GBBC wrap-up

This year's Great Backyard Bird Count is history, but we will have to wait until after March 1 for all the data reports to be finalized. Participants can still report their counts up until that date, so until then we won't know whether this will be another record-breaking year for the popular mid-winter bird survey.

If I had to guess, I would say that this probably will not be a record-breaker. The severe weather in many places probably limited some counters' efforts, so we may fall a little short of the record of 634 species that were reported in the 2008 count.

As for my own personal count, I ended the weekend with a total of 28 species, not a record-breaking year for me, either. There were several species that are regularly seen in my yard that did not show up during the weekend - birds like the little Ruby-crowned Kinglet and the Eastern Bluebird. I didn't even see a Black Vulture or a Red-tailed Hawk flying over my yard, even though in the usual course of events, I see them almost every day. Neither did the big Pileated Woodpecker or the little Brown-headed Nuthatch put in an appearance.

I was pleased to encounter one unusual bird, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Although these birds visit our area in winter, I almost never find one in my yard, so seeing one here was a great treat for me.

I always enjoy consulting the top ten lists on the results page of the GBBC website and this year is no exception:

Most Frequently Reported Birds
Rank Species Checklists
1 Northern Cardinal 43,160
2 Dark-eyed Junco 39,415
3 Mourning Dove 36,884
4 Downy Woodpecker 32,141
5 Blue Jay 31,831
6 American Goldfinch 30,994
7 Tufted Titmouse 29,393
8 House Finch 26,847
9 American Crow 24,808
10 Black-capped Chickadee 24,086
Statistics updated 17-Feb-2010 18:05 ET

Most Numerous Birds
Rank Species Individuals
1 American Robin 1,783,686
2 Canada Goose 574,979
3 American Crow 422,279
4 European Starling 420,545
5 Snow Goose 368,170
6 American Goldfinch 343,885
7 Common Grackle 329,365
8 Dark-eyed Junco 301,610
9 Red-winged Blackbird 244,892
10 Mourning Dove 229,709
Statistics updated 17-Feb-2010 18:05 ET

When the final count is in, some of these rankings and numbers may change, but there is unlikely to be any great upheaval in the standings. For a look at all the various "top ten" lists, click here.

You like THAT plant?

The great folk/country song writer Jimmie Rodgers once wrote a song about "Peach pickin' time in Georgia." As far as I know, no one has ever written a song about "Rose prunin' time in Southeast Texas," but if they had, this would be the time they would have been writing about.

Valentine's Day in our part of the world is the traditional time to do your rose pruning. I missed the target date by a few days, but I was out there with my Felcos and my loppers today getting the job done.

Actually, I had started well over a week ago when I moved my 'Old Blush' and some 'Sunny yellow Knockouts' that were in unfortunate placements. Since I was moving the plants and thus disturbing, and, in the case of 'Old Blush,' pruning, their roots, it made sense to go ahead and prune the tops as well. I hope all the plants will forgive me for getting a little ahead of schedule.

Anyway, today, which was an absolutely gorgeous day here, in addition to putting the finishing touches on some new planting beds that I've been putting in on the south side of the house, I got some of my rose pruning done. I worked on 'American Beauty,' 'Belinda's Dream,' several 'Caldwell Pinks' children of my original 'Caldwell Pink,' and a pink 'Knockout.'

As I was pruning the 'Knockout,' I meditated on several recent entries around the gardening blogosphere concerning 'Knockout' roses. The writers of these blogs have been very critical of the 'Knockouts' and I have struggled to understand their reasoning. I guess I have failed, because it appears to me that their main criticism of the roses is their lack of problems and the ease of their culture! It's as if a rose is not a "real" rose unless it gets blackspot and requires constant babying.

These are the same kind of people, I think, who excoriate the 'Stella d'Oro' daylily or liriope or crape myrtles because they are so common. They are, in short, plant elitists. To put it even more bluntly, they are plant snobs.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. Some people get a thrill out of being plant snobs and specializing in growing difficult plants and that's okay. To each his or her own, but personally, I can't afford that kind of elitism. I'm just not that good a gardener.

So, just leave me alone with my 'Knockouts' and my antique roses and petunias, daylilies, crape myrtles, and liriope and my other common plants, and I'll leave you alone with your elite plants that I've probably never even heard of. The gardening world is a big one and there is plenty of room for all kinds of plants. And gardeners.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - February 2010

For Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day in January, I had nothing. Literally, nothing. It was embarrassing.

I'm a little better off this month. I do have a few blooms and some soon-to-be blooms to share. So let's get right down to business.


Uh...yeah. I haven't completely lost my mind. I know this ornamental kale isn't a bloom, but it is sort of bloom-shaped, don't you think? And I'm stretching the definition of "bloom" just about as far as I can this month.


And if I include the purple kale, of course, I must include the white, as well.


My 'Ice Follies' daffodils have been promising me blooms for days now. I was just so sure they would be open by Bloom Day. Well, the joke's on them, because they get included anyway!


Here's another late bloomer. A really late bloomer. I purchased this amaryllis to bloom for the end of the year holiday season. Obviously, it was confused about which holiday it was supposed to show up for and it opened, finally, just in time for Valentine's Day!


I've tucked in violas anywhere I can in the yard, just because I love them so. These greet visitors at my front door.









Who could resist this sweet little face?









Or this one?



These violas snuggle up next to the 'Coral bells' heuchera in the shade garden.



The colorful snapdragons by my garage door have helped to lift my mood on some of the gloomiest of days.



The Carolina jessamine would normally be in full bloom by now, but this year it is keeping those buds closed tight just a little bit longer until it is absolutely sure that the coldest weather has passed.



In the veggie garden, some of the arugula is beginning to bolt and go to bloom and the bees are very grateful. Considering the sharp, somewhat bitter taste of arugula, you wouldn't necessarily expect the bees to go for its blossoms, but you'd be wrong. They love them!



I really like this yellow kalanchoe that blooms in my back porch planter. What a cheery color, and goodness knows, we need all the cheer we can get these days.



Back in the veggie garden again, the snow peas are still lifting their pretty little white blossoms on the trellis.


I don't know this camellia's varietal name but I love it just the same. It never fails to make me smile.



The blueberry blossoms are not quite fully opened yet, but close enough for this Bloom Day. They hold the promise of spring to come in their half-opened blossoms.



This is the bloom that I have the most of in my garden at the moment - henbit! It is a pernicious weed, but it is actually kinda pretty when it blooms. I might as well say that, because I'm never going to be able to get rid of it.

By the time next Bloom Day rolls around, we will have almost made it to the magical date of the vernal equinox. Spring, glorious spring! It can't come soon enough for me.

*~*~*~*~*

Check out the links to other Bloom Day participants at May Dreams Garden. You'll see some much more floriferous gardens than mine and I'll bet you won't see one of them that had to resort to featuring a picture of henbit!

Five rules for starting a veggie garden

Vegetables are suddenly the biggest thing going in the world of gardening. The last year has spotlighted the reemergence of the "Victory Garden" as a factor in American life. This was helped along, of course, by the First Lady's efforts to establish a vegetable garden on the White House lawn, but there were many other factors that contributed to its renewed popularity.

Chief among these may have been an economy that made it important for people to save money where they could and growing some of what you eat can certainly help with that. Also, there is the heightened awareness of the need to eat healthier and, again, vegetables are a big part of any healthy-eating plan.

Growing vegetables is a relatively easy kind of gardening, but for someone who has never done it, the prospect can be a bit daunting. The National Gardening Association suggests there are five rules that can help the uninitiated get started.

1. Site: Choose a site that is close to your house or to a walkway so that it will be convenient for you to visit your garden every day. Tucking a vegetable garden away in some hidden corner of your yard is a blueprint for failure. Such a garden is too easily overlooked and forgotten. A vegetable garden needs to be weeded, watered and harvested on a regular basis and convenient placement makes that much easier. Related to the selection of a site is the requirement to have that site close to a water source to make the needed watering easier.

2. Sun: Also related to site selection, you will need to make sure that your site gets 3-6 hours of sun daily, and preferably closer to the upper end of that time range. You need to take into consideration any shade that may be cast by buildings and other structures and by trees.

3. Soil: Actually, this probably should be listed first, because everything springs from the quality of the soil. A healthy soil with plenty of organic matter incorporated and proper drainage is absolutely essential to growing a successful vegetable garden.

4. Selection: This may seem self-evident, but grow what you like to eat. If you don't like turnips or broccoli, don't try to grow those crops. Grow carrots and snow peas instead - that is, if you like carrots and snow peas. Growing things that you enjoy eating will just make your gardening a much more rewarding experience. It also helps to grow a variety of flowers and herbs along with your vegetables. Mixing them all together in the garden makes for a more beautiful garden and will make time spent there more pleasant. Also, it can be helpful in controlling garden pests.

5. Size: Finally - and, again, this could really be number 1 - start small. Planting more than you have the time and energy to take care of is a formula for frustration and failure. Remember, you can always make your garden bigger if you find that you have underestimated. You can even grow many vegetables in containers, if you live in an apartment or your space is limited. Just get the biggest containers that you can manage. Your vegetables will appreciate the room to stretch.

There are few things that are more satisfying in gardening than growing food for yourself and your family. It really is true that nothing tastes better than a vegetable you have grown yourself.

Here at mid-winter is a good time to start planning your veggie garden. The weather is still too inclement to do very much outside, but some preliminary planning can make everything go a lot smoother when you finally can get outside to get your garden started. That time will arrive sooner than you think, so time to get planning so that then you can get planting!

Queen of the winter garden

Queen of the winter garden in the South - the camellia. Some start blooming in late fall. Some bloom in early winter. This one, whose name I don't know because it was mislabeled at the nursery, blooms in mid to late winter, just when we need it most.

The passalong banana

(Originally posted here.)

"Do you want a banana tree?" my neighbor Virginia asked.

Virginia is a very generous neighbor who enjoys sharing her extra plants with me and I enjoy receiving her extras. Thus, we have the perfect symbiotic relationship.

I admit I was given pause by the idea of the banana tree. I hadn't really planned on a banana tree and on the spur of the moment, I couldn't think where I would plant it. But my standard motto is "Never say no to a free plant" so the issue was never really in doubt. Yes, I wanted the banana tree.

For a couple of weeks now, I have been working on putting in a long-planned new bed along the ugly chain link fence that separates our backyard from our neighbor on the north. The fence is perhaps fifty feet long and I have completed work on the bed for about half that distance. I have been moving plants from all over the yard to fill the bed.

It is a good site for a planting bed because most of it is in sun for much of the day. Only the section near the old apple tree gets some shade. I'm hoping to move an azalea from the front yard to that particular section.

Giving thought to the problem of what to do with the banana tree, I soon decided that a section of that bed that gets sun eight to ten - or more in summer - hours a day would be the best place for it.

Virginia told me I would have to bring a cart to her house to pick up the tree. (She lives a couple of houses down from me.) It was too big and heavy to carry. Since the garden cart was otherwise engaged at the moment, I opted for my husband's pickup and drove over to receive my new passalong plant.

The tree, along with its brothers and sisters that had sprouted from the mother tree, had been pruned back and dug from the ground. It had two pups attached to it. Virginia's husband and I wrestled it onto their wheelbarrow. It was full of water and weighed a ton. (Well, maybe not a ton, but it was heavy.) He pushed the wheelbarrow out to the pickup and we offloaded it into the back of the truck.

While we were doing this, they told me that they harvest bananas from their trees every year. They weren't sure what variety the tree is, but, obviously, it is acclimated to this area and it is productive, so what more do I need to know?

I did do a little research on the needs of banana plants before I got around to putting it into the ground. The first thing that I learned was that a banana tree is not a tree at all but a large perennial herb. And yes, they do like lots of sun, 12 hours a day being optimal, and they like good drainage. It sounded like I would be able to provide exactly what my new tree - er, herb - liked.

Happy with the site I had chosen for the plant, I slid it off the truck and into my wheelbarrow and carried it to the bed where I had dug a large hole to receive it. There, I reversed the process by sliding it off the wheelbarrow and into the hole. Holding the trunk upright, I firmly tamped the soil around it and stood back to admire my handiwork. Then I turned the hose on just a trickle and left it on the bed to slowly water the plant in over several hours.

Did you know that the banana is America's favorite fruit and that the average American eats 30 pounds of bananas a year? Just another interesting fact that my research turned up. I like bananas, too, and I always thought it would be fun to grow my own, but I've never tried before. Now I am excited to have my very own tree (herb) and I look forward to harvesting some luscious fruit from it.

It will taste even better because it was a passalong from a sweet neighbor.

Where are my daffodils?

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

- "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth

It was from that Wordsworth poem that, as a child, I learned my romantic view of daffodils. They were the essence of poetry, the essence of spring, beauty itself. What is learned as a child stays with us, even if it sometimes gets buried among the later detritus of our psyches. And so it is that I have retained my love of that schmaltzy - by today's standards - poem, as well my love of daffodils, surely one of Mother Nature's schmaltziest flowers.

When I attended the Houston Bulb and Plant Mart last year, I was enthralled by all the pictures of beautiful daffodils in the bulb house. The variety of bulbs was astounding and, supposedly, they would all grow in our climate.

Now, my record with daffodils in this climate is less than stellar. Occasionally, I have managed to coax a few blooms from them in their first winter or spring, but almost never do they return the following year. Since planting bulbs is a painful chore for me, I'm not really interested in going to all that effort for a plant that is going to be an annual.

And yet... I see with my "inward eye" the dance of those ten thousand golden daffodils upon the hill...and my heart melts. Maybe I could try just one more time. Just a few bulbs.

And so, in the end, I did buy a few bulbs. I chose 'Ice Follies.' It could have been any one of several others that were recommended to me, but time was growing short and I needed to choose. 'Ice Follies' was close at hand.

I brought my small bag of bulbs home and planted them around the birdbath in the front yard. I dreamed of them making a cheery late winter display for passersby. Then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, the greenery came up, but no buds or blooms. Things didn't look promising. No dancing ten thousand daffodfils for me. Not even ten.

And so it was with some surprise that when I filled the birdbath a few days ago I noticed there seemed to be some suspicious swellings on the tips of some of my daffodil greenery. I looked closer. Buds? Buds!

So maybe 'Ice Follies' just blooms a little later than I thought. Okay, it's not exactly a "crowd of golden daffodils" but it's a start. Those swelling buds have given me hope. That's all we romantics need to fuel our dreams.