First Day of Autumn 2014

Today was the first full day of autumn and you can feel it in the air. The mornings are cooler. The afternoons are warm and sometimes hot, but not unbearable. Over the weekend, I became aware that the angle and intensity of the sun had changed. Best of all, the garden is starting to come back to life.

I tested the drought tolerance of the garden this summer by running the sprinkler system just one time. Fortunately, it was a relatively mild summer, by Texas standards. The plants had periods where they wilted and looked rather pitiful, but none of them died from moisture stress. The remnants of my little bluestem prairie look better than they have in years. Maybe I will try dividing these plants and try to create a bluestem prairie again.

Here is a wider view. The Salvia greggii are blooming again and the Liatris are still just starting to bloom. I don't have as many Liatris as I did in previous years because some of the older plants died out and, for the last few years, I removed the dried flowers before the seeds dropped. Remember, all of the Liatris plants in my front garden came from two plants that were planted from one four inch pot about five years ago.

I really like the look of Yucca glauca in the morning light.

Pine Muhly is all around in this part of the garden. They will be more visible after I cut back the dried Liatris stalks in a few weeks.

I like the grape juice color of this Salvia greggii. It had a few flowers earlier in the year and is now in full bloom. It seems to be a little weaker than the plants with coral colored flowers. 

By July, this Datura was a five foot shrub and was growing over the surrounding plants. I cut it to the ground to control its size and the distribution of seeds. It is already a four foot tall and wide shrub again. I will let it continue to grow until flower production slows. At that time, I might do some selective pruning to see if I can get more flowers.

The latest project. I had Snake Herb at the far end of the strip between the street and sidewalk. It is a tough, fast growing, native groundcover, but it also has exploding seed pods like Mexican petunia and those seeds fly when the pods explode. I found little plants in the main part of the garden where I do not want them, so out it came (I hope it is gone. Those roots are deep.) and replaced it with decomposed granite. I let Four Nerve Daisy and Pine Muhly grow as they please in this area, but I kind of like the bare decomposed granite. I added flagstones to direct visitors to the best places to park for access to the sidewalk.

After I spread the decomposed granite, I threw out some bluebonnet seeds and soaked the seeds and granite with water. The seeds sprouted withing a few days. Bluebonnets love growing in decomposed granite.