Lisa Bonassin’s Garden

This is the leaf bud of a Minnie Royal Cherry tree.

Saturday was a beautiful day.  Sunny and cool, perfect.  Sunday was overcast.

• Finished beds around the pool.  Lots of work.
• Finished the Long Border next to the Rose Garden.  Lots of work.  I am planting pastels in this area, plants that flower in purples, pinks, blues, pale yellows and white.
• Fertilized the Vegetable Garden.
• Began pruning the roses.  Antique roses don’t really need much pruning.  Removing dead, diseased, and damaged branches as well as crossing branches is all I’m doing.  And I’m tipping them to encourage growth.  And I’m removing some length on several of them that are lanky.
• Mulched some plants.
• Cleared out some debris in a few flowerbeds.
• My husband drove the getaway car while I snuck onto the neighbor’s property and filched cow manure.  Cow manure is good for my roses and for the compost pile.  I have a big tub that I use just for this purpose.  While I was on his side of the barbed wire fence the neighbor drove up and caught us.  I have no idea how we didn’t hear his truck!  I was so embarassed.  I tried to scramble through the fence but my pants got caught on the wire.  I ripped my pants trying to get loose before he saw me, but to no avail.  He didn’t say a word, just kept driving.  My God, how low can I sink?  Caught stealing cow manure.    

I finished the beds around the pool today.  Last summer I had already built some flowerbeds that partially encircled the pool.  But today I finished.  I want to focus on hot colors around the pool - plants with red, yellow, or orange flowers.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think of that until I had already planted three white-blooming gardenias and three pink-blooming Indian Hawthorns.  Well, that’s how things happen.

But going forward, I will plant hot colors.  I already have Mountain Sage (orange flowers), lantana (yellow and orange/yellow), and Candlestick plants (yellow flowers with a very tropical feel) growing in addition to the gardenias and Hawthorns.  I intend to add Picasso cannas for a tropical feel.  Picasso canna flowers are yellow with red polka dots, really amazing.    I will also plant orange and yellow day lilies and yellow and orange profusion zinnias.

This is a ‘before’ picture of my Red Baron Peach tree:

Peach trees should be pruned in what is called an ‘open center’ shape.  I did the following:

• I removed all but 3 scaffold branches.
• I removed branches that were growing below the graft.
• I removed the damaged, dead and diseased limbs.
• I removed limbs that crossed through the middle of the plant.
• I removed suckers - limbs that grow straight up.
• I removed limbs that grew at less than a 45 degree angle from the trunk - they are weak limbs and therefore at risk of breaking from the weight of fruit or from heavy winds.
• I removed limbs that grew at a 90 degree angle or larger from the trunk - they will be too weak to support the weight of fruit as well.

This is the tree after I finished pruning:

Misty and cool, but at least it wasn’t cold.

• I planted some fruit trees and vines today.  I planted two cherry trees - Minnie Royal and Royal Lee.  Cherry trees need cross-pollinators, therefore you have to have two.  I can’t find a book that has anything good to say about growing cherry trees in Texas, but I’m trying anyway.  These are new varieties of low chill hour cherry trees.  They require 500 chill hours which is within the range of my area (600 chill hours). It should be interesting.  I also planted 5 Kiowa blackberries in a large space I tilled about a month ago.  And, I replaced a muscadine grape vine that died last summer with a Black Beauty muscadine vine.
• I pruned my other fruit trees.  That was interesting.  The peach trees were no problem.  They look good.  But I got a little fuzzy on proper pruning for the apples and plums.  Stone fruit (my peaches and plums) should be pruned in an open vase type of shape.  Apples should be pruned sort of like a Christmas tree shape.  The Gala apple tree I just bought at a discount nursery is a disaster.  It was allowed to grow all over the place while it was sitting for God knows how many years in a big clump with a bunch of other trees, and I didn’t know how to prune it.  But I forged ahead.  And the Fuji I have from last year, well, I did the best I could.  A few weeks ago I cut my Santa Rosa plum almost down to the ground because of deer damage.  I don’t even know if it will leaf out.  And the other plum tree, a Beauty plum tree, is looking a little sickly.  At least I know I did the following standard pruning correctly:
  • Always cut away diseased, damaged, and dead branches
  • Always cut away branches that form less than a  45 degree angle from the trunk - they will be too weak to withstand heavy winds and heavy fruit
  • Always cut away suckers (branches that form a 90 degree angle from the trunk, in other words that are growing straight up)
  • Always cut away branches growing below the graft
  • Always cut away branches that cross through the middle of the tree - they cut out sunshine and inhibit fruit ripening
• Sowed lots and lots of Johnny Jump Up seeds.  I sowed some in several of the flower beds along the back of the house, several boxes in the Rose Garden, the entrance to the Rose Garden, the Rose Hedge that borders the driveway, the Hollyhock flowerbed, and in the flowerbeds all along the front of the house.  Johnny Jump Ups reseed.
• I cut away all the wet and gooey dead vegetation around my Agapanthes in the front and the back flowerbeds.     

From these two sets of French doors you can see the pool, the Orchard, my two flowering Red Buckeye trees, the screened-in porch, and the woods beyond.  Our plan someday soon is to dig a lake just beyond the Orchard.  There is a natural dip in the earth, it slopes downward and then rises up again.  A lake would look very pretty in that natural indentation.  I will continue planting flowering trees down the slope, a few each year.  More than that and I would have a great deal of difficulty keeping them irrigated until they get established.  It will all look very beautiful one day.

I planted these six little chicory plants for fun.  Chicory is a perennial.  I don’t think I will be harvesting the root, but you never know.  I wanted some flowering herbs in my “Oddity Herb” garden.  Chicory blooms clear blue flowers in the summer.  The blooms last for less than a day.  Chicory will grow to 3 feet tall with an 18 inch spread. 

The root can be roasted, ground, and mixed with coffee or substituted for coffee altogether.  The leaves can be used in salads.  The flower buds can be pickled, they have a peppery flavor. 

Medicinally, chicory can be used as a digestive tonic.  All bitter herbs are good for digestion.  Chicory is related to radicchio which is also a bitter herb / salad green.

The Beautiful Leaf Buds of a Texas Native Red Buckeye Tree (Aesculus pavia)

Cold!  Sunny on and off.

• Breakfast at the Mexican food restaurant in Brenham.  It’s a dump but sooo good.
• Shredded leaves throughout the day.  Dumped them in the beds I’m building next to the pool and next to the Greenhouse.
• Had more garden soil delievered today.  The poor guy’s hydraulic lift broke and he had to shovel all 10 yards out of the truck by hand.  I felt sorry for him but not enough to help.  I have to take that same 10 yards and move it all over the property, so although I felt his pain, I felt mine too!
• Moved wheelbarrows full of dirt to the beds by the pool and by the Greenhouse.
• Created an opening in the old Infinity Garden that leads to the flowerbeds I made over the summer.  I did this by digging up a very large Rosemary plant and moving it.  Previously the Infinity Garden was a circle around a metal sculpture.  Now there is a path to the Greenhouse and the flowerbeds that surround it.  And to the left of that is the herb garden I am making of old-time medicinal herbs and fun-to-grow-oddity herbs.  The Rosemary is now next to a path so that you might brush against it when you walk by.  The smell will float on the air.  Very nice.
• Cut away all the dead ‘Jersey Giant’ Asparagus growth in preparation for spring asparagus.  I can’t say how excited I am about finally harvesting asparagus.  It’s hard to fathom that I planted that asparagus three years ago.  Three years has passed!  Every day can be a trial but the years fly by.
•  Spent most of Sunday cleaning the house - sweeping, vacuuming, mopping.
• Planted some dill and some chicory. 

 Another beautiful Texas winter day.  Sunny and warm.

• Planted 9 Blood Lilies (Scadoxus multiflorus) in the Circle Drive.  First I had to prepare the ground by turning up the soil which  is covered with a thick mat of roots, I don’t know what that is.  Then I added compost and laid mulch on top. My plan is to plant bulbs throughout that area in a naturalistic setting with ferns, ground covers and some shade tolerant shrubs.  In that area I also have Clyde Redmond irises and Spider Lilies, also called Hurricane Lilies because they flower at the beginning of hurricane season in Texas (Lycoris radiata).
• In the Greenhouse I moved some of the plantlets from the seed starter kits onto the ground where they can get more sun and be out from under the plastic cover (which serves a purpose similar to a terrarium).  Some of the seeds have not sprouted so I am leaving them under the cover where it is very moist and humid.  The tomatoes are just beginning to sprout.
•  Pulled weeds in the Vegetable Garden and the Rose Garden.  More deer damage in the Rose Garden.
• Watered the plants I transplanted last week.
• Cleaned out the pool skimmers.
• Planted a Rusty Blackhaw Viburnum at the back of the house.  This is a Texas native tree.  It doesn’t get very big.  White flowers.  Red foliage in the fall.  The guy at the nursery sold it to me for $10 because the leader branch was broken off.  That was a good deal.
• Mulched around several of the native trees I planted last year.
• Pruned the wisteria on the side arbor.
• Drank a beer and took a good look around.  Lots of things I want to do when I go back. 
• Watched a redheaded woodpecker at the feeder. 

The Buds of the Starflower are Tiny - There Is One Just to the Left of the Flower

Starflowers are tiny little bulbs that multiply very rapidly.  They multiply by bulb increase, seeds, and droopers (short runners that form bulbs at their ends).  Starflowers are an excellent bulb to naturalize in your yard (if you don’t live in a suburban neighorborhood - St. Augustine only!)  The grass-like foliage does not get tall - only three / four inches tall - and will die away in the heat of the zone 8b summer.  The flowers are pale blue and resemble six pointed stars.  The flowers start showing up just after the new year as soon as we get a short warm spell, and they will bloom on and off for several months.

I have mine growing in the Star Garden.  I plan to move them, maybe next year, over to the Circle Drive where I am planning to plant many types of bulbs in a naturalistic setting.  I’m going to give them a bit more time to work their multiplication magic.  I have Clyde Redmond irises, blood lilies (Scadoxus multiflorus), and hurricane lilies (Lycoris radiatat) planted there already.

The Bark of the Mexican Plum tree is Beautiful

Cloudy and cool.  It’s supposed to start raining later in the week and get cold.

• Planted a Gala apple tree to replace the one I lost last summer.
• Replaced all the sign labels in the Orchard.
• Pruned the Muscadine grape vines and replaced the string leaders.  They have about another foot to grow before they reach the lateral wire.
• Planted an Improved Meyer Lemon tree in a pot and put it in the Greenhouse.  It is covered in blooms.  There is nothing that smells so wonderful as citrus blooms.  The lemon tree and any other citrus I grow will be planted in pots that I can rest in the Orchard in the summer and then move into the Greenhouse in the winter.  It’s too cold for citrus to survive outside in a zone 8b winter.  I’m planning to dig up the Meyer Lemon in my backyard in Houston and put it in a pot and take it to the farm this weekend.  A matched pair.
• Fertilized in the Vegetable Garden.
• Dug up a Butterfly Bush (Buddleia lindleyana) that was in an area with too much shade and moved it to the Long Border next to the Rose Garden. 
• Planted some arugula in the Herb Garden next to the kitchen.
• Some of the exotic carrots and the Johnny Jump-ups I planted in the Vegetable Garden are starting to sprout.  I planted those just before the hard freeze so I didn’t think they would sprout.  Interesting.  I need to sow the rest of my Johnny Jump-ups.  I wasn’t sure they could take a hard freeze.  That is clearly not the case so I should get them in the ground right away.  Johnny Jump-ups don’t like hot weather.  Spring is their time to bloom so I need to get them established.
• My Spanish Bluebells are all popping up now.  I planted 50 of them.  They’re so cute!  I fertilized them with fish emulsion.
• Around the pool I moved 3 ‘New Gold’ Lantana from between my ‘Frostproof’ Gardenias over to another area around the pool.  They were crowding the gardenias.
• Fertilized the gardenias - they were looking pale.  They need a lot of fertilizer.  They are heavy feeders.
• Mulched around the pool.