My garden, summer 2021

Ahhh, the gardening highs and lows. I think this year I ended up having more highs than lows??? Ever since my friend, Whitney, suggested keeping a garden journal I've been able to keep track of what works, what doesn't, and what I'd like to try going forward. See last year's garden update here. 

What worked:  My pots turned out well this year.  I figured out which annuals like both pots and full sun (vincas and begonias were the real heroes), and relied heavily on colieus, and elephant ears. (A few weeks ago, a neighbor gave me around 20 elephant ears, which ended up being exactly what I needed to give the pots some height.)  I tried to follow Joanna Gaines' tip which was to have a thriller, filler, and spiller in planters.

This was my second go around with the Loofah plant.  Last year I dipped my toes in this process, and got a few small fruit, this year I'm on track to have quite a few.  What will I do with all of them? I have no idea, haha.  Let me know if you want some seeds!

I also moved my wildflower garden from the front beds to the one right off our bedroom in the back of the house.  Although I love seeing the zinnias when I pull into the driveway, by mid summer the bed looked pretty ragged.  So the Zinnias, Queen Anne's Lace, Cosmos, and a few others I don't know the names of, are all in the back yard now.  

This was also my first year doing cucumbers and basil.  I planted pickling cucumbers, which as it turns out, aren't as good for snacking.  Basil was easy and fun.

This was also my first year with Caladium bulbs. I purchased 75 of them from the local garden club and they've been a great, leafy filler.  It'll be fun to see if they come back next year, or if I need to put new ones in.

What didn't work: I lost a LOT of perennials after the Texas freeze.  Last fall I had planted nearly 40 flax lilies, and all but a handful were lost.  Also not thriving are all my citrus trees.  They've started sprouting, but a friend said not to count on the fruit being nearly as good.  Something to do with the trees coming from a graft, and the sprout coming up from below the graft.  So, I feel like I'm losing time waiting to see what happens there.  My gut says to bite the bullet and buy all new trees...but...I haven't done that yet.  Stay tuned 😜

Also I wished that we had put down mulch last spring.  I am outside watering 2-3 times a day to keep things alive.  By this point in the summer I'm kinda over that.  When we lived in the Seattle area we had a big truck load of bark mulch delivered, but with that mulch came carpenter ants.  Quel nightmare.  We called the local place (here) and asked about ants, and were told that it would probably happen again, and to be ready to spray the mulch.  Ugh.  Anyway. I love the look of mulched gardens SO MUCH, plus all the water retention benefits.  We'll see what happens. 

the silver licorice plant took off this year

My garden, summer 2020

I was so inspired by my pal, Whitney, who recently posted her summer garden, that I decided to do the same.  I honestly learn so much each year about gardening in Texas, (and waste a lot of cash in trial and error, oops), what works in our yard and what doesn't, what is super hardy, what isn't.  We get almost no shade, so a lot of the lush plants that I've always fallen back on for filler, like hostas, don't do well in our garden.  Also, because of the humidity, the full sun loving plants that I've always depended on, like lavender, don't thrive either. I've recently started keeping track of my gardening plans for each year on my Pinterest board, which helps me a lot.  I'm always snapping pics of what I like in others' yards, or even better, mass plantings outside of neighborhoods, since those are almost always in full sun.  However, even with as much researching and planting as I've done this year, I'm not super happy with how things are looking.  HA! I wish I could go back to March when I was putting things in and have a do over.  Oh well - that's how it goes sometimes.

This was the first year that I've planted Luffa.  These apparently do VERY well in Houston, but are extremely hard to grow! This was my 3rd go around with the seeds, this time putting them in this container, with high nutrient, organic soil (blue tape is to keep the squirrels away) and the plants are doing great so far.  I'm going to move them into the ground this weekend, but they apparently hate being transplanted, so we'll see how that goes.  

Next up are our backyard planters.  This area is the least sunny spot although still sunny, so I have a bit more flexibility with what I can plant.  These are my fave.