Gardening
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The Garden Waking Up
Dividing onions about to bloom. The dogwood in full glory. A red columbine. A yellow columbine. Forget me nots….finally a mystery plant solved. They came in the seed packet we spread last year and just now bloomed. Creeping phlox from my mom. Trilliums coming up after we put them in the ground last spring. Thought they had just disappeared but they waited a year to make an appearance. An iris about to bloom. We lost one blossom that came up too early and were knocked over by the freeze so I’m glad this one decided to come up.
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A New ‘Yellow Bird’ Magnolia
Last year on Sprout Dispatch I wrote about the two ‘Yellow Bird’ magnolias we planted out in the front of our yard. Unfortunately both were hit up by the deer, the bucks thought it would be cute to rub their antlers on them and thus broke some branches off of the trees. One was damaged much worse than the other and we opted to give it until spring to see if they would come back. One of them is, although a little bit shakily, but the other we thought was completely toast. At one of our local nurseries we saw a really magnificent replacement tree that would be a great…
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An Hour at Fairchild — The Butterflies | Part II
Since the last time we were at Fairchild they have added an exotic butterfly conservatory. After touring the conservatory we realized that they had taken away the back room where Mr. Stinky used to be and converted it to part of the butterfly area. I’m not sure where they display Mr. Stinky now. The butterfly exhibit was great, and there are a series of doors that are opened only by the push of a button in order not to let any escapees attached to anyone from exiting out into nature itself. It’s the effort to prevent non-natives from invading where they shouldn’t.
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A Hour at Fairchild | Part I
It’s really difficult to visit Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens in only an hour, but we did. Thankfully we were already familiar with the park otherwise I can’t imagine recommending anyone not familiar to visit it in only an hour. Really, you should spend half the day there if possible. It’s even more fun when they have their tropical ice cream vendors there! We started off with the vines on the west side of the park near the road. This is a chalice vine, a succulent-like vine that we once grew in our garden in Ft. Lauderdale. I wrote about the jade vine over on Sprout Dispatch on Monday. I’m not…
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The Ruby Mize Azalea Garden | SFA Botanic Gardens
On the west side of University drive and directly across from the Gayla Mize garden is the Ruby Mize Azalea Garden. Unfortunately we were about a month too early for the spectacular blooms of the azaleas, but it was still a nice walk through the small garden here. A camellia that I didn’t catch the name of. More camellias! If only we could keep the deer off of our remaining camelia in our yard… A magnolia bud. Camellia japonica ‘Kujaku-tsubaki’ Camellia ‘Spring Mist’ It was definitely the transition time for the end of the camellias and the beginning of the azaleas. Next year we’ll have to plant to visit east…
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The Gayla Mize Garden | SFA Botanic Gardens
On the far east side of the Stephen F. Austin campus is a wooded area that is home to a newer garden in the SFA Botanic Gardens, the Gayla Mize garden. It is definitely a work in progress with new plantings that are only a few years old, but you can see the potential it has in the upcoming years. Camellia yuhsienensis Euonymus phellomanus I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I thought over in this garden, but it was a lovely walk. Lots of interesting species plants from various parts of the world, even a sassafras species from China that we didn’t know about. Back beyond the garden…
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A Basket of Carrots
This morning I pulled the carrots and daikon radishes in order to make room for tomatoes here in a few weeks. We’ve eaten a few carrots since they matured (planted them in October I believe) but haven’t really done a whole lot with them otherwise. It took me about two hours to peel them—really, I just finished peeling them a few minutes ago. Chris will blanch and freeze them tonight so we can eat them later on in the year. The daikon radishes had bolted, among the many other winter vegetables that have bolted in the last few weeks. The biggest and longest daikon! I’ll probably take some to work…
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Blossoms
I wish that these blossoms would last longer than I know they will. The magnolia might be ‘Ann’, but we’re not sure. The tag disappeared off of the tree, however it might be lingering somewhere in our piles of garden tags and information….somewhere. The two ‘Yellow Bird’ magnolias have not bloomed yet. Even so, only one will. The second one was rammed down by a buck and we left it to determine if would sprout back in the spring. I’m still tempted to rip it out and put a bigger one back in its place. We have a ‘Jane’ magnolia as well but it hasn’t bloomed yet either. Down the…
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The Next Garden Phase
With spring weather appearing Chris and I have been outside in the yard working furiously on various projects. Our current project is what will hopefully be a quick perimeter flower bed around the man-cave. This area had previously been landscaped as per evidence we’ve found in the bed: soaker hoses, old stumps, telephone poles acting as a border, pieces of green plant tape, and other miscellaneous items garden related. We still had plenty of stone left from the other flower gardens that needed to be put to use and they have worked out perfectly for this section. Standing back further in the driveway, the new bed really does tie together…
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Spring…around the corner??
It sure seems that way with our forecast for the next 10 days being in the 60s and 70s. Even if spring isn’t around the corner, I think some plants in the yard believe it is. The crocus we planted last year are sprouting and blooming out in the right-of-way. In the edible garden a lot of our greens are bolting. There’s a plethora of yellow blooms out there, so much so that they are attracting our bees! One of the side by-products of the first trimester has been an aversion to vegetables. Therefore a lot of our greens have gone uneaten and I feel really guilty about that. I…