It's been a good summer in the garden

I'm not sure I could have imagined a gardening year like this when I began planning our garden back in 2009!  After a mild winter and nice spring weather, we've had cooler than average temperatures with so much rain this summer that I've rarely needed to water anything.

Salvia greggii are blooming bright out by the street.  As predicted the Cenizo sage have bloomed again due to a foot of rain last week.  With so little downtime the blooms are not quite as intense as in my previous post.  With so much rain again this week I wonder when they will stop blooming.

My drought tolerant plants are responding well to so much rain.  Bright pink Salvia greggii in the mailbox strip were planted about 20 years ago when I was too busy to garden and had no clue what to plant in San Antonio.  An article in the paper recommended Salvia greggii for our climate so in they went over a long weekend.  A year later we were transferred to Boston and rented this house out for eleven years.  Eleven years of garden neglect and they never missed a beat!  We easily divided enough for the driveway landscape (above) four years ago.

The front walk view is shaping up well.  I find myself trying to describe to first-time visitors how we essentially started with a blank slate.  It seems hard to imagine now.  Maybe a slide show some day would work better.

Sometimes it's even harder to see in photos, for example, the agave bed in the lower right looks so much better in person.

Current favorites are beautyberry plants in three colors.  Bright magenta on Callicarpa americana.

White beautyberry, there are several botanical names so I'm not sure which this is.

And the deeper purple Mexican Beautyberry.

Not the best photo but when I returned to take another, it seems the birds had nearly finished stripping  the berries.

This photos shows darker berries.

On to the side gate where no-mow buffalo grass has stayed green all summer.

Plants in the circle garden are overgrowing their beds due to all the rain.

 Last year the tank garden was mostly grasses, this year Blackfoot daisy spills out from under blue Salvia farinacea accented by Gomphrena 'Fireworks'.  Seedlings are popping up everywhere!

Hyacinth bean vine climbs the cedar arbor.  I keep testing vines that can take a direct shot of sun hitting the arbor in late summer.  This year we had so many cloudy days in August that it wasn't the best test.  We'll see what happens next year.

Pomegranates look ready but it will be a few more months before we pick them.  Tart pomegranate seeds are not that great.

Hardy and tasty Lemonquats are turning yellow.  This unique citrus tree was developed in Texas especially for our hot-cold-rain-drought climate.

Native poinsettia bracts are turning neon orange.  I started with just a few my friend Cheryl dug up on her family ranch near Pipe Creek and just one year later they are everywhere.

Love them!  Brighter than surveyor's paint.

No longer a neglected back fence corner, the hottest spot in the garden is looking good now.

Three different colors of Esperanza will grow to make a colorful hedge.

Bells of Fire

Traditional yellow bells

And 'Mahogany' mix of yellow with orange.

Hibiscus blooms make the humidity seem almost worth it.  Japanese lantern hibiscus.

Moy Grande Hibiscus

A look over the side fence down the stone path and my pot ghetto under the arching trees.

While we've been cloudier than usual there's always sunshine in my garden.

Fall is also normally great weather here as we take a long, slow slide into a usually short and mild winter season.  This has been a great gardening year so far, and there are four months remaining.  I wonder how the year will end?

Romantic Mission San Jose

Our U.S. National Park Service is turning 100 this week and this third post in my series on the San Antonio missions is in honor of that event.  According to their special centennial website:  "We invite you to find your park and discover the national parks and programs in your own backyard!"

I'm taking up their challenge since sharing the beautiful sights of San Antonio is one of my favorite blog activities.  What better way to celebrate than to take their advice and visit my nearest national park.  The San Antonio Missions National Historical Park comprises four Spanish missions established along the San Antonio River in the early 18th Century.  The fifth mission, The Alamo, is managed by the State of Texas and is not part of the national park.  Mission San José south of town along Mission Road is the mission we're visiting today.

Completed in 1782, Mission San Jose is the largest and most romantic of the four missions.

San Antonio is a romantic city with our tree-shaded River Walk and the rose window fits right in with our beautiful city.  Completed in 1775 La Ventana de Rosa is considered the finest example of Baroque carving in North America, the window has been beautifully preserved on a stone wall at the mission.   The story of the window remains a mystery since there are no records on who carved the window or why.  All this mystery lends itself to several romantic versions of the story.

Today an iron fence and a deep window well keep vandals at bay.  The window was carved from soft white limestone brought from farther north along the San Antonio river while most of the church was built with locally available darker stone.  Differences with surrounding architecture makes the window appear to have been added after the church was built even though it was completed about six years earlier.  

One tower was never completed.

Soft white limestone and Baroque carvings similar to the rose window contrasts with the surrounding more rustic building stone.

Intricate carvings up close.  Some pieces have been restored using old tools.

Inside the most elaborate of the mission church interiors.  The church is still an active parish which is responsible for maintenance of the structure and interior of the church.  The frescoes were restored about 15 years ago.



The two story convento housed priests, missionaries, and travelers on the second floor while the lower level contained storage and work rooms.

Originally stone exterior surfaces were covered with plaster frescoes like this remnant shown below.  On September 9th of this year, patterns will be projected in light on the front of the church as part of the World Heritage Festival.

Brick used to shore up a restoration of the bell tower.

You might have noticed a gathering on the left above and near the center of the convento below.

A wedding reception was in progress at this active parish church and the bride, taking a break from her guests, posed among the massive stone walls surrounding the mission on a very windy day.  I've visited many of our national parks and, while I'm sure there are weddings and other events held there, it's rare to find buildings in those parks still being used for their original purposes.

Spanish missions in the new world flew the Cross of Burgundy flag.  Some of the stonework, like this gate, is newer 19th and 20th Century additions.  

As the missions fell into disuse the original stones were removed by locals for their own buildings and restoration to reflect new uses was necessary.  Enough early stonework remains for a good sense of how the buildings looked in the 1700s.

Asphalt sidewalks and glass doors to offices used by the parish are probably not original.

Early Spanish missions were much more than churches as shown by the rows of rooms which housed converts who worked the surrounding farmland.  Some of today's parishoners are descendants of those early converts.  These rooms were rebuilt in the 1920s on the original foundations.

An interior view of one room.

Vigas and latillas ceilings were commonplace back then.  My friend Jeannette slept under ceilings like this in her childhood home and reports that they were prone to dropping debris on you.

An oven just outside the living quarters.

A few of the yuccas in the middle of the courtyard.

Oddly placed Live Oak probably about 25 years old.  At least it doesn't hide the famous window from the entrance.

Just over a year ago the San Antonio Missions were designated a World Heritage Site.

Another beautiful, romantic spot to visit in San Antonio.

Happy Birthday to our U.S. National Park Service!  It's a great reason to get out and enjoy the park in your backyard.  I visited Mission Concepción here and to see my visit to Mission Espada last fall click here.