If you’ve visited my house one of the first things that greeted you was a giant prickly pear. When we sold our old house in 2007 I took two paddles and put them in a pot with some dirt. They sat on my Mom and Dad’s back porch for 4 months, then spent an entire winter shoved into the back of our new shed. I planted it sometime that summer.

To say it thrived was an understatement. It grew into a lovely specimen.

But then it kept growing. It started making it difficult to get into the house and needed constant pruning. It was like a friend who was clingy, always wanting to play with your hair.

It was impressive in a “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a prickly pear that tall before” way. But not in a “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a prickly pear that beautiful before”. So Julie and I decided today that the time had come. As part of our spring cleaning we took it out.

It has provided some lovely landscaping beams, however.

So what next? We don’t know. I’d love to hear any and all ideas.

I try to keep my ranting in other blogs. But every piece of gardening feels like such a political activity that I don’t really know why I try. Here’s a great thread from Austin City Council Member Gregorio Casar on the intersection of immigration and Monarch butterflies.

https://twitter.com/GregCasar/status/1095392663698853888

https://twitter.com/GregCasar/status/1095392671584145408

https://twitter.com/GregCasar/status/1095392674415329283

I had a wonderful time at a solstice party last night, and what better way to celebrate the return of longer days than to spend several hours out wedding with the dogs. The weather was lovely. The weeds were bountiful, and I got many kisses from the dogs.

Recently two friends of mine got married in my backyard. The rains were dicey and only ended about 10 minutes before the wedding started, but everything could not have looked more beautiful.

That said, I planted a row of Fall Aster along the edge of the flowerbed. The plants were full of buds. Everything looked ready to fall into line. And they bloomed a week after the wedding. Plants, they care about seasons and sunlight and nothing for what we have going on in our lives.

In any case, they’re looking fantastic right now and I’m really enjoying them.

We’re hosting a wedding in our backyard in a couple weeks. One of the things that I felt was most in need of attention was our shed. It was still the same ugly gun metal gray as when we bought our house. The shed is in the original renderings of our house and I think the paint might be original as well. It was in rough shape.

In trying to think of a picture to illustrate the before-and-after I was thinking of this picture of when the kids were small.

In my memory the shed was so dominant and ugly. It is clearly not as dominant or ugly as I remember. Just the only thing in the picture that isn’t completely lovely. In any case we decided to recreate the picture.

Most of the trees in the first photo are gone, and new trees have taken their place. The kids are bigger. . And you still don’t really notice the shed.

So here’s the before:

And the after with one of my helpers.

We plan to eventually paint the trim white, but we’ll see if that project ever happens. Maybe in another decade…

The barometer bush says we’re done with rain. This beautiful path almost makes up for the rampaging elephant-sized mosquitos. Almost.

The Pride of Barbados flowers are falling in the August heat which created this lovely color combo.

Maybe you realize this already. Maybe you power wash your concrete and brick more than once a decade. I did not. But I had a get together of Austin Garden Bloggers coming up next week. I’m using that as a trial run for a wedding we’re hosting in our backyard in October. Basically trying to get a bunch of the big tasks out of the way so I don’t procrastinate. Procrastination tends to be what I do best.

I had always smugly viewed power washing as the domain of Dads who had no football to watch and were avoiding their wives and kids. And maybe there’s still something to that. And I’m definitely lazy. But I may need to do this more often. I think I’ll ask Google to remind me to power wash again in five years instead of ten.

On Wednesday’s I run into work, and I take the bus home.. It’s 5.5 miles. Which is less than a 10k, but for some reason people think what I’m doing is weird. When I’m running I think a lot about what separates my craziness - like excessive gardening and running - from other people’s craziness.

On the way today, right in front of the Metropolis apartments I spied one of my favorite flowers growing wild - Catclaw sensitive briar. It was blooming just fine after being freshly mowed which makes me think it would be a great addition to a patchy bermuda lawn.

I love this plant, but I think it hasn’t caught on for the same reason I haven’t planted it EVERYWHERE - it’s hard to find. I picked mine up at a Wildflower Center plant sale and have been scouring the lists for it again ever since.

After a few years it has begun mounding in my front yard like an Asiatic Jasmine. It also seems to be one of the few things that has stopped nut sedge from spreading. It hasn’t killed it. But it’s not spreading in the areas the briar is thriving. It has those fluffy little blooms, and the leaves curl up when you pet them.

The downside is it’s not evergreen. But you can’t have everything. Anyway, if you find it somewhere please send me a line.