GREEN ZINNIAS

THis is the REAL COLOR! THey are beautifully green!

Claudia, Iris: I HEAR YA!!! Actually, it is a comfort, a GREAT COMFORT to me to know that other gardeners that I respect had a crummy yield this year. You would THINK with all the rain!! That it would have been the B*E*S*T Y*E*A*R E*V*E*R! Ya know??

But I feel like I have been overlooky; the one thing that I have got in spades this year is FLOWERS. In fact, this year I had the first TRIUMPH ever at growing GREEN ZINNIAS. I have planted many of the new, green flowers many times (particularly the green gladiolas) and every time, because of our limestone alkaline soil or the hot temperatures or something, they always bloomed YELLOW. I have planted green zinnias for three years without ever seeing one.

See how the GREEN really offsets the OTHER colors?

But THIS year, I again planted the green zinnias, and at least three and maybe as many as five perfectly green zinnia plants have thrived!! (Plus lots of other colors, naturally!) It makes my fingers ITCH to cut them and use them in vases (because they are GREEN!) but mostly I restrain myself, because there aren’t that many.

The package the FUNCTIONAL green zinnias came in was the Renee’s Garden Green-and-Orange zinnia package, and the orange ones are magnificent also, a pale orange like orange sherbet.

And ALSO in my OVERLOOK-Y-NESS, I didn’t mention that I planted OKRA really late (because I suck, not for any horticultural reason) in like MID-JULY, and they are doing very well, and I MIGHT get a freezer full of okra out of them YET! (I also planted seven pepper plants and five fall tomatoes, but they are all stunted and miserable from the heat, even though I water. I mean, I will PROBABLY get some fall tomatoes, but it isn’t going to be spectacular and it might be a bust.) So far, I have only gotten three pods, but they are looking strong and healthy!

One of seven Okra plants

Bouganvilla

At least this Bouganvilla is doing OKAY!

At the end of the long, not-as-hot-as-usual-but-it-sure-has-been-hot-lately summer, everything in my garden looks like….shit. Yeah, even with the mulch. The garden, now in it’s tenth year, has never been less productive; this year I got like one bucket of tomatoes, TWO (TWO!!!!) cucumbers (off, I dunno, 12 vines?) a handful of jalapenos, and a LOT of basil. But that is it. There is NO QUESTION that the money I spent on watering would have been better spent BUYING vegetables from the Farmers Market.

What gives?

I am thinking the my soil is getting tired, despite the CONTINUAL composting. I am not sure what to do!! Should I take a season OFF and re-dig and amend my beds? Should I let the ground lie fallow for a year? I am pretty sure that PART of my problem is BUGS; the pests just ruin everything. If I don’t plant these delicious, edible garden crops for a year or a season, will the pests go AWAY? The spider mites have been out of control for YEARS now, closely followed by the stink bugs.

Well, it is depressing! Plus, I know that if I take a year off, the Bermuda Grass will take over everything again, and I will have to start over again FROM SCRATCH; It will be a weeding nightmare.

On the OTHER hand, the bugs die in the winter, so if I am going to take a season OFF, maybe it should be the buggy SPRING. Stupid Bugs!!!

More Late Gladiolas

Late Gladiolas

My gladiolas didn't bloom this year because, well, I THOUGHT it had rained enough for them, but actually I needed to water them more. So instead of blooming they all just withered. But this week, after the thousand inches of rain we have gotten, a few of my gladiolas have sent up flower shoots! The rain made them top heavy and they were falling over, so I had to put them in this vase. IS IT NOT GORGEOUS???

Flowering Shrubs that Adore the Brutal Climate of Central Texas

PLUMBAGO! This plant is low to the ground, generally, usually a foot or two high only. Plumbago loves the heat the sun the drought the shade. Plumbago LOVES TEXAS!

Typically, one one’s BLOG one posts pictures of blooms that are happening in real time, so I want to stress that these are pictures from last summer. But the time to PLANT these blooming shrubs is coming up, so I thought as an assist to gardening readers I would post about them NOW.

Plumbago is available at every nursery in town all year round, because damn, does this plant ever like it here! You can literally plant it anytime, though it is best to wait until after the January freezes (it looks like we are going to get a freeze tonight, as a matter of fact.)

Pride of Barbados will TAKE OVER YOUR FLOWERBEDS if you let it, it propagates like crazy. All you have to do, though, is pull up any unwanted babies, they pull right out off the ground.

PRIDE OF BARBADOS grows to be 4 to 5 feet tall, but its branches are thin and its leaves tiny, so it doesn't shade other flowers out that are planted nearby

Both of these plants die back in a freeze, and grow out again from the roots in the spring, which is AWESOME because that way they kind of stay the same size from year to year once they get reasonably big. So you can still plant zinnias and poppies, etc, around them and get the full effect of many colors. Also the red and orange of the Pride of Barbados contrasts beautifully with the pale blue of the Plumbago.