Good morning. The year is whizzing past. I am all sad because of the terrible destruction in and of Japan owing to last week's earthquake. Earthquake, tsunami, and now the threat of big danger from the nuclear factories' breakdowns. Pray, pray, pray.
In the meantime, here there are gardens. I have taken snapshots of the threatening tree and am going to send to realtor-caretaker of the property. We have been on about this for several years and it really needs taking care of.
My back patio area contains these plants--off the top of my head. In the ground, cedar and juniper, the last remaining stragglers of the original plantings by the man who built this subdivision. The juniper is cherished in memory as being the climbing place of ingenuous dog Lucky, who would go way up in search of her elusive tennis balls. We have lots of old photos of that. Those plants are directly under the Big Tree--but on our side of the fence. Also in the ground there, Texas Privet and another evergreen hedge plant. Coming around the corner, a great huge epiphyllum with fuschia colored blooms which snakes in all directions with big three-sided leaves. Then the great aloe, Red Hot Poker, which this year gave us lots of pokers after a long hiatus (I fertlized the heck out of it). Then another cedar, tall and gawky. Also in the ground there some echeverria (hen and chickens) that I put down there to await transplanting. A tree-tobacco plant which I love. An angel trumpet which I love with huge blooms of melon-pink and gold. A couple of hibiscus, survivors of huge attacks of whitefly. I attack whitefly as I do aphids: with massive assaults of finger pinching and scraping and cutting off and throwing away. It seems to work as well as anything else. I hate whitefly and the dim and stifled look with the silvery hair it casts over the plants. OK, that is up to the front end of the patio to the right.
Back to the middle of the back area. A gate that Theodore built that goes down steps to the Lower Forty. A beautiful red rose-bush, which would be a climber if it could. It's also a fifteen or twenty year survivor of garden catastrophes, but I looked at it last night and it's budding and blooming away. Gorgeous crimson multiflora blooms. Then on to the left, a hiatus mostly covered by some large pots and a morning glory which is growing true to the threat in the garden manuals--all over everything. I am severe with it too and it is fairly contained. I love that blue so much. More to the left, a contained bed made by Alexander from an old bookcase. It has a large Italian parsley, two large sages, a thriving tasteless jalapeño, a thyme, and about eight aragula plants planted by me some weeks past. They are now beginning to look like plants. Edible. Big enough. I ate some of the crowded seedlings when I plucked them out and they were bitter. Like baby rattlesnakes, making up in strength what they lack in size. Another gate, this one leading to a drop of about six feet, down to nowhere.
Going left around the gate, there's a heavenly bamboo. A lot of big stuff in pots, then a bed, then Mexican Sage. On left, pots pots pots with a few assorted leaflings and things from succulents. That's at the edge of the patio concrete. Shall I list the things in pots? Oh, too many, but let's make a start. Huge round-leafed Leptospermum, exotic. Three chile pequines from South Texas, making a brave well-leafed start on a new season whilst still strugging in a pot with a huge succulent like a fern whose name I do not know. Tomatoes. Sages. Nasturtiums. Geraniums. Ferns. Bromeliads. Exotic geranium type plants from the Canary Islands whose progenitor we bought at Quail Gardens of Encinitas, CA. Beautiful reed-orchids, red and fuschia and one wonderful white. Cacti, one from a Brownsville Texas alley. Succulents of all sorts. Citrus trees in pots: Buddha's Hand Citron, a needy fellow; Mexican Lime, delicate tree; Dwarf Meyer Lemon, a prize; and a Rangpur Lime. No flower, no fruit, beautiful double leaves. Calla lilies. Hurricane plants. Donkey's Tails. Echeverrias. And a huge exotic-leaved Kalanchoe with big stiff furry gray leaves folded like a taco. And that is all I can think of..oh yes, Potato Tree with beautiful purple flowers like potato blossoms. I was going to tell about Alexander's garden in Iowa but that can wait till tomorrow. And I have not told about the side yard, the front yard, nor the Lower Forty at all. And I forgot to mention the plague of grasses which has practically destroyed gardens and made garden care a serious chore...Gracious. Love to all, YAZZYBEL
Please take fotos of all.
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