nothing particularly new...

Well, ever since last Monday, I haven't really seen anything worth taking a pic of in my wandering around... but I wanted to make a post anyway... so I took the camera out in the yard to see what there was to be seen... and here they are in no particular order... This is the street view of my cactus bed in the front yard. The purple coneflowers self seeded a few years ago, and I just left them. I have dug a few out for friends, as they were shading out the rock garden to the right in the pic...
and here's the view from the yard....

here's one of the Texas wildflowers that came up in the yard and I've been very carefully mowing around... I'm gonna take the seeds off of this and scatter them in a better location for next year. It's a Mexican Hat or Black eye'd susan, or prarie coneflower... I think it depends on who's telling you about them...

Next is a Pavonia hastata... AKA rock rose. This small flowered relative of the hibiscus is one of my faves... The bush is a little rampant, and the blooms are small... just shy of 2 inches across... not really that impressive... except the hotter it gets, the more it blooms... a very valuable trait. This bush, in the upcoming heat of August, will be covered with hundreds of these small white flowers when everything else is doing it's level best to crawl under a rock.

The crown of thorns, which I talked about in a previous post when someone abandoned it on my porch just knowing that the local cactus freak would love it... and the Pachypodium...

A little Mammilaria bloom... I forget which one of the top of my head...

And on a corner of the of the front rock garden, an old galvanized bucket that had sprung a leak now is home to a tiny variagated agave, right in the middle, and a Ghost plant (Graptopetalum paraguayense) & all the leaf cutting that fell off said ghost plant when I potted it...

And that's kinda what's going on in the yard right now. Nothing particularly new, but still kinda nice...

Later!

Spanish bayonets...

I've had this plant, Yucca aloifolia, better known as Spanish Bayonet for about 10 years in my back alley... It's one of the first succulents that I planted. The plant was origionally a huge root with no leaves that someone was discarding and I salvaged... without knowing exactly what it was. Luckily, I planted it in the alley, against the fence and a good 8 feet from the roadway. This is lucky, because it is a dangerous plant, they don't call it bayonet for nothing. Those stiff leaves are each adorned with a single spine that can inflict a painful gouge right through a leather coat... not a plant that you want too close to where people are trying to walk.
I got the first blooms about 4 years after I planted it, and I've come to rely on it as a very dependable barometer of when spring has arrived. When these bloom, it's safe to plant outside.

Currently, it's 4 trunks, the tallest at six feet, the shortest at 4. We're in the northernmost reach of it's range, so I'm pretty sure that I won't get the 20 foot tall trunks that the plants can develop further south, but I'm hoping for 10 feet or so eventually... When it reaches it's maximum height, it'll fall over. Then the growing tip will turn to point up and it'll continue growing, with more plants growing up from the roots... Eventually, they can form dense, inpenatrable thickets.

Prickly Pears...

Well, these are the infamous prickly pears... It does look a bit weedy in the background. A condition that is being aggravated by the unusually wet spring and early summer that we're experiencing right now. These are actually planted in the back alley behind my house. Every fall, after the first frost, we pick the fruit and make jelly... great stuff.

These are hesperaloe seedlings... and this is my favorite way to sprout cactus seedlings... I put a little soil in a ziplock baggie, put in the seeds and some water and use a straight pin to pin it to the wrong side of a curtain. The plants get light and humidity, and there's no little pots sitting on the windowsill where they annoy people in the house. These seedlings are about ready to be pricked out and planted individually, or maybe 3 to a pot so I can get an early clump... I harvested these seeds from a neighbors plant last year, and they seem to be sprouting like wildfire.

Busy Sunday...

well, I've been off of work for a whole week, and today I was just gardening a lot, between naps. This last weeks "vacation" has left me far more exhausted than working, but I've come out of it with a new flea market booth, a new AC system in my car, a new (used) stereo in my car, and a couple of thinned out iris beds... no pics of the iris... new beds aren't that attractive.


sent fifty gazillion iris out to my sister so that she could do something with them.

here's a pic of charcoal briquette kitty... who didn't appreciate her nap being disturbed...

and here's a pic of the cactus again, the first bloom dying off and the second opening... (If I appear to be fixated on this cactus, it's because it's a fairly new and it's the first bloom I've had from it.)and here's a pic of the agave americana, yucca, rosemary and various other plants in a tiny little space in the front yard about 3 weeks ago, this little 4 x 4 bed seems to catch a lot of seedlings.... The white iris in there are one of the batches that I had to thin out. There were too many, they were threatening to crack the sidewalk, and that's really a small bed. Anyway, reduced it down to 2 plants, which will be a dozen by bloom time next spring/summer.

I guess I'll have to go to work to get any relaxation time... LOL.