Signs of Spring, Part Two

A couple of weeks ago I showed you that we had a few signs of spring in our garden. Well I think the garden was holding back, waiting for the official "First Day of Spring" to really let loose. 

The daffodils, encouraged perhaps by the metal yard art, burst into happy bloom.

The Sam Houston peach, which did nothing last year (I think perhaps we had one blossom on it), is covered in blossoms and now starting to leaf out.

Time will tell whether or not we actually get a peach or two this year as well. (I can hope, right?)

In the raised bed by the trellis, several asiatic lilies are coming up.  I forget which they are, so it will be a surprise when they bloom :-)

On the trellis itself, the Major Wheeler honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens, has been a huge disappointment since I planted it two years ago, with little growth and no blooms. But it looks like it may finally redeem itself this year.

For the first time ever, it has some of the red tubular blooms for which I purchased and planted it.  I'm also seeing other signs of new growth, so it may fill out this year. 

At the moment it consists of one single stalk twisting up the trellis and I was so close to digging it up.  These few blooms and signs of growth have earned it a reprieve! 

I do wonder if I'm wishing for too much though.  Everything I have read on it talks about how wonderful it is etc. etc., but it's supposedly hardy in zones 4 to 8 and as far as I know, I'm in zone 9B. Our summers may just be too much for it.  I'd be interested to hear from other Texas gardeners who have had success with it.

Elsewhere in the garden, I'm seeing new growth on the three Rose of Sharon bushes, and the milkweed in the front border is sprouting new growth at ground level. The grapevine is leafing out, as are the crepe myrtles and by the utility corner, the homestead verbena has started blooming (no photos of that yet).

Spring seems to be springing out all over - I love this time of year!

Finally, here's a little hint of what's to come in my next blog post....

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

A New Fairy Garden

Back in 2012, I told you about the old barbecue grill that I recycled in to a Fairy Garden.  

Did I mention I have a *thing* about fairies?  In addition to the recycle grill fairy garden, I have a little fairy that used to sit out under the crepe myrtle where I used to live.  She now sits in the corner of the patio, under her little red and white spotted toadstool.

Just recently,  I was inspired by a photo on Facebook of a fairy garden created in a super-sized teacup.  While getting bird seed in Wal-Mart yesterday, what should I spy but the same large teacup planter?

Without thinking twice, I bought one, along with a bag of potting soil and some plants and then headed next door to Hobby Lobby to see what they had in the way of inspiration for fairy garden accessories.

The finished garden is very simple, with some ivy, verbena and dusty miller, a little fairy table and chair, as well as a miniature butterfly, sampling the verbena, a miniature bird house and a dainty little welcome sign.

 
 I set it on the patio table where I hope I will remember to water it and also to keep the plants trimmed (my selections were probably not really suited to a miniature garden, but I've never been one for too much planning!)

I love how it looks. The perfect touch of whimsy for this corner of the patio.  Thanks to the folks at Flea Market Gardening for the inspiration.

If you want to get inspired, visit their complete list of DIY Fairy Garden ideas.


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

A Few Signs of Spring

It was nice and mild outside this morning as I was putting some fresh seed out for the birds.  While I was outside, I noticed that there are starting to be a few welcome signs that spring is finally on the way.

I had stuck this metal daffodil, purchased in Hobby Lobby I think, in the ground several weeks ago, and was very pleased to notice that the real daffodil next to it is starting to show some signs of life and leaf out.

The only blooms in the garden at the moment are still the pansies that were planted between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  My only regret was not planting more of them.  They are such happy flowers, they always make me smile.

While most of the perennials are still no more than sticks in the ground, I was happy to note that the Turk's Cap Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii, is putting out some new growth.

The real stars, though, are the daylilies in the island bed.  They starting coming up weeks ago and seem to have shrugged off our freezing weather.  Looking at these photos - I need to do some clean up work of last year's leaves and also get to work dividing these up.  

Not sure when is the best time to do that, if someone could give me some tips, I would appreciate it.

What signs of spring do you see in your garden today?




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

A Little Sunshine

How do you like my new gardening shoes?  Aren't they cute?

Such a lovely day - and more to come this weekend.  I'm ready to get out in the garden and get planting!


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

Icepocalypse 2014, and Birds in the Winter Garden

You might have heard that we had a little weather here in Houston recently. 

Credit: Twitter @CraigHlavaty

The Houston Chronicle ran a great photo gallery of some of the internet memes going around making fun of us, which I got a chuckle out of.

In truth, the only reason I ended up staying home on Tuesday was because Metro had decided not to run any Park and Ride buses.  My thought was, since the weather was supposed to get worse during the day, I didn't want to drive into downtown and then get stuck there, or get stuck in traffic on icy roads coming home.

As it happened, it wasn't too bad at all and I had a fun day at home, watching the rest of the country poking fun at us on Facebook.  (My heart goes out to the poor souls in Atlanta who did get stuck in the ice and snow)

That's not to say it didn't get cold here.  As I went out to feed the birds in the morning, I could feel tiny little ice pellets landing in my hair.  They accumulated in plant containers and on the roof of the house.

Our back garden was certainly popular that day.  I stood inside the back door and took quite a few photos of the birds, availing themselves of the seed I had put out for them.

Not all the birds were welcomed. I was not happy to see this brown-headed cowbird out on the feeder. Their habit of laying their eggs in other birds' nests, often pushing the host bird's own eggs out of the nest, does not endear them to me. He was just a passing visitor though, and he appeared to be on his own.

Our most numerous visitors in the past couple of weeks have been American Goldfinches, although of course, we mostly see them in their "olive drab" winter plumage. Trying to get an accurate count of these, and of the house sparrows, for Project Feeder Watch, is a bit of a guessing game.

At first I assumed these birds were some sort of sparrow but couldn't find them when trying to ID them at What Bird?  I posted a photo in the forum there and discovered that these are, in fact, female red-winged blackbirds.  I would never have figured that out on my own!

Of course, we enjoyed visits from our regulars like this red cardinal all fluffed up against the cold in the Southern Wax Myrtle and our old friend "Woody", the red bellied woodpecker.

So that was "Icepocalypse 2014" and since then our weather has been like a roller coaster ride.

Yesterday I was pottering in the garden in a t-shirt and my husband and I sat on the patio with a bottle of wine in the evening. 

This morning we got woken up by rain pounding on the bedroom window and it was cold, wet and wintry when I went grocery shopping earlier.

The forecast is for highs of 40's and 50's with lows in the 30's, so I think I'll be putting the T-shirt away for a couple of weeks.

And of course, when summer does get here, we'll all be complaining about the heat and humidity.

But this is Texas, after all :-)


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

A Little Whimsy in the Winter Garden

As usual, for this time of year, the garden is a rather depressing sight.  The St. Augustine grass gifted/cursed to us by the builder is dormant and the most sickly yellow color.  

Most everything else is bare, with the exception of the Southern Wax Myrtle and the Savannah Holly, both of which are sporting thousands of berries in which the birds seem to have no interest whatsoever.  

What's up with that?  I thought the birds would be going crazy for the berries at this time of year.

Anyway, I digress.  Recently as I was browsing on Facebook, I found an enchanting page called Flea Market Gardening and their website, http://www.fleamarketgardening.org/ which is filled with wonderful ideas for re-purposing flea market finds or stuff in the attic into decorative items for the garden.

The more I read, the more I realized that I loved these ideas and would like to incorporate some of them into my own garden.

I decided to start simple.  I've shown you this garden trellis before.  It hides the unsightly utility boxes in the corner.  This corner has also become home to the "brush pile", a growing pile of dead bushes, clippings etc that won't fit in the compost pile. The birds love it back there :-)

Since I've had trouble getting anything much to grow over the trellis,  and inspired by the Flea Market Gardening page, I decided to dig through the garage and see what I had that could be used to brighten it up a bit.

I came across some grapevine wreaths that I used to change out on the front door of the house where I used to live.  I used to decorate them with ribbons and silk vines garlands for the holidays, or with silk flower garlands for spring and summer.

Since we have a beautiful glass inset on our front door at the house we live in now, a rustic wreath just never seemed to look right, so they had all got shoved in a corner of the garage.

So I dug one of them out, as well as some ribbon, silk flowers and also some pine cones collected from our road trip last year, put it together and attached it to the trellis. 

I like how it looks, and am now thinking about other ideas for whimsical garden decorations to add in the future.  


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

Time to Plan for Spring

It's that time of year.  It seems like no sooner do the Christmas decorations get taken down, than the seed and plant catalogs arrive in the mailbox.

I'll be first to admit, I tend to get a bit too ambitious as I browse through the catalogs, either circling, or putting large red stars on things that look I want to try, or that just look interesting.

But hey, that's half the fun!

  
Our vegetable garden is tiny, but to see me go through catalogs, you'd think we had acres of tilled earth just waiting for seeds to be sown!

This year, I think I will limit myself to a few simple veggies that are easy to grow, and that I know we will eat -- tomatoes, beans, snap peas etc., and also some flowers to turn the island bed into a butterfly garden.  I spotted a nice mix of Profusion zinnia in a variety of colors that I will be ordering soon.

What have you seen in the seed and garden catalogs that you want to try this year?


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