Spring is Springing

I do love the sound of birds singing out in the garden. One bird that has a particularly loud and beautiful song, especially for a bird of its size, is the Carolina Wren.

I woke up to hear the beautiful notes of his song and as I looked out the window I saw him approach the patio with a mouth full of nesting materials.  I later managed to catch this photo of him in the pine tree (and check out that pollen!!)

I was getting excited because it appeared that a pair of wrens were going to nest on the patio, this time in  decorative watering can, next to an assortment of bird houses on a bakers rack in the corner.

Unfortunately, last weekend, I thought I'd offer them some more nesting material by hanging a suet feeder filled with horse hair on the rack and as I did so, I accidentally bumped the rack and a bird flew out of the watering can.  To my knowledge they never returned :-(

I took a peek today after ensuring it wasn't occupied.  There's a perfectly complete nest in there.  All it needs is a bird family.

I do know though, that the male wren will build a selection of nests and then the female will choose which one to lay her eggs in.  I guess when I bumped the shelf she decided to pick a nest in a less trafficked spot.

Oh well, maybe next year....

I've been reading good news about the Monarch butterflies leaving their wintering grounds in Mexico and heading north so I wanted to be prepared for them.

A lot of our milkweed was damaged in the winter freezes and some of it never returned, so I got proactive and headed to Plants for all Seasons, where they had just received a shipment in.

I'm also going to get some more which will be kept in containers to go in the new Monarch nursery I just purchased.  The new on is taller than the one I had last year (which I will use also).  The taller height will allow me to keep container plants in it, instead of having to snip cuttings every day and keep them in water picks, transferring the caterpillars to the fresh cuttings as necessary.

When we first moved in here I planted a Vitex tree and since then we haven't really touched it.  It was a total mess with lots of suckers and criss-crossing branches.  Today we had our arborist out to take care of it.  He did a good job and carted off all the trimmings.  However the tree was such a mess, I still think it needs tidying up some more. (No pics today)

While he was here, he also gave one of the Live Oak trees in the front yard a much needed trim. Now my husband Eric doesn't have to do the limbo every time he wants to mow the grass underneath it.

The cosmos I planted last year has reseeded prolifically and is putting on a beautiful display.

We had been wondering what to do with the peach tree.  It had never really put its roots down into the soil and we could move it back and forth quite easily.  It suffered from the freezes over the winter too and when my husband asked the arborist about it, he literally lifted it out of the ground with no resistance at all.  Question answered!

I seized the opportunity, since there was room in the island bed now, to relocate the Angel Trumpets, that was in a half barrel and was getting root bound.  It too had frozen back in the winter, but I was happy to see some new growth, so I'm hopefully it will do well where the peach tree failed.

Around the corner in the veggie garden, the runner type beans I put in beneath a new bean tower have all sprouted (well a couple didn't but most did)  I'm looking forward to seeing these grow up the bean tower, which reaches above my head.

Also in the veggie garden, the "Sir Crunch-a-lot" cucumbers have sprouted.  I hope these do well this year, we've had mixed luck with cucumbers in the past including one year when we had precisely zero -- all the flowers dropped off.  I'll let these establish a little and then probably thin them out

It was so lovely being able to work in the garden when I got home from work today. First of all, the weather was perfect, something we don't often get here, and second - now I'm working locally I no longer have the grueling two-hour commute I used to have.

Life is good!

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

After the Storm

As most people are aware, Texas got a lot of wind and rain last weekend, courtesy of Hurricane Patricia.

The predictions were pretty grim, and we were expecting the worst, but luckily, the storm downgraded and we didn't get hit as badly as we feared.  We didn't get flooded (although some roads were closed) and we didn't lose power.

Still, that didn't stop folks having a little fun on the internet at our expense!  (I can't talk, I shared this one myself on Facebook :-)

So after the storm, I took a stroll round the garden to see how everything had fared and was happy to see that other than some drooping Milkweed stalks, everything was fine.

I also got a pleasant surprise when I saw that the rainfall had encouraged my Angel Trumpet (Brugmansia) to bloom.

It has been in a container in that same spot for at least three years and this is the first time it has bloomed for me.

There was also speculation on the internet about how Hurricane Patricia would adversely affect the Monarch migration as they would be passing directly through the area.

Well it seems that our local Monarchs found somewhere safe to hunker down during the storm and have been seen the past couple of days, fueling up on the Vitex and laying eggs on the Milkweed before they head south.

I also read an interesting article on AZCentral.com, Hurricane Patricia: How Monarch butterflies faced down the storm and it seems that butterflies flying through Arizona, in the direct line of the storm were pretty darned smart.

"But those butterflies shifted their flight east, away from the hurricane’s track, according to the Mexican national agency tasked with tracking them.

The butterflies “changed their route from west to east and have taken refuge in the ravines” of the country’s eastern mountain range, the Sierra Madre Oriental, the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) reported."

Isn't nature wonderful?

I've linked this post to Today's Flowers, hosted by Denise at An English Girl Rambles.

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

Repotting the Angel Trumpet

 In the corner of our garden, by the bird bath, we have a lovely bushy green Brugmansia, or Angel Trumpet. 

 It was in a container and was doing so well that I scarecely gave it a thought.  However, after the recent rains I happened to look closer and realize the container was full to the brim with water. It wasn't draining for some reason.

I carefully laid it on its side to let the excess water drain out and soon realized why it wasn't draining. At some point I had apparently moved it and forgotten to set the saucer back underneath it and the roots had grown through the drainage holes.

Because one of the roots had broken as I laid the pot over to drain it, I was left with no alternative but to repot it.  First, of course, I had to do some surgery to get rid of the big chunk of root that was holding the plant in the pot. (below you can see the rest of the root in the ground -- no wonder the plant had looked so nice and healthy, look at the size of the root!)

I repotted the plant in a huge container into which my husband had drilled some additional drainage holes on the side.  I'm hoping that will provide it with drainage while stopping it from rooting in the garden.

After that, it was up to the plant.  I watered it and set it back in the border and hoped it would make it. By morning it had dropped a ton of leaves, but the ones it retained looked okay.  When I got home from work, it looked awful, nothing but a few droopy leaves at the end of the stems.

Next morning it looked better and I checked the moisture level and gave it another drink.  By the time I got home from work it was drooping again.

I really thought I was going to lose it, but eventually it seemed to pull through.

It's just a shadow of it's former self at the moment, having lost so many leaves,  but it's got lots of new little leaves budding out so I'm hopeful that it will eventually look as lovely as it did before.  Perhaps it will even grace us with some blooms next year.

Wish us luck!


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