Central Texas Gardener visits WFSC

We recently welcomed the filming team from Central Texas Gardener to the Warrior and Family Support Center at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio.   Produced by KLRU, the Austin PBS station, Central Texas Gardener (CTG) is a must-see every Saturday for avid gardeners in our region.   Tuesday is our usual volunteer day but it was with great anticipation we arrived early on a Thursday to make sure the garden was spiffy.

Foliage Follow-up: Trimming the Sophora Secundiflora

Texas Mountain Laurel (Sophora secundiflora) is to me the quintessential Texas native plant -- evergreen, low maintenance, drought tolerant, and beautiful when flowering.  As carefree as this local native plant is there are times when it needs a bit of attention.  I'm featuring before and after of my favorite plant getting a trim for Foliage Follow-up hosted by Pam at Digging.

Naturally shrubby with shoots emerging from the lower trunk, this one near the street had overgrown to the point where it was hiding the front of the house and landscape we worked so hard to display.

GBBD June 2015

What's blooming for June 2015?  More than enough for a Garden Blogger's Bloom Day post so let's get started with a tour of the circle garden.

Now that's better! Changing out the stock tank garden

Remember that mesmerizing spring display of Mexican Feather Grass from a few weeks ago?

By early June the grasses in the stock tank garden were a matted, unsightly mess.

Spring rains and good soil grew them into the biggest specimens I've seen.  But those same rains and "too good" soil led to an early demise plus they were smothering the rest of the plants anyway.  Not a good look.

Mexican Feather Grass (Nasella tenuissima) can usually be rejuvenated by grooming out the brown strands allowing the green to sprout again.  I gave it a try to no avail since all the plants were toasty brown through and through.  It was time to yank them all out and start over.

Much better already without the dead grasses

I could have left it like this for the summer but Mexican Feather Grass reseeds freely and I needed to thin them out from the front garden.  With a ready supply of new plants why not just put a few back to fill in the spaces.

The grasses won't grow nearly as fast the rest of the summer.

There, now that's so much better!  

Rock Planter in One Hour

How often do we see an item in a garden shop and say "I can make that"?  Then how often do we follow through?  Me too.

Rock planters are quite common in nurseries and shops around my area and I often think I'd like to have one but decided we could make one ourselves.  So when Neal showed me a rock from our rock pile and offered to give it a go I was all for the idea.



And it was completed in just under an hour!

Wildlife Wednesday June 2015

Our record-setting spring rains have brought out the wildlife in numbers I haven't experienced in the seven years since I began gardening on our piece of the suburbs.  Presenting just a few of the wildlife visitors over the last few weeks for Wildlife Wednesday hosted by Tina at "My Gardener Says..."

Every visit to the garden these days brings on a rustle of scurrying, slithering, and flitting.  We've been seeing more snakes than usual with the Checkered Garter Snake most often spotted.