I had bunion surgery on my left foot and am just now getting back to gardening. One of my projects has been resurrecting our buffalo grass lawn we sodded in 2020. It looked really good, but I let cheatgrass go to seed one year and things have been looking ratty.
Crawling around pulling cheat grass is actually something you can do while you can’t put weight on your foot, so I started this project in December. But I’ve continued working on it. I’ve got a bag of Thunder Turf * from Native American Seed, and I’ve mixed in some bluebonnet seeds in hope of getting something that will compete with the cheat grass.
Cheat grass is just the worst. You’re desperate in December for something to cover the ground and keep the dogs from tracking mud in the house, but invariably you have your first 90 degree day, it all turns to dust, and then we have a tsunami in a newly patchy lawn, so all the mud comes in.
Today I finally got rid of an old friend. This tree was here when we moved in. It was understory to a giant Hackberry that we removed fairly quickly.
Without the tree above it, it grew into a nice shape. It was centered perfectly in the flowerbed. It was just great.
But then we had one of those storm cells that whipped around and tore off half the tree. Then when they were digging out the pool they got a backhoe stuck in the hole, so they brought in another backhoe in to pull the first one out. This involved tearing up a lot more flowerbeds which were probably covering this tree’s root zone.
I let it go on for way too long hoping it would get better. But it did not get better. The one remaining branch just kept growing towards the pool and dropping leaves and flowers into it.
So I started chopping it down last week. Unsuprisingly the center was infested with ants. It was a bit thick at the base for my chainsaw so I left a large portion of it.
Today I went and bought an axe.
I really need to stop buying rubberized handles. Every time I’m in the store I’m like, “I probably won’t injure myself from the tool slipping out of my hands if I get the rubberized handles”, and forget that rubberized handles are amazing for grabbing onto skin and creating blisters and then ripping them off. I digresss.
I think it’s looking good. I’m planning on adding a Mexican Plum tree in that space and a lot of Greg’s Mistflower. We’ll see if I get around to that plan.
And per the last post a lot of these branches are gonna become swales… :)
So my latest long time project has been building swales. When our pool was dug out a lot of horrible compacted dirt was left covering a lot of the garden. I’ve been trying to slowly dig it out ever since. The pool installers oftened to grade it, but I was terrified of what would happen if they did so.
As I’ve been moving this leftover dirt around, I’ve been building swales. I’ve always stared at what happens when it rains in dismay. Previously our gutters would just dump most of the water into our driveway to go into the street. We didn’t have gutters on the west roof of our house, and a drain that went from beside the house down into the lower part of the garden had been severed as part of some sewer work a decade ago.
I had some odd stairstepping on the north east side of the house that was slowly being taken over by erosion as the yard slid down the hill. So at the top of the wall I laid out some large pruned tree branches and covered them with dirt. Making a little ridge to keep the water from just immediately running down the hill. Then I constructed another one about 18 inches from my neighbor’s fence.
When we lost the Loquats in the horrible freeze a few years back we also lost all screening from our neighbor. I planted the tops of the swales with kidneywoods and mountain laurel. I also got an Italian Stone Pine from a friend who needed to re-home it, and I’ve planted various sages and little bits of leftovers from around the garden. The nice thing is that because they’re on the top of the swale the screening bushes have a little bit of a head start. And this year they’re just starting to peak over the top of the fence.
We got the gutters replaced this year and went with Austin Gutter King who did an amazing job of actually coming up with a better way to reclaim water and not just dump it into the driveway. We ended up putting all of the water in the front-yard into the garden. In the backyard they hooked up to one of my rain barrels, and I got the old drain working again and the majority of the water is being channled into my swale system. I filled the area where the drain empties with a couple of inches of mulch and it now just sucks in the moisture.
The rain this summer loosened up a lot of the ground that had been compacted while digging out our pool and I was finally able to dig out some paths. I created a new swale at the edge of our native grass yard, and we now have a gentle grade from our brick path to back gate. It used to be a small hill you needed some speed to get up.
I’ve planted the hog plum bushes that survived the summer in front of the swale, so hopefully they’ll cover it in time, and my goal is to add some wildflower seeds on top of it. The gigantic amount of mulch was just to hopefully keep improving the soil until I could plant something on it.
I’ve been very happy with it. We’ve had a lot of rain this summer and in the last two weeks and I’ve been able to check out how it all works. I’m definitely retaining a lot more water. There are still some edges around the shed that needed to be better at absorbing water, but might not be good candidates for swales. I’m thinking maybe some more native grass brorders that we can just trim down if we need to replace the fence. It seems like a perfect job for my old friend switch grass.
Austin Water has rebates for doing this sort of thing in your own yard. This has been more puttering, and less fully thought out project so I don’t plan to pursue the rebate, but maybe this post and the rebate will inspire you.
Last year was Julie and my 25th wedding anniversary. And we had a kid graduate from high school. So we put the anniversary on the back burner and promised ourselves we would do something special this year.
Well this year the world continues to become more complicated, so we looked for places to explore close-ish to home. Several months ago I was looking at a map of Texas’ regions and noticed one labeled “South Texas Brush Country”. I don’t think this was an official term, but it got me thinking, “What made that different from West Texas or South Texas”?
Julie was similarly intrigued. So we found a big enough town for a hotel and restaraunts that could meet our dietary restrictions and then looked for state parks. We setteled on Seminole Canyon State Park and History Site and Kickapoo Cavern State Park.
Heading to Del Rio was fun. We hit one of our favorite San Antonio restaruants - Vegan Avenue, and then did some vintage shopping. We never head west out of San Antonio so we hadn’t been to the Alsatian bakery - “Haby’s”.
Haby's Alsatian Bakery. So cute. Got lots of donuts.
We headed out and had another stop for vintage shopping at Homer’s on the Square in Uvalde. Uvalde is still a hard place to visit.
Then we headed towards Del Rio. As we headed west we got to see the brush country. A lot of ranches rather than being cleared had dense thickets of bushes with nothing much more than 8 feet tall. Mountain Laurels and cenizo were everywhere. On the way in we passed Lackland Airforce Base, and a jet of some kind took off right in front of us. It was really fast and as I am married to a woman who wanted to be a fighter pilot this may have been her favorite moment of the trip. We spent the night and then headed out to, but had to pass through a border patrol stop on our way to
Seminole Canyon State Park
Sculpture by Bill Worrell inspired by the paintings.
Once we knew where we were going we signed up for the Fate Bell Shelter Tour. Just a heads up. When they say it’s a bit intense they’re not lying. While it has very well developed stairs, it’s a LOT of stairs in direct Texas sun. This is coming from someone who likes to run in the afternoon heat. Our tour was the last before the heat breaks in the fall.
I don’t want to spoil the cave art with my bad photography. When they say it’s spectacular, they’re not joking. The artists did some very large art over a lot of space and used 4 different colors of paint. It’s worth the trip. But there are border checkpoints on the way, so obviously not everyone can.
But plants!
The view from the top of the visitors center.
The number of beautiful delciate flowers growing in rocks was unreal. When you see the overall view it looks very harsh, but there are so many delicate plants.
Some type of flax?
Looking back up at the vistor's center from the canyon.
An eagle eyed woman on our tour spotted this fox having a nap. Can you see it? It blends in perfectly. Look at the lower left corner of the traingular orange rock shape.
Sotol amd Rock Penstemon making a fine combo.
Every description of button brush I've read makes me think I'd kill it. Seeing it in its natural habitat - small bits of very damp soil inside sun blasted dried riverbeds - I am convinced. I think I'm going to keep admiring it and admit my yard is nothing like that.
I did very badly at IDing these. I'll try to update as iNaturalist folks help me out.
One of my new favorite bushes - Guajillo!
Strawberry cactus.
We drove out to a view of the Amistad Reservoir. Even though it's man-made it's beautiful. I don't think I've ever seen a lake that looks like the beaches of Cancun.
More strawberry cactus. It was in bloom all over the place. So beautiful.
After being out in the sun all morning we went back for showers and spent the day exploring Del Rio. And we did that! Yes we did. All explored.
Kickapoo Cavern State Park
Our third day we headed out early. Because of the route we were going we went through Bracketsville. North of Bracketsville was a border patrol stop. It was not the professional border patrol agents. One of the agents walked to the car with his finger on the trigger of an AR-15. There were so few cars on the road it felt like an “accident” could find our bodies in a ditch. I wouldn’t really recommend going that way to anyone. It was unpleasant and being near the Alamo film set it felt appropriate to highlight that the brutal, violent history of Texas is not the past.
I can’t decide if either of these parks are worth the risk, but they are amazing.
You know I love those grasses. I left my "Field Guide to Common Texas Grasses" at home so I'm not sure what I was seeing. But I loved it.
Silky Evolvulus
Texas Persimmon. One of my favorites, but definitely more of a tree in Austin. Very much a bush in brush country.
More Guajillo!
Coyotillo
Papershell pinyon, are you also lusting after pines that won't grow here?
They even have tiny pine cones.
At the time we thought this view was amazing.
Netleaf Forestiera
A cool rock
Pretty prickly pear in bloom.
Cenizo pretty much everywhere. Everywhere!
iNutrualist is suggesting seep muhyl, but it's not curly. Hmm... it was definitely ocurring in dry creekbeds.
The signs said Spanish Dagger, but I think that's frequently just used generically for any yucca. This had much narrower blades and the overall head was a lot smaller than what I think of as Spanish Dagger.
I don't know what this is, but I was fascinated by it.
Leatherstem
Mountain pink? It was sooo small and pretty.
Also very small. So small.
Rock Penstemon was just everywhere.
We went to the top of the armadillo view. Which we thought would lead to us seeing cute animals, but instead we saw this breathtaking view in every direction. When we were back on the ground we realized that the hill was shaped like an armadillo.
More flowering cactus.
I'm not sure if this is indicative of what this was like before it was grazed by sheep, but it's a very pretty vigenette in any area where there was clearly a lot of overgrazing resulting in loss of grass.
Dunno, but it's pretty.
The road north on 670 was just jawdropping. We pulled over to take this picture. I'm pretty sure when it's wetter there are waterfalls. We went over cattleguards and were given the side eye by some cows in the road. Definitely in my top 3 roads I've driven in Texas.
I can't even. It was unreal.
In any case, we were both really glad we went. This was very different country from Big Bend or the Hill Country. As we drove into Kerrville on 10 it really it HOW different it was.
Sometimes you just need to record what is happening in the garden and take in the beauty. It’s something I am learning as I grow older.
A beautiful sunset from under our pergola. We spent an afternoon in May trying to figure out how to get a bigger pergola. But because our back patio is on a curve, and we have a lot of windows, there simply is not a good way to do anything different than what we have. Without significant earthworks, that is. Maybe some day.
A part of the garden I don't normally photograph. A view back to teh shed after freshly weeding. Firewheel has been a real highlight this year, and the kidneywood has gotten huge. We're still waiting from some cenizo to grow and block the view from the trail behind our house. At least that's what I say, but all the birds nesting in the bushes we have now make me long for more.
Another view I don't norally post. This is looking up from our gate out onto the trail. We have another kidneywood and some salvias. I'm adding some gulf muhly, although I'm sure it'll be unhappy with the lack of water.
A view of the back of the house and Junie. My Buffalo Grass sod is still fighting to hold on, but there are plenty of other grasses mixed in. I do love that it is both structured and feels like a habitat garden. We have baby birds, and lots of lizards, and I even saw a squirrel fall out of the tree the other day. It was fine. Just had the wind knocked out of it.
I have not been doing enough garden photography. Despite pessimism about Bluebonnets I’ve had quite a few. Of course a lot of the times when you hear rain forecasts you’ll hear “especially East of IH-35”. I think we’ve definitely seen a lot more rain than many parts of Austin.
Mealy Blue Sage with Red Yucca spikes in the background.
While my kids are getting older and less interested in hunting Easter Eggs, my old dog *has* discovered the fun of hunting Easter Eggs and I'm finding the ones she finds discarded around the yard.
Cutleaf Daisy. This came from planting Native American Seed's Shade Friendly Wildflower Mix.
The annual winecups are everywhere in my yard and I do not mind at all. Pictures do not do them justice.
Some pretty Larkspur.
Switch grass. I know most of y'all don't like it, but I do.
I planted a kitchen garden this year. I've got some onions going to seed.
In the front we have a yucca bloom spike surrounded by white mealy blue sage.
Fluffy Texas Bluegrass.
The remaining bluebonnets are fading. But you can see lots of Greg's Mistflower in the background getting ready for the hot summer months.
Plains Coreopsis? Beautiful in any case. You can see the bluebonnets going to seed in front.
And an amazing Retama in full flower.
P.S. I’ve still got 4 hogplum bushes growing. We’ll see, we’ll see…
We went on a New Year’s Day hike this year at Hornsby Bend. It was a nice hike, but I saw a tall bush I hadn’t really noticed before. I looked it up and it’s Colubrina texensis - Texas Snakewood or Texas Hog Plum.
Colubrina texensis
After all of our Loquat trees died in the great freeze I’ve been trying to restablish screening plants. I noticed that Texas Kidneywood is a good screening plant in Winter, even though it’s decidious. Its branches are so fine and interwoven that it provides pretty good screening. I noticed the Hog Plum has a similar habit.
I ordered some seeds off of Etsy. I’m still very amatuer when it comes to growing things from seeds. I think most of my success is just accidental. In any case I squealed the other night when I saw this. Julie came running to see what was going on.
Hog Plum Seedlings
Fingers crossed, we’ll be getting some new bushes this year, and I’ll have some to share!
We’ve had some spectacular full moons recently. I have an Android phone with Night Sight which helped me take these photos. I thought they were cool and surreal.
Not a lot of attention was put into taking these as Julie was waiting to go to bed.
Lisa of Lisa’s Landscape and Design has been posting plants on Facebook that do well in this heat. I’ve been feeling pretty beaten down like a lot of Austinites by this unrelenting heat and dryness. But it did inspire me to show off what is doing well. Because there are actually some things still blooming and not (too) crunchy.
Cenizo or Barometer Bush. Every garden should have multiple. They bloom when you least expect it.
Flame Acanthus. Hummingbirds are still visiting it on the regular. It’s a bit crispy, but I’ll allow it.
Kidneywood or Bee Brush. I’ve been planting a lot of this as it fills in really densely. But this is around a year old and is holding its own in this drought.
Red Yucca. Second stop for the daily hummingbirds.
Big Muhly in the foreground, purple heart behind it, and accompanied by a Texas Mountain Laurel looking cool and inviting.
Fall Aster. One of my favorites. This gets no irrigation, other than rain, and look at this! I cut back a bunch of plants just so I could admire it better. I never do that.
Gayfeather shaded by a Retama. This is gayfeather from Native American Seed. I found out that Blazing Star is for more moist soils. So if you’ve been striking out with that and want the super xeric kind make sure to order the regular gayfeather.
Aren’t those seedheads pretty? They’re very yellow. This is Indian Grass from Native American Seed.
I have lost track of what this is. It was supposed to grow up a trellis, but it hated that, and instead loves mounding in this area. You just see some of its tiny hot pink flowers if you look close enough. Let me know if you know what it is!
Thompson’s yucca I grew from seed.
Gopher plant. This is one of the foundational corners of my yard and is pretty much always happy.
Sensitive Briar. In many places very crispy, but we’ve still got a couple pink puffballs there!
Gregg’s Mistflower. Crispy, but we’ve still got some blooms.
Got some sideoats gramma that’s holding on, and some violet ruellia. I tend to treat that as a weed, but this is a set of berms I’ve made to retain water, so I might just let them take over. They’re very pretty.
And finally Woolly Stemodia. Which lives next to the gopher plant and regularly plays the game where it disappears almost entirely for a year or two. This year it seems very happy. Go figure.
What do you have that’s still keeping on in this heat?
One thing that people are frequently clamoring for in Texas are evergreen bushes. The problem is there really aren’t any natives that match what people expect. So they plant Privet and Photinias. Which are an eco-nightmare.
But I’ve been thinking for a while. I have two Mountain Laurels that are underneath trees that I see all the time. They’re living they’re best lives and seem to be in no way interested in competing as a tree. They’re just spreading as bushes.
Got me thinking - why don’t we use mountain laurels as bushes? I mean sure they grow glacially, but nurseries tend to sell them at exactly bush height.
I started playing with one in my yard that I planted too close to the house. This is what it looked like. It clearly can’t grow up or it’ll hit the eaves. It’s in the path. But it’s also a pretty dang happy looking plant.
So I decided to experiment shaping it a bit with a hedge trimmer, and it looks pretty ok:
I think you could definitely create a hedgerow of these. Have you seen anyone do it?
