My Brent and Becky’s bulb order has arrived! 450 tulip and narcissus bulbs just in time for north Texas winter planting.
Now digging up places to plant them! In the end we expanded the northern border bed by another foot, weeding out the bermuda and re-installing the stone edge as we went along.
Looking forward to seeing the spring flower show!
Just as winter brought a chill to the air, our pandemic water feature project gained another ton of rocks. It seems we won’t be finished with this yard crash this year.
We had the finish line in sight when a flow test revealed that the waterfall just didn’t produce a significant amount of noise. At least not enough to drown out some road noise. Now while the slow flow was part of the original design, I convinced the DH that we needed a bigger waterfall.
So the plan is to erect a taller falls behind the original, which necessitated removal of the newly planted lorapetalum tree.
Spillway, pump and PVC tubing are on order from Amazon; now it’s just a matter of agreeing on the placement of the falls and the actual construction work. However, with this winter weather, we feel less inclined to work outside.
Finished trimming shrubs and trees, planting out the last of the brussels and broccoli starts, and composted the beds last week. Just in time for November’s first frost date.
At first I thought I’d have to discard the extra starts, but I decided to install them into the cinder block wall, as well as the 65 gallon felt pot in which the lorapetalum has found a new home.
The nights have dipped back down into the 40s and 50s, so I’m hoping my outdoor greenhouse tent will keep my sensitive plants protected. I’m researching ways to keep things warm in there without resorting to expensive heating.
I need help figuring out what milkweed is growing in my beds. I started milkweed in 2018 which found its way into the backyard. I also bought and transplanted other specimens as well.
The only ID I’m certain of is the variegated butterfly weed which overwintered in the garage. The Home Depot version lists as Butterfly Kisses, but it didn’t stop me from picking up another variegated milkweed from North Haven Gardens, Monarch’s Promise. Maybe they’re one and the same.
Anyway, the following milkweed springing up from my beds are defying attempts to identify them properly.
True to the Rogue bed’s name, milkweed #2 appears to have reseeded rogue, with over a half dozen volunteer starts. The young leaves start out green which mature to the gray-green color seen in the pics.
Then there is the one potted milkweed that I can’t recall what it is. But I’m glad it emerged, suggesting that garage overwintering suits these plants. Now if I can only remember what it is. Hint: I bought 3 packets of Botanical Interests milkweed seed — Common (A. syriaca), Showy (A. speciosa) and Irresistible Blend (A. incarnata). If I remember right, one of the 3 proved difficult to germinate and didn’t take to water sowing at all.
I indicated in my IG feed that I completed redoing the stone border on the HA bed (dubbed for the heart attack that my man incurred attempting to mulch it 2 years ago). I then switched over to redoing the long bed borders and that’s taking quite awhile longer. Digging up clay and re-leveling the entire bed means that we’re adding at least another foot of height on the existing bed. The beds are nearing completion but it is back-wearing work. The sprinkler system redo next to the fence line is slowing down progress.
To help out with the stone and dirt hauling, we purchased and assembled a GorillaCart poly dump cart. It’s quite a monster! We still need more bags of stone, gravel, soil and compost and mulch to get the backyard in a semi-organized state.
The man wants another pallet of stone, but our sod removal contractor hasn’t been exactly responsive so I’m not sure that we have new beds to work on this year.
