and back on topic... kinda...

After my little denominational diatribe... I feel I owe you a garden pic...

Tomatoes in the back yard.

growing like crazy!

Sherman TX...

On this baking hot day, I had to deliver to Sherman, TX... a mere 97 miles from my house, the seat of Grayson County. Aproximately 38,000 people live in this sleepy town...

First of all, I should apologize... usually when I play travel blogger, it's someplace where I've actually had a little bit of time to find something to photograph. Not today, as I was on a hot run, and had to get back to Dallas. I only had time for a few quick pics... and the sun was beating down making everything a bit overexposed.

First of all, a few lots down from my delivery, I saw this, and my regs know how I am about run-down and/or abandoned houses... so here's the obligatory shot of one...

And, of course, my second weakness, old churches...

You can see some info on the Historic Marker below...

although, now that I've gotten home and done a bit of research, I should point out a correction to the above marker.

The first line of the marker has one flaw... if the church was organized in 1875, it was not organized as the "Christian Methodist Episcopal Church" It would have been the "Colored Methodist Episcopal Church." The name would have been changed from Colored to Christian in the mid-1950's. The question is whether this was an oversight, a lazy researcher at the historic society, or a slight glossing over of history.

If you have no interest in church politics, and if you don't I can't blame you-they can be awfully messy - you might want to skip this part. And just for the record, I HAD to research it, as the name Christian Methodist Episcopal Church seemed a little strange and redundant to me. The first thought that came to my head was something along the lines of, "As opposed to the Buddist Baptist Catholics, no doubt... then I HAD to look it up... sorry if I'm boring you, but now I have all this info and nothing to do with it... so I'm dumping it on you...

What follows is a major simplification of the info I can find...

First, it's fairly common knowledge that the Episcopal church broke from the Anglican (or Church of England) in America at about the time of the American Revolution.

The Methodist movement, what most modern people would now call a Charismatic or Evangelical movement, although I think technically it isn't... took place within the church and eventually built their own Temples and called themselves the Methodist Episcopalian Church. Well, the ones in America did... I'm not concerning myself with anything else at the moment. I should also point out that several Methodist groups formed together and eventually became the United Methodist Church here in the states. But before that happened...

The Methodist Episcopalian Church (lets call them the MEC) was very very progressive for it's time. There were lots of adherents, although only about 1 in 5 were actual members. They had Reverends, but also lay preachers. And, what would have then been considered revolutionary, women and slaves were allowed to stand up and speak in church, and often lead meetings.

After the Civil War, the Colored Methodist Episcopalian Church (CMEC) was formed by adherents who didn't want to be overshadowd by the white leadership of the MEC. In the 1950's, as mentioned before, the word colored was replaced with Christian.

And now that I have all THAT out of my system, I should also mention that the church, or at least the historic building that the church is in, is for sale...

Now, see what a little random curiosity can lead to?

If that isn't an arguement for walking around with blinders on and minding your own darned business, I don't know what is... I now have all this information jammed in my head, and no real use for it.

If however, you'd like to know more about Sherman TX, here's a link to the wikipedia page...

and here's a wikipedia link to the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church article (and I hope my poor fingers never have to type THAT again...)

and since racial issues are running through the post, here's the Handbook of Texas online link to the Sherman Texas Race Riots of 1930 which is a fascinating read...

Foundlings... again....

Hmmm, two posts in one day... I'm getting quite chatty aren't I?

well, first I have to show you this... and then beg a little...

This showed up at my house.

An orchid. I think I've mentioned before how I feel about orchids. In case you don't remember, I like them well enough, but I never actually wanted to grow one. There's always somebody saying, "Oh, they're not any trouble at all..." then they break into a list of requirements that I don't have and really have no intention of ever having. And while they look pretty good when they're blooming, when they're not... ehhh...

anyway... I remember seeing some orchid plant that vaugely looked like this in a nursery a while back, can't say exactly when, and if I remember right, I have a vauge impression of pink blooms, but seeing as it was an orchid I really didn't take that much notice of it. So, I have no idea whatsoever of what genus, much less species, this thing is.

I should really start paying more attention to things I suppose. I mean, all the decorators are throwing orchids all over model homes and all the big box stores are hocking them by the thousands, and it's gonna be inevitable that Claudes Home for Wayward Plants is gonna have to deal with the danged things eventually. But until I can muster up enough energy to actually look into them...

Is there some kind soul out there who can tell me what the hell this thing is? I mean, I know it's not blooming, and I know that there's probably several hundred orchids that have upright leaves like this, but a general area to start?

It's got sunburn on a bunch of the stems... and it seems that the clumps, (or psuedobulbs? Is that what they're called?) that produced blooms died after doing so... but I don't know if that's typical for the genus or if that's just what happened... and there's 2 new clumps(?) growing out... feel free to ask questions if that helps....

The next plant is not a foundling. I actually deigned to spend good money on this guy...

A Silver European Fan Palm, Chamaerops humilis.

I was at a big box store, with the general idea of trying to find something to plant with the foundling Sago Palms aka Cycas revoluta, thinking of producing a little semi-tropical area in the yard when I ran across this... hardy to zone 7, and nice glacous leaves that I think will look very good against the deep green Sago fronds...

And best of all....

so yeah, I spent good money, but not much.

Oh well...

have a great day all...

New things in the garden...

so, last Thursday I got a wonderful box in the mail from Julie, over at A Succulent Life. It contained Gloriosa lily plants... (follow the link to wikipedia for pics & info) Three to be exact... and I've planted them in the strip garden out by the carport.

I know, it's a supremely crappy picture... but I'm 95% sure that it will be fine. I planted it by the metal post of the carport, on a trellis made of that wire lawn border stuff they sell that is absolutely idiotically useless as a lawn border, but if you stretch it from the ground to the carport roof makes a decent trellis for vines such as gourds, morning glories and such that don't need permanent trellises.

It shouldn't take long for the leaves to start climbing, and hopefully I'll get some of the blooms soon...

I also have a few more plants that I need to get in the ground and maybe make a few posts about, but I'm just having a hard time getting anything done around here... it should be better though. I'm not working at the flea market after church on Sunday anymore, which puts me back to a 5 day week. That's a good thing. Trust me. I wasn't making enough money in the 4 hours to warrant the stress level I was going through, that four hours will be better spent doing something useful. Like laundry. I'm realizing, rather late in my life, just how important laundry is. You'd have thought it would have dawned on me earlier, but there we are.

But this is supposed to be a garden blog, right?

So here's a garden tip:

You know those tree seedlings that get in your flowerbeds, and along fences? The ones that are too big to pull up by the root, so you cut them down, and they grow back, bigger and stronger than ever? Here's a good way to get rid of them without resorting to toxic poisons. I've done this myself, so don't think I'm talking out of my hat.

Aquire some large flower pots that DON'T have drainage holes. Terra cotta, decorative foam, plain black, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that no light gets through in any way shape or form. Thin white pots won't work... light gets through.

Cut your 'trash' tree down, leaving a 6 inch stump. This is not difficult, because that's usually what ends up after you cut them down. If you don't leave the stump, the tree will sprout from the roots, possibly several feet away, that stump means that's where the new growth will come from.

Turn the pot upside down over the stump. Pressing it into the soil if possible. In our heavy Texas clay, it's not always possible, but try...

Now, what happens is that the tree resprouts, and finds no light to allow photosynthesis. Eventually, it uses up all the reserve energy it has in its roots, and it starves to death. I know, bad plant karma... I'll probably burn in hell as a horticultural serial killer. At least there won't be any mulberry trees in my flower beds...

Of course, now you have the problem of upended flower pots sitting around for the 6 to 18 months that it will take for your suffering victim to give up the ghost. Use the pots as podiums to display other potted plants, maybe a cactus dish garden. Or garden art. Or pretty rocks. Or put a pretty glazed dish on it and use it as a bird bath... Anything really... but I'm thinking that a 3 foot tall plastic gargoyle would be perfect! Not only does it display things at a level above the flower bed, but the growing tree underneath can be pretty vigorous and lift up the upended pot. The weight of your average terra cotta pot full of echeveria is usually more than sufficient to hold it down. And if it isn't, retrim the growth underneath and start over... the resprouting stump is by then seriously weakened and you shouldn't have to retrim more than once.

Now, of course, I suppose it would be much less time consuming to spray Round-up around. I just don't roll that way.

Standing Cypress...

Texas wildflowers still have the power to impress me on occasion... I saw these on a late day run to Granbury, so I stopped to take a really quick pic on the way back...

These are Standing Cypress...

Following info copied from Texas Wildflowers Information and Pictures
Standing Cypress
Scientific Name: (Ipomopsis rubra)
Definition: Standing Cypress ranges from East Texas to Gillespie and Taylor counties. The bloom is a spectacular column of scarlet trumpets displayed from May to July.

And of course, there's more info and much better pics available at the UTAustin's Ladybird Johnson page...

So what we got here is a plant that blooms for aproximately 2 months in the beginning of our Texas heat... and the ones I photographed today are bloomin in an overgrown pasture that hasn't had any rain for over a month. And they're still producing masses of flowers on top of 4 foot stalks...

And there were plenty of butterflies flittering around, and I'm sure that if I'd been able to stand there long enough, a hummingbird would have shown up.

I soooo need some of these for the yard. Seriously... imagine these growing in and around some prickly pears or yuccas, or even among the iris that have stopped blooming... I need these. Really really really badly.

update : I'm alive, honest!

First... I feel I should apologize... I haven't been blogging as much lately, nor commenting on other blogs as much as I should. I still read all the posts, I just have been on the overworked side and therefore not very talkative.

That, and I just haven't had as much to say in general.

It's very hard to be interested in anything in these first few weeks of Texas summer. A kind of lethargy creeps into your bones with the heat, and it saps all your interest.

But, evidently I'm acclimatizing... this week I saw a lily-pond, and I took a few pics...


and just this morning, I went out into the garden and got a few home-grown potatoes.

Those are Yukon Gold, Adirondack Blue and Rose Gold. The Yukons seem to be doing the best...

I'm not getting a bumper crop, but considering the ease of harvesting, I'm more than happy... this is the Ruth Stout method of potatoe growing.

You throw the seed potatoes on the ground. You can cut them into 'sets' with 3 eyes each if you wanna, but I didn't wanna. They grow anyway...

Anyway, you throw them on the ground. Don't be digging in or anything.

Cover them with at least six inches of straw, hay or leaves. (I actually recommend more than six inches...)

Walk away, and in about 3 months, after the potatoes have grown, bloomed, and died down... pull back your mulch and there will be potatoes on the ground.

Pick them up, and eat them.

This is gardening I can deal with...

As I said, you're not getting a bumper crop, but you're not killing yourself digging in Texas hard-pan, so the trade off is worth it for me. Now, Seed potatoes at the nurseries can be expensive. Any potatoe that sprouts in the fridge can be sprouted and grown, although most are treated with a hormone that prevents or delays sprouting. They will still sprout, but they may produce in a lackidazical way... If you buy your potatoes for eating at a health food or organic store, they haven't been treated and they'll grow just fine in your garden.

And some of this crop will be saved for the next crop... here in Texas, we can plant again in September for a fall crop, in November for an early spring crop, (there's at least an 80 % chance they'll survive all winter, unless we have a hellacious freeze) and in January for a late spring crop, or in March for a crop now.

And here's a few more toms... pretty aren't they?

and back to gardening...

Anyway... after my short little reminiscence about my glamorous past...

This is the Pseudoechinopsis 'dominoes' blooming again. (I know, I know... it's probably not a real ID but that is what was on the tag, and it's going to have to do until I find out the real ID. Ease up already... sheesh...)

The pot is so light weight that it tips over when it blooms, so I snuggled it up against one of the Agave americana in the yard until I can get it repotted...

And my official second harvest of tomatoes.

Wee Haw!

And now, on a totally unrelated note, does anybody out there know one darned thing about Royal Haegar Pottery?

I know the bare basics... the difference between haegar and Royal Haegar is that Mr. Royal was a pottery designer, and he put out a high end line. And I know that this vase, even though it verges on ugly, was a bargain at 5 bucks.

It's about 15 inches tall... which is fairly large for this sort of pottery... but despite the fact that I work in an antique mall and flea market, I've never picked up much on this company. Except I tend to know it when I see it... which is pretty bloody easy, as it says it on the bottom.

Anyhow... if anybody out there enjoys this kind of research, or just wants to tell me... I'd appreciate it...

midgets vs mascots...

No, the title of my post is not in any way related to a Random Rant.

Nor is it in any way related to a Prickly Plant.

It's related to a movie.


Specifically, it's related to Gary Coleman's last film.

A little backstory here... I used to work in the film industry, in a very very very minor way... I was a movie extra in a lot of movies that you've probably seen, and yeah, I even had a few lines in a few of the movies... although most of what I said on camera more than likely ended up on the cutting room floor.

The high-light of my film career was as a featured F/X extra. This should absolutely make Mr. Subjunctive happy... I was Featured Flesh Eating Zombie in a movie that was called Scary Texas Movie. I don't think the movie was ever released in America... but I hear it did well in Italy... anyway, if you ever saw it, I was the zombie who got shot three times, and when they shot me in the head, green slimey brains splattered all over the wall behind me.

Show biz is so glamourous.

I keep expecting to see a copy of that movie in those $1 movie bins in the bargain stores. If I do, I'll probably buy it, because I've never seen it.

Anyway, the reason I'm telling you all of this, is that after Gary Coleman recently passed away, I got an e-mail through facebook. It seems that Midgets vs. Mascots was Gary Colemans final film project, and it was filmed right here in Dallas. I actually knew a lot of people who worked on the production, so I drug myself to a special showing last night.

I wasn't expecting much.

What I got was actually pretty good, in a drunken college kid kind of way, which isn't really my style but I was impressed.

The movie is a fake documentary/reality show.

The premise is that Big Dick, a little person who started his career as a mascot for a football team and then segueyed into porn, has died, leaving behind his son, Little Dick and his trashy ex-wife as the only heirs. In order to inherit, they must each coach a team, one team made of midgets and one team made of mascots, in a competition. The winner will get 5 million dollars, and each of the five members of the team will get 1 million dollars.

Much hillarity, gratuitous violence, gratuitous nudity, foul language, vomiting, booger eating (which I could have definitely done without) kinky sex, a naked midget shower scene and other drunken college frat boy idiocy commences...

Now, This is not my type of entertainment or humor.

That's why it pains me to say, I actually enjoyed it. It's not that bad. Just don't expect art, and you might like it.

This may well be the best film project that Gary Coleman ever did. Which is, unfortunately, not saying much. Mr Coleman did not have a good career. Casting directors didn't do him any favors and his own personal dramas and troubles eclipsed any work he did. We can all only hope that he can now rest in peace.

First harvest...

Earlier this spring, when I was starting my garden in my haphazard lasidasical way... I found a packet of beans with about 8 seeds in it. I stuck them in the ground, and walked away... and today, I pulled a handfull of yellow wax beans off the 5 surviving plants.

Yeah, I know... not much, but I'm only feeding myself, and I most certainly am not going to can any, and frozen beans are always too tough to bear... so a few occasional handfuls of beans are more than plenty.

Today, I also harvested my first tomato. A porter... which is a little guy, smaller than a roma and larger than a cherry. I would have included him in the pic, but I had a flashback to childhood, and I sat right down in the garden and bit into it while it was still warm from the sun... wonderful...

just stuff...

Just some shots around the yard... this pic is a little overexposed, it doesn't really show the firecracker red of the bloom... but you get the idea... Cleistocactus winteri, aka golden rat tail or my preferred common name, golden cat tail... click the label if you want to see past pics of the whole plant...

And of course, the Prickly pears are in bloom... I was worried that I was going to lose a lot of blooms and therefore fruits... which are very important to me for making jelly, but it turned out not so much.

Now this is a foundling from the side of the road, and I'm gonna see if I can do something with it... an Areca palm... Chrysalindocarpus lutescens. They make decent parlor palms... and if I was a little bit further south, decent yard palms to 10' tall... but this guy has been neglected.

Step 1: cut off anything that is obviously dead and leave anything that is green...

I realize that the couple of leaves left are in pretty bad shape, but there's enough green on them to still be doing SOME photosynthesis... and since they're the only leaves left, I'm leaving them for now...

SAGO UPDATE

The second Sago did eventually put up new fronds... kinda... it seems to be putting up 1 - count them ONE, new leaves. One of it's four remaining leaves has died off. The other three... beat up as they are, are staying on there for photosynthesising purposes. I just don't feel like further weakening an already obviously weak plant... of course, this is way too much bother for most people, but I seem to find a perverse pleasure in reviving the near deceased...

The other plant however is doing just fine! Remarkably fine, actually, and he's about ready to find a permanent home in the yard.

Hoping everyone is having a great Memorial day, complete with Bar-B-Que and lots of family and friends.

Later!