January 2017 The good thing about having blogged and taken photos all of these years is that it is an excellent way to be able to revisit the garden to see the changes, good and bad. Over the weekend I managed to weed and mulch the two beds on the side of the house and I thought it would be fun to do a little photo history tour of the side yard garden beds. Here we go! A week ago—right after the freeze November 2016 August 2016 August 2015 March 2015 April 2014 September 2013 July 2013 February 2013 October 2012 September 2012 — we moved in last few days…

Attention Houston: This is your once-a-decade reminder that you don't quite live in the deep tropics. — Eric Berger (@SpaceCityWX) January 7, 2017 Oh man. We left town Friday evening prepared for the weekend deep freeze with what we thought was going to be mid to high 20s and instead woke up Saturday morning in Dallas with Chris checking the temperature for our town to find out the low was 20*. There’s a good chance it was a little lower than that, too, but either way, the damage was done. Saturday night was more of the same, a double whammy. Chris has prepared by putting up all of the orchids,…

Edible Garden Tour Flower Garden Tour A conversation with my brother kind of lit a fire under me to make more videos of the garden this year. Actually, I’ve been really lax in making videos of any kind over the last year, even with Forest, and I kind of regret it. I think I did so much that first year of Forest’s life that I really wanted to pull back a little there for awhile. I do miss being able to watch videos so I’m planning to be more proactive this year. Expect more!

I took all of these photos earlier this month, before we had any actual cold weather. We had a night or two early in the month that might have touched freezing for an hour or two overnight but for the most part we just stayed shy of that line. After last year’s mild winter I was kind of hoping for more of the same this year but that was not to be. The strong front came through late evening Saturday the 17th and we woke up the next morning to temperatures around freezing or just above that. The sensitive plants in the garden still looked pretty good but I knew…

I can’t remember where and when we bought these marigolds this year but sometime in the last few months they spread their branches and took over a corner of the garden. That was fine with us, really, because they looked good and really made the garden perk up a bit. My mom grew marigolds when I was growing up and when they went to seed my brother and I would pick the seed heads and spread the seeds in the garden where they would germinate the next growing season. Forest has also love the marigolds and cannot resist, no matter how much I tell him, to pick one. He smells…

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve seen a lot of activity in regards to the monarch butterflies. About two weeks ago, when I took these photos, there was still some adults flitting about and at least one new caterpillar but since then it seems the majority have moved south towards Mexico. I caught the adult female above resting on the ‘Wendy’s Wish’ salvia one day at lunch and it was only later when I looked on a photo I took on my phone that I saw an empty chrysalis. Due to the docile nature of the butterfly at the time I put two and two together and decided…

It’s been awhile since I went out and took photos in the garden using the reverse macro technique. Since Chris got me a new 18-55 lens for my birthday, I’m using my old lens (which had some connection problems) for things like reverse macro and freelensing when I think to use it. Here’s a bit of what I shot last week; I mostly wanted to shoot the seedlings out in the vegetable garden. Blackberry Lily Monarch caterpillars Tomato flowers Red giant mustard Spinach seedlings Radish seedlings

Cassia/Senna corymbosa A small sweet potato harvest from volunteers in the vegetable garden. Formosa lily seed pods. Rudbeckia lacinata seed heads. The wild and tangled garden. Visiting trees—he likes to visit the trees along the driveway. Picking okra with me. “Mom, let’s go NOW!” My new mail and harvest catch-all for the way back to the house. The Turk’s cap hibiscus grouping has established well and is now abundant with butterflies, particularly sulphurs, this time of year.

Every time I think the monarchs have moved on and the milkweed has recuperated from being devoured, I find a new round of caterpillars! I’m making plans to be sure to get more milkweed seeds to start for next year because of this very abundant flow these last few months. Next year I think we’re also going to try to bring the caterpillars into a tent so that they can be protected from predators and be ensured to turn into butterflies. We went for a hike over the weekend at Huntsville State Park and they have a really neat wooden structure with mesh sides that Chris liked and mentioned he…