Yo Howdy All Y’all – it is a beautiful day to walk about our gardens.
Curiously, I felt summer was filled with beautiful days to walk about our garden, although the
best times were sunrise and sunset, there is a special satisfaction in the comfort of the pecan
tree canopy even if it is actually 110 degrees in the shade.
By Grace, most of our perennials have survived – and many of our weeds have begun their
season of autumn blooms. On our San Antonio hillside, the bright yellow Lindenheimer’s
Senna with it’s towering but fern-like leaves are worthy of a special look. The tall yellow
blooming spires of Maximilian Sunflower and the plateau goldeneye are starting to bloom
interspersed between sunflowers that were baked and ones which still bloom.
The secret to keeping sunflowers blooming all summer long is to treat the weeds as exotic
roses and trim and dead head daily.
I did not do this on a daily basis – it was hot, we have a bazillion sunflowers, my truck was in
the shop. Sometimes a garden needs more than just beautiful blooms to survive. Dried
sunflower stalks and branches are excellent resources for enhancing the build of the terraces
on the slopes.
One guide in Gardening with God is knowing the various soils and sun exposures of where we
are, and discerning plant selections from witnessing what grows well naturally in similar
situations, as well as how different plants survive. The Zexmenia along 12th and all over the
place is in another cycle of yellow blooms after a couple months of dark green leaves shriveling
as they turned pale, which then – if they don’t drop, become a brownish “green”. To a casual
eye they look kinda ugly – clumps of mostly leafless sticks – but this is how these flowers best
survive the summer and lengthen bloom cycles.
So now, after accepting these plants to be less than we know they can be, we are rewarded
with new blooms. People are like that sometimes.
The belladonna by the front doors survive the summer in a similar way, they become lanky and
look unkempt, but these do bloom thru the summer, producing berries that age from green to
bright yellow to purple. Now that we are thru the heat, these can be trimmed, the berry
branches gathered for accents to the door bouquets.
I prefer to call then door buckets, flowers which begin in autumn to evolve into seed buckets,
inclusive of a variety of seed stalks to feed the birds and scatter the seeds. The belladonna, the
great mullein, some varieties of grasses and yuccas and the Calicarpa americana (beautyberry)
that grow about came from these buckets.
In the courtyard, and other random spots are the magenta berries of American Beautyberry, it
is one of my favorite garden colors, and the berries have a delicate sweet taste. The birds and wildlife have been aggressive in eating these berries, so feel free to taste.
Having survived the summer bake-off, many of the weeds will now be trimmed and our flowers
will look a bit more “intentionally” grown. The tall mullein stalks are being gathered for buckets,
their fuzzy rosettes of now dried leaves are exceptional for compost and direct soil
enhancement. Other trimmings become compost and resources for terracing. You may have
noticed various types of organic materials collated alongside the garden edges and the curbs.
Sorry about some staying so long in the gutters, but the extended heat-bake does break down
cuttings into more usable organic matter. The San Antonio hillside was largely rock with
pockets of asphalt and demolition debris covered with a thin layer of dirt.
Gardening with God, organically, we have an increasing rich soil of increasing depth covered
with flowers herbs and random vegetables. The moonflowers are still blooming, the lantana,
pink and purple ruellas, sage, rain lilies and pink primrose are blooming again.
Fall season vegetables are being planted. We delivered 400 pounds of watermelon to Angel’s
House this summer.
Walking about the gardens is a great way to experience and introduce friends to our church
place. It can be done anytime of day, there are places to sit. Some late Friday nights someone
(Brad Anderson) plays saxophone – that’s really nice.
Saturdays you can usually find me in the garden if you have questions or want to join me for a
walk about. Oh, and Monarch butterflies are passing by!
Be safe be well know joy.
Phil