Happy Mother's Day

In honor of Mother's Day, I'm simply sharing some photos of the mockingbird nest in our garden.

May 6th

 May 7th

May 8th 

May 9th

We'll miss the eggs hatching,  as we're leaving for England tomorrow and the eggs should hatch while we're away.  But hopefully when we get back we'll be able to see some nestlings and perhaps even be around when they get ready to leave the nest.

Happy Mother's Day everyone.  I'll be back to blogging in a couple of weeks.


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

The Magical Month of May

Earlier this week I noticed a mockingbird that seemed to be coming and going a lot. At one point I saw it on the fence with a beak full of nesting materials.  As I sat on the patio, I began to realize that it was probably nesting in the false cypress we have against the fence on the west side of our garden.

 As you can see from the photo, this was where we had put up the nesting shelf for the cardinals.  As of yet, the cardinals have ignored it, but if you look closer, you'll see that Mrs. Mockingbird was kind enough to build her nest right where I can get good photos without having to teeter on top of a step ladder!

When I took a peek this morning, I was thrilled to discover a beautiful speckled blue egg. Hopefully there will be more to follow.

The nest is very sturdily constructed, having been started last year, but never actually used.  I'm so thrilled that someone is nesting in it this year.  With the loss of habitat either side of us, I'm particularly happy to see that we still get birds in our garden and that they choose to nest in the habitat we are building.

I was going back through my iPhoto library because somewhere I have a photo of this particular nest when it was just a few sticks.  I couldn't find it, but I did find some other photos that reminded how magical May can be.

For example -- it was one year ago today that we had some unusual visitors to our garden.  I don't think I showed this video before, but we had a visit from a family of these little guys, drawn to our garden by the soggy ground under our hose reel.

They stayed with us for two days and I was fascinated, but a little relieved when they moved on -- my flowerbeds were starting to show signs of wear!

More magical moments in the garden last May when a Carolina wren nested on our patio.  I just happened to have a day off from work and be sitting on the patio on the day the young ones left the nest.

In last week's post, I celebrated the fact that we were finally hosting some Monarch caterpillars on the milkweed in the front garden.  More recently, I spotted a couple of tiny caterpillars no more than half an inch long on the milkweed in the back garden.

As I was heading out the garden gate to turn on the water so I could refresh the bird bath, I saw something I have never seen before in my life -- a Monarch chrysalis!!

As we head further in to May, I'm looking forward to more magical wonders in the garden.  I'll keep you updated on Mrs. Mockingbird and her family and let you know how things develop.


Happy gardening everyone!

 


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

We have Caterpillars!

Recently I've seen other bloggers posting photographs of Monarch butterflies and Monarch caterpillars in their garden and I've been a little jealous.

 
We've got milkweed taking over the garden, but as hard as I looked, I didn't see a single caterpillar. 

 I was beginning to feel that we didn't have the right to display our newly acquired Monarch Waystation sign.

 
This past weekend, I decided I had to do something with the front border -- it's so overgrown, you can barely see the daylilies which are struggling to bloom between the garden mums, the shrubs and the milkweed.  

Unfortunately, I ended up not getting very far because after an hour or so of leaning over pulling out what seemed like a million milkweed seedlings, such as can be seen in the first photo, and the ever present nutsedge, I had a mammoth headache and had to sit down on an upturned flowerpot and take a break.


That was when I spotted something that made my heart skip a beat -- a Monarch caterpillar!

I didn't feel well enough yesterday to explore much more and see how many might be out there, but as soon as I got home from work this evening, I had to see if I could still find him.  

To my delight, I found not only the one I had seen on Sunday, but at least four of his cousins, all big and healthy and munching away on the milkweed!

 
I'll probably delay the rest of the weeding of that flowerbed because I don't want to disturb or damage the caterpillars.

The strange thing is, although we have some very healthy stands of milkweed in the back garden, there's not a caterpillar to be seen among them.  Their leaves aren't chewed up at all.  I wonder if it's the proximity to the bird feeders that explains the lack of caterpillars, although I thought I read that Monarch cats were poisonous.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to why the milkweed in the back garden are caterpillar-less? 





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

Wordless Wednesday - White Beauty

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

Earth Day in Jayne's Country Garden

In honor of Earth Day 2012, Eric and I planted a Page Mandarin Orange tree.  Well, okay, let me correct myself here.  Eric and I picked it out, drawn to it by nothing more scientific than the wonderful aroma of the blossoms. Eric did the actual digging and planting by himself. 

He's getting to be quite the professional at planting trees, having planted three in our garden now - the Sam Houston Peach, the Page Mandarin and the River Birch. 

Another little project we've been working on in our on-going efforts to hide and/or disguise the ugly wall at the back of the garden is a trellis, on which will grow a native honeysuckle 'Major Wheeler' - Lonicera sempervirens 'Major Wheeler'.   Since the area in which we want it to grow is thick with roots, we elected to raise up a small portion, using the same landscape bricks we have used in our other beds.                           

Also planted in that section is a Cleyera, which I originally planted in a little raise berm when trying an experiment in this same area in 2010 and a new Hamelia patens which I just planted after we had put the landscape bricks down and back-filled with organic garden soil.

Hopefully, when the honeysuckle gets here it will eventually hide the not-too-pretty pressure-treated 2x4's we used to support the trellis.

Further along the wall, I noticed the first blooms on the Rose of Sharon.  This is the same plant I brought with me as a small twig from my old house four years ago. I'm very happy that it has taken so well to it's current location.  Others I brought over and planted in other locations in the garden haven't done nearly as well.

In the new island bed, the Marguerite daisy is blooming beautifully and is attracted all sorts of winged visitors, including the little one in this photo.  I'm not sure what he is, but he certainly was enjoying the nectar in these blooms yesterday.

I discovered yesterday that the corner of the garden between the island bed and the small trellis hiding the utility boxes is a nice place to sit out in the late afternoon. There's shade offered by the pine tree and also the Vitex tree and it offers a different view of the garden to what we normally see from the patio.

Well that's it from me -- the outdoors is calling.

Happy Earth Day everyone!

Earth Day 2012

The Canopy Project

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.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, April 2012

Each month I promise myself I'm going to put a post up for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

And most months I remember -- on or about the 17th of the month!

But this month I remembered in time!

While the front border is somewhat over-stuffed with some huge indian hawthorn and african lily (courtesy of the builder 4 years ago), the White Gold Lantana and New Gold Lantana I planted are making a good showing along the front of the border, as are the milkweed along the back. (Notice the Monarch Waystation sign in the center of the photo)

There are daylilies in there somewhere too, but just leaves so far - no blooms yet.  Perhaps I'll be able to show them off next month (if I remember in time).

 Lantana is making a good showing in the back garden too -- this one, in front of the wax myrtle is Dallas Red.  The butterflies and hummingbirds love it!


Here's a closer look.

In the "bird feeder" corner, where I gave up trying to plant things in the ground because of the thick tangle of pine roots just under the surface, I have a collection of containers.  

Below is the newest - I love the "half barrel" look, which reminds me of the real half barrels my dad has in his garden. In it, I have some Superbells Grape Punch (calibrachoa hybrid), Supertunia Vista Bubblegum (petunia hybrid), Verbena Babylon White  and a Persian Shield (the tall plant in the middle with beautiful purple leaves).

If you click on the photo to see the larger version, you can see two things.  First, a very sturdy pine root that's come up to the surface (there's a pine tree right on the other side of the wall) and second, a couple of adventurous milkweed seedlings that have sprouted there.  In fact, the yellow milkweed on the right self-seeded there last year.  How it competes with the pine roots I'll never know, but it's doing beautifully, so I'll leave things as they are.

And finally, for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, something else that reminds me of my dad's garden in England -- fuschias.  These are in a hanging basket (with home made macrame hanger, a la 1970's even) just outside the back door. 

I do love them, they remind me of dancing ballerinas.

 That's it for today.  Happy Garden Bloggers Bloom Day everyone.  I hope your gardens are blooming.


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