Blooms & Beyond: Year-Round Color for Your Garden

Wondering how to have year-round color in your garden?   I recently gave a presentation to the Grapevine Garden Club on this topic and the video was posted to YouTube.   Click HERE to check it out!

The plants mentioned in this talk are geared toward the Dallas/Fort Worth area in hardiness Zone 7/8, but if you live in other parts of the country, maybe it will inspire you to think through the seasons and how you can add color to your garden with plants that are hardy in your area.    Click HERE to see the plant list.

Below I've listed the garden centers and resources I mentioned in the presentation.

Here's to hoping you have something colorful in your garden all year long!

Toni :-)

Grapevine Garden Club
grapevinegardenclub.com

Stegall's Nursery & Plant Farm
stegallsnursery.com

Metro Maples
metromaples.com

Neil Sperry
neilsperry.com

aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu

TCMGA
tarrantmg.org

Fort Worth Botanic Gardens
fwbg.org

Fall Leaves an Impression on Winter

Usually the leaves fall before the snow flies, but this year it was just the opposite.   When our weather went from balmy to brrr in just a matter of hours, the freezing rain and sleet fell before the trees had a chance to drop their leaves.

My neighbors' pretty Shumard Red Oak

At first the winter scene was rather impressive, but then in no time at all the white stuff was littered with fallen leaves.

 

Even though the temps remained at freezing or below for an impressive number of hours, the ice started to melt where the leaves were lying, leaving their impression in the frosty surface.

The leaves didn't make a lasting impression, because thankfully now that the temps have increased,  winter's brief presence is dwindling fast.

Now all I am left with is the carnage after the freeze.  Everywhere I look, the plants seem to be saying, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!"

My beloved giant leopard plant,
once impressing me with its large shiny leaves...

... now looks like a deflated parachute!

The elephant ears are a big pile of green mush over a big pile of ice.  

Not too impressive, huh?

I'm not too impressed with the skunk-like odor 

of the frozen society garlic either.

I am, however, very impressed by the spicy fragrance that the Mexican mint marigold gives off even in its less-than-impressive condition.

And I'm also impressed at the resilience of the little plant they call... 

...a "pansy" 

If this leaves you with the impression that I don't much care for winter, that's just about right.    On the other hand, icy cold days do force me to stay inside and at least make an attempt at getting more organized.     And any time I can get a little more organized...well, that's pretty impressive!

For a look at some other impressive foliage, 

visit Pam @ Digging for Foliage Follow-Up.

Toni :-)

From Balmy to Brrrr

The first week of December in North Central Texas was a very interesting week of weather.

We started out the week quite balmy, with temperatures in the 70s.  Early Monday morning a light fog had rolled in and created a beautiful photo op as the sun was rising.

We have had a couple freezes this fall already, but only down to about 30 degrees.   Some of the most tender perennials were burned, but other perennials were not even fazed.    Some of the trees had already lost their leaves, some were at peak color, and some were just beginning to turn.

As the fog burned off later Monday morning, the Japanese maples in my garden were showing off their finest fall color.

Tuesday was a sunny and warm day, my kind of December :-)  I went with a client to my favorite Japanese maple nursery, Metro Maples, with the intention of purchasing some maples for her garden, but I just couldn't resist the urge to buy another maple for my garden, as well!

I came home with a new maple is called 'Koto No Ito,' which means "String of Old Harp."  It has an upright form with narrow strap leaves that have green spring color and yellow/orange/red fall colors.
  

I planted the new maple on Wednesday when it was sunny and 78 degrees! 

I originally had a 'Peaches & Cream' maple in this spot, but I transplanted it across the bed where I thought its highly variegated summer leaves would brighten a dark spot.

The 'Peaches & Cream' maple was added to my garden in December of 2010, and this is the first year I have seen good fall color on it.

Thursday morning the temperatures had dropped to the 40s (tolerable), but the forecast was calling for the temps to continue to drop throughout the day, with freezing rain and sleet arriving late afternoon and evening (not so tolerable).   

I knew this was probably going to be my last opportunity to get some good pictures of the fall color in my garden, so I grabbed my camera and headed outside to memorialize this beautiful season.

      In the picture below you can see the new orange 'Koto No Ito' to the right front, and the similarly fall colored 'Peaches & Cream' is behind the bench now on the other side of the bed.

 'Sango Kaku' (Coral Bark) Maple (below - center) has been more yellow in years past, but this year it is showing lots of red color.

I think this is one of the prettiest fall color seasons I have seen in the 27 years I have lived in Texas.  A little bit of rain this fall, cool nights, and sunny days have created the perfect environment for a spectacular fall show.

'Fireglow'

'Orange Dream'

'Tamukeyama' (foreground)  -  'Viridis' (background)

'Sango Kaku'

By late Thursday afternoon the temperatures had dropped into the 20s and the precipitation started falling...and freezing.  

On Friday morning my garden looked like this...brrrrr!

Thankfully I had drained and cleaned the fountain on Wednesday when it was nice and warm outside.   

The front hellstrip perennials are now under a covering of ice.  

 The Yaupon Holly tree in the front is splayed open from the weight of the ice.   Back in the winter of 2011 we lost several feet out of the top of this tree from the weight of about a foot of snow that fell in February.  

 

I am hoping once the ice melts it will be okay.

In the backyard, the arbor cover over the patio is dripping with tiny icicles.

The ornamental grasses near the pond that usually sway in the breeze are frozen stiff.

The maples that were so beautiful just one day earlier are now covered in ice and droop from the weight of the ice.

 

"He gives snow like wool;

He scatters the frost like ashes.

He casts forth His ice as fragments;

Who can stand before His cold?

He sends forth His word and melts them;

He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow."

Psalm 147:16-18

So until God sends a few warm breezes to thaw the ice that blankets our area, I guess I will just hunker down under a cozier type of blanket in my nice warm house, and treasure a few quiet days.

Take care....and stay warm!

Toni :-)

Lost & Found

Since we have had a couple hard freezes recently, there is not a whole lot of color to be found in my garden this month.  So I thought I'd share some pictures from our recent trip to Lost Maples State Natural Area in the Texas hill country.

 Lost Maples State Natural Area is located in Vanderpool, Texas, and contains the state's largest stand of Bigtooth Maples east of the Guadalupe Mountains.

We found the maples.
We found fall color.

Bigtooth Maples (Acer grandidentatum)

I think we missed peak color by about a week, but it was still very pretty.  Now granted, those of you in the northern US are probably scoffing at what we call fall color, but in Texas we take what we can get.

The beautiful blue skies just made the fall colors all the more spectacular.

Sycamores are sometimes mistaken for maples.   Their leaf is a similar shape but much larger than the Bigtooth Maples in the area.

The hiking was not for sissies!  Some of the rocky grades were very steep.   
Did I mention we were in the HILL country?



When we stopped from time to time to catch our lost breath, we found these cute little lizards scurrying around.



The view we found when we reached the top at 2200 feet made it all worthwhile. Some of the views had me wondering if we had gotten lost and wandered out of Texas.

We found creeks and ferns ...

... and ponds

And, of course, my favorite ... rocks.

On one diversion off the main hiking trail we found ...

... The Monkey Rock!

Look familiar?

We found some of the tree limbs were covered with ball moss
(Tillandsia recurvata)

Ball moss is a small epiphyte that clings to the limbs of live oaks and other trees in southwest Texas.  It is a member of the bromeliad family and a relative of Spanish moss.  Since ball moss does not take nutrients and water from the trees, it is not a parasite.

Speaking of balls, here is my husband's idea of fall color in the hill country.
Greens and white.

 He has been known to lose a few of these little white balls in the sea of green from time to time.

Back home I found a little bit of maple color, as well, but with our very dry and very warm autumn, the maples lost their colorful display all too quickly.
.

Like I say, in Texas we take what we can get.  

Wherever you live, I hope you find some time this holiday season to get lost in nature's beauty.

Toni :-)