Best Wishes to the Keepers of the World's Gardens.
Happy Vernal Equinox to all of you today.

Happy lighter good gardening days to you too Maggie. I do like those tulips, hope mine are still alive....now where did I plant them??

Thank you Terry! Now I'll admit! I planted 50 of these babies last fall and I'm wondering where they are! A few of them have come up but I'm missing a few....

Don't look at me - I don't even know how to get there ;-)

Fruit trees are in bloom hereabouts.

Beautiful blooms, Maggie - Your pic on the Weather 2001 discussion is lovely.

It is the Asian pear in the herb garden Ter, planted more recently than the espaliered one on the house wall. The plan being for the two to cross pollinate, but this year Bart bloomed well before the Asian, so I hope he conceived a few late babies. Bees came in droves when his mate Kyomi bloomed with the crap apple. Too bad their genetics wouldn't allow a pearapple to happen
and Seeee, I told you my little greenhouse was really just a see-thru shed ;-)

Wow Maggie! I've never heard of a crap apple before. Where did you buy it?

First hummingbirds sighted in our garden! Actually, I heard the first hummingbird before I saw him. The male rufous hummingbird makes a whirring sound when he flies.

I just knew HOW much you would enjoy that Caro :-0 I get them wherever crape myrtles are sold!

Susan, we usually see a scout or two prowling in March for promises of summer feasts. Do you think yours is a spring scout?

We get a lot of those crap apples over here too Maggie, usually French Golden Delicious.

Yep, we have the crabbie 'Red Delicious' variety over here Terry. Especially developed to produce perfect color with a long shipping/shelf life - yet without any flavor in the dry gritty pulp. I went around for years asking why in the world these were labeled with the word 'delicious' in their name! I was so glad to hear that it wasn't just me, when the media recently reported that the sales of this awful variety were so bad that the market price has become lower than its production cost and that the gov is subsidizing the Amer apple growers to continue growing them. Some farmers are plowing down their Red Not-Delicious orchards, and others are sending the subsidized harvests into storage. If you are trying to make any sense of all that, good luck. This ABC News article (I don't know how permanent the url will be) indicates the usual suspect - gov monies promised to garner aggie votes.
I wonder if the French gov is subsidizing their Yellow Not-Delicious apple growers - or are they just selling them off to the UK market? ;-)

Here in the great apple-growing state of Washington my husband & I look for imports from New Zealand. Several great varieties are available, but not all year round.

We have hummingbirds at our feeders from mid-March through June. When July comes, they stop visiting our feeders. The reason may be that by July there are many blooming plants.

In the second year we put out feeders we saw a hummingbird hovering in the spot where the previous year's feeder had been. This was on March 15, much earlier than I expected to see hummingbirds. Since then I've tried to put the feeders out on March 15.

I envy you all the hummers, wish we had some over here.

I was thinking of you up there in apple-state when writing that Susan and was hoping to get your input. But wow, New Z apples? What a surprize! They must be great - I don't know if I've ever had one myself. You send me one and I'll send Terry a hummer - ha! Wouldn't they be awsome to have in an aviary?

Now that is interesting that your Hummers take up residence in March. Have you ever photo-ed one? I have a few shots - but like the cardinal one, they are so bad that Larry didn't want to put them on the Wildlife page :-0 Think I'll do it anyway, when I update the critter pics - when he's not looking ;-) I don't care how bad a photo quality they are - it still feels like an achievement when I even catch them blurred! cause even that portrays their magic tricks.

So what does Lars know? - he calls these T. saxatilis 'the fried egg tulips' ;-) and I called um tardas! The blind leading the blind.

My T tarda's are just showing through the soil, we must be about a month apart now Maggie. Nice day today, mild and we have had a little sunshine.
Forsythia still not in full bloom so that is quite late, usually out at end of Feb. Everything is moving pretty fast though, soon see that magical transformation from wasteland to jungle.

I found this cute article today entitled, "You Are a Maniacal Gardener if...."

Here's the link:

http://www.mdc.net/~mcconley/Maniacal.html

Photographing birds is an art! I had a book out of the library showing how a nature photographer got some of his shots. In one case he was in water up to his waist with only the end of his camera poking out of his blind. For another shot he spent a day building a scaffold near a huge saguaro cactus, then he put his blind on top of the scaffold and waited for his shot. Here is one of his photos:

Wow, great shot!

You have to admire the dedication, think I'll stick to toadstools.

Tim Fitzharris is the photographer, and the book is The Autubon Society Guide to Nature Photography. I went back to the library this afternoon & found the book on the shelf. After reading this book my desire to photograph birds died a quick death. The book is definitely not meant for an amateur trying to take pictures in the back yard.

Oops, that's Audubon Society

I could have changed that for you Su - but last time I tried to correct one of mine on this thread - the now-notorious 'crap apple', I seemed to have lost Ter's comment after the pear pic and failed to change the p to b, like I thought I was doing! I was going to move Caro's Maniacal Gardeners to the thread where we toyed with that subject earlier, but dunno if should try it now after that last disaster! And Caro thought I only screwed up the crab thing - Ha she will really enjoy hearing how much worse it actually was !

Thanks for that awesome pic Susan. He looks like someone handpainted him! I have a great one titled 'The Wonder of Birds', National Geographic. . breathtaking works! Glad you told us about what it takes to get those awsome pics.
Now see, that encourages me to post my maybe not-so-bad-for-a-gardener hummer pics, afterall!
There won't be as many bird picies this year as there were last year, since Moggy and Mia have both found the dog door works for cats too. Mia has already brought a few feathered friends in (almost plucked), so I doubt there will be any nests built at eye level this year, as there are when we are without resident-outdoor cats.

I have to sdmit that is my only way to get close ups, but they're just not the same after the cats have played with them for half an hour.

Talking of editing, my sdmit escaped before I could change it...

Susan, are you a member of the Audubon Society? Our local society has some interesting birding trips coming up and I'm thinking about joining in if they don't laugh at my novice bird talk.

No, I'm not a member. It's funny that you should say that about being laughed at! A few years ago I was thinking about joining, but the scholarly tone of the local club's newsletter made me think that no one would be interested in the observations of an amateur (me).

When I was in Phoenix I went on an Audubon Society bird walk in a local park, and it was great fun.

That's good to know. I keep thinking, I won't recognize any of these birds (it's a swamp area which isn't anything like my backyard). But I thought it would be fun and educational. I'll just try to keep my mouth shut and listen and learn!

Go & have fun!

When I wanted to join the Audubon Society, I thought I had seen something different about a particular bird in our area. I was too timid to talk to the experts - who would believe the observations of an amateur? I just wanted to compare notes, but the other members were on a much higher level.

Yes Gail, do go - Please take a camera !
And Terry, we'll pass on any abc bird close ups (already-been-chewed) :-0

Like many of the pages on this site, the wildlife section hasn’t been updated since it was first made in ’99. Gosh time 'flies'! So all this hummer talk has inspired me to tackle that dept, by at least adding some newer baby bird pics and my few shots of the hummers. (btw, Lars has now decided that they are interesting enuff to publish - now that they have been ;-) I have been posting the wildlife pics here on the forum lately, instead of there - it is so much easier to do it all here instead!
The nestling pics here

And the hummers are here

Nothing wrong with those pics Maggie, I hate you. I think the hummers are really good, captures their alternate positions and fast wing beats. Bet that sparrow wouldn't be so lucky with Moggy around.

Yes! You captured the elusive hummers! Thanks for posting the pictures. What's that white flower the hummer is visiting?

We don't see hummingbirds visiting our flowers very often. They are supposed to like the native currant, but I've never once seen a hummer visiting the currant in our yard. I suspect we scare any hummers away when we approach the bush. It's in an exposed spot.

Thanks guys, I use the lawn chair system ;-) The key is to sit very still with camera close to face. Now the sitting very still is easy, after a long stretch of weeding or digging, yes?!
Good point Sus, I'll enter the plant name on the page too. It is Salvia greggii - one of our indispensable heat/drought tolerants. Also comes in purple, red, pinks and coral. Smells sage-y. Some call it the 'autumn or cherry sage', but around here it starts its first flush in March or earlier in an extra warm winter and does several more bloom flushes till frost.

If the crab apple typo wasn't enough, I just realized I had a brain-o on this page too! Tarda tulips are the yellow centered white ones and the pinks above, are T. saxatilis. argh. Do white tardas return for you Terry?

After two weeks of rain we had two days of partly sunny weather. I've been out pulling weeds & doing much-needed cleanup in the garden. I found a mystery plant! It's obviously something I planted last year, but I haven't the faintest idea what it is. I cut off the dead upper part, but there are coral-red leaves poking up at the base. What will it turn out to be? What a delightful mystery. (I can't think of any weeds with coral-red leaves.)

Sounds like Euphorbia griffithi to me Susan, well that is what is bright red and poking through in my garden.
The T. tardas do better than any others for me Maggie, they even seed about, but I am losing a lot due to competition from other plants. They are so small they soon get overwhelmed. It will be a while yet before mine flower.
Bet you enjoyed those brighter days Susan, we just had a few nice ones and it was great just to stand outside and breath.

I had the strangest looking thing show up last year, that looked like some kind of Euphorbia too. But it was an annual. I even made a pic of it to show yous, but didn't get around to posting it. Will try to track it down sometime. I know it wasn't like yours Sus, by the sound of it, but gosh it was weird.

Things are blooming 1-2 weeks later than their usual timing, what with the extended wet, cool spell. But now everything is exploding. There is color on all 3 sides of the pool right now. Lady Banks and Souvenier de la Malmaison have just now opened. and I'm not going to proof that bad spelling ;-)

The Lady Banks is lovely, Maggie. Don't you wish they were repeat bloomers?

I have never regretted them for that Caro, since their sculpted pattern amuses me all year. Now a squared block of photinia would be a bore.

That's a fantastic display, Maggie. We tried Lady Banks as a ground cover, but put it in a location without enough sun. It was pitiful.

Blooming now in our area there are evergreen clematis vines that are comparable to your Lady Banks. My mother has one, and the fence it's climbing on is collapsing under the weight of the vine.

Terry, I could very well have put a euphorbia in that spot. There is a green euphorbia nearby, but it's evergreen.

My weird shooting up plant finally dawned on me. Gaura. It comes out red, serrated foliage and turns green as it grows taller.

I heard of a rose today as rambunctious as the Lady Banks, and is a continual bloomer. Its called New Dawn. I think that's the name anyway. The speaker said that you must allow 30-40' for it.

Incidentally, all my roses are in bloom today. Just gorgeous.

Is that lovely Lady Banks also Rosa banksia? I really should look it up but this is easier.
Can I wish you every success with the gift shop Maggie, you have some lovely stuff in there.
Must be great to have roses blooming this early Carolyn, while I am still waiting for my daffs to open.

Caro, I've seen a New Dawn at full size. Covered a barn. Beautiful but....

Zephrine Drouhin seems a bit more tame AND NO thorns which love to jump out and grab me on other roses I have.

Lovely scent too Gail. Won't do much for me though, just keeps hanging on.

Wish we could see pic of those clems Sus J My LB does grow more slowly on the shady side, but the entire site had full sun when they were first planted.

How long have you had your Zeph Terry? Mine took 2-3 yrs to get going good and I know several gardeners with same experience.

New Dawn was one of the first things I put in the long border, Caro, when it was very narrow. We had to drive down to Antique Rose Emporium to buy old roses at the time, cause reg nurseries didn’t know what I was on about, never mind carry them. Back then, the place was still only a field, with a few beds and rows of pots, but it made for a nice B&B weekend trip. I trained ND onto the back fence and kept it at a 30 ft. span for about 12 years. Lady Banksia is a lot easier to work with – no thorns. I love New D’s bloom form, fragrance and history, but the delicate color looses it in the Texas sun.

You’re right Ter, about the name – Banksia is affectionately known by shortened nicknames around here, as it was commonly grown in the homestead days, due to being well acclimated to our climate, ability to survive neglect and easy to ‘pass along’. It can cover a house, and often did, when left to grow at will.

It is always written that the white Lady Banks has a lovely scent and the yellow is scentless. But the most amazing thing – mine have a delicious fragrance this year – indoors and out, for the first time ever!!! I kept thinking it must have been all the other spring flowers making the fragrance outdoors, and that I was just imagining a Banks fragrace. Then when I brought some in to make the monthly bouquet yesterday, Alex assured me it was those buttery blooms. The place was filled with their perfume.

Wellll I’m pleased to hear someone found the shop! Thanks Terry J. It has been quite an undertaking, as you can imagine! Still needs a few wrinkles ironed. Think I need to add ‘click on thumbnails for larger pic and more description’ lines. Let me know if you see any other glitches. More items will be added in the next few weeks and ongoing. Having trouble getting some things, as soon as I had hoped for. Can you believe it –I left retailing to raise Alex and a garden - then gardening took me back to retailing! Geeeze - Guess I just needed just one more thing to deal with :-O

I have had Rosa Zeph D for about 5 years now and in those 5 years I've had about 10 flowers, told you roses don't do too well here. I find it is very prone to blackspot. I only keep it because it supports a couple of Clematis.

Here's a photo of an evergreen clematis climbing on a monkey puzzle tree.



There's a photo of the same vine & tree (taken last year) on our web page. I used Photoshop to hide the house. The vine has grown a lot, but I was horrified to see that the tree has been topped!

Evergreen Clematis last year

Susan! what with the house colors and roofline, the scene mimics a Swiss chalet with 'snow-laden pine tree' and all!

An unlikely combination that works remarkably well. People over here tend to top the conifers as well Susan, I prefer them whole.

Very cool, Susan. What a funny tree. Are they common in your area? I don't recall seeing one, of course, even if I had, I wouldn't have known what it was.

Carolyn, Monkey puzzles are common in the older parts of town. There are several huge old trees on the Univ of Washington campus.

Here's a picture that looks like the old trees around here:



Terry, what happens when a monkey puzzle is topped? Do they put up those tall vertical branches at the top, "water spouts" or "water sprouts" - I can never remember which.

Maggie, You're right about the alpine look of the pic, but I hadn't noticed till you pointed it out!

So, Susan, how tall is your tree? I'm just learning about clematis, but since it has clearly climbed right over the top of your monkey puzzle tree, I'm curious to know the height of the tree.

Carolyn, Sadly, that's not our tree. The monkey puzzle tree is a standing joke between my husband & me. I've always wanted one, but he hates them because they are so spiny.

I would guess that the tree is at least 20 feet tall. You can't tell from the photo, but the tree is leaning because of the weight of the clematis vine. I took 4 shots of the tree, but not one of them showed what the naked eye could see - the tree is leaning under the weight of the vine.

This clematis is supposed to grow in shade, which is why I'm interested in it. In our climate (with many cloudy days) the vine does best in a sunny location.

Sorry Susan can't help you with the toping question, we don't have any large Monkey Puzzles around here. I would guess though that it would try to put out another leader as most other conifers do.

My roses are opening a little behind Caro's, down there in the wind tunnel.

But well in front of mine in the frozen north, ice on the birdbath this morning. Strangely no sign of damage to any plants though, even the fuchsias seem OK. I like the fence and the gate, the gates really do draw you in don't they. What are the plants at the bottom of the fence? I'm guessing bulbs of some sort Maggie.

Ice on the birdbath! Here, there was steam rising off the pool this morning. We had a cold front move in yesterday ;-)- it dipped down to 45 at night. Are your fuchsias those gorgeous things in baskets Terr, or the hardy border kind?

The edging plant is one that deserves to share the name 'cast iron plant'. It is Liriope - tough enough to take the baking from those pavers in full sun. Like a brick oven, they get hot enough to blister bare feet, which is why there are always rubber slide shoes at the back door around here, instead of wellies in summer
Behind the gate, the pool machinery is on one side and the barbeque is on the other. Frilly stuff hides ugly mess.

Anyone ever hear about 'rain gardens"? They appear to be a nifty landscape feature that help take care of surface waters and aquifers. I found an article about them in Madison Magazine:
PLANTING A RAIN GARDEN by Erik Ness
- scroll down to it in:
http://www.channel3000.com/yourmadison/magazine/

This site also showed up in a search: http://www.mninter.net/~stack/bassett/

Once again they have put a buzz name to practices long employed by those who have learned it from the land. Coincidentally, I just spent this afternoon on a 30 acre ornamental garden that has employed the logic for decades. And, since my street runs down a tall hill, it happens here too.
There are those who believe we should all garden to one set of convictions, one idealism. Gardening is an art: an individual's expression. Isn't it wonderful to live in a country based on individual rights. Each of us can chose to drive a car or not; to use electricity or not, etc., while respecting others' own ways of conserving natural resources.
When someone posts without their real name and email, its worth a thous words.

After much thought I've come up with a Pacific NW native plant that would survive in the "rain garden" described above. It's skunk cabbage, Lysichitom americanum. Seriously, I'm no big fan of native plants. The environment of the Pac NW has changed drastically in the last 150 years. Many native plants I've tried to grow don't like our suburban garden.

Exactly! I have experienced that in my own garden too Susan. The given spiel here is to amend the native soil with humus to increase water retention, and to mulch the top to decrease evaporation and lower the soil temperature.
The results are that either the roadside plants die from this non-native culture, or they thrive to the point of weediness, therefore requiring grooming, that the same sources denounce. The unhappy natives get carted around the garden until one finds just the right microclimate for them - just as we do our non-natives. By then, the beds have become hospitable enough to accommodate a much wider variety of plants beyond the wayside bloomers.
Eventually, an accomplished gardener can live among natives and Texan-tolerant aliens, all growing together within the same healthy culture - the very culture dictated by those who have not yet managed to grow both types together.

The rain gardening scheme sounds very much like the xeriscape principles that most of us practice here in Texas. By "most of us" I mean people who actually garden; people who actually study gardening; people who actually think about what they are doing and the consequences it will have on a wider scale. In Maggie's garden, for instance, the mulch and compost is so thick, that rain wouldn't dare run off. Its absorbed into the mulch, and released into the ground beneath. Were the ground bare of covering, or even limited to a grass lawn, the rain would simply run off down the hill into the sewers, into the lake, etc. without having the chance to soak into the ground and nourish what plants there were. Additionally, that same technique of heavily mulching reduces the amount of water required to keep even the most delicate plants happy and healthy.

For novice gardeners, composting and mulching are 2 ways to prevent unnecessary additions to the public landfills. By composting your garden waste, you are returning to the soil just what it rendered, except in a supercharged, nourishing version.

Were I to become an ecological activist of any sort, my goals would be to help people understand that the use of synthetic fertilizers on our lawns and gardens is the primary cause of the contamination of our water sources, and likely the primary cause for most of the incurable disease so prevalent in our society. One must remember that these fertilizers are chemicals, some of which have been banned from use on farms for decades. I would encourage people to seek out the many and varied ways to fertilize their gardens without contaminating the earth. I would encourage them to use native plants where possible and other plants where feasible. Just because a plant isn't a "native" plant does not mean that it requires any more water or care than a "native" plant, always remembering that any plant in your garden, theoretically, will have much more care than a plant in the wild.

Gardening is an ongoing learning experience. Once you have taken a barren parcel of rocky, sandy, or clay soil, and turned it into a lovely lawn and garden where the micro organisms and earthworms are doing their thing beneath the surface, the hummingbirds and butterflies are flitting around, and the plants look lovely and happy, you will experience a great satisfaction from knowing that not only have you improved and restored your little piece of this earth, but you have done what humans were put on this earth to do in the first place...take care of the Garden.

I ended tomorrow’s newspaper article with similar thought Caro, and thank you for making those other significant points and for the testimony of my gardening practices. It is one thing to visit a 300 page garden site, and another to have actually been there. (or, for that matter, for someone to actually read the site's captions and articles, beyond the flowery pictures!) I’ll reiterate here, that all of the garden’s prunings are returned to the soil by way of shredding them into mulch and that we recycle our newspapers in the beds too, by laying them on top of a layer of homemade compost, before topping it all with our mulch.

It has been my intention to make an illustrated page on the unseen water-conserving engineering that has gone into this garden’s construction. As each area was planned, I studied the effects of the existing watercourses during heavy down pours and considered how to best benefit from rainfall within the garden.

The results include a trough gutter that catches the uphill neighbor’s spillover, directing it onto the highest point of the yard where it seeps slowly down the hill, instead of washing off. A French drain below the trough, prevents excess rainfall from collecting under the swimming pool; it is instead, directed towards a more beneficial course. Before a freak fast-flowing rainfall can hit the lowest point of the yard, it has been slowed down by several features that direct it to soak into beds and grass areas. For instance, the terraced beds walls act like water barrels, collecting rainfall instead of allowing it run down a slope. Grates between the lawn and the front edge of the terraced beds direct monsoon waters to the lower rose beds, via underground pvc pipes. Some house gutters feed into another underground system to benefit the front yard and roof runoff is collected at every opportunity. Underneath the foliage of the long border, it is divided into 3 sections by stacked retainer walls to conserve water flow and soil wash. There are other areas that have been designed to do similar works, but enough already,,, yawn.

A gardener soon learns that the top of a raised wall is always the driest site in a garden, and the bottom of retainer walls, cut into slopes such as mine, are the dampest sites, since they collect uphill seepage. So, naturally, I take advantage of these microclimates. All of my plant experimenting has educated me to those which do just as well as the proclaimed 'natives', when grown in a tended garden, rather than a wayside. Experience is the best teacher.

So, this garden has taught me that living on a hill offers great opportunity to conserve rainfall, and avoid runoff and soil erosion. Besides the water-conserving factor - when you’ve handmade much of the soil yourself, you become very possessive of it!

And now for something more enjoyable to talk about - fruits of our labors ;-)
I am pleased with the color combination of Elaeagnus and Loropetalum & thought yous might enjoy seeing it too.

Yoohooo
After Caro's and my yard-long eco postings (would have been a pun if I had seen it coming), the guys sum it all up with great one-liners.
David's 'if you don't water it; it will die' - so pragmatic, so funny!
Ter's right about the garden reflecting the inner gardener and visa versa.
You two should take up garden writing ;-)

Maggie, I read your Apr 20 posting with interest. Some of the links that "keedo" cited led to sites which revealed that a so-called rain garden requires more than simply digging a ditch or a hole.

I also found out that some of our perennials are natives of the midwest - Queen of the Prairie, Joe Pye weed, and the blue cardinal flower. I've been thinking of adding a Native Plant Page to our site. Should it be a Native American Plant Page?

"If you don't water it, it will die" is sadly true!

I forgot to say that your photo is beautiful!

I don't know Loropetalum, but it looks a beauty. "If you don't water it, it will die" was not true over here last year.
I tend to kill by overwatering rather then under. Can't bear to think of them being thirsty.

Know what you mean Sus ... Texas is a big state with a lot of varied climes. Would you believe there are several orchids native to some of the state's regions?! Besides the air, there are the ground variances too. David lives about 20 miles from me and has totally different soil - where gardenias can grow happily, for gosh sakes! I would be deprived of so many lovely experiences if I restricted the garden to only calicalarous natives. (I didn't make that word up, but I probably spelt it wrong ;-) Others are welcome to garden to their own conscience and so far, gulp, everyone is free to have one of their own. Let's hope it stays that way.

Bout the pic, the best thing about those two is that they will both grow in sun or shade but I can't think of a better way to light up a dimly lit spot! Loro would probably do well for you Terry, but maybe it just hasn't come to the growers over there yet.