2011 OCTOBER - KARLA'S GARDEN DAY

Karla sent out a note:
Maybe we will have a nice weekend like the past one, but I won’t hold my breath on that... we will probably be cleaning beds, compost/mulching, etc. Glinda, I know you have to leave early – no problem.

Before we met at Karla's an email came from Mindy. She had friends from fire-ravaged Bastrop staying with her and they had all witnessed something amazing:Hey there Divas!!! My friends yelled from the deck yesterday morning ... I saw my evergreen sumac swarming with dozens of GORGEOUS MONARCHS!!!! (After) my milkweed bit the dust during the drought ... couldn't imagine ...such a display of the little nectar sippers... equally astonished with the millions of rain lilies that have exploded in the yard after we were blessed with over 3 inches of rain...Can't wait to see you all at Karla's next weekend...
Karla:
... I’m looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow – usual tools – I will have breakfast ready at 8:30 so we can make use of the nice cool morning – hopefully some of it will linger into the afternoon!! Have a great Friday and see you in the morning!

Karla's table was a delight - decorated in fall colors with a sense of fun & graceful motion
The buffet in the breakfast room displayed more delights - granola with yogurt & honey, a grits & ham casserole, a bountiful bowl of berries, kiwi fruit & bananas and tiny muffins
In the back garden we admired Karla's pretty Anacacho orchid tree, planted as a memorial to a beloved family member. In spring it had been covered in tiny orchid-like flowers and this Bauhinia gets extra points for being a native tree!

Every year when we first arrive, Karla's yard looks so neat that we have a hard time believing that it needs our help - but Karla always lets us know we are wrong!This time Karla told us that cutting down the native, yellow-blooming Carolina jessamine/Gelsemium sempervirens on the lattice privacy screen was a priority. The vines had become leggy over time while drought and heat made some parts of the vine die and drop leaves. The only new growth was concentrated at the top, where it fluffed out to shade the lower part, making it even spindlier. That privacy vine gave no privacy at all!
Karla wanted to chop down the jessamine and rip out the roots, but she was willing to let us try a drastic experiment first. We would severely prune the vines quite low to let the sun back in at the bottom, then wait to see if the promised rains would help it grow and fill in again. We hoped this plan would work, because digging out those entrenched roots to start over with new plants would not only be difficult - digging around the base could make the entire lattice wall unstable.
DivaAnnie & I went to work with our pruners, but I hung out at ground level while she climbed the ladder.Sophia took on the congested Canna bed and the other Divas fanned out to to other beds and borders near the house. The thuggish Asiatic jasmine was once a few small sprigs, but it's hard to control now... spreading and invading the fern bed - Diva Mattie to the rescue!October in Austin can be like summer in other places - Mindy knows that it's wise to take frequent water breaksThe photinias are leggy and need some help from KarlaThe sunny bed with blue plumbago, Cast Iron plant and ferns will soon look good - more mulch, Sugar!Now the roots of the cut-down Carolina Jessamine on the lattice will have a chance to regrow and provide screening. And with luck, when it blooms again, instead of yellow bell-shaped flowers opening high overhead, they will appear where Karla can enjoy the fragrance. The newly done orchid bed looks great
Karla announced lunch - and the main dish was a winner - delectable Chicken Bundles made with crescent rolls patted into squares, folded around a center of cream cheese, butter, onions, and boned cooked chicken, sealed, rolled in crumbs then baked in a 350°F oven.

Chicken Bundles are an old favorite dish in Karla's family, but this version was made even better than the original recipe when Karla's sister, AKA Chef Callie, added her special touch by sautéeing the onions first. This intensified the flavor while making the filling more tender.
A hot work day can make one appreciate a really nice green salad, and this was a REALLY nice green salad.The sweet endings to our lunch were individual compositions of 3 mini-brownies and what Mattie described as a "mountain of ice cream". Back in April 2002 after a feast at Karla's house, Sugar told a guest that the Divas of the Dirt were not actually a garden club... we were an Eating Club that gardened to work off the calories. We haven't changed much in the ten years since she made that statement!

Karla's house was decorated to celebrate the autumn season. Summer of 2011 had been so horrible that everyone was in the mood to celebrate fall's arrival!I was fascinated by the tiny "pumpkins" used by Karla in glass containers - they looked like some kind of seed pods but what kind of plant were they from? Searching online for "seed pods" & "tiny pumpkins" brought up the information that they were sometimes called Putka pods, and were seed pods of an Australian tree named Glochidion ferdinandi.
Other sites put them into a different species, but they're probably still genus Glochidion.

There are no end-of-day photos for this project. After lunch I waved goodbye to the other Divas. They went outside to work in the front garden and I went home to my out-of-state houseguests.

Karla:
Thank you so much for all of the hard work and beautiful improvements you made in my yard yesterday - this is the first time all year that the entire yard has looked so groomed. Everything that was moved or planted looked happy today when I watered. The guy across the street said when you all come over, I always have the prettiest yard on the street!!! I will definitely agree with him on that! Ray now knows why I enjoy being a part of it so much. But ...WHEN ARE YOU EVER GOING TO STOP SAYING "THERE'S NOTHING TO DO" WHEN YOU GET HERE??????