You Are Barking Up the Wrong Tree, Buster!

For the past few months something has been rooting in the soil of one of my loquat trees which are planted in giant terra cotta pots. I placed chunks of spiky driftwood in the planter, thinking this might discourage the perpetrator. This morning, to my horror, I see that a critter has stripped chunks of bark from the trunk of the loquat, and then proceeded to gnaw on the inner pith!
WTF!!!!
I thought I had left this random wildlife predation behind. Gardening in Rollingwood meant dealing with deer, foxes, armadillos, and snakes. I don’t remember any problems with animal destruction when I gardened at my other former home in the Zilker ‘hood.
What animal is so desperate that they would eat bark? There is plenty of fresh water in the birdbath. My neighbors apparently leave abundant petfood out for any takers. The grackles are so surfeited they regularly leave abandoned bits of kibble marinating in the birdbath. And don’t raccoons have all the delicacies they could possibly need in any convenient dumpster? Squirrels? Aren’t they coming off the largest acorn crop in the past ten years?
I put pipewrap on the trunk of the loquat for the time being. It looks hideous and I am not happy. I may have to go all Elmer Fudd on this varmint and twap the wascally wabbit.

Helter Swelter

I won't be posting a bloom day this month; there's really nothing worth remarking upon. At this point in the summer, foliage is the name of the game and finding respite in the deep meditative greens of the shadelovers, liriopes, aspidistra and English ivy.
One other joy is seeing my two tree-trained loquats finally getting their game on, five years after being transplanted as foot-tall babies into pots.




Another upcoming thrill is the first-time bloom of my brugmansia. In a dither over whether or not to put this plant in the ground (I've seen a big one on Scenic Drive), I googled brug care without much luck. Although there is some pretty bizarre brugmania going on at Dave's Garden, having to do with wintering-over techniques and complex machinations involving 50-gallon tubs and rubber tubing.

In more plant torture news, I fell in love with the tree-trained bougainvilleas at Shoal Creek Nursery(for $200 one can be yours) and came home and stripped my boug and bound it to a stake. In about five years, it should be fabulous.

Just Chillin'

Those of us who were in Austin during the early 80s remember it as a time when:

• Friends and acquaintances went bankrupt due to the exigencies of crashing real estate prices
• The pipes froze and the pittosporums died

Whenever the weatherman/woman starts jabbering about the three Ps, I always groan. It’s a “boy who cried wolf” thing. Terrifying homeowners about false fears, only leads to complacency and potential for real harm. The temperature dipping to 25 overnight and rebounding to 45 during the day is a completely different experience than being BELOW FREEZING FOR 3 DAYS.
But the weather folks never say that.
In 1982, after a 3-day bout of continuous sub-zero temps, many Austin landscapes were forever transformed. Common foundation planting shrubs, like pittosporum, which at the time were heavily planted all over town in gracious homes in Tarrytown and UT beds, were dead as doornails. People noticed that practically the one thing standing was red-tipped photinia. And now we see photinia ubiquitous in commercial and home settings. This is the pendulum of common taste (as it affects the garden) in full swing. File it under yellow lantana and more recently, esperanza.
Gardeners, like farmers, know that there is a huge element of chance in their strivings. Austin gardeners are intimate with drought and brutal heat; but we were caught off guard by the bizarre nonstop summer rains and many rosemarys rotted away.
The moral I guess, is plant what you love and hope for the best.
Meanwhile, just in case, I brought my embryo topiary loquats inside.

Plant Torture

Here is a photo of one of the two loquat trees that I dug up from Vale Street and brought with me. These are being trimmed to grow straight up and have pom-poms of foliage at the top. It’s something I saw done at Cornerstone Hardware's nursery (a Westlake store that tried to go mano a mano with Breed and Co. directly across the street and is now out of business; the wonderful plant guy has moved to Great Outdoors in case you're wondering). I thought how striking they were. After crossing off my life-list the act of espaliering a vine on a wall, I felt this was the next challenge: topiary trees In about two years, they'll make a smashing statement on my deck. Loquats grow ferociously fast, thrive in heat and while blooming in Nov/Dec give of a gorgeous smell of vanilla-cinnamon.
My daughter Rachel does not approve of rigorous plant control. She was horrified to see that I had bound (with cruel twist-ties!) some stalks of an indoor Ficus to turn it into a tree. Every gardener is always bending growing things to their will and we do this in complete imitation of Mother Nature, who is hardly a benevolent or hands-off force herself.
Witness the crossvine seen here when it was first planted in mid-August and the second picture taken this weekend, October 29. Filling in the privacy fence wall quite nicely, huh? I hope neighbor Leslie appreciates this b/c it almost looks even nicer when the vine is creeping over a fence and tumbling down from above.
Crossvine can be seen throughout East Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi growing in road culverts where it is just a shapeless low-growing rambler in a ditch. But given something to grow on it will latch on and climb up and up. It turns into something quite lovely and different from its ditch-persona. And what's the harm in that?
Not to mention it's evergreen.