Some garden stuff I wanted to share

Hello,  everyone.  It's been well into the 90's F since we got back. (30+ C) There is supposed to be a strong cool front rolling through this afternoon, possible day's highs in the 70's this weekend. I think fall (autumn) may finally fall into place.

Our friend the barrel cactus is still hanging in there, after moving house multiple times and finally being set into the St. Joseph garden. Over 46 years and counting.

This crinum lily was the last bulb package in the big box store bin a couple of years ago. She looks happy.

Right after getting back from our pilgrimage,  we got to work on the cool season garden. The radishes and amara (a kind of mustard green) are up and running already

The dragonfruit plants are blooming like crazy. In the morning before the flowers close, the bees are going insane trying to figure them out. 

It was good to be on pilgrimage  and it's good to be home.

Dragon Fruit Flowers!

Hello, everyone.  I've been walking 4 or 5 times per week, and after I knock out those steps I'm so relaxed that making a post gets forgotten. But doing a couple of miles early just makes me feel so good.

Today sunrise brought a surprise: thirteen open blossoms on the dragonfruit cactus.

The bees and bumblebees act like they're in shock at the huge amount of nectar and pollen on the buffet.

A bee doing her best to cope.

We have discovered that the birds like to peck out the middle of the fruit before it's fully ripe. Now we need to find a lot of nylon fruit covers quickly. 

Flowers for the Hot Season

Hello,  everyone.  It is indeed the hot season for the garden. 

A year or two ago, we got some tiny Desert Rose plants at the home show. They had tags promising different colors but were obviously young seedlings. This year two of them are blooming.

This one had made a single bloom a month or so ago; now there is a whole collection of the ivory yellow double blossoms. 

This one has single blossoms  that start out dark and get a little lighter as they open.

The desert rose plants are happy in morning sun here. Unfortunately there is an ant colony nearby that is trying to raise aphids on the leaves. Fortunately the green lacewings have laid eggs nearby and I hope the lacewing larvae will chomp the aphids for me. Lacewings are fierce predators on aphids and white flies. 

There was rain a few days back

Hello, everyone.  There was indeed rain, over several days, and now it's normal June weather with sun. 

An unexpected plant came up after the rainy period. 

This is a turmeric that I started from a grocery-store tuber. Last year it looked ratty and sad, then it died down after fading for a while. I was about to give up on it, but on feeling in the dirt found a firm tuber with little "eyes" that might grow, so it stayed in its pot, got water up until the rainy spell, and got blown rain from the weather. Lo and behold! A fine leaf came up, then a second one appeared on the stem, and there is a tiny green nose poking up that should become another stem. It looks much better this year. I'm glad I didn't give up too soon.

The crinum bulb clump that was here when we came is also happy about the rainy spell.

Two stems of buds have come up.

I didn't photograph it, but the lemon grass clump has put on a flush of growth and is now over 3 feet tall. 

More flowers!

Hello, everyone.  Summer has arrived, with our typical temps in the 90's F. 

Salad of cucumber, tomato, and garden pepper

Very low carb, dressed with viaigrette and some onion-y green sprinkle and parsley. 

Another of the desert rose plants is now in bloom.

After the rains we are getting flowers

Hello, everyone.  I love flowers, and right now we have a bunch of them.

This crinum lily came with the house. I have tied up the bud stems because they were falling on the ground.

I brought these daylilies over with us when we moved. Each flower lasts for a day.

These marigolds came up when we threw a packet of old seeds--that had been in the fridge for years--into some empty space in the planting box.

It's so nice to go out into the yard and find flowers blooming their little heads off.

Lower-carb foods

Hello, everyone.  I had been slipping on my food choices over the holidays, and paid for it on the scale readings. I'm climbing back onto the wagon now, newly determined in spite of all the bad foods and drinks people push at me. 

Some new things: 

Wild caught salmon (Orca Bay frozen fillets package) cooked gently in butter with 2 eggs over medium and the garnish is some verdolaga (purslane) from the garden. That was a really tasty breakfast. 

Pork steaks, baked on a rack in a sheet pan, seasoned with S&P, tenderizer, mild curry powder that was turmeric colored, and some Tony's cajun seasoning. Garnish on top is a jalapeño cheese spread. (I took all of the seeds and pith out of the little pepper before chopping it into little bits. The cheese gentles the heat also.) Garnish is more of the verdolaga. This was a yummy and filling dinner dish.

3 eggs omelet, filled with more of the jalapeño spread--I want to use it up--with a few drops of Cholula and another sprig of verdolaga. 

The verdolaga is free for the pulling, and I don't indulge on spraying in the food garden, so it's the garnish of choice. Besides being chock-full of nutrients! Other good choices for garnish greens: volunteer dill. Parsley. Fennel leaves. Tiny little thinnings of lettuce or mustard greens. Arugula. 

Making the food look pretty encourages me to eat better.

After 34 years, still going strong

Hello, everyone. My cactus is coming into bloom.

Thanks to the Easter rain, and the followup rain the next Sunday, a lot of plants are waking up.

 

I was going to include my Indigo Spires salvia, with its deep blue blossom spikes, but the photo turned sideways when I imported it.

This is a miniature basil plant. It's about 4 inches tall. It smells lovely.

Pretty flower for Easter time

Hello, everyone.  

We have the first blossom from the new, little Desert Rose plants we got at last year's Home and Garden show.

I'm not sure which way these little pictures will be facing when it's published. The last one was an experiment to see how an extreme close-up of this large double flowered blossom would come out.

The top is a side shot to show the structure.

It's possible that another of these assorted-colors plants will bloom in a week or two. The first one, which finally got repotted into the biggest pot on hand, is also displaying some single flowered, deep-pink blossoms and a whole flock of buds are coming on.

Rabbit attack?

Hello, everyone. It's been a little busy around the place and I forgot to post.

I went out to check on plants yesterday and was shocked to see this:

My alpine iris plant has been eaten down to a nubbin! And several rain lily plants are either gone altogether or chomped to a little thing like this! 

DH says he saw a rabbit in the yard a couple of days ago, which darted out under the fence. (Smart rabbit.) Maybe this explains a number of disappearances lately.

What can be used to repel rabbits? Especially since a lot of the grass they used to have for munching on has gone dormant or died because there's been no rain.

Spring feels like it's here...(edited for spelling)

At least, right now it feels like spring. (Last frost date probably 3 weeks away, but today is tee shirt weather.)

The fiddlewood,  the happiest of the three, is putting on a flush of blooms, while still having half ripe berries and some old, ripe, black ones. This fiddlewood is in partial shade. The others have at least 4 or 5 hours of straight sun every day, and they're less content. These are native to South Texas and are supposed to get around 8 feet tall with time.

It's early for planting but...

Hello, everyone.  It's a warm, "Chamber of Commerce" weather day today--about 80°F, clear, sunny, just nice to be out in. So of course I was wanting to mess around in the garden.

This appears to be a volunteer fennel plant, left over from garden salad mix seeding in the past. It looks too spikey to be dill, IMHO.

I planted some "summer spinach vine" seeds. Instead of loads of leaves, that we could pick for a vegetable,  we get these little flowers. 

And the runt of the litter has made berries!

A more optomistic thing: we have decided that a corner of dying grass would be better as a planting bed. Aloes to the rescue! Also our Porterweed, a poinsettia, and a volunteer flower. A few rain lilies have been tucked in as well. 

Bulbs are a lesson in faith

Hello, everyone.  I have always thought that gardening requires one to develop faith that things will, generally,  work out in the end. Today I was reflecting on that as I looked at the pots with saffron bulbs that spent so many months being dried up and dead-looking. A few days ago, responding to the change in season, and a little water, little green noses started poking out from the covering dirt.

A couple of sample pictures 

These bulbs are the descendants of a bag I got from High Country Gardens, a mail order nursery in Utah. The original bulbs, all 10 being together in a pot, bloomed beautifully. They were crowded, however, and they also had a very strong urge to make "pups" so the next year nothing much happened. Last spring I separated them out a bit, after they went dormant, and now I'm hoping they will all fatten up and maybe in a year or two bloom again.

Fall gardening season is here

Hello,  everyone. It's fall, and the heat of summer is starting to moderate. The warm weather garden plants, after struggling earlier, are in their prime.

These five beauties are not the first, but there are enough to make a nice picture.

I like to cut them in 1/4" slices, salt them and drain them for a while, then saute them gently until there are little golden-brown speckles on both sides. Wonderful flavor! 

San Antonio Missions historic sites (edited to remove fox photo as that was already posted)

Hello,  everyone.  I was out of town for a few days, but now have returned home. I saw some interesting things on this road trip.

Mission S. Francisco de Espada, near the Loop 1604 south portion, was the first of the mission churches we visited.

The mission front garden (there is a community of believers that come to pray and someone looks after the landscaping near the church building) was surprisingly colorful for August. In addition to the sunflowers in bloom, they had some beautyberry shrubs with berries. (The purple things) I didn't know beautyberry would grow so far south! I think San Antonio is in about zone 8b in the USDA growing zones map. Now I wonder if beautyberry would consent to grow in 9b, about 7 F degrees warmer on the winter cold days, I guess.

The front of the church. The reddish flowers on the left are poinciana, which is gorgeous in bloom but a freeze will at least knock it to the ground. They might be growing it on hope, and expecting the plants to return from the roots if the temp gets down to slightly below freezing.

Crazy garden tricks in Córdoba

Hello, everyone.  I was going through pictures from our 2025 Camino trip and rediscovered a photo from the Alcázar of Córdoba. It certainly took somone--maybe several someones--a lot of work to train and prune this.

Never in my life have I seen such a large and probably difficult topiary project as this tower. With a window and a crenellated top, yet!

Memories from Córdoba

Hello, everyone.  It's been an adjustment getting used to being at home. While moving photos from phone to computer, I came across some photos that y'all might find interesting. 

The ancient mill just downstream of the Roman bridge

View from the guard tower of the Alcázar. 

(Paused to crop photos in hope they won't be sideways)

Procession of Our Lady of Rocio, the wagon with the image, in Córdoba. 

When we left Sevilla in 2023, about the same time of year, we encountered a procession from a nearby village near Italica, for the same feast.

Part of the Cathedral structure from the years before the Moorish conquest of the area in the 8th century 

 Birds in the Cathedral courtyard. They were noisy but I couldn't tell if they were nesting or talking to another bird inside

One of the windows of the Cathedral, from the Moorish period, from the outside

See how much light the translucent pieces allow in. (Glass? Thinly sliced agate? I don't know.)

In the hot and dry climate of Córdoba, this is how they irrigate the many citrus trees in the Cathedral courtyard. From the Moorish period, I  think.

More of the irrigation setup.

This watering setup was very interesting.