A Sod Site for Sore Eyes

The before and after pictures of the great lawn in Zilker Park after this weekend’s ACL Festival here. The folks at Bermuda Tifway 419, the grass that was relentlessly flogged in on-air mentions leading up to and during the ACL Festival probably won’t be including this in their follow-up PR. Let’s hope the turf’s advertised “quick recovery from injury” is true.

The Top Ten Reasons I Garden in Austin

10. It gives me carte blanche to use lower back pain as an excuse not to go on the charity Fun Run that ties up traffic in the center of town for hours and that people invite me to every weekend.

9. I can construct to-scale dragons, unicorns, and gryphons out of the thousands of little plastic I.D. sticks that come in bedding plants and sell them for huge profits at the Dungeons and Dragons Swapper’s Saturday at my local comic book shop.

8. A good poison ivy rash obscures the aging-dowager liver spots on my hands.

7. It makes pretty clear to my neighbor that I do not share his reverence for late-90s gangsta rap and there will be no need for that mix CD he’s always talking about leaving on my doorstep.

6. I heard a rumor from an old North Austin hippie that repeated exposure to massive doses of fire ant toxin bestows immunity to H1N1, AIDS, Alzheimers, annoying acid reflux, and being abducted by aliens.

5. Dirt never has anything but a kind word to say about everything and everyone.

4. An anagram for Austin Gardener is A Grandeur Set In.

3. Double digging in 105 degree heat quickly rids you of that pesky 10 lbs. of unwanted water weight and/or last night’s alcoholic bloat.

2. I love seeing the miraculous circle of life, from seed to tiny sapling to dried up, shriveled, and dead in the 105 degree sun.

And the Number One reason I garden in Austin is:







Fall

I could do this. All I need is a white stucco wall and a euphorbia.

Richard Felber

Yes, indeedy.

No need to go into details. Melissa at Xanthan has the deets if you care to explore the minutiae of our aberrant heat phenom.

But something weird always takes hold of me about this time in summer. A sort of crazed defiance. I know that October will come and it will be a gift. The heat will break and we will be in the midst of a beautiful world. I look forward to that, knowing that there will be surprises. There are always surprise in nature; something that has heretofore gone unremarked will suddenly stake its claim on the landscape. I remember one year, vitex abruptly turned up everywhere in purple and became the shrub of the moment. Or a row of previously overlooked grasses is overnight gripped with halo of pink mist in the sunset.

Meantime, here at Aurora, the big success stories in this summer have been the grays. All things gray seem to be stalwart performers in this heat: sage, germanders, powis artemisia, cottoneaster, and lavenders all are hanging in there valiantly in my heavy clay soil. And they are happy companions to the desert reliables—blue-gray agaves, yuccas, and prickly pear.

One other plant of note: the Pindo palm. If you have any desire for a palm and you're on clay, plant this. It's abso fab and growing like a mofo. Takes what little water I give it and appears to be quite content.

De Nada Triangle

That little gray spot in the middle of Texas would be Travis County.

I Smell Dead Things

In my yard. The wafting is coming from here and there, presumably from small critters or birds. This heat is the killing kind. This is the hottest July in recorded history. Cool front this weekend will bring temps of 98. I was so worried about Brugmansia Charles Grimaldi this winter; but he is more threatened by summer heat. He looks like the character crawling across the cartoon desert. No amount of water can save him.

Summer Delights for Your Edification

Rosa Caliente Strangulata

Loquatus Burnus Crispis

Agapanthus Scorchiana

Crinum Tostadita

Rosa "Hot Mess"