Second Spring has Sprung

Texas gardeners especially appreciate October's tradition for easing the remnants of summer's heat. Afternoon highs may resist, but the temperatures at night will steadily move down, shifting the average temperature for each day towards a cooler set point.  Rain may be part of the transition, but more reliably it is moderated temperatures bringing relief.  Referred to as a Second Spring, markers for the seasonal change abound, natural and not-so.

Central Texas lacks autumn's semaphore of tree leaves turning, but the hazy smoke from seasonal slash and burn agricultural fires set far to our south regularly drifts our way in October, setting morning clouds ablaze.

Dramatic color is also on offer from other more natural sources. 

Argentinian native Oxblood lilies (Rhodophiala bifida) popped out flower stalks several times in succession this year, extending the pleasure of their deepest reds to span several weeks.  

Native plant Goldeneye (Viguiera dentata - a member of the Aster family) demonstrates mastery of this season, attracting pollinators of every sort to banks of blossoms with petals that face the sun's light. 

Warm color is transformed into sustaining matter.

Such exuberance is hard to resist.

Few try.  Days are shortening and whatever comes next, this is the season to forage and store. This Funereal Duskywing butterfly (Erynnis funeralis) shared the wealth with several types of bees.

Old favorites mix with new.  Native Chile Pequin aka Bird pepper plants (Capsicum annuum) develop tiny white flowers that faintly echo fellow native A. Duelberg salvia (Salvia farinacea) flowers growing behind.  The pepper plants offer a banquet for every visitor with blooms and berries appearing all at once. 

The addition of Crag Lilies (Echeandia flavescens) reinforces the wisdom of planting native perennials.  Their combination of strength and delicacy is exquisite.

The form of the flowers reminds me a bit of Columbine offering a similar swept-back display evoking fireworks. I'm quite smitten!

Also new here this season are Gregg's mist flower (Conoclinium greggii, another Aster family member), bringing a poignant shade of light purply blue to Fall's otherwise mostly golden palette.

Not to be outdone, Prairie verbena (Glandularia bipinnatifida var. bipinnatifida) are cautiously re-emerging now summer's worst is behind us, adding more complementary purple to play against the yellows and oranges. Appreciation is widespread. This skipper, I believe another Duskywing, was thoroughly working what few blooms were around.

Having survived aphids, tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) rises above a background of truer blue H. Duelberg salvia (Salvia farinacea).  The milkweed are blissfully unaware of the roiling controversy as to whether or not their presence when planted out of their native region, offers any true lifeline to migrating butterflies.

It is difficult for me to appreciate the beauty of milkweed and simultaneously view them as a disease vector. As I get very few (Zero so far and counting) migrating monarchs, I've left mine standing for now.  Anoles (Anolis carolinensis) seem unimpressed by the controversy or my dithering.

Garden center pepper plants begin renewed production efforts in recognition of and appreciation for our cooler nights.  The anoles and I keep a close eye.  I watch for peppers to pickle while they are on the lookout for visitors who might provide more immediately pleasurable mouthfuls.  

Thai basil (Ocimum basilicum var. thyrsiflora) bloom spikes appear, bearing purple pagodas.  Earlier in the season I routinely pinch off blooms but these October spires will remain, filled as they are with the makings for seeds to yield future plants. Once developed, the seeds are also a favorite snack for finches.

No use of the term "favorite" could be reasonably made without the inclusion of this October stalwart, the bright pink flowers of Coral Vine (Antigonon leptopus).  Though designated "invasive" in Texas, this fall blooming vine has remained growing in restraint against a trellis here for over a decade with no sign of spread or reseeding.  

An equal draw for bees to any plant currently blooming, I decided to let this iteration of the vine stay in place.  My ongoing removal efforts will continue to focus on other problematic plants displaying more reproductive oooomph.  

October in Texas.  Filled with fests and fêtes, it is a favorite time of year for locals and visitors alike. We are not known for arboreal color this season, but there is certainly no lack of beauty on display for the discerning eye.

Something borrowed, something blue

What is borrowed?  With gratitude and a tip of the hat to the Sierra Club's "Daily Ray of Hope" feature, this wonderful quote from Lucy Maud Montgomery, author perhaps most famously of "Anne of Green Gables":

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."

What is blue?  Migrating geese. Pointing the way they are going, and going that way at top speed.

I heard them long before I saw them. When I did find them in the sky, the angle of the sun's glare through hazy high clouds blinded me. I had to point and shoot and keep fingers crossed I captured anything before they flew out of range.

For the record, I realize those terms, "Something borrowed, something blue," refer to good luck tokens for a bride's wedding day rather than having anything directly to do with gardening. I stipulate that gardeners however, especially Central Texas gardeners, need all the good luck they can get.

Here comes November.

Expectations

Climate is what you expect, while weather is what you actually get.  (Thanks to David C. of It's A Dry Heat for that succinct axiom).  

I'd put in multiple passalong plants, spread seed, and planted any number of four inch beauties-to-be during the last weeks of September following on the heels of a four inch soaking rain.  I put in a few more four inch plants and spread more seed the first week of October, expecting ongoing cooler temperatures and gentle rains to serve as my staunch allies in getting them established.  

Why pin so many hopes (and a significant cash outlay) on an October start? Conventional wisdom holds that in Texas at least, it is always best to get all plantings, even natives, well established before the return of summer's Death Star.  We all "know" that October is when the Death Star finally exits, stage right.  

So it follows that plants started in October have the best shot to get growing before any threat of freezing weather occurs. More importantly, they also have the best chance to get roots established before the sun, heat, and dry winds of summer return.  "October starts for happy plants" is a lesson reinforced through years of experience here, and aside from "use natives!" most of my gardening success relies heavily upon the truth of that timing.

This year unfortunately once October rolled around, the weather systems in play weren't quite finished applying the Hot/Dry treatment to the Central Texas area.  With multiple days featuring highs in the 90's along with drying winds and zero precipitation, seedlings and transplants alike were suffering. And I was suffering right along with them.

The options?  Run our supplemental watering system once per week as allotted under the current restrictions keeping my fingers crossed not too many plants would die.  The alternative was to hand water everything, knowing it was the most reliable way to support those new-to-here plants until we saw a return to "normal":cooler wetter weather.

Successful gardening requires the gardener to do a few unpleasant things.  I accept that, but I don't go gracefully.  I griped, I whined, I growled and grumbled.  This hot dry weather was not good for my plant babies. This hot dry weather was not what I signed up for when I turned the calendar page to October.  This hot dry weather was the epitome of everything that was wrong about trying to do anything beautiful in this part of the country.  How, I asked anyone in earshot, could I possibly be expected to work under these conditions?!?  This is October for pete's sake.  October is when the weather is supposed to work WITH us.

Because unfortunately, the areas where I'd put in new plants and spread seeds, were all over the place.  Front yard, back yard, along the edges and smack in the middle of existing beds. Areas including the deer path we are trying to fill in, which has a several inch layer of Slip'NSlide like, not-going-anywhere, live oak leaves on a slope.  A slope I had to carefully traverse while on one leg of the trip at least, carrying two large (heavy!) filled to the brim watering cans.  

And traverse I did.  Back.  And forth.  Standing smacking at mosquitoes while the watering cans filled s-l-o-w-l-y from the nearly emptied rain barrels. Glowering at the sun.  Muttering at the forecast.  

Then today dawned wet and cloudy.  It rained.  It cooled off again. Considerably. And... it continues to rain with colorful rain blobs the predominant feature for our weather map, assuring more to come.  

I am truly sorry for the thousands of music festival fans who will be dealing with a very soggy second Saturday of ACL.  But for the gardeners in our area? This is precisely what needed to happen and not a moment too soon.  A rainy cool day in October?  

This is precisely what I was expecting.

October makes promises

I woke to a flash of light.  I held still, straining to hear what came after.  I fell back into sleep only to be stirred by the insistent drumming of water.

It was more than the absence of heat that drew me out.  A chill hangs in this shimmering morning, and with it a promise of changes to come.

A poem's fragment wrapped around me echoing my hand around my coffee.

"......It won't stay with you, but you'll remember that it felt like nothing else you've felt or something you've felt that also didn't last. ........." 

Leaves 

       by Lloyd Schwartz