Still Life

My still life photos are rare, especially now my life is faster than ever.  This scene practically made itself, I did a double take as I walked past the dining room table.  Roses from the side of the house, with purple verbena.  

Clean Up Time

At long last, our agave americana (so called, even tho it has red spines instead of black) got the pruning it needed.  And what a pruning it was.  It now looks like a giant pineapple.  But hey: it's alive.  That's all I care about.

The drought last year wasn't the only peril the succulents found themselves in.  The other was an infestation of snails...to a nightmarish degree.  Fertile Ground Landscaping who came yesterday did a terrific job putting diatomaceous earth (crushed shells) around replanted pups of our agave celsii and americana.  The earth cuts the snails' flesh, so they stay out.  Cayenne pepper also helps.

The team also planted some cat mint to replace ponyfoot that suffered last year.  We added a carolina jessamine vine to the amazingly resilient bougainvillea that sprouted up at the last minute from what I thought was a dead plant.

The back around the playhouse got lots more mulch; and our kids loved helping with their own wheelbarrow.

And we put two new African bulbines in the back.  They were some of the only plants that didn't survive last year, amazingly.

And we put a potato vine next to the garage to grow up over our old metalsmithing frame.  To my amazement, Julie, owner of Fertile Ground, showed me where my old Passion Vine was in fact resurrecting.  So we'll have the two vines meet in the middle of the framework.

I think that's all, but it sure wore us out - the kids took exceptionally long naps yesterday after the crew left!

Hail to the Survivors

I'm amazed at how plants can make it through a drought as tough as we got in 09.  Two Mexican blue sages I was sure were dead, along with some plumbago plants are back, albeit taking their time, justifiably.


The bluebonnets in our median are stunning.  They came out in late fall 2009 (no blooms) and lay real low during the winter.  Maybe that's what gave them the base to rise to great heights--that's my totally unscientific take on the bluebonnet phenomenon this Spring all over Austin.


The rest of the photos show off the beautiful, blooming survivors, including the crossvine, the best Spring it's had so far.

 Our kitty loved the photo opp...

And I forgot what ground cover this is...anyone know?  It just keeps spreading and looking wonderful.

 The feather grass has never looked better...

 Our poor agave americana is another survivor, but barely.  Fertile Ground is coming to prune it back to a stick next week.