EASY GARDENING TIPS

Garden stirrings

Garden stirrings

February 27, 2023

The freeze-damaged aloes (Aloe maculata) may have lost most of their fleshy arms, but trammels this out: they’re sending up flower spikes for spring anyway. Go, aloes, go!

Here’s flipside one with just a couple “limbs,” but squint at the size of that flower spike. These plants are so freeze-maimed that I ought to replace them with pups I saved in the garage. But I just don’t have the heart. They’re trying so hard.

We had a new fence built withal the east-side property line last week. The old fence lasted well-nigh 14 years, but it was leaning and rotting. We followed the trend and went with a horizontal-board fence this time.

Update: Everyone is asking well-nigh the stacked paver pedestal. The spacers are 12″ square touchable pavers, stacked between 18″ square pavers. Make sure you put in a solid foundation for it, like several inches of tamped paver wiring or decomposed granite, so it doesn’t tilt over time.

The stock tank is fully planted up with Ursula the variegated whale’s tongue agave (recovering from the December deep freeze and then stuff wrenched out of its rootbound pot), plus lots of oxblood lily bulbs and a few rain lilies, a soon-to-be unifying field of silver ponyfoot…

…and a soupcon of verisimilitude from native four-nerve daisy (Tetraneuris scaposa) and winecup (Callirhoe involucrata).

The stock tank gets significantly increasingly sun since the ice storm took out a tuft of big limbs on the live oaks. It’s easy to be OK with that now, when temps are mild(ish). Increasingly sun, increasingly flowers without all. I hope I finger the same way this summer.

I love this time of year in the garden. All the promise of spring is in the air, plane as reminders of last season still hang on a little longer. Here’s to new beginnings, which is what the garden is unchangingly about.

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Digging Deeper

Make plans to shepherd the Budding Out Plant Sale & Festival on March 18 at the John Fairey Garden in Hempstead, TX. Rare and distinctive plants will be offered, as well as art, ceramics, jewelry, food, drink, music, and other entertainment for the whole family. Members have early wangle and get in free. Non-member ticket is $5. Children 12 and under are free.

Experience the Surreal Garden at Zilker Botanical Garden, an enchanting neon-art exhibit throughout the gardens, with supplies and drink, music and dancing, surreal performers, and interactive art sculptures. Surreal costumes encouraged! 25% of event proceeds goody the Zilker Botanical Garden Conservancy. Runs April 6 (VIP Night), April 7-8, and April 13-15, from 6:30 pm to 11 pm.

Come learn well-nigh garden diamond from the experts at Garden Spark! I organize in-person talks by inspiring designers, landscape architects, and authors a few times a year in Austin. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance. Simply click this link and ask to be added. You can find this year’s speaker lineup here.

All material © 2023 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

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