My favorite tree

A friend of mine was wandering around my yard recently, looking at all the shrubs and trees I had planted and asked me -- "Which one is our favorite?"
I pointed to the tree pictured on the right, the one I named "Eve." It's an Eve's Necklace -- a delicate tree native to Central Texas with blooms that look like necklaces that only last a few short days in the spring.
When I planted "her" just a few short years ago, she was tiny. The tree barely reached my stomach. Now it stands much taller than me, but her branches still sway softly in the wind.
Every time I go to my favorite nursery to buy a tree, I consider another Eve's Necklace. (I only don't because I love variety in the garden.)
Eve's Necklaces can be hard to find, but they are recommended for planting in the Austin area. They have very light water requirements once established and are very tough in droughts (just don't expect much growth).
I was worried last summer that all of our rain would hurt her, but the tree took advantage of that rare year by doubling its size in just a few short months.
Wow!
Eve is planted in my backyard, and is shaded part of the day by the giant pecan tree -- and it makes an excellent understory tree.
One day, when the tree grows much larger, we plan on building a bench under Eve, so we can enjoy her shade and her brief blooms.

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Springtime in Austin

This is my favorite time of year, especially in Austin. Early spring. The elm trees are bursting with bright green leaves, but the pecans are still bare. The red buds are gorgeous shades of pink and the mountain laurels fill your nostrils with the enticing scent of grape bubblegum.
I fell in love with spring in Austin years ago as a student, because spring meant school was almost over, but also because it felt like everything was alive. It's intoxicating, that feeling. It makes the hair stand up on my arms, and I tend to slow down and take a renewed look around at nature and my garden.
I haven't done much gardening to speak of recently, except tend to the seedlings and check that the plants outside are warm and watered. But each evening lately, I have been making the rounds in my garden, taking mental notes of what needs to be done and making sure each and every plant has what it needs.
The plants I have been most interested in lately are the young trees, especially the ones just planted -- Mexican plum and Texas red bud. Both are just now showing signs of bud-break. I had been a little worried because so many other trees have already bloomed.
I was really excited last weekend to see the Kidneywood well on its way to leafing out, and my husband and I both stood on the sidewalk admiring the larger mountain laurel, which has one gigantic bloom.
Yep, everything is coming alive.
I plan on doing some outside garden maintenance this weekend... clearing away the leaves that helped keep everything warm through the winter and composting the dead stuff. I also plan on hardening off the seedlings and planting a few outside -- under cover of course. I was thinking of trying some tomatoes in the ground and some in pots, just to see how they do.
And I've have a request from my family to plant strawberries. Well, I'll guess I have some reading to do.

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Categories: trees and shrubs | vegetables and fruits |

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Limey and the greenhouse

Our makeshift greenhouse

When Ilona and Tom told me Austin would see temperatures below freezing at the start of the new year, I started scheming. And what I came up with just has to be horrifying my neighbors.

I've mentioned before that my Mexican lime tree was recently moved from a container to a sunny location in the yard. I've also mentioned that citrus trees are not a fan of frigid temperatures.

So what to do? Trust a frost blanket?

Not likely. Limey has already suffered from cold damage, even with the frost blanket. I decided more drastic action was needed.

I could order a fancy little greenhouse from one of those garden catalogs, but frankly, I don't have the money for that. My husband and I could build one, but we also don't have a lot of time to plan for that... the freeze was only days away!

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Please, don't do this to your trees

This is a good example of how NOT to prune crape myrtles.

I about had a heart attack one fine fall day as I was walking with my family around my neighborhood. I was chatting idly, when suddenly I looked up and saw three of my absolutely favorite trees had been BUTCHERED.

Yes... butchered. Three magnificently tall crape myrtles with gorgeous trunks and beautiful stark bark had been hacked to half their size.

From across the street, I could see the the residents had been trying to do one of two things... make the trees short enough to not touch the power/phone/cable lines going to their home OR follow the very bad old wives' tale.

And that's just what it is... an old wives' tale, perpetuated by tree trimmers, landscapers and neighbors who just don't know any better.

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Forlorn fig

This fig tree's roots are snarled.

My neighbor's been just dying to plant a shade tree in her front yard. Problem is... the only space available is inhabited by a little fig tree planted by the previous residents.

She hummed and hawed for a while over what to do, and finally settled on transplanting the fig to another area. She tackled the job over the weekend.

I advised her -- since the tree is small, but not as small as most nursery plants -- to dig a wide area around the trunk to accommodate the root ball. The tree has been in the ground about four years, and it should have put down some roots.

I was wrong.

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Lessons on 'Limey'

This Mexican Lime tree was just transplanted to a permanent home outside.

Soon after I moved back to Austin, I bought a small Mexican Lime tree and planted it in a pot. We put it on casters and rolled it inside during the winter and outside in the spring summer and fall, because I was concerned the delicate citrus would not survive a winter freeze.

I had reason to be concerned. I accidentally forgot to bring "Limey" inside during a cold night last year, and the little tree dropped all of its leaves. It spent the next YEAR recovering, and is only now starting to flower and produce fruit.

But this year, Limey won't be coming inside. We have a 15-month-old in the house this winter -- who's into EVERYTHING -- and there's just no safe place for Limey, which is covered in long SHARP thorns. This year we made the decision to risk planting Limey outside.

The best place to plant a citrus tree is in a warm, sunny place along a south-facing wall.

We already disregarded that piece of advice.

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Endearing Agave

Want an agave but are baffled by the extraordinarily high price on the pots of those you see at garden centers?
Here's my advice.... make friends with someone who already has some.
I started out with two tiny agave when I first moved into my house. I found them in my backyard, practically buried underneath a red yucca. They seemed to be stifled, and they didn't have enough light. So I moved them to the front, which gets tons of sun. That's where they took off.
Apparently, the variety I had tends to create colonies, so I have tons now, all over the front garden.

Not too long after my agave discovery, my mother-in-law brought me two small Blue Agave, also know as Century plants. These beauties quickly established themselves, and have since been transplanted twice and sent out "pups" to the far reaches of my garden. As you can see from the photo on the right, at least one needs to be relocated to a more suitable position, that isn't squeezed between a Texas Sage and a Mountain Laurel.

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The pecan problem

Wow, bad timing... really bad timing.

Last week, on a day totally free of rain or much wind, a limb on a huge tree in my yard broke. The neighbors, who were outside at the time, said they heard a "creak" and "crack," and the limb came tumbling down. It wasn't gigantic by any means, and fortunately it did not hit the house. But it prompted my husband and I to take action we had been putting off but were told months ago had to be done -- the tree had to be trimmed.

The tree is a pecan, and it is HUGE. I'm guessing it's at least 100 feet tall, because it just towers over the house. It was probably planted soon after the house was built in 1949. It is also right next to the house, thanks to the multiple additions that have been put on the house over the years.

Last winter, we hired a consulting arborist to take a look at the tree and other woody plants in our yard and advise us on the best ways to maintain them. We hired an arborist who does not actually trim trees, because I wanted someone to give us advice that would not be trying to make a buck off of us, depending on the advice he gave.

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Foiled by the rain

Last summer I was complaining that it was so hot and dry I couldn't do anything in the yard.
This year, I'm fighting against the exact opposite. It seems like every single time I have a moment to get out in the yard and work... it rains.
It's just a little frustrating. Really, I shouldn't complain too much. The plants in my yard have never looked better. They are just drinking up all this water.
I have an Eve's Necklace that I planted just a couple of years ago as a tiny little tree (it looked more like an itty-bitty shrub). Now it's taller than my 6'0" husband... in fact, the top leaves are now just beyond his reach -- about 3 times taller than it was in JANUARY.
That's a lot of growing.

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