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The Aftermath: My Garden Before & After Texas’s Record-Breaking Winter Storm
With shards of ice raining down from the trees, the snow is finally melting down here in Central Texas. It’s a little early to start running victory laps for my garden, but we know how good I am about waiting… I didn’t even have the patience to hold off until temps reached 32F (like I told myself I would) to uncover the plants. Just before 9AM, the temperatures were around 25F, and the plants were already getting sun and I said “F- it. I’m uncovering them.” Many of the plants had a soft little layer of frost on them, but overall everything I covered looked pretty darn great. I wanted…
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Deja Vu – The Big Freeze
Considering the volume of *content* I was cranking out last week, it may have been a surprise to all 6 of you regulars who check on my blog to see that I haven’t posted since Monday. Well, we have been very busy preparing physically… spiritually… emotionally… for the cold snap that came barreling through Central Texas this week. As my husband would say, this wasn’t my first rodeo preparing for the cold weather. I saw the forecast early on and did my best to protect my plants (detailed here), but as a Southern California native new to gardening, it was quite a struggle for me. The Calm Before the Ice…
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mea culpa!! – la vie en rose
Well guys, it was inevitable, but I didn’t expect it to occur so soon – my first correction! My dad read my first post and has informed me that the measuring device used in the below photo is not a yardstick, which is what I called it. No, that measuring device is a level that happens to be four feet long. Never one to undersell my father’s accomplishments in the garden, I must inform you all that the stem is 33% longer than I previously stated. I also have learned a special detail that my maternal grandmother, Annette, was the one who gifted my parents their original Eiffel Tower rose…
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La Vie en Rose
Imagine a backyard of beige concrete, some 1000 square feet, bordered by bone-dry clay soil. A productive Meyer lemon tree shades the right edge of the yard, and the back is covered by a small Japanese elm, a large, a rounded juniper, and a guava tree with fruit I’ve never tasted because the squirrels always beat me to it. In the stretches of soil between these trees, which more closely resembled decades old Play-Doh than any sort of fertile ground, my dad decided to plant a rose garden. We researched what types of roses we wanted, weighing what qualities we valued most – color, how it opens, stem length, and…
blogging about buds & blooms
