Spring Garden 2018

Wow!  It's been six months since I posted on this blog!  The garden has languished in neglect for much of the past couple of years.  If you've read my blog before you will know I had several surgeries in 2016, that resulted in me being out of action all that summer, and the weeds and Bermuda grass taking over the island beds.  Not pretty, is it?

Achillea, which has naturalized under the Vitex tree, is now invading the island bed,

 along with Bermuda grass

I started out last year with good intentions of getting it under control and having a glorious garden, but you know what they say about the best laid plans....

I won't bore you with all the details but suffice to say that the weeds won the battle again last year.

So I'm trying again this year!

Eric has been helping by pulling out some of the Bermuda, and in recent weeks he's also been buying mulch and dumping it copiously on the island beds.

I had been getting depressed recently because the weather would be lovely all week while I was at work, but lousy weather on the weekend meant I still couldn't get out and do anything.

But finally, the weather was pleasant this weekend and I ran to the garden center and picked up some perennial salvia.  I've planted this before, but not had luck with it, so I'm hoping it does better this time and is actually perennial.

The yellow flowers are Euryops pectinatus -- Shrub Daisy which is said to do well in this area and is drought tolerant.  Just a little dead heading should keep it blooming all summer.  I love yellow and purple together :-)

In the back border, under the Vitex, Homestead Verbena (more purple) and Achillea are naturalizing beautifully.  As feathery and delicate as the Achillea is, the snow and ice we had this winter didn't faze it.  However, I don't want it taking over the island bed, as it is trying to do (see first picture), so I'm digging/pulling it out as I can.

It's a bit late, but I'm also starting some Profusion zinnia seedlings in seed starter mix on the patio.  I had originally planned to scatter the seeds and let the grow where they landed, but since we're mulching the island beds as part of our battle against weeds and bermuda, I had to come up with a Plan B.

Another plant that came through the winter unscathed to bloom again is the Dianthus.  I have several and they are all doing nicely.  Now see that green plant in the foreground of the photo?  I don't know what that is.

It's growing where I had Cosmos last year, and there are some small cosmos seedlings around it.  So I know it's not Cosmos, but I can't think what it could be.  The very fact that it is so lush and green makes me suspect it's a weed that will need to be dug out.  But if anyone can help me ID it I would appreciate it.  A closer photo, with my hand for size comparison, is below.

Name That Plant

One of my favorite flowers from when I was younger is the Fuchsia.  My dad always has luscious hanging baskets with them in the summer in England.  I was thrilled when I saw they had them in Walmart, of all places, so I grabbed one to hang on the patio.

I know it will only last through the spring, and won't be able to handle our summer, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

The blooms always remind me of dancing ballerinas.

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Spring has Sprung!

Ooops!  How time flies!  I can't believe I didn't post anything at all in February!  Although, truth be told, all I would have had to show you would have been weeds!

Since I was out of commission so much last year, with my surgeries and recuperations, the weeds really got the upper hand in the island beds (and the back lawn, come to think of it).

I've been making a concerted effort to get them back under control again, at least in the island beds, before we go ahead and add some more soil amendments and mulch.  One thing I love about my new job -- I'm home by 5:15, so even now I can get outside and spend a little time weeding when I get home from work.  Unlike my old job where I didn't get home until 7 pm because of the awful commute.

So now I'm beginning to see some signs of spring, I thought I'd show you some photos, but before I get to those, here are some photos of our winged visitors.

I love this photo of a pair of Mourning Doves.  At least, I assume they are a pair.  They hung out by the feeders and bird bath for a couple of hours together, whereas usually, there's a flock of them.

Here's another spring visitor -- a female Red-Winged Blackbird, if I'm not mistaken.  Amazingly, there weren't any males around the afternoon I took this.

I haven't seen any bluebirds taking interest in the new nesting box I bought especially for them after I had one pecking at the bedroom window a few weeks ago. 

But could something be showing an interest in nesting in this shelf?

Hard to tell whether the leaves just got blown in there by the wind, or whether someone is making a nest.  I'll have to check it out tomorrow and see if there's any progress on it.

And finally - the signs of spring I mentioned!  The Turk's Cap, that I had given a drastic hair cut, is sprouting like crazy.  I need to get after the ant hill in the bed, and also the millet or whatever it is that is sprouting all through that area (I put bird seed out on the wall right above it)

I even have some color in the garden, courtesy of several dianthus that weren't fazed by our December freezes.

I believe these seedlings are Cleome.  They're coming up in the general area of where I had Cleome growing last year, so I hope that's what they are.

And in this area of the island bed I've got some Cosmos that self-seeded from last year and elsewhere are some Achillea that self-seeded from underneath the Vitex tree.

In addition, I'm seeing signs of life in most of the Lantana, but alas, not the Milkweed.  I may have to make a trip to Plants for All Seasons and see if they have any on Saturday.

This last photo is of another little winged visitor I spotted on the dianthus.  I have no idea what variety of butterfly this is and haven't been able to ID it.  If anyone knows, please let me know.


So, for now my main tasks are of the clean up variety.  I've still got a lot of weeding to do in one of the island beds and the veggie bed.  Then we can add some soil amendments and mulch.  (It's amazing how the level of the soil has dropped since we first built the beds.)  But I'm determined to get ahead of the weeds this year, so keeping up with them isn't such a chore in the heat of summer.

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

For the Birds

As the garden has started coming back to life this spring, it has pained me to see that the weeds have been coming back much quicker than the actual lawn.  

A few years ago, I would have been quick to treat the whole yard with a good dose of some sort of weed and feed, but since I'm attempting to be a chemical free gardener, I have resisted the urge.

It pleases me then, to look out in to the backyard and see birds pecking around and eating the seeds off the myriad weeds out there in the lawn. It reminds me of why I'm doing what I'm doing :-)

Interestingly, the front lawn is more or less weed free, apart from some patches of clover (which the bees LOVE), which makes me wonder if most of the weeds I'm seeing in the lawn in the back are actually sprouting from birdseed which has fallen from the fence and wall where I put it out for the birds. 

Still, I suppose as long as the weeds are green, and we keep them mowed, I can live with them.  And the Home Owner's Association will be happy because the front yard is mostly St. Augustine turfgrass. 


Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Nutsedge is Driving Me Nuts!

Soon after we moved in here and I started planting in the beds and pottering about in the garden, I started noticing a grass like plant that kept popping up everywhere.  I would pull it out and it would just come back.  It has become the bane of my existence.  If I don't diligently keep after it, it completely takes over, as it has done here, in the front border, among the milkweeds.

A little investigation quickly identified it as "nutsedge."

From Texas Cooperative Extension:

Nutsedge, often called nutgrass, is really not a true grass, but instead a member of the sedge family. Its proper name is nutsedge or for you Latin lovers, Cyperus esculentus. It is closer 'kin to Papyrus (used to make the ancient writing paper of Egypt) or the ornamental Umbrella sedges, than to St. Augustine or bermudagrass. This African native plant has thrived and spread throughout the New World. Because of its ability to thrive and persist, most gardeners and farmers would agree that to know it is to hate it.

When a nutsedge shoot reaches the surface it forms a basal bulb, from which grow roots and thin, wiry underground stems with new tubers at their ends. In one year, the outward growth from one tuber has the potential to produce 1,900 new plants and 7,000 new tubers. Now you can see why it's so tough to control! If there is any good news it's that individual tubers do not last longer than 3 years (thanks a lot, right?).

For read the entire article visit:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/travis/docs/mpp_w_art_nutsedge.pdf

It appears that the only way to control nutsedge is to use chemical pesticides such as Round Up and since I have pledged to keep my garden chemical-free, it appears that I am doomed to pull these bloody annoying little things out of the ground by hand or hoe forever.

I'd be interested to hear from other gardeners who have problems with nutsedge (you know how the saying goes: Misery loves company!)  Or perhaps there's another weed that is the bane of your existence?

Let me know in the comments.

And now, lest you think my garden has completely gone to ruin, here's a shot of the self-seeded zinnia "Profusion" living up to its name in the island bed.

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Welcome to Our Garden

Isn't it always the way?  You go into a store looking for a particular item and it's nowhere to be seen.  But your eye always seems to latch on to something else that you can't live without and you have to get it.

So it was with this garden flag I found in Hobby Lobby this week.  I went in looking for some art supplies and came out with this!

Rather appropriate, don't you think?

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Weed Identification

The weeds in our garden seem particularly abundant this spring.  They certainly do seem to appreciate the organic fertilizer we put down for the trees, the flower beds and the lawn.


Other than the ubiquitous dandelion though, I'd have a hard time naming the myriad weeds in our garden.

So when the weekly BHG Garden Notes newsletter arrived in my email box this morning, offering several articles on lawn care, my eye (and my mouse) went straight to the Weed Identification Guide!

This consists of 34 slides, with photographs and information about the weeds and as I browsed through, I had several "Aha!" moments as I was finally able to identify some weeds that have been plaguing our garden.

The first "Aha!" came when I got to slide 4 -- the bindweed. It's a vine with arrow head shaped leaves and we've got it in the front border.  I actually quite like it as it's twining around one of our lanterns and looks rather attractive.  I'm sure eventually I'll rip it out, but I think I'll leave it for now. It doesn't seem to be bothering anything.

Click Photo to go to Weed Identification Guide

Another "Aha!" moment came when I got to slide number 6 -- the Nutsedge.  This plant, or at least something that looks very like it, is relentless in its assault on our flowerbeds and borders.  I spend more time pulling those things out of the ground than any other garden chore.

There are several weeds listed that we don't appear to have, but we do have chickweed.  I've been trying to pick it out of the lawn piece by piece and I was dismayed to learn that each plant can produce 15,000+ seeds :-(


 Also, not in the slide show, but I thought I'd mention it here -- now I know why Milkweed is called Milkweed.  I made the mistake of not cutting off the seed heads before they matured last year and I swear we have at least a zillion milkweed seedlings coming up -- including a half a zillion in the lawn itself!  I guess I can call that a lesson learned....


Anyway, now it's your turn -- comment below and tell me about your nemesis -- the weed(s) you have most problem with in your garden.



Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

Weeds in the Lawn Can Be a Good Thing

Ok - I admit it, I was a bit of a lawn snob. In fact, when we first moved in to this house two years ago, I signed a contract with a lawncare company to come and spray or sprinkle various fertilizers, fungicides and insecticides on the lawn in my quest for the lushest, greenest lawn in the neighborhood.

When the lawn all but upped and died during last year's drought, in spite of the hundreds of dollars I had spent on it -- not from lack of water, by the way, but from ROOT  ROT from my overwatering!!! -- I placed a call to the aforementioned lawncare company and cancelled our service.

My fellow garden bloggers may take the credit for turning me in to a more natural and organic gardener.  I haven't yet read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, but there were various blog posts in February and March which opened my eyes to the dangers of the use of chemicals in the garden.

And while I still like lawn and will probably always have lawn, I'm more casual about it now. Yes, I frowned back in February when the first things to start greening up in the garden were the WEEDS.... 

... but, in a turnaround for me, I didn't grab a large bag of Weed n Feed and hit the garden with it as I would have done in previous years.

Seeing the various feathered visitors pecking around in the lawn, I was glad I had chosen not to spread harmful poisons out there.

Pulling weeds is now a therapeutic form of exercise for me. I don't get them all, by any means, but I get a lot of them and those I don't get to are mowed before they can set seed.   The good thing is that now the lawn itself has greened-up (is that a word?), hey, the weeds aren't so obvious!

I've discovered one more advantage to not using herbicides and insectides on the lawn.  I'm seeing more beneficial insects now, such as the ladybug below.  Notice that she's not on the St. Augustine, she's on a weed.

And this butterfly - an American Lady, I think - is on another weed (which I've been fighting a losing battle with)

So maybe these weeds in the lawn aren't such a bad thing...

Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.