Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - January 2011

Ah, Bloom Day! That day each month when our imaginative hostess Carol of May Dreams Gardens invites us to share what is blooming in our gardens. Or not, as the case may be. In January in my garden it's mostly not.

I scrounged through my garden, trying desperately to find some blooms I could show you today. I'm here to tell you the pickings are slim.

The vegetable garden actually gave me the most hope.


To help out the few bees who visit the garden in January, I've allowed one of my broccoli heads to bloom. Turns out that bees loooove broccoli! Especially when there's nothing else to sip from.


In the mesclun bed, some of the arugula has bolted and started to bloom. I really like these delicate little blossoms.


Okay, I know it's not a bloom, but I'm desperate here, and I just happen to love the look of this giant red mustard. It's too decorative to hide away in the veggie garden.


These poor little mums have a right to look bedraggled. They've been in bloom for months.


The coral honeysuckle, on the other hand, has just tentatively started blooming.


The winter-blooming leatherleaf mahonia is sloooowly opening up its little bell-shaped blossoms.


The rudbeckia, black-eyed Susan, has been in bloom since summer and stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that it is now winter, still sending out a few blossoms to brighten my days.


The 'Red Lion' amaryllis is almost there. Just like spring in Southeast Texas. In the midst of winter, it is the promise of spring.

Thank you for visiting my winter-sleeping garden this Bloom Day. Please come back soon.

A gardener's week - #22

This gardener's week has been spent mostly inside. My only forays into the garden have been to feed the fish in the pond and net out the leaves and debris, to refill the birdfeeders, and to assess damage from the couple of nights of below freezing weather that we had.

The fish appear to be handling winter. I actually put a heater into the water to give them one area with a little bit of extra warmth, and I often find them swimming in that part of the pond.

The birds are thriving and emptying my birdfeeders on a regular basis.

The garden itself seems to be holding up. I could not detect much additional freeze damage this week. Many of the perennials are sending up green leaves from their roots already. I counted seven bluebonnets in the wildflower bed, and, well, you already know about the poppies. Spring indeed is coming. It might not be evident on these cold, gray days, but stop and look just a little closer and you will see it. All it will take is a few days of sunshine and daytime temperatures in the 60s and it will begin to break the iron grip of winter.

Most of my "gardening" this week has been of the daydreaming variety, and instead of digging in the dirt, I've spent most of my days digging into books.

I finished reading Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas. This is a warmly humorous and loving series of essays detailing the author's family's experiences upon coming to America just before the Iranian Revolution and the taking of the American hostages in Tehran. It is a reminder to us of just how lucky our country has been to attract the best the world has to offer in immigrants.

I also read A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick. This is a wonderful book to read when it is cold because it takes place in the cold, cold winters of Wisconsin in 1907 and 1908. It's a terrific book - a kind of gothic bodice-ripper/psychological thriller. It might remind you, as it did me, of Daphne du Maurier and the Bronte' sisters.

And now, to finish out the week, I'm reading Persuasion by Jane Austen. I started reading all of Austen's major works last year and this is the last one. I think it may be one of my favorites, though I doubt it will top Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice.

And speaking of Pride and Prejudice reminds me that I also saw a wonderful movie this week - The King's Speech starring Colin Firth. I freely admit that I have been madly in love with Colin Firth since I first saw him play Mr. Darcy in the A&E series production of P&P many years ago. I also freely admit that I own the DVDs and that, periodically, my daughter and I sit down and watch them and swoon all over again. I was delighted to see that the actress who played Elizabeth Bennett to Firth's Darcy in that series was also in The King's Speech - Jennifer Ehle. She played Geoffrey Rush's wife. If you haven't seen this movie yet, do it!

And other than that, well, I've been sitting around watching my indoor garden grow this week. Here it is:



I'm always reluctant to use live plants in my aquarium because I've had bad experiences with snails brought in on the plants, but PetSmart guaranteed these were snail-free and so I decided to try them. They've been in the aquarium several weeks now and no snails have shown up and, so far, the fish haven't eaten them.

That's my week. Will next week bring more spring-like weather and will I actually get to play in my garden? Tune in next Friday and see.

Wordless Wednesday: Spring is coming

Our wintry week

It will be cold tonight. Temperatures barely rose into the 40s today and our sky is clear this evening. There are no friendly blanketing clouds to help keep us warm tonight. Before daylight tomorrow, the temperature may get as low as the lower 20s.

For gardeners, this brings to mind the devastating week of cold weather that we had one year ago at this time. After many years of extremely mild winters during which many Southeast Texas gardeners had added lots of tropical plants to their gardens, all of a sudden we had a return to temperatures that were more appropriate to a Zone 8B winter. It was quite a shock to many.

I looked back at my garden journal to recall the temperatures of that cold, cold week in 2010. It began on January 5, when the high was 48 degrees and the low was 27. For seven days thereafter the temperature never rose above 57 during daylight hours and at night, the lows fell well into the 20s every night. On one night, January 9, we reached a low of 18 degrees. That's when many poor plants that had been able to hang on until then finally gave up the ghost.

It's not expected to get that cold, or stay cold that long, this year. By this weekend, the temperatures are expected to begin moderating once again. Within a couple of weeks after that, we'll probably begin seeing more signs of the coming spring. A short cold spell like this, however, will be quite sufficient for those of us who do prefer at least a little bit of real winter to balance out our six or seven months of summer.

Until the weekend and the return of warmer temperatures, do what you need to do to take care of your plants, and please, don't forget to provide extra protection and warmth for any outside pets you may have. They are not used to cold weather either.

And, of course, don't forget to feed the birds!

A gardener's week - #21

It's been moving time in my garden this week. I spent much of the week moving plants from one bed to another or putting into beds some plants that had been stuck in their black plastic nursery pots for a while. All in all, I've moved tens of plants around the yard and I still have tens more to go! But many of those will have to wait until I get their beds ready. I'm still in the process of expanding some beds and adding others. It's been a busy winter so far.

In the vegetable garden, I have some really good greens coming along now and they are on the menu for lunch tomorrow. I've got some nice heads of broccoli, one of which has already bloomed. I've expressly let it bloom for the bees and other insects, because there is not too much else to tempt them in my garden right now. But bees do love broccoli blooms!

Under the grow lights in the garage, one tiny, fragile 'Brandywine' tomato seedling is just poking its head above the soil. I'm hoping that more will follow. Next week, I'm planning to plant flower seeds and perhaps more veggies under the lights as well.

In a bed in the front yard, the one that is just in front of my study window, I planted some poppies last year. They did well for me and bloomed for a long time. I let them go to seed and now I've been rewarded. The plants have reseeded themselves and I have a whole bed of little poppy plants. I'm looking forward to many happy colorful little blooms this spring and summer.

All week long, I've been hearing rumors of a severe freeze coming next week with temperatures in the teens, but I just looked at The Weather Channel website's ten day forecast page and I don't see anything like that. There's only one night during that period that they are predicting to get into the 20s, none into the teens. Perhaps we will luck out and miss the worst of the Arctic air. Fingers crossed!

Wordless Wednesday: Pine Warbler and its favorite tree

It's not just honeybees that are in trouble

Could native bees disappear from our gardens?


Some disturbing news found its way into my Internet reading aggregator today. It seems that researchers have found that four common species of North American bumblebees have declined by as much as 96 percent in recent decades. Scientists believe that a combination of disease and loss of genetic diversity may be the main culprits in the disappearances.

We have known for several years that honeybee populations are in trouble as a result of the still mysterious colony collapse disorder, but I think many of us had felt rather smug in the knowledge that even if honeybees disappeared, we would still have our native bees to do the important work of pollination for us. It seems that our confidence may have been misplaced.

The fact that native bees like bumblebees, as well as honeybees, are in trouble is not something to be taken lightly. It is not only hobby gardeners who depend on the little critters. Food production right around the world would be seriously impacted by their decline. Fully 90% of the world's commercial crops including most fruits, vegetables, nuts, coffee, soya beans and cotton are all dependent on pollination by bees to maintain adequate yields. Moreover, bees are an important link in the food chain that sustains birds and other animals.

The findings of the decline are a result of a three-year study led by an entomologist from the University of Illinois. The study team tracked changing distribution, genetic diversity and pathogens in eight species of bumblebees in the U.S. By comparing findings with historical records, they were able to determine that four of the species had declined by up to 96% and also that their geographical ranges had decreased by from 23% to 87%.

Perhaps the most troubling of the findings concerned the loss of genetic diversity. Populations that lack genetic diversity are less able to adapt to changes and to fight off new diseases that pop up. They may even be less able to resist pollution or predators.

In summing up the study, its leader Sydney Cameron wrote: "Pollinator decline has become a worldwide issue, raising increasing concerns over impacts on global food production, stability of pollination services, and disruption of plant-pollinator networks. "

What can we as gardeners do to help?

Number one is to forego pesticides. Bees, butterflies and other pollinators are killed by these chemicals just as quickly and effectively as the "bad bugs".

Second, it is important to plant as wide a diversity of plants as possible in order to provide food for the pollinators over the longest possible period. It is also important to provide a shallow water source that the bees can drink from.

And third, try to provide appropriate nest sites and shelter for the insects. Just like any other animal, they need homes.

Too many wonderful animals are disappearing too fast from the earth. From tigers to penguins to fish, hundreds of species are in serious trouble from encroaching humanity, climate change, poaching and loss of genetic diversity. We may not be able to affect the fate of many of them, but perhaps we can do something to help the bees.