2018 JUNE – Karla’s Garden Day

This post, 2018 JUNE – Karla’s Garden Day, was written by Glinda/Annie in Austin for the Divas of the Dirt blog.

A diminished group of Divas of the Dirt turned up for Karla’s 2018 garden day on a very hot Saturday in June. She hoped we could weed and clip a couple of beds in the back. Luckily for us, Karla’s neighborhood had 2.3” of rain a few days before we came – no weeding in rock-hard ground! Unluckily for other people in the neighborhood, that storm also produced straight line winds that brought down trees.

Only Karla and Mindy were there when I came. Buffy soon joined us but she would be in-and-out for part of the day; DivaAnnie was still in intensive care after surgery, Mattie was out-of-state and Sophia’s medical issues were ongoing.

Karla had used some time off work to good effect in her front garden…it was in such pristine condition that all we could do up there was admire it!

The patio bed had a lovely little Anacacho orchid that was still staked and it needed some adjustment. Weeding and composting were needed along with digging/cutting out tree seedlings and saplings. Most of us live in neighborhoods that are 20 to 40 years old, full of trees like oaks, hackberries (the worst!), cedar elms, pecans, Arizona ashes, mulberries, China berries, Chinese hollies, yaupons, ligustrums and more so tiny trees everywhere are an unavoidable result.

Here’s one part of the patio bed after weeding, before clipping, composting and mulching. It’s all foliage in the photo, but there would soon be tubular orange Mexican Honeysuckle blossoms and the light, true-blue blooms of Plumbago, followed in a few months by the lavender daisy-shaped flowers of Fall Aster. Actually, late May-early June is a good time to cut back Fall Aster – doing that can mean even more blooms in late summer.

The Anacacho Orchid stood a little straighter, with Purple Coneflowers at its feet.

Karla’s long fence border had a lot of color, but she had chosen a restrained number of plant species.

The combination of  holly ferns, giant liriope and multi-colored Impatiens in this shadier spot gave it a feeling of peacefulness and order… 

…while the exuberant Echinacea purpurea/ Coneflowers added some excitement nearer the patio where more sun shines. I’ll bet there were butterflies later on, too.

One interesting effect of working in a small group in just one area was that we had long, uninterrupted conversations… we were all worried about Divas Annie and Sophia, shocked at the news that Anthony Bourdain had killed himself in France and fascinated with Mindy’s tale of being on jury duty. Talking as we worked made the steamy day seem shorter.  

Karla had a very cool lunch ready for this very hot day – a favorite chicken pasta salad, a green salad, tabouleh, rolls and butter.

And her dessert of individual strawberry-rhubarb pies (with ice cream) was as pretty to look at as it was delicious to eat.

I left a little early but Karla, Mindy and Buffy kept going – the high for the day was 96.1°F – whew.

Karla sent a gracious email the next day,

“We were small in number, but we were mighty! … I can’t wait to sit out there when it cools a bit this evening and enjoy the beauty.”

This post, 2018 JUNE – Karla’s Garden Day, was written by Glinda/Annie in Austin for the Divas of the Dirt blog.

A Mess of a Summer 2016

This post, A Mess of a Summer 2016, was written by Annie in Austin/ Diva Glinda for the Divas of the Dirt Blog.

When June began, it was amazing to see the reports on how much water was in the Highland Lakes, the reservoir lakes that are not only a focus for recreation and nature but the source of the water for homes and businesses.

A couple of years ago, boating was restricted because the water had retreated so far from the shores… now it was temporarily halted because the water was too high! [Information via https://hydromet.lcra.org/riverreport/ ]

Moisture-loving flowers like Amarcrinum didn’t mind having a wet June – they responded with big, beautiful blooms. 

Everything from the storms, health issues, travel and sad family events kept the Divas of the Dirt from meeting in June. Then all rain stopped, intense heat moved in and attempts to reschedule for July were a failure.

By mid-August the dry weeks meant the lake levels had moderated, but a new wave of rain was poised to move in. 

People with pecan trees had mixed feelings – the good news was that the crop was huge and even Austin squirrels couldn’t snag all the nuts.

The bad news was that the boughs were so laden down that they were cracking and hitting roofs. 

Maybe we’d finally get to meet again in September 2016!

This post, A Mess of a Summer 2016, was written by Annie in Austin/ Diva Glinda for the Divas of the Dirt Blog.