Check Out This Gruss an Aachen!

This Gruss an Aachen floribunda rose has responded wonderfully to its February pruning and fertilizer. Planted at the end of 2003, it has been given very little care. Outside of a weekly watering and yearly (or sometimes twice a year) application of a time released fertilzer, this rose is on its own! The only disease treatment consists of me plucking off the effected leaves.

I sure wish this picture captured the bloom colors better. Gruss an Aachen has more coral than came through in the photos. There is just a huge range of colors in the buds and blooms. As the buds open, they fade to a pink so pale it's almost white.

This three to four foot shrub works well either in containers or as part of a perenial bed. The 3" double blooms have a sweet honey smell. When I bring myself to cut some for an vase, I make sure they are placed where I can catch the wonderful aroma.

Gruss an Aachen is believed to be the rose that began the Floribunda class. Floribundas were developed by crossing the large flowers of Hybrid Teas with the carefree Polyanthas.

For some great ideas on incorporating Antique Roses into your landscape, check out Mike Shoup's Antique Rose Emporium. They have display gardens at both their locations. The original location in Independence, Texas has more of an Early Texas/Cottage Garden look while the San Antonio location takes you to a Spanish Hacienda. If you can't get there in person, you can always take a cyberspace tour!

My New Lasagna Garden Bed

Have I mentioned before that I garden in heavy clay? Maybe just a time or two? Through the years, I have added huge amounts of organic matter to the beds - cotton gin trash, hay, mulch, compost, corn trash, cattle manure - anything I could get my hands on. Plants have grown but the soil is still as hard as a rock. Now my plan has been updated to include raised beds and yet more organic matter.

The first area to be tackled is large and unstructured. Four years ago I planted this sloping area solid with mondo grass. What a mistake that was! After much digging, I now have a clean slate. Laying limestone blocks has broken the area into three distinct beds. My original plan was to purchase compost and topsoil and plant the area immediately. Since I need more time to decide what I want to plant, I've decided to try a little lasagna gardening!

Here is the area I'm dealing with. Picture this planted with solid mondo grass - it was every bit as ugly as you are imagining.

The first step is to lay wet newspaper (six layers thick) over the entire area. Not having enough newspaper, I grabbed my old phone books. Their small size made soaking them in water a bit easier. To wet newspaper, I fill a wheelbarrow with water and soak the papers in it.

The next layer was old hay.

Now came bags and bags of leaves.

And finally, top everything off with wood chips. It looks so nice that you have no idea what is going on underneath. According to those who have made lasagna garden beds, you just wait for a number of months while things begin to break down. When you've decided it's time to plant, just push the mulch to the sides, dig a hole and plop your plant right in. Not tilling, no digging, no sweating. Sounds easy, doesn't it? God grant me patience . . . .

Fighting Spam & Viruses

I have received questionable comments to two of my recent posts. The comment simply says "Click here and here". Both of the words, "here" are links and send you to a window suggesting you run a scan to protect your computer. Something similar happened to me a few months ago that involved code embedded in an ActiveX bar. After a few days of trying to delete that virus myself, I finally resorted to having Symantec take control of my computer to clean it. Because of this, comment moderation for Cultivating Paradise has now been enabled. It was either that or enabling word verification - and many garden bloggers have stated their dislike of word verification. I'd love any advise from other bloggers regarding spam, etc on your blog.

Happy Easter from My Garden to Yours!

I wandered around the garden this morning to find the miniature Poinciana blooming! Also know as Mexican Bird of Paradise, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, is a tender but large shrub that will bloom from now until October. It grows to about 10 feet tall in my garden. This plant was given to me by friends, Jim and Sue, and does beautiful in poor soil and hot weather! (Of which, I have an abundance!) It grows easily from seed and may be a little bit aggresive for some people. I find that the sprouts are easily removed and that it is worth the extra "weeding".

Wordless Wednesday

Butterfly Weed

Asclepias tuberosa

Blotanical

I began reading gardening blogs when my daughter and son-in-law asked for help with their Austin garden. Knowing the best advice would come from local gardeners, I began searching for Austin gardening sites. First I found Pam at Digging - through the next few months I stumbled upon a few other great Austin blogs. Then I found Blotanical! This site has hundreds of garden blog members from all over the world. My favorite feature of Blotanical is the search map - just click on a part of the map and it zooms in and flags the home cities of member garden bloggers. Now I was cookin'! By the time I discovered Blotanical, I was hooked - and set off to find bloggers who garden in similar conditions to mine. (Hot and humid!) I would have never found Meems in her central Florida tropical garden, Hoe & Shovel, without Blotanical. Although I'm not crazy about some of the competitive features of Blotanical, I must admit I log in and check out the current list of posts every day (like I said, I'm hooked).
I find I'm buying fewer gardening magazines these days, but I'm reading more about gardening - all online. I've enjoyed following Vicki's (Playin' Outside) progress installing her rain harvesting tanks. Click here to read her first installment. Just the other day I learned about the "lasagna" method of making a new flowerbed. I've got some really heavy clay and can't wait to try this! So, instead of channel surfing tonight, log onto Blotanical and read some really good stuff!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

This Garden Blogger Bloom Day, I am mainly sharing the things that weren't blooming last month!

Bottlebrush, Callistemon rigidus, is beginning its bloom period. The one gallon pots we planted in 2004 are now easily 7 feet tall, giving us a nice, dense privacy hedge. Its clear to see where the name, bottlebrush, comes from!

Anacua, Ehretia anacua, is turning white with blossoms! It won't be long before the bees and butterflies have found this tree. This deciduous native tree is just getting a fresh crop of leaves. Their light green color will darken with age. Anacua gets one of its common names, the "Sandpaper Tree", from the sandpaper-like texture of its leaves. Hibiscus, Rosa sinensis, belongs to the mallow family. Other relatives are cotton, okra, and hollyhocks. There are hundreds of colors and color combinations along with a vast variety in plant and bloom size. In the early 80s when we received two years of hard freezes in a row, I quit growing this tropical. It is sensitive to a frost, but it takes a pretty hard freeze to kill an established hibiscus in the ground. A light freeze just give it a bit of a pruning. It's easy to propogate from stem cutting. For lmore information, you may want to check out the American Hibiscus Society's website.

Our little Texas Mountain Laurel, Sophora secundiflora, has finally begun to bloom. Everything I've read says that it will grow in part shade (which is where we planted ours). I wonder if this location is affecting its blooming. It doesn't have very long bloom stems, but the aroma is still amazing!

I don't know why I love the combination of blooms and buds - possibley it's the feeling of hope and anticipation that a flower bud inspires in me! This Thyrallis, Galphimia glauca, has that wonderful combination of blooms and buds that I love so much.

The Nasturtiums, Tropaeolum majus, have grown a great deal the past month. Aren't they pretty?

Beautiful Bougainvillea

I'm going to be away from a computer for this month's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - so I thought I would make an early post with just one bloomin' thing. This sprawling woody vine puts on a colorful show whereever it grows! Discovered in the late 18th century,Bougainvillea is a South American native. It has small white tubular flowers, surrounded by 3 large paper-like bracts. Much like the poinsettia, its bracts are the showy part of a bougainvillea. There is even a variety with double blooms (or bracts) - that one tends to be more compact and, as a bonus, has no thorns! Bougainvillea flourishes in zones 9 - 11. I always thought that hot weather made it bloom more - but a grower told me that it is the short days of winter that spur the bloom. Bougainvillea doesn't like wet feet so be sure to plant her in well drained soil. Although she prefers a nice loamy soil (don't we all!), she adapts pretty well to heavier clays. Disease-wise, there isn't much that bothers bougainvillea. Occasionally, I will go out to find something munching on mine, but within a few days new leaves have filled in the bare spots. This one seems to take care of herself~

Texas Wildflowers

The bluebonnet, Lupinus texensis, is the state flower of Texas. The individual flower shape is similar to a woman's bonnet - thus the name. This cultivar is native only to Texas where you can enjoy its blooms in March and early April . Bluebonnets like well drained, light soil - so you can see why I'm so excited to have such a lovely volunteer in my heavy clay yard. I spread a few seed in one bed but very few germinated. Guess I'll have to head to Central Texas to really enjoy them! Click here for more info about bluebonnets and where they're blooming. You also may want to check out the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website. It's has great info on all kinds of wildflowers and other native plants.

Playing in the Dirt's "Silly Quiz Thingie"

Laura at

Playing in the Dirt

gave us all a

Silly Quiz Thingie - Garden-Style.

Here goes . . .

1. Why did you start gardening? As a young married couple, my husband and I lived in a frame home set on high blocks with no foundation plants. It was just my desire to make our home a little more "homey".

2. Do you remember the first thing you ever planted in a garden? Blue plumbago in that empty foundation bed.

3. Everyone goes through the Crazy Newbie Gardener thing: tell us about one of the silly overzealous things you did then: I planted any pass-along plant I was given - and in the process placed noxious and invasive plants into my garden. It took 3 years to remove a Brazilian Pepper and all of its offspring. Click here for a list of noxious and invasive plants in Texas and here for a little added info from Texas Parks and Wildlife.

4. Favorite plants: what was your first favorite plant, and is it still your favorite? My first favorite plant was blue plumbago. My current is a Silver Date Palm (Phoenix Sylvestris). They have the look of a Canary Island Date but on a smaller scale. It doesn't tend to loose its boots (those are the leaf margins after a leaf has been trimmed). Alot of Silver ates have a mustard color to their trunks. They seem to have a very full canopy of green leaves. I don't have any in my yard YET - but it's the palm I'm admiring in everyone else's yard.

These are what I'm talking about when I say "boots". Some palms just hang on to their leaf margins for dear life. By the way, this trunk isn't a date palm but a Texas Sabal (Sabal texana). I just love its geometric look!

Do you have favorites that come and go, but one all-time favorite that you've always loved, no matter what? I run hot and cold on roses and bulbs (depending on my current success or lack there-of) but trees have always been the most important part of my garden.

5. What's your favorite gardening or yardwork chore? I love weeding - it just makes everything look instantly loved and well-tended. It's a mindless activity and I find I am mega-relaxed after 20 or 30 minutes of weeding.

6. And your least favorite? Digging! I have been trying to dig out some monkey grass so I can lay limestone for raised beds. I began the project a couple of weeks ago, but I've only actually worked on it once - It was just hard work and after an hour, I hadn't made a dent! I'm just having a hard time wanting to get that shovel out!

7. If a Magical Garden Genie granted you three wishes right now, what would you wish for? A truckload of compost spread on all the beds, a truckload of wood chips also spread on the beds, and that darn monkey grass dug out so I can place the limestone for my raised beds.

8. You have ten dollars left to your name, and you get to spend it at a nursery. What do you buy? Zinnia seed!

9. Tell us about one thing you learned about gardening in the past year: That ti plants have an amazing bloom! Check it out up close and personal . . . .

10. Will you be trying anything new this year? A plant you haven't grown before, or a new technique? I want to be a bit bolder with color and color combinations. I've always loved white in the garden - especially at night. I guess as I've gotten older, I've gotten a little bit bolder . . . The new technique I want to experiment with this year is staying ahead of the weeds! My 2008 motto is NO SEED STEMS!

Homemade Compost Tumbler

My creative and very handy sister-in-law came up with this unique compost bin. When she adds new kitchen scraps, she rolls it across the lawn to incorporate the new material. (When her timing is good, she gets her twelve year old son to do the rolling) Personally, I am a lazy composter. Everything goes into the pile - sometimes the kitchen waste gets buried but rarely does the pile get turned . . . I think if I make one of these, I can remain a lazy composter but with faster results!

This is a 30 gallon plastic barrel. It was washed out really, really well before beginning. The "door" was cut from a second barrel and attached with hinges and a latch. A twig holds the latch closed. Now it's time to fill and roll! Note the "decorative" black paint marks. I think this compost bin does double-duty when there is a paintball battle going on.


You can see the varying degrees of decomposition in the barrel. I just love getting something for nothing! And what a great trade-off: getting rich compost in exchange for trash!