The October Garden and Monarch Foster Success

I'm afraid I haven't blogged in a while.  The garden just looked too sad throughout the dog days of August, especially after Hurricane Harvey blew through.  The island beds and the back border were taken over by Bermuda grass and other weeds that I just couldn't keep up with.

That's not to say that the weeds are now under control - they aren't, by any means.  But it always seems that the garden gets its second wind in October.

The Lantana, which seemed to languish all summer, is blooming profusely again.  I have several, in containers as well as in the island beds.  Lantana is always a favorite with the butterflies, which makes it a favorite of mine too!

I have three Rose of Sharon bushes, all sprouted from cuttings I brought over from my last house 9 years ago.  The one below, which gets afternoon shade from the fence on the west side of our property, seems to do best.  The one on the other side of the garden, which struggles with full sun all day, as well as turf grass all round, is barely hanging on.  I may transplant it somewhere else this fall.

Last year, this Pink Muhly grass was little more than a big ant hill.  I have at least, managed to banish the ants, if not the Bermuda grass that seems to invade everywhere.  I was so happy I happened to look out in to the garden at just the right time to see the plumes turn vibrant pink in the morning sun.

 If you recall earlier this year, I raised and released some Monarch butterflies. I had hoped to raise a lot more but things didn't go as planned and I only released a few more and had a few sad losses which almost made me give up.  Then one of my friends told me she was going out of town and asked if I would mind keeping an eye on the chrysalides she had been raising, and releasing the butterflies when they were ready.

Would I ever!!

So Barbara brought over two hampers with a total of about 60 chrysalides and since then I have released six or more of them each day!

Luckily the hampers are easy to carry out and set on the patio table, and then I just let each on crawl on my fingers and make a note of whether it's male or female, before letting it fly off into the garden.  I'm at 51 and counting as of today!

I'll finish my post with a volunteer that showed up in the garden.  It's in more or less the same place that the wild bergamot grew and bloomed earlier this year.

I did a bit of sleuthing and have identified it as Mikania scandens, also known as Climbing Hempweed, Climbing Hempvine and Climbing Boneset.

It's very definitely a weed, having taken over a corner of the island bed and twined itself around the wind chimes.

I would have yanked it out of the ground at first sight except that the blooms reminded me of clover blooms.  Knowing how much honey bees enjoy clover, I wondered if this attract them as well, so I let it grow and bloom.

Sure enough - on close examination today I found several bees enjoying the flowers, like the one in the photo above.  So I guess it can stay for a while :-)

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

A Perfect Day in Fall

It seems that fall may have finally arrived in my little corner of the world.  The skies are clear and the temperatures dropped into the 50's overnight!  Right now it's a very pleasant 75 degrees with low humidity.  I probably should be doing more actual work out there than I am -- all I've done is a bit of weeding to get rid of the ever encroaching nutsedge and bermuda grass in the island beds.

But I'm also taking the opportunity to sit on the patio and read and enjoy the sights of the garden without sweating. It's all the same stuff I've shown you before - zinnia and cosmos, salvia and cleome.  But now we have lots of winged visitors too (in addition to my own contributions in the form of newly hatched Monarchs)

I've had wonderful success with this Big Cube cage I got this year.  In addition to the 9 Monarchs I was able to hatch in August, we ended up with another 15 chrysalides in the cage and 6 have hatched in the past two days!

This is one of the newly hatched Monarchs, enjoying some nectar before getting ready for the migration. Also in the photo is another visitor - a Gulf Fritillary.  We have five or six of them hanging around at the moment.

Below is a short video of the same scene :-)

Below is another visitor we see at this time of year - a buckeye.  Those markings really do look like eyes, don't they? This one seems a little ragged, but he's not letting it slow him down :-)

And finally here's another video I took showing some of the Gulf Fritillaries enjoying the zinnia.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm going in for surgery on Tuesday October 11th. It's rather major surgery, so I probably won't be posting in my blog for a while. I'm so glad I got to see some of the butterflies hatch before I went in, and my husband promises he will keep an eye on the other chrysalides and release them once they have hatched.

I'll see you on the other side!

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

Quotations for Autumn Gardens

It's been a gloomy, wet dreary day today -- quite appropriate for the first day of November but not conducive to getting out and working in the garden.

So instead I've been sitting indoors reading, doing crossword puzzles, and trying to decide what to blog about today. I have mentioned in my blog before that I enjoy collecting quotations, especially those about gardening and the seasons. It seems that other people are far more eloquent than I on the subject, so I'm going to include some in today's post.

Oh how we love pumpkin season. You did know this gourd-ish squash has its own season, right? Winter, Spring, Summer, Pumpkin.... We anxiously anticipate it every year.
~~ Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer, October 2010

Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.
~~ Jim Bishop

...I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house. So I have spent almost all the daylight hours in the open air.
~~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, 10th October 1842

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came,—
The Ashes, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The sunshine spread a carpet,
And every thing was grand;
Miss Weather led the dancing;
Professor Wind, the band....
The sight was like a rainbow
New-fallen from the sky....
~~ George Cooper (1840–1927), "October's Party," c.1887

Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.
~~ Faith Baldwin, American Family

It is a delightful pastime to sit in the pleasant sunshine of autumn, and gazing from this little spot of free earth over such a landscape, let the imagination luxuriate amid the thrilling associations of the scene!
~~ H.T. Tuckerman, "San Marino"

'Tis Autumn! and the short'ning day,
The chilly evening's sober gray,
And winds that hoarser blow;
The fading foliage of the trees,
Which rustles sere in every breeze,
The approach of Winter show.
~~ Bernard Barton, "Stanzas on the Approach of Winter" 1822

Of all the seasons, autumn offers the most to man and requires the least of him.
~~Hal Borland

Just after the death of the flowers,
And before they are buried in snow,
There comes a festival season,
When nature is all aglow—
Aglow with a mystical spendour
That rivals the brightness of spring,
Aglow with a beauty more tender
Than aught which fair summer could bring....
~~Emeline B. Smith, "Indian Summer"

I walked alone in the depths of Autumn woods;
The ruthless winds had left the maple bare;
The fern was withered, and the sweetbrier's breath
No longer gave its fragrance to the air.
~~Albert Laighton (1829–1887), "In the Woods," c.1859


For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.
~Edwin Way Teale, Autumn Across America



If you're wondering where the lovely animated gifs came from, I found them on a Russian website at http://www.gifprikol.com. And before you ask -- no, I can't read Russian, but since the website provides the code to copy and paste in to your blog, or on Facebook, I'm assuming it's okay to share them, with the appropriate link!!

The Island Bed in Fall

I stepped out of the back door this morning and realized that the sun was just in the right place to really light up the Pink Muhly grass in the island bed, so naturally I stopped what I was doing and dashed back inside to get my camera.

I'm really happy with the way the island bed has developed this year.  The daylilies have been blooming profusely all year, after doing nothing at all last year. 

And the Zinnia "Profusion" has lived up to its name and self seeded generously throughout the bed, much to the delight of the bees.

I call the bed a "happy mess", but there are a couple of things I need to make decisions on, such as this mystery plant that has self-seeded in the middle of the bed. I have no idea what it is, but you can see it's crowding the Muhly grass and the Hamelia patens.

I was also surprised earlier this year to see a baby Vitex growing in the bed.  It's a couple of feet tall now, and blooming, but I'm debating on whether or not to let it stay there.  The Vitex in the back border is hugely overgrown and I do not want this one taking over the entire island bed, to the expense of everything else.

One of the things I love most about the island bed is that I can lie in bed on weekend mornings, and see it right outside the window of our master bedroom "retreat" :-)

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

In Search of Fall Color

One thing I usually miss at this time of year is fall color, the changing of the leaves.  It seems that the climate down here in coastal Texas is not conducive to the brilliant color usually seen up in New England and other places.

However, as my husband and I were driving around town with my parents, who were visiting for the Holiday from England, we noticed there was a lot more fall color than there normally is.

Now granted, most of it seemed to be courtesy of the obnoxious, invasive China Berry tree. But even as much as I despise China Berry, I forgave it a bit, as it was fulfilling my need for fall color.

 This first photo is taken of the hedgerow on the other side of the road that runs behind our house.

More color as we look over our wall and down the road :-)

There's even some fall color in our garden -- I don't think I have ever seen this crepe myrtle change color before!

But when we took mum and dad up to Davy Crockett National Forest and, quite by chance, found Ratcliff Lake, we hit the motherlode.

Not only did we see some lovely color on our drive up there, but the lake itself offered some wonderful views, with reflections of the fall colors in the lake. The maples, oaks and other trees were changing leaves in ways I really just haven't seen down here.  I was thrilled!

We had never heard of Ratcliff Lake before and we found it quite by accident, but it's a delightful place and, in the summer offers paddleboats and a swimming area, as well as hiking and fishing. 

There's a concession stand (closed for the winter now), picnic tables and barbecue pits.  Eric and I are looking forward to visiting again next year, during the season, and perhaps take a dip.

But there's always those pesky alligators to think about....

Fall Colors of East Texas

Fall Foliage in Texas State Parks
Texas Fall Foliage - Texas Tripper


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

Fall is In the Air

Got an email from my dad on the other side of the Atlantic this week, pointing out that it had been two weeks since I updated my blog and that my readership (presumably he meant him) was waiting.

So, dad, wait no more!  It's officially fall and while we're still officially in a drought (I heard it would take 30 inches of rain to get us out of drought conditions) it did get a bit cooler last weekend.  Rather than the 100 + temperatures we were having, there were a few days when the temp didn't get over 90. I spent last Saturday afternoon lounging in the hammock - BLISS!!

The hummingbirds have gone south, although there may still be a straggler or two.  I've left a feeder out, plus there are still lots of blooms in the garden for them, such as the Dallas Red Lantana above and the Tropical Milkweed below.

Speaking of the milkweed -- this photo and the one below were taken about 10 days ago.  Looking around the garden as the sun went down today, I see they are all loaded down with seedpods.  I'm going to collect some seed tomorrow, if they haven't all blown away on the wind.  So if anyone would like some free milkweed seeds, let me know and I'll save you some.

With all the milkweed around, I was rather surprised to see this Monarch on the Southern Wax Myrtle.

I'm keeping a look out on the Milkweed for caterpillars, but haven't seen any yet.

 Oh My Sweet Potato!

 In the bed beside the garage, the sweet potato vines have really taken over this summer! Believe it or not, there are some holly bushes and Indian Hawthorn in this bed.  You can't really see them for all the sweet potato vine.  Only the dark one has blooms, apparently.  I noticed the same thing last year.

 Our pine tree behind the house doesn't look so great in this photo, but it looks better in person.  And believe me it looks a whole lot better than the hundreds of trees around town that have succumbed to the drought.

It's very depressing driving along and seeing whole forests of dead trees.  I'm surprised the county aren't being more proactive about taking some of them down, especially considering the devastating fire in Bastrop County was said to have been started by a tree falling on a power line.

We can only hope that disaster isn't repeated.  And we can pray for rain.
 

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