Two Month Count Down (Updated)

This is the first time I've let a month lapse without posting since I started blogging over a year ago. It's been a long, hot, miserable summer and I made one of the worse decisions, or when it's over perhaps I'll think it was the best thing in the long run to do...but right now it certainly seems like poor planing. 13 months ago I was asked to be on the Fall Master Gardener Tour, which is held every 18 months alternating Spring/Autumn. I was told that the theme was "Urban Wildlife Habitat Gardens" which mine is and was long before I got involved with TCMGA (Travis County Master Gardeners Association) or CAMN (Capital Area Master Naturalists) so I felt pretty confident and said "yes" without thinking on it a minute longer. I suppose I should have consulted the Farmers Almanac, Weather Channel or the greatest goddess ever...Mother Nature about the drought but I was, admittedly ecstatic about being asked I thought that it would be just the thing to get my bohonkus in gear to gets things done...hadn't thought about my youngest entering High School, my beloved Spouse amid his PhD. or my other daughter moving closer to her athletic goals... adding swimming and yes, triathlon to her pallet, and who can predict all the other minor tragedies and expenses life offers up regularly? Things at work got ever stressful, but that's another side of the story...I lost several plants, dozens of ornamental grasses and two mature trees, I was devastated and couldn't get the proper attention because the entire city is water stressed. Back to my yard...poor, poor pitiful thing. Randy, my day-trippin, blogger buddy and I took every opportunity we could find, to get out and scavenge object d'art and plant sales...Spouse works full time and is a full time student, so Randy and I do the shoppin'...I know, the ladies out there are going "why her?" Randy's a doll. Anyway, we started this shopping gig last year when we found out about the show (if you haven't guessed by now, Randy's garden is on the tour as well) and have been buying up plants as babies, when they're cheap 'cause we knows how to grow 'em big! Organically...of course. But, 100 degree plus weather is harder on the little fellows and so the carnage has been, well worse than the city garden and until recently I've been running around like Kali-ma and probably haven't been the easiest person to live with...(no comment from my family!)

What happened is both my girls got very sick and I threw my back out...probably because I stopped exercising...I couldn't keep up training for next years Danskin Triathlon and perform heroic garden feats...I chose gardening. Locked inside with the a/c must have brought me back to clear thinking because I realized that...well, who gives a shit? My garden was chosen before I created the to-do list from hell. I left teaching, a stressed out mess because any job I do eventually takes over my life because I'm in direct competition with myself...so the burnout rate is phenomenal. My record for staying in one place is 4 years. Gardening used to be my retreat into silence and beauty...now it's become a 75x125' never ending nightmare of a project. I feel an unbelievable amount of guilt about watering, which has taken it's toll on my spirit. Working for WaterShed, I stuck to the guidelines...a few times I watered on the "off'" days because I missed my day for one reason or another...but never ran the sprinkler more than twice a week...and I make a supreme effort to finish the hand watering before 10am...nevertheless...had I not agreed to be on the tour...I'd have valiantly let things go, and intend to if this drought continues (El Nino...take me awwwwwaaayyyyy!) My neighbors on either side did just that so my yard looks like a water-wasters paradise. I commend them for doing that, though I worry about their property value, one of them tends to leave and it's a hard sell if you've lost your landscape.

The show is two months away, I'm bloggin' in the a/c, kids at school...Spouse at school (UT started back today) and a crew of workers painting my house and studio. Since I said yes to the tour, we've put up a raw cedar fence, had 8 cubic yards of Davey Mulch distributed, put in doors, windows and lighting on the studio, re-planted the NW corner of the yard, which we had let go fallow for two years...so all of that is new (all that has survived, that is) finished half a dozen or so yard-art projects, planned yet another bamboo fence for a Japanese-style garden on the East side of the house, kept up with veggie planting, put in 6 trees and over a hundred 4" potted natives and adapted natives, removed several invasive species (they were here when I moved in and I still have a few left...) added 5 new beds of roses and companion plants...the roses were all gifts from friends (Thank you friends, you know who you are) built a fire-pit to replace our 3rd chiminea...we're pyromaniacs ya know, added two new gates, the green-gate in the photo above is one of them, both gifts from my dear friend Melvin, Thank you Melvin...added two solitary bee habitats and a screech owl home plus a few more birdbaths and birdhouses...I'm not going to tell you about the rest of the minor artwork and adjustments because you're probably asleep drooling on your keyboard by now anyway...but the minuscule tinkering and piddling about that tweaks the personality of your space is personal and if you are that interested...just come see it!

What is left is a long list that I will tackle once these boys pack up and move onto their next painting project...here goes: top remaining beds with Sylvan Mulch from the Natural Gardener, on sale now until the 31st, re-do the crushed granite paths, hook up my new water-feature (no small task) plant the Japanese-style garden after surfacing with white rock mix, install flower boxes on studio, replace my big umbrella, purchase water barrels and finish guttering, have Spouse repair yet another fence...why all the fences? To protect my chickens from my Boston Terrorist who believes it's her sole purpose to relieve the world of chickens and squirrels. I'd also like to have the windows on the house professionally cleaned...I had it done once, very pricey but it took these two gals all day, the windows are double paned with screens and they took them apart, cleaned them and the screens put 'em back and my house was twice as light inside! I'd really love to have that done...oh yea, I'd like to do some gardening! There are a few remaining purchases, art projects to finish, painting to do, curtains in the studio to install...things like that.

Do you think I can get it done? We'll see.

The Master Gardener's Autumn Tour "Inside Austin Gardens 2009" is on October 24th from 9am-4pm. I must commend the TCMGA president Manda Rash and the tour's head planner Loretta Fisher for organizing what I think is a wonderful idea...and that is to feature standard Austin homes for the purpose of showing the public how even a small space can be turned into a Wild Life Habitat and thing of beauty... illustrating how anyone can garden! It's a small tour of 6 homes, but each home is having a series of talks and demonstrations throughout the day. In Crestview Neighborhood, there are two homes, mine at 1506 Dartmouth Avenue and the other at 1506 Justin Lane. Dartmouth Ave. residents, and Crestview Garden Listserve members can go to my garden for free and Justin Lane neighbors can attend Eleanor's garden. Otherwise, it's a $10 ticket for the daily event or $5 per garden...all proceeds going to the TCMGA. My house will host two programs at 9:30 & 10:30 & 1:30 Conscious Gardening with Rosalie Russel and 1:00 – 2:30 pm: Spice Up Your Landscape with Herbs by Vicki Blachman.

I'll be drinking heavily and sighing a lot.

You can find a full list of locations, demonstrations and talks on the TCMGA website or call 854.9600

Happy Gardening!

Crestview Garden Listserve Tour

Crestview, my neighborhood is the only place I've lived for any length of time in my life. I've been in my house for 13 years this August and it is the only home I know. As time goes on and I meet more people in the neighborhood I am overwhelmingly grateful to share my time on earth with such innovative and conscientious beings as these gardeners that I've been meeting on our weekend get-togethers. We've got a list serve where folks post questions and share plants. Last year Paige, another gardening friend organized a tour of a few homes and it's taken off! For the past month we've visited 3-5 gardens, at a slow-meandering rate...several folks have graciously listed plants they would like to have removed to a good home, so we came with trowel and pot in hand. This is Sunday's tour of 3 lovely ladies' gardens.

A view of the front yard.

Beverly, the gardener and her partner Rock actually live in Allendale, but are very active on our list serve and come to the tours. Beverly is a fearless experimenter and inventor. I'm going to show you her 'wild' space and garden first then share with you some awesome observations of a green saint or potentially the truest conscious gardener I've met thus far.

Bee Balm

The space to the right of the photo is recently removed, water loving St. Augustine that she layered 10-15 sheets of newspaper over, covered with leaf litter and then planted with natives.
Textbook responsible.

Looking toward the Veggie garden in the far corner.

Another view of the fairly small back lawn.

Again, the lawn strip separating the gardens that surround the back porch area and separating us from the functional space.

This is Beverly, explaining her plan.

The veggie and herb garden. Notice that the beds are recycled material, and the walkways leaf litter. The various trellises are handmade from her own bamboo, properly planted I might add with various twigs from surrounding trees and vines. They all had a sense of curvilinear wonder and she said she just added pieces over time.

This is her home-made tomato cage!

The recycled cardboard compost containers with stick framework.

I have seen this before but didn't know anyone who actually went to the time and effort to cut and wrap newspaper for seedlings. I've also seen folks use toilet paper and paper towel tubes for this purpose.

Arugula, on it's way out...but more important...the shoes! Back in the 80's we all duck-taped our shoes along with the grungers but without asking, I know this is just making sense...why buy new gardening shoes to ruin them in the dirt! As I looked around I was noticing more and more that nothing in this house goes to waste...I forgot to ask her how full her recycle bin gets?

Here's another composter which makes so much sense it's almost embarrassing that I bought one! I actually gave mine to my friend Randy because it was too big for me to maneuver and the door was too small! No problem here and probably not a quarter the price of mine!

You guessed it! The old tent became a greenhouse! Last summer on vacation we realized...quite expectantly in the middle of a storm that our tent was leaking and I've been wondering what to do with it ever since! Hmmmmmmm.

I had to ask her about this one...it looked like the form of some Death Star and I hadn't seen the containers before. She told me that they were the microwave Healthy Choice meal containers and she just couldn't see throwing them away so she was trying to invent a tumbling composter.

I was really amazed...I wanted to break into her house to see what this woman had done with her doop! But, I held back and simply dug up a few sages from her backyard hoping that the sageness would rub off.

Not to deter from her plant growing ability or charm, she's got that too!
Thank you Beverly for the lesson in ecology and for being the concerned citizen and inspirational steward that you are!

The next garden belongs to a fellow Master Gardener friend of mine who spends every moment in her garden, and collecting species. The Crestview lots are notably smaller than Allendales and Elaine seems to be packing a few garden stores into her tiny jungle!

Elaine is a hoot! She has one of those scientific minds and can pull the correct botanical name out of her bum at any given moment, so it was fun to see her yard full of people firing questions as fast as she could answer!

I hadn't seen this before and still don't know what it is!

The Front...not yard...space.
You have to walk slow and step light. There are collections of all sorts, baubles, pottery, things that alone might seem like junque but in groups are quite charming. Elaine's got a collectors mind and I'll bet she never said no to a free plant and she seems the type to pull off the road real quick on big trash pick-up day, seeing the treasure with an eagles eye.

I have been nursing this plant at my home for a few years now and had no idea it bloomed!

If I didn't have two Boston Terriers, I'd collect gargoyles!

Looks like the side of my house!

Mulched and leaf litter pathways with birdbaths made of found objects and art pepper the cacophony of green and blooming foliage!

I love the rusting wagon planters and baby greens growing everywhere!

Here's Elaine, doing what she does best...recalling the exact name! Impressive!

Here is one of two eclectic home-built greenhouses that sit adjacent to the sprawling plant collection and art garden area.

A view from inside.

Like I said, bird baths and houses were everywhere! I tried, but failed to get a good shot of a sparrow feeding it's young a huge grasshopper! Nice IPM!

Looking East in front of the house.

It was virtually impossible to capture the magnitude and lush texture...what I hope you can see there in the middle is her blooming Brugmansia loaded!

This is the view from the back of the yard looking toward the house. In it you can see some of my favorite friends and neighbors and both of Elaine's greenhouses.

Notice the potted lime in the foreground!

I'm having green-pot envy!

I just love these cheerful blossoms! So tiny and sweet!

I showed this sign to my daugher last night when she was complaining about doing the dishes!

I took several pics of her hen-house but really wanted to get this girl...an Americana I think she called her, I just loved the architectural arch of feathers coming from her nether-region!

My how faaaancy!

Karen on Pasadena was last on the list.

I've noticed this yard for years...it's caddy-corner from my Ex. Oh yea, cue the music; sometimes you get more than a regular ole' garden blog...whether you want to or not!

Beautiful blooming natives tumble gently toward the front door.

Karen's another chicken enthusiast and had a huge outdoor space for her four-fat-girls!

A few years ago I had the same bunch, before the Boston Terrorist got a few of 'em. The Barred or Blacklaced Wyandott is one of my favorite gals (she's the stripy hen to the right.)

This is looking through the Hen yard (Dove cote on the right) to the seriously raised beds leading back to a secret swing and the compost area.

The pond!

The pond was roughly 7x9' with several waterfall steps down creating a lovely trill.

Had to catch this sunning beauty, the emblem of the Capital Area Master Naturalists!

He (I'm presuming...) let me pet him!

Here's the secret seat!

And, as in all the yards seen today...composter!

The delicate lavender blossom of eggplant.

Yum!

The Crestview Garden Listserve is open to everyone in North Central Austin, I believe...we've got folks from Brentwood, Allendale, Wooten, Highland, Shoal Creek and Crestview neighborhoods. We have plant swaps, seed gathering hikes, weekend tours...this coming weekend will feature one of my favorite neighbors' yard. She and her husband are artists and art collectors who have relocated from New Orleans. They grow veggies but also have designed and built a beautiful secluded Japanese garden off of their home office. The nice thing about Crestview is that it's a transitional neighborhood with all sorts of housing, one of the few remaining free pools in Austin and our very own 1953 shopping center with a great "Little Deli" and an IGA with a walk-in beer cooler!!! Yep, I don't think I'm going anywhere all too soon!

If your in the 'hood...sign up! crestviewgardeners@googlegroups.com

Thank you to the gracious-gardeners of Crestview!

Happy Gardening!