pale compared to the northern states. Emails have been flying with pictures of frozen Lake Superior and a Lake Michigan lighthouse covered in impressive ice.

That said, it still has been odd for me and my garden.  There have been three California Poppy starts and sad finishes. The weather was extremely cold most of December and off and on in January and February.  Just when I think the sprouting plants are now going to take off, we get hit with another 2 or 3 days of weather in the teens and twenties.  Then, frustratingly, 2 days of temperatures in the 80's.  What's a poor plant to do?

I am not sure if this last freeze hasn't finished off the surviving California poppies. Will just have to wait and see at this point.

I have spent a very few days in the garden. Even got so bold as to transplant some Salvias.  Today, after another 48+ hours of twenty degree weather and wind, I took a walk to check survivors.  They are out there, some I didn't expect to be bothered have been nipped and leaves are dying and some I expected to curl up and die haven't. I don't know if the blackened plants were hit hard  enough to kill the plants.

I had a surprise that if I hadn't been out digging compost into the bed, would not have seen. After a bit of a search,( I LOVE THE INTERNET!! ) I found the name: White-lined Sphinx (Hawkmoth)  The description says this is a common moth that ranges from Central America to Mexico.  Central America? Maybe this guy was blown off his flight path?

This is how I found it on day one.  I did find a few pictures of the wings like this.

Day 2 it was still there.

 In thinking about the first picture, I think the moth was wet from dew and cold and had spread its wings to dry them. It was a sunny morning. The moth hadn't moved the next morning.  Today, after 2 bitterly cold days, I checked to see if it was still there.  It was gone and it surely was too cold to fly off...... that means then, that a hungry critter got an easy meal. Nature is hard to take sometimes, but what dies keeps another critter alive.

Yesterday, I went to my feeder watching window and was surprised to see a large hawk sitting on the bar that supports the feeders. It saw me and flew off.  No chance to get a picture.

"There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you ..... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself."
-  Ruth Stout

Penta with dew

The bee, my obsession all summer