What's Blooming in June

I'm not weighing in with any particular viewpoint or lessons learned today, other than thinking it advisable to start keeping better track of what is blooming, and when.  So, without further ado...what is blooming in this middle of the month of June, 2015:

Fennel

Turk's Cap

Goldeneye

Coral Yucca

Sunflower, unspecified

Purple Coneflower

Prairie Verbena

CandyLand - Bromeliad central...

Bromeliad flowers nestled in pink bracts

Blanket Flower, Winecup and Fleabane

OxEye Daisy

Common Daylily

Tropical Salvia

Coreopsis 

Henry Duelberg Salvia

Monarda

Four-o-clock/Marvel of Peru 

Althea/Rose of Sharon

Datura/Jimson Weed

Prairie Coneflower

I may have missed one or two but that's the vast majority of the floral action at the moment.  I was surprised to note how there are flowers in every color at play - I always have the impression my garden beds are predominately purple or yellow, when the truth is I have lots of white, a bit of pink, orange, and even a a few plants with red flowers.  So what's my color story here?  "Rainbow" will have to be my answer.  A little bit of every color, and every one appreciated in turn.

Thanks for indulging my wish to take stock and tolerating the flower "show".  I hope to be back soon with a little more content to accompany the photographs.  In the meantime, we had over an inch of rain already in June with more promised as a tropical storm heads our way.  There is nothing typical about the weather this year and I hope to take full advantage, rearranging and adding plants well past the usual "stop work" dates for central Texas.  Could there be some "before and after" fun lurking just over the horizon?   There could, there certainly could...

Dramatic Skies (or, Why I Love Gardening)

I am an editor by nature (and probably nurture, but we aren't looking at that today).  Editing is what I do, be it gardening, writing, or taking photographs to share here.

Happily I have an entry-level, you'll pardon the expression, "garden variety" editing function that is part of the photography processing and storage program I use.

Today I am ignoring nature and technology both, to post The Rare Un-edited.

Because it had been so beautiful yesterday morning, I had my camera in hand as the sun rose.  There were gray low lying clouds waiting in place along the horizon.  As I watched, the light went all to pinks and purples. This is what it looked like gazing East this morning from my top deck.  Unedited.

Autumn, you are one dramatic sonofabitch

Occasionally, I lose sight of the best part of gardening (for me).  It isn't the wildlife. I love the company and feel obligated not to mess with creatures who always have (and hopefully always will) live here.  I want these spaces we share to be welcoming, but that does not drive me.

It isn't even the plants.  The more I learn, the more I realize: a lot of my plants choices here have been spectacularly poor.  Much of my gardening success has been luck of the draw and I'm looking to change that.  I'm working to get these spaces (re)populated with plants that theoretically would be growing here anyway.  I do have a certain look I'm aiming towards, one I find pleasing.  But any "plants and planting" motivation is seasonal, at best.

What is at the center of why I so deeply appreciate and avidly pursue gardening?  Gardening gets me outside and gives me things to do there that keep me outside.  The approach I take requires some constant level of my attention to be focused on everything going on outside of our house, from curb to shining curb.

"Everything" of course, including the skies this morning.  Which I am taking another cup of coffee outside right this minute, to sit and stare at some more.

Streak of Luck

I was out enjoying a few moments of sunshine without suffering the usual accompanying heat, when I noticed this little fella working over the somewhat wind and rain battered blooms out back.  A Strymon melinus, or Gray hairstreak butterfly.  Frankly, I was quite smitten.

Show and Tell

Or rather showing more than telling.  The ongoing wind and drought this season are taking a predictable toll on everything (and everybody). I'm determined to capture the blooms and pollinators in this space while they are both in abundance.  

Every flower takes a turn. As bluebonnets continue to set seed, pink evening primroses go on to attract winged visitors while the ox-eye daisies have just begun their display.  Sedum is shooting stars and cholla is branching out ever higher.   

True to the season, and despite the weather, there are signs of new life all around.  Now, if we could just get some much needed rain...

This bee seems content to become totally immersed in its work.

These yellow coneflowers came up from seed I spread and promptly forgot about.  I honestly don't recall if these are Ratibida pinnata but eventually the matured plant form in flower will answer all questions.

Sedum in bloom - I think stenopetalum?

One of these Sachem Skippers was clearly interested in the nectar.  The other Skipper seemed a lot more interested in propagating the species.  

Speaking of propagation - seeing so many Sphinx moths working the primrose patch this year it ought not come as any surprise to see Hyles lineata larva appearing next. 

Happy Hour for a Horace's duskywing (Erynnis horatius)

This cane cholla (Opuntia imbricata) is slowly but surely taking over the bed it now is beginning to tower over.  I think my chance to transplant it anywhere with risking major personal puncturing has long passed.  

Dill and Jewels of Opar (Talinum paniculatum) play nicely together.  Once the dill has tired of the heat, the Jewels will just be hitting their stride for the season.  

Fiery skipper (Hylephila phyleus).  As with any identification efforts - this represents my best guess.  

Ox-eye Daisy Leucanthemum vulgare).  One of the few remaining survivors from a wildflower seed mix planted nearly a decade ago.

I've been collecting seed from a patch of much beloved Hill Country Rain Lilies out front and scattering them out back.  Finally a hint that a few have taken.  (Cooperia pedunculata)

Though muted, the iridescent blue on the body and tattered remains of the tail of this butterfly reveal it to be a Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor).  

One thing leads to another...

When it comes to the garden, just when I think I've gotten things to some point I've longed to reach, it typically reveals there are other points just beyond that horizon, beckoning...

Years ago when we finally took out a large section of St. Augustine grass in the back yard I thought I'd be fine with the chaos, I thought I wanted a wild flower meadow.

Once the flowers faded (so soon!) I put in a few freestyle raised beds.  I tried out vegetables, I auditioned flowers, I played around with permaculture techniques.  Sure enough I no longer had the previously despised monoculture, but what I mostly had? I mostly had an ongoing mess.

Finally I grasped what I'd been reading (and mostly ignoring) for years.  First things must come first.  If you want a successful garden, you've got to attend to the bones.  Beds require maintenance.  Maintenance requires access.  With Hub's help I'd already established one central path.  That path and the chaos beyond pointed out the clear need for more.  We needed more paths.

Taking sight lines and sprinkler placement into consideration I lined out several supplemental paths.  Those paths were great as far as they went but they were cleared dirt.  I didn't want dirt paths.  I put in stepping stones as a stopgap (just in case it ever rained again, which at the time, frankly seemed unlikely), but I didn't want stepping stones.  What I wanted was a granite gravel path.

At that time we didn't have any clear access to the back yard. Having a truck deliver a load of gravel was out of the question.  Our old wheelbarrow died.  We got a new one but it had a wide wheel base and the gate in our fence wouldn't even allow it through.  Undaunted, I bought and carried in five 40 pound bags of crushed granite gravel.  40 pound bags don't cover much and I knew it wouldn't be enough, but it was a start.

Summer happened. Gravel spreading was not an attractive prospect in triple digits.  Winter came and it rained!  It got cold, I got cold, and the front beds began to reveal the ravages of neglect.  The front beds that everybody drove and walked by.  The front beds that everybody could SEE.

By the time I turned my attention to the back bedding areas again every square inch of dirt in between the stepping stones was completely overgrown with weeds.  Every time I disturbed the soil or repositioned a stepping stone I unearthed a roiling mass of angry ants.

But I'm nothing if not stubborn.  Slowly but surely I eliminated the ants.  Minus the attacking hordes I got the dirt paths weeded.  I took the five granite gravel bags and spread them out as far as they would cover.

It was a limited success but it was enticing.  The finish line for the paths was in sight at long last.

The Hub had sensibly replaced that old narrow gate with a wider one that would accept the new wheelbarrow, but.... We were now having our windows replaced. The equipment and ongoing work meant there was nowhere available for a truck to unload gravel in the front.  Unless I wanted to wait?

I was finished with excuses and waiting.  Waiting was not an option.  Back I went to buy more 40 pound bags of crushed granite.  Eleven of them.

The now easily approachable garden beds were ready for their close-up.  Stepping around the plastic bags of granite gravel I'd unloaded where my dream paths would be, I began to weed.

I culled.  I eradicated.  I ferreted out nut sedge.  Panicum.  Virginia buttonweed.  I popped out crabgrass.  Common purslane.  Dove weed.  I dug out bermuda grass.  Carpet weed.  I pulled out long strings of residual St. Augustine.  I yanked and pried and removed every weed known to local gardeners and a few I swear came into being only here and simply to try and frustrate my efforts.

And so it goes, and so it went until, day before yesterday when, working mostly by feel and finishing well after dark, I got eight of the eleven bags of granite gravel spread out onto every one of the readied paths.

I was close.  So close.  Laughing at the thermometer, ignoring increasingly urgent messages from my lower back and neck, I donned my tattered gloves and tackled the colony of long established weeds in the last large bed.

Today?  Today I can barely begin to believe it but just for now, just for this moment, the two major projects in our back garden spaces are complete.

I have gravel paths.  I have weeded beds.

Just for the moment of course.  Weeding is never really completed.  The weeds in the first bed I cleared out are already showing signs of regrowth from roots I'll likely never get all the way out.

Also?  You guys, those weeded beds are sorely in need of mulching.  Without mulch I can't ever hope to stay on top of the weed situation, not to mention assisting with moisture retention and keeping the soil cooled.

At least now I have a gravel path where I can safely leave those mulch bags.  Once I get to the nursery, I mean.  With the window guys here I am stuck at the house weekdays and who wants to spend their weekends hauling mulch bags in this heat?

And so it goes....

Perspective

Recently the forecast for our area advised that conditions were ripe for violent thunderstorms, including the usual bad weather hat trick, damaging winds, dangerous hail and possibly, tornadoes.

Here in Central Texas we are used to our neighbors to the North getting pounded by bad weather.  More typically our area's major concerns surround rain - either way too much or way too little.  This forecast implied we might be in for a taste of what it means to live in the tip end of Tornado Alley for real.  That got my attention.

All of this followed a day when I'd read a short article speculating why there were so few violent storm systems being generated in tornado alley for this year. It was only a few days later that the season kicked into gear, with tornadic activity in Granbury, Texas shortly followed by the massive twister that flattened much of Moore, Oklahoma.

I decided to take the warnings seriously and went out into our planting beds with an eye towards relocating items that might be damaged by large hail, and/or putting away items that could, in high wind situations, become damaging projectile missiles.

The bottle tree was my first concern and as I denuded it of empties I realized several pieces were in jeopardy of being broken or launched.

 A strawberry planter needed to come in under cover, and all our lightweight plastic watering jugs usually stored atop the rain barrels needed to be safely corralled.

As I walked around I realized with a sinking sensation everything was at risk.  Three Meyer lemon trees were heavy with fruit.

 A tomato plant which has so far not produced any fruit was yet still blooming and MIGHT make tomatoes if I could remember to water and feed it sufficiently.

There were flowers everywhere and I wondered where the small feral cat we've been feeding would shelter if the projected severe weather developed in our area.

Most of the time I eye our garden spaces with the view of work yet to be done.  I scan quickly across blooms or fruit to focus on pests or weeds or watering.

On this particular morning I decided it was time to slow down and take a closer look at all the beauty and bounty and rightness that was essentially sheltering in place right under my nose.

As it turned out we did not get high winds, large hail, or a single drop of rain.  The storms all went well to the north of us, as is usual.  I'm working to hold on to my gratitude and the feeling of being surrounded by precious and fragile life in all its beauty. Weeds and pests and undone chores inclusive.