The poppies are coming back! The reason this is so exciting is that for the better part of March I have been given over to despair as my daily garden checks revealed no poppy seedlings. I had almost given up on them. A check of my blog from this time last year revealed a lot of drivel about potatoes and the insane ramblings that spew forth from this keyboard almost without provocation, but no mention of poppies. This brought up two salient points - 1) why did I take my poppies for granted? The ultimate cottage garden plants, red blooms, stunning seed heads and my own opium supply (I kid). I am a cliche, I had no idea what I had, until it was gone 2) how hard would it be just to note what is happening in the garden from week to week? That was one of the goals of this blog - to act as a garden notebook so I can keep track of what happens when. I have a plan to rectify both issues. 1) Poppies. I kind of lost my cool more than a little bit when they didn't come up. I asked a friend who is a landscaper if they should be up yet, and the Irish prick said "yeah, they should be, I see them all over town" (it doesn't matter that he's Irish and he is not a prick, but I don't take bad news well and putting the Irish in front of prick makes me calling him names seem more palatable). I went to Barton Springs Nursery, which was as awesome as it always is, and bought container poppies to replace my no-shows. The only issue being that the poppies they had were Shirley Poppies and California Poppies (not really poppies at all, but I was desperate), not bread poppies like mine were. They were doing well and I was watering them in with regularity to insure they got established when I noticed my poppy seedlings coming up! I think they are late, and I think that is from lack of rain and when I started to water my transplants they finally had enough moisture to germinate. The armadillos, attracted by the watering, tore up about 1/3 of them, but that is an entire other issue that I do not wish to start a rant on right this moment. 2) I plan to start a simple list on each blog of what is happening in the garden. Being in a list form will make it easier to search later. Don't worry, or rejoice, I will continue to write about how this all makes me feel, what I think about it, describe any chicken trips that should arise and all that, uh, stuff.
Late March List: A)Cottage news - 1)poppies started to sprout 2)redbud bloomed 3)mountain laurel bloomed, began to be eaten by redbugs, black bugs and catepillars 4)culinary sage in bloom first 5)rose blooms 6)verbenas in bloom B)Vegetable - 1)potatoes in and going, covered with more soil twice 2)pole beans in and trellises built 3)tomatoes in, with cages 4)squash seeds in 5)okra seeds in 6)cilantro bolting
The list will be shorter if I will do one more often. Every week seems reasonable. I have something to say about almost every item on the list, which should surprise no one, but will limit my diatribe to the highlights. Culinary sage, Salvia officinalis (my second drug reference? at least I can add somebody at the DEA as a follower) is awesome. Evergreen, deer and drought resistant, edible by humans and blooms purple spires in the spring. Get some, plant it, stand back and then thank me for telling you something you should have already known. Texas Mountain Laurels, at least mine, are the wimpiest native plant ever. Their new growth is preferred munching for every insect in the hill country. We have a line of them on our caliche drive, and the first two years here, they didn't bloom. Closer inspection last spring revealed that they were being devastated by caterpillars. I treated at some point (when?) with Bacillus thuringiensis and this year they bloomed. Very exciting, prompting me to watch even more closely this year so I could get more blooms next. A little success is a dangerous thing for me. This week I noticed damage to new growth and I hustled out with my Bt, but the Mountain laurels were covered with not only caterpillars, but two different types of beetles - one red (Lopieda) and one black (Epicauta - a bug I wish I was not familiar with). It seems they are everybody's pump. I would refuse to spray them, but they are native, already established and have beautiful, fragrant spring blooms when happy. I don't think Bt gets the beetles, so I think might have my first go ever with an insecticidal soap. Yay. And last, I don't want to ignore my native verbenas. I just transplant them when I find them in a path or the drive. Or they reseed themselves. They are evergreen with dark green ferny foliage and bloom in purple umbrella like bunches from March until November. It is hard to imagine a better garden plant for my region. To the Prairie Verbena, Glandularia bipinnatifida, Cheers! Pictures are coming soon, with more consistent list. You know you like it.
