gardening austin texas

The cruelest month is upon us. i would like to give a different view of gardening or some musings on my ideal gardens and parts and fragments of what i like about gardening in Austin Texas. As the leaves are rotting and the anoles are sleeping the daffodils are just pushing through the ground and the perennial cyclamen coum have finished their first bloom. Last year the cyclamen had a good icing. My viola are blooming and the Sol d' Or daffodils are also blooming along with some unnamed Israeli grown varieties.

The real excitement is just about to begin, Since we have gotten a good rain all my poppies are starting to grow along with the alliums neopalitanum and baby blue eyes (nemophila phaceliodes). I finally planted a dogwood (cornus florida)and it has a few buds the first year. The dogwoods in the country along with the viburnums are loaded with buds. Every year i tell myself i am going to get a chionanthus retusa, my favorite small tree. I am also going to get a magnolia soulangiana this year. i think i have killed three in the past from lack of water. My newest plant is styrax platanifolia, which i am growing from seed.

I have quite a few bulbs that are winter growing and doing quite well, such as several varieties of arum italicum, ipheon, ixia, iris, gladiola byzantium, crocus, muscaria, hyacinthus and convalaria. I also grow many varieties of daffodils but alas i do not know all their names.

Iris hermodactylus is from the Mediteranean region and is also called snakes head iris or widows iris. In their native habitat they grow under kermes oaks and supposedly in graveyards. They are very delicate and need to be planted where they will not be disturbed and the narrow foliage won't be damaged. They take a few years to naturalize and develope flowers, however they are very cheap to buy as bulbs. Make sure the bulbs are not to dried out.

Chionanthus retusa should be as common as privets here in Austin. It is one of the great shrubs from China. It does best with rich soil.

The most ubiquitous wildflower in my garden.

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I have several varieties of alium neopolitanum which starts blooming in early February and goes through to March. It is a good reseeder.

I have this plant out in Blanco county in deep shade under oaks in an unamended soil. and it has done remarkable well for 7 years.

Florida dogwoods do quite well in Austin if they are planted in the fall or winter and taken care of for the first year or two

Panayoti Kelaidis gave me my first seed for cyclamen hederifolium. When they went dormant the first summer i thought i had lost them. They have come back now every year for five years. These cyclamen are inScott Ogdens garden which i believe where grown from seed