Gardens-In-The-Sand

A Southern Garden in January

2012-01-25T20:19:00.010-05:00

Why I garden in the South

sulfur yellow butterfly

A vegetable garden full of henbit is kind of embarrassing, but the butterflies like it fine... They say that God doesn't make junk....

Painted lady butterfly

The butterflies seem to be happy with the weeds...

gulf fritillary butterfly

Not just butterflies in the garden on this fine January day, I found a blue-tailed skink and a frog too!

The pictures click...

Winter Rain

2012-01-22T05:35:00.012-05:00

We are in a deficit for rain this year, just a few weeks in... We were seriously hurting last year...

Seeing any kind of clouds in the sky is a hopeful event.

This looks very good...

It's coming!

Rain!

Lots of rain!

Raindrops hitting the rainwater that fell faster than the thirsty sand could absorb it...

Raindrops on the winter burned golden rod.

An inch and a quarter of rain in a single storm...
The rain Gods were very kind.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - January 2012

2012-01-15T06:45:00.012-05:00

I discovered gardener blogger's bloom day last month, too late to post. Seems like a pretty neat concept, the garden changes from month to month, if there isn't different flowers, the flowers we have look different.

First off, howsa bout some weeds?

Chickweed and henbit, pretty if shot with a macro, but not something desirable...

I'm pulling weeds as fast as I can...

Some early bloom on the bridal wreath spirea and forsythia.

The highlight of the garden is the hellebore.

They've produced additional open blooms since last month, and peak bloom is still a month or two away...

The colours when the blooms initially open is always exciting.

Sadly, most people only know hellebores by those green displays at lenten service.

I'm unable to post camellia blooms from this garden yet. The freezing temps last week did those for me. While I'm seeing plenty of camellias in other gardens, I think it would violate the spirit of the post to post the plants that I'm not growing in this garden.

I still have mahonia in bloom, but it seems past it's peak...

Daffy-dills blooming through the lantana stalks, and summer's farewell seed heads. Be sure to click the pictures on this post... Those Dalea pinnata seed heads look surreal when enlarged.

We could all learn a lot about concentration and patience from a cat... She can stare at a brush pile for hours...

Lichen

2012-01-11T06:56:00.029-05:00

I was mentioned on a post yesterday.

After looking at her pictures of mosses and lichens, I went out and shot some of mine.

This feels like a Christmas post, and my apologies for not thinking of it sooner... Some people put out a bale of hay for Santa's reindeer, but I'm not sure that the reindeer would actually benefit from hay. Seems like they would get sick after spending the year eating lichens and moss.

This patch of Cladonia rangiferalichen looks like brains.

It felt like they were contemplating the nature of the universe, while I looked on.

Like the Douglas Adams computer Deep Thought, who gave us the answer "42".

I think these babies might come up with an answer that is more relevant to our day to day struggles...

I will admit that these guys figure prominently in my plans for the zombie apocalypse. If I led them past a group of brain lichens, they might get confused. If that doesn't work, I'll lead them through the saw briars and hawthorns.

Lichens are a diverse group of plants, in just a small area, I was able to capture some wildly different forms.

Looks like this Cladonia cristatella (british soldier lichen) is blooming... Be sure to click the pictures to see them better.

Coupla thready ones.

(foliose)

The Dragonriders of Pern are expected momentarily.

Flat ones, plate-like

Parmotrema perlatum

Small ones growing up through the moss.

Stream of lichen... Most gardeners produce the dry stream bed effect using rock...

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T06:16:00.010-05:00

I have hellebore blooming... Last year, nobody had any blooms until the middle of January.
It's been a beautiful Autumn, the rains finally came, and with moderate temps, everything has been growing like mad. We're still deeply in a deficit rain-wise, last summer was as bad as I can remember and we've had a series of droughty years, each one seeming worse than the previous.

I've been adding a coupla truckloads of horse poop a week to the garden since August, and that helps a lot also.

What's not to love about hellebore?

These guys didn't get a drop of extra water in the bottomless sand over the summer, and they are the best looking lenten rose in the area.

The drought was so bad last summer that I didn't get anything from the vegetable garden!

The vegetable garden is doing much better, thanks.

The mahonia is in bloom...

Homminy is hunting voles or something... Good kitty!

While hardy cyclamen blooms, a smaller version of the florists cyclamen...

I grow it for those leaves...

Mid-November

2011-11-19T19:54:00.040-05:00

It's interesting that so many different ones were blossoming during October.
Comment from October's post.

Yeah... Middle Georgia is actually considered part of the sub-tropical south. We had our first frost last week, and there's still plenty of colour in the garden. I walked around with a camera today, in an attempt to record the mid-November garden...

To have butterflies, you need caterpillars.

Here's a coupla gulf frits.
(Be sure to click all the pics today!)

The butterflies they eventually become.

Close-up of the lantana that was so popular last month.

Sulfur yellow visits a turk's cap hibiscus

Zabulon Skipper

Buckeye Butterfly

Checkerspot butterfly

Catching grasshoppers.

Mustard greens.

Helianthus debilis

Spiderwort

Salvia coccinea

Monarda Punctata

Another Autumn

2011-10-18T09:49:00.027-04:00

The Monarch butterflies seem to be flocking in preparation for migration. Bushes full of butterflies that can hardly be distinguished from the orange flowers...

see how many butterflies you can spot on the below photo. These pictures are all clickable...

I count 5 orange butterflies... among the orange flowers.

The bushes are large enough that shooting the entire bush results in not being able to even pick out the butterflies...

Gotta love bushes that grow and bloom despite the drought, that you don't have to do anything to protect from the local deer herds...

The lantana also attract the night flyers.

The agalinis are in full bloom.

Agalinis purpurea are pretty, and are host plant to the buckeye butterfly, which makes them an asset to the meadow.

Their short-comings are that they are annuals and strictly Autumn bloomers, and need disturbed soil to come up each year.

Here's an interesting flower, 'Summer's farewell' (Dalea pinnata)

This cool plant has ferny leaves closely resembling moss verbena, which was what I thought I had when the babies initially showed up...

Later, when the plants grew upright, rather than prostrate as expected, I could see that it was something else. These little button flowers are interesting...

The plants appear to be biennial, which coupled with their short bloom time rather negates their value in the flower border.

Caught some afternoon "popcorn" showers

2011-08-14T10:04:00.007-04:00

A bit of rain encourages everything.
While the vegetables are long gone, any perennials that surived the drought have bloomed.

These echinacea are a coupla years old, the constant drought has resulted in some incredible dwarfing... of the ones that didn't die...

The clasping heliotrope are incredibly drought proof, and the tigerswallowtail butterfly is happy to feed on this native delight.

Tree-frog onna milkweed Asclepias syriaca... They aren't going to eat the monarchs, are they?

Speaking of which...
The monarchs are back!!
Monarchs take their time getting to middle GA. I saw some monarch caterpillars in the Spring, and was surprised by the unusual earliness of the sighting, I don't know what happened to those out of time babies... these guys are right on schedule.

Always fun watching butterfly mating rituals...

There were no persimmons last year, I'm seeing some fruit this year!

Rain maker wanted

2011-05-22T12:47:00.012-04:00

A woman in New York State complains about getting 14 inches of rain in a single week...

The Mississippi river valley is under-water, No food crops are being planted there...

Good thing we're in a drought, right? We can get out in the garden and make up for the coming food shortage...

I dunno... This is what my garlic looks like...

I can plant seeds, but they don't come up...

The desert stuff seems happy enough... as evidenced by the yucca...

the native delphinium that I posted about in Early Emergence, is in bloom.

I took pity on the blackeyed susans last week and gave them a little water...

I wish the tomatoes would do as well with as little...

still dry (reprise)

2011-05-08T09:25:00.013-04:00

Black-eyed susans... Is why you should plant native plants... these guys are wilted, but bravely... determinedly... ploughing forward, and putting onna brave front.

It seems like nuthin but a cactus garden...

The datura have begun blooming...

n the yalluh daylilies...

And the milkweed.... Will have butterfly weed blooms in a few days as well... not sure where the monarch cats are... was watchin gulf frits lay eggs on maypops the other day, haven't seen their caterpillars yet either... jus a matter uv time...

Jackyl recorded a good summer song about the Georgia heat.... When will it rain?

Still dry

2011-05-04T21:44:00.012-04:00

Last of the peony poppies...

And the goldfinches are enjoying the seed I've thoughtfully provided for their pleasure...

After they finish the poppies, they'll move on to the sunflowers... speaking of which...

First bloom! (Helianthus debilis)

Cactus bloom...

stiff verbena (Verbena rigida)

one quarter inch of rain

2011-05-01T19:42:00.012-04:00

My heart goes out to everybody that lost everything due to the weather thursday morning. It hurts to be deprived of everything....

But this blog post is about how dry it is in the sandhill garden....

How much difference does a quarter inch of rain make?

Well, as it turns out, it helps quite a bit...

common milkweed Asclepias syriaca
The one on the right is before the rain, on the left is after...

I still need a rain-dancer...

The viper's bugloss that I posted about in february is blooming.

This Oak-leaf hydranga is blooming... It's managed to live for a year out here, in spite of last summer being dry enough to lose seedling butterfly weed...

Amarylis bloom...

today's perennial blooms

2011-04-21T08:51:00.007-04:00

Rehmannia elata ... Chinese foxgloves

These pretty woodland flowers have underground stolons, and with most plants, that would be a huge warning sign to avoid... Chinese foxglove doesn't overwhelm the garden though... Seeming instead to move around, always looking for a different venue, and dieing out in the location where it was so pretty last year. I'm not sure what this roamer is searching for, but it's certainly pretty, and doesn't require any special attention... except to be allowed to move around a bit.

The first of the louisiana iris... They do very poorly in the dry sand hill garden. Louisiana iris are normally a wetland plant, growing naturally in the Louisiana swamplands... But it grows very well in any good garden soil... and... I have managed to keep it alive in the dry sand without extra water!

The mckana's giant columbine... Aquelegia caerula
I grow an assortment of columbines, they do fine in the dry sand, and in any semi shaded garden... I've found that they didn't like being in a wetland garden, but pretty much anywhere else, they make a carefree plant for a few years... fortunately, they make up for their short life-spans by coming up easily from seed.

And finally, another wild flower native to the sand hills... Hoary puccoon, Lithospermum canescens ... This guy has a short bloom time, but it certainly adds pizazz to the meadow...

Spring flowers

2011-04-14T07:26:00.019-04:00

I apologize for yesterday's weed post...

I'll post some of the ornamentals deliberately planted in the garden today...

It's always a joy to see the butterflies, these black swallowtails are all over the place, but won't hardly hold still long enough for a picture...

The columbines are as pretty as a picture...

And the bearded iris do very well in the sand... Wish I could say the same for the other iris...

This bladder campion showed up on it's own, and is supposed to be weedy from everything I've read, but I have to dig the plant up and tear pieces off like heuchera, to get additional plants... gotta 'preciate the campions with their grey fuzzy leaves...

This scullcap was growing in clay locally, but is doing well in the sand. There are several scutellarias, and in spite of visiting page after page of google images, I haven't quite narrowed this one down... I have a couple of other scullcaps growing, they'll be blooming within the month...

Edit: I did finally discover the name of this plant... It's a native blue salvia..... Salvia urticifolia ... nettle leaf sage.

These buckeyes are pretty cool, grown from buckeyes collected locally...

Buckeyes bloom in about 3 years from seed... The buckeye bush in GA is a shrub ...

Ok, one more weed picture... Chenopodium gigantica, magenta spreen...
When the other greens bolt and get bitter this "weed" keeps providing leafy goodness for the salad bowl and the cooking pot... I cooked up some evening primrose a couple of weeks ago as a change... those were interesting... the roots were like taters, and the leaves like fuzzy spinach... on the whole, I prefer the lambsquarter weed... And this one looks so pretty that it's not totally out of place in a flower bed...

Spring means flowers

2011-04-13T11:25:00.008-04:00

This is a nice flower... notice the spines on the stalks, and the leaves... everything but the blooms... Everybody that sees these guys, says "what pretty flowers!" Yeah... right up till you touch the plant... This is Cnidoscolus stimulosus Aka finger rot, 7 minute itch... A very close relative to texas bull nettle and a really scary plant out in AZ called mala mujer ... Is totally a fun plant to have growing up among the tomato bushes... if you know what I mean...

Hmmm.... The turnips are through... I leave them for the butterflies...

And the wasps... Gotta keep those pollinators happy!

While we're looking at the weeds... Here's one of our native blue salvias... Sorry people, this is not the salvia that you smoke... unless you absolutely want to...
This salvia with the pretty blue flowers is lyre leaf sage, a perennial best left in the ditch... not a good choice for the flower garden... it is very seedy.

March Bloom

2011-03-14T08:22:00.007-04:00

Carolina Jessemine

The Carolina jessemine is a native vine, blooming early here... I used to see the blooms on the ground at my previous garden, but never actually see the vine... they'd climbed well out of sight...

The daffodils are winding down

With the early Spring here, some patches of daffodils didn't bloom.
I was reading an article about "blind daffodils" recently... it explained why otherwise happy drifts of daffodils had failed this year.

Pear Flowers

I planted these pear trees 2 Autumns ago, they might produce this year... I had a frost which killed back the taters that were up a couple of days ago... but am hopeful re the pears....

Edit:

The pears produced!
the poor trees had their tops dragging the ground.

See pic

Early Emergence

2011-02-13T08:48:00.009-05:00

A study of contrasts, the wild delphinium first emerged from sleep.

It's impossible to grow the nursery delphiniums here, but this brave little guy stands up to the heat.

I discovered the viper's bugloss growing near the fire department as I drove past (a couple of years age)... I pulled over and took a closer look at those showy blue flowers...

Picked a couple of seed pods, and sowed them in my garden... Good thing I got them, because they soon had that area covered in sod... YUCK!

Last Spring they came up and bloomed, but my camera died... I'll try to get pictures this year.

I grew this camellia from an acorn...

Neat story, a neighbor came by a garden where I was helping the homeowner, with a pocket full of camellia seed... Asked if we thought they would grow...

I thought they prolly would... The neighbor gifted me with the seed... I took them home and planted them... had a nice crop of camellias come up... I shared them with people and took a dozen (or so) of them up to TN for a visit to the mountains... for a couple of years, before bringing them back to middle GA...

Another hellebore picture... These guys are so pretty... It's still going to be another month before we get the peak bloom...

Fixing to move a tree...

Had a walnut tree come up in someone's garden, they couldn't figure out where they had room for it... but it couldn't stay there...

Also picked up a plum tree... I hope to have tree fruit some day...

Is it Spring yet?

2011-02-06T19:37:00.005-05:00

First Daffy-dill! Is it Spring yet?

The hellebore are prettier and prettier!

The atamasco lilies are coming up too!

road-kill

2011-02-01T13:23:00.017-05:00

I was checking facebook updates this morning, getting ready to go do a day's work, when I got a phone call from an acquaintance... There's a fresh road kill over here, someone just hit a deer, it wasn't here yesterday...

I told him .... I'm on my way...

Fresh deer meat is mighty desirable.... You can't purchase anything like that... Go to the Walmart Super-Center and pick up a steak that's been fed chicken manure, and growth hormones... Sometimes, I can taste that stuff... And what they do to hamburger... After reading Toxin by Robin Cook, I was put off store bought meat for a month or so...

Anyway... I got to the carcass, the back end of the deer was clearly a dead loss.... but it was a brand new kill... threw that baby in the back of the truck!

Doesn't bambi look tasty!

Getting bambi back to the house, I lost no time getting the carcass processed...

Yeah, it's a bloody mess, but I'm quality control!

Does it look like food yet?

How about now...

This is a plate full of butterfly steaks (tenderloin) I've seen entire deer killed where the hunter took nothing but the tenderloin!
With our deer explosion, you hear some insane stories about 5 deer in the freezer, and the hunter still out there looking for more...

Butterflies in the pan... Mighty tasty! Some good eatin there!

Pot of ribs... Just add barbque sauce! Yummy!

Check it out... several meals ready for the freezer.

Who's coming over for dinner?

What's blooming today?

2011-01-30T19:32:00.014-05:00

The hellebore seem slow getting started... While the blooms begin appearing in December, they're terribly far and few between...

It's the end of January, and I have some blooms... I certainly appreciate that... I'm impatiently checking all of my patches searching for colour!

This is a nice green one... I know someone that actually wants an entire patch of green blooms... I'd previously felt like there was something wrong when the bloom didn't colour up better... I've gained some perspective on that... It's genetic... You get what you get when you grow stuff from seed...

Here's a sweet plant...

Some people collect miniature daylilies, I suspect that miniature hellebores could well become collectible soon also.

Here's one with red spots...

And a sorta pink one.

I should mention that it was so dry last summer that ALL of my vegetables died....

These guys didn't get a drop of water, and while all the hellebore looked wilted, everybody pulled through like champs! Hellebore make excellent plants for dry shade...

Oh man, there's nobody home...

I am seeing the wrens acting interested in nesting sites... This nest is from last year, but I expect I'll be seeing new ones soon...

Winter

2011-01-10T18:32:00.007-05:00

It's been that uncolourful period of the year, between the killing frosts of December, and the first blooms of January... Nothing to shoot with the camera except seedpods and berries...

Yesterday, I finally got a pic of a hellebore bloom!

today, I shot the bloom encased in ice...

Won't hurt the bloom though, hellebore are as tough as nails....

Shot a clematis show yesterday before the storm.... Summer clematis seeds...

The towhees show up nicely against the ice...

These pics are all clickable.

One last snow picture....

house

2010-12-17T09:04:00.004-05:00

Brought out a house...

Put blocks under it... put in a septic tank...

Started planting trees around it... still need to add solar panels...

Monarch butterfly

2010-10-27T12:46:00.010-04:00

Monarch & tropical milkweed.

Mid July

2009-07-20T13:08:00.033-04:00

Butterflies, lizards and flowers from the moon garden. click butterflies & lizards for larger pictures (opens in a new window)
gulf fritillaries	zebra swallowtails
painted lady butterfly on echinacea	buckeye butterfly
Takes caterpillars to have butterflies, and they have very specific dietary requirements.... In this day & age of endless turf, we all should grow butterfly host plants << click the link It's no longer possible to depend on the vacant lot down the street to supply us with butterflies for our flower garden.
little gray lizard AKA Eastern Fence Lizard	striped lizard AKA Six-lined Racerunner
These lizards are helpful in the garden, They will occassionally dash out in front of me to grab bugs... I've even had them hang out next to the campfire eating termites while I made coffee & pancakes! I was reading at the baker creek forum (http://idigmygarden.com/forums) where somebody had a squash bug eatin horned toad! Obviously, you wouldn't have butterflies or lizards in so-called "traditional" chemical gardening...

Here's a couple taken at dusk from the moon garden.

flashlight bush

gourd blooms

The June Garden

2009-06-15T04:35:00.006-04:00

Everything is blooming!

What were these veggies doing in my flowers?

winter colour

2008-12-29T07:13:00.005-05:00

First Bloom... I grew this camellia from seed.... My camellia bushes traveled with me from GA to TN, and back...

Autumn Colours

2008-11-05T09:16:00.026-05:00

The sand holly bushes are beautiful! I spent days online searching for the name of this drought proof wonder, using search terms like "red berries in the autumn", "in the fall", & I did find one picture on an Alabama blog, but she didn't know what it was either. When / if I find her blog again, I'll post a link.

The leaves on the Sand holly soon turn yellow and fall to the ground, but the berries persist on the naked branches till Spring. I sampled the berries, hoping for cranberries, and while one didn't make me sick, they also didn't taste good enough to make a meal. It would seem the birds agree.

I finally wrote to the Georgia Extension Service and after a false start, we got it narrowed down.

Ilex ambigua

some additional colour:

maple

Another cool xeric shrub

Tupelo

New Well

2008-08-21T08:17:00.006-04:00

We're Finally getting a well! No more portaging water from the city when transplanting.

Here's pictures of the equipment & crew.

Early spring

2008-03-23T10:48:00.004-04:00

Now that It's spring, I've been enjoying all of the spring ephemerals.

Things like blood-root, may apples, star flowers, trout lilies-AKA dog tooth violet, Virginia bluebells. The shade garden is full of surprises as something new comes up every week. The turn-over of bloom in the early spring means that we seem to have a different garden from month to month.

The soil is soft, which means that it's still time to create new garden beds.

Keep the heavy equipment off the soil! Someone told me a story last week about putting in a wildflower garden that gave me the shivering horrors!

It seems the client hired a paving company to replace their turf with a wildflower garden. The person doing the work went out there with a bobcat and took up the turf.

I'm sure they got the turf grass out... they also packed that wet soil into an impermeable hard pan that nothing will be able to send roots through.

The solution? Most turf will die if covered in the autumn. This is why people rake their leaves! So... save yourself some work and leave those autumn leaves in place, and no more turf. No leaves? Cover the lawn with wood chips, or any other organic mulch.

Next they spread the seed and covered them with several inches of wheat straw. Ok, First of all, wildflower seed needs light to germinate. Secondly, Wildflower seed really should be spread in the autumn here in middle GA. The plants grow all winter and bloom in the late spring, after the spring ephemerals have finished.

Moral of the story? Hire the paving company to pack your driveway, not your flower garden.

Winter Chores

2007-12-27T17:16:00.000-05:00

There's a lot of gardening to be done in the winter here in zone 8.

Number 1 on anybodys list:

Locate a source of manure!

It is really important to be specific about it being in a pile!

Amazingly, people will often tell us that they have all that we could want... When we get there.... they point out to the pasture.... give us permission to scoop it up behind the animals!

I don't let them load it for me. I have tailgate damage from the last time that someone used their front end loader to load my truck.

2. Thining
If you're lucky enough to have a wooded lot, winter is an excellent time to assess the health of your trees.

With the leaves gone, we can see how the trees are shaped.

Do some look mishapen? Do the smaller ones have a clear way to the sky, or have they stopped putting on top growth because of larger trees?

Are they leaning toward the light?

With these thoughts in mind, now is the time to consider getting out the chainsaw.

3. Soilwork.

The soil doesn't freeze in the deep south, thus making winter the ideal time for soil prep & bed creation.

It goes immediately into summer here, with temps in the 90's from March on.... Rain is scarce, thus creating baked hard soil that is impervious to pick or shovel. In the winter, it finally rains, loosening the soil, making shovel-work possible.

"Drainbow Communities"

2007-11-26T07:33:00.002-05:00

Having skills means that there are plenty of property holders who will want us to improve their property for free. Doing this takes our time away from paying gigs, where we would've been paid for our work.

These "drainbow" property holders will act like they did us a favor by allowing us to waste our time & money & other resources improving their property.... They gave us a place to stay!

They will conveniently "forget" the promises they made when asking us for help... And there won't be a damn thing we can do about having been taken advantage of. The laws are written in their favor, making it possible for them to rob us by the letter of the law, while proclaiming to all & sundry that they were helping a "homeless" person!

We don't need that kind of help.... There are lots of employment opportunities that provide housing while paying us.

If we try to warn others about our bad experience, these "drainbow" property holders will drag our names through the muck, conjuring up ridiculous claims justifying their failure to keep their promises, even denying they ever made any.

We're out materials, wear & tear on our equipment, the money we could have made doing the same work for honest people, plus these people are saying some really nasty stuff about us!

There's no place to take our grievance, other communities don't seem to care, many refuse to even acknowledge the problem exists!

The Yonderfamily community experience.

Next, some warning signs to look for, that you may be at one of these "Drainbow Communities".

Lack of honesty

Unwillingness to help... IE:Ask us to do something w/o providing materials or being there to help do the project.

Unwillingness to perform a favor in spite of what we've already done.

Soutions

discuss the problem

Create a data base of "drainbow" communities

Pictures

2007-11-24T09:14:00.005-05:00