Post from Little Cayman

Well, it has been quite a while since my last post. We have not had any rain, or at least nothing to speak of, since I last posted. I've focused my efforts on the pizza oven construction. It was so difficult to get a reliable person to construct the slab for the oven to sit on. Well, last Friday they guys came by, built the form, and poured the cement - and it came out GREAT...



The next step is to start building the cinder block foundation that the pizza oven will rest on. I've put off any more plant landscaping until at least the heavy work of this project is complete.

I hope that the oven does not burn the adjacent tree down. :-)

Went to "Dough" ( www.doughpizzeria.com) this past week and it has gotten me psyched to get this oven completed!

It's been a while...

It has been a while since I updated the blog... Part of the reason was a one-week vacation in the Dominican Republic. It was GREAT! Wonderful people and great weather and beaches. We stayed in Cabarete which is a former fishing village that is now a hub for kite surfing...


The yard work went on hold, of course, and the pigs, in my absence, mostly behaved. They ate the lemongrass I planted and ripped up a little grass in the front. But the rest is doing well. One of the day lilies already has flower buds on it and several of the Salvia greggii cuttings appear to be doing really well.

While away I did a lot more reading on the pizza oven and worked on a design. I have a rough sketch ready, page 2 still under construction, and have a concrete expert coming by on Saturday to lay out where to put the concrete pad. The rough drawings can be found here: http://www.matava.us/temp/pizza.oven.pdf

The Spring Planting Continues

Yesterday I planted all the plants that I ordered from Wellspring Gardens over the last few weeks. They include:

• Bay Laurel
• Dwarf Pomegranate
  
• Lemon Grass
• Dianthus
  
• Thai Ginger
• Texas Everbearing Fig
• Bottlebrush Plant
• Olive Tree (Olea europaea)

In addition to those I purchased some additional plants for around the fire pit at a local nursery. (The following photos were found with the help of Google...)

Dark Blue Plumbago


Purple Lantana (Lantana montevidensis)


Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)


Pink Skullcap (Scutellaria)

Salvia microphylla 'Hot Lips'

The ox blood lilies that I planted several weeks ago are taking nicely to their new home and the feral pigs have not discovered them yet...

Spring is certainly here because the Salvia greggii from last year is already in bloom, before I had a chance to cut them back...

And... I continue to research the pizza oven - there is a lot to learn! But, I have decided where to place it in the back so that it will both look good and not be affected by the nearly-constant Texas Hill Country breeze. I've been looking at a lot of designs on the Forno Bravo Forum and sketching out what I think I want to attempt to build.

Slow-But-Steady Progress

For most people that know me, I invented "slow-but-steady". :-) Or so it seems.

The weather has warmed up to the point where planting is appropriate. I don't think we will get any frost, that is for sure.

The plants I am growing from seed are going well and I hope to clear out the planter by the pool this weekend and put in most of the plants for the herb garden.

The Salvia greggii around the pool as taken root very nicely. I'm not sure about the cuttings I took a few weeks ago, but I have not given up hope.

The feral hogs/pigs have been kind to the yard and there is not any new damage to report. It seems that when things are established they will be fine. It's just getting through that newly-planted stage.

I've done a good deal of further research on the pizza oven and I am really psyched about building it. There are so many things to think about, plan, and consider. For instance, one needs to consider the standard winds and make sure that the front of the oven does not face them. I've got a general plan in mind that I need to flesh out. Check out http://www.fornobravo.com/ !!!

Other than that, not much to report. The sunset is very pretty tonight it is certainly going to be a very nice weekend in San Antonio...

succulents by the pool

rosemary in bloom

Salvai greggii already in bloom!

A Sunny Southwest Texas Weekend

Well, the weather this weekend was just gorgeous. It was in the high 60's/low 70's this weekend and as sunny as could be. Just wonderful.

This weekend not much was done on the gardening front. I am preparing for a retirement dinner that I am hosting at the hill country cottage on this-coming Saturday. There is still a chance that we will have a significant freeze/frost, so I am concerned that planting smaller plants may be premature. Two more weeks or so and we will good to go. And, the weather was so nice I wanted to enjoy the sun, rather than toil under it. I'm sitting by the pool, listening to Charlie Parker, having a glass of wine, and looking over the hills...

I did do a little more research on the hardscaping of the backyard. I've decided that I would like to put a pizza oven with an Indian tandoor next to the fire pit. My cousin's son lives in Missouri and has built a special fireplace/oven in his home that heats the entire house very efficiently. He recommended several sites to me and from them I found http://www.fornobravo.com/ which is great. From there I found several DIY ovens. I need to do some more research, including one on how to build a tandoor oven. The entire project should not be too difficult as I will be building it on stable limestone.

Progress around the Lunar New Year...

Although I have not made an entry in the log recently, several things have been happening.

The first, and most important, is that it was Chinese New Year! I visited friends in Florida for the weekend and had a wonderful time.

Before I left for my mini-trip, the feral hogs hit the back yard and ate one of the honeysuckle twigs (!?!). It was the red one. I'll pick up another this weekend and plant it. Evidently, it did not taste good because it did not continue on to the pink honeysuckle.

On 18 January I logged that I planted some seeds that I ordered from Thailand as well as some locally purchased ones. They are looking good! In addition to the Thai seeds, I planted some basil, cilantro and a variant of the Texas Bluebell that sports Texas A&M colors (maroon and white).

Thai chilies just starting to sprout


Italian basil

Thai regular basil


Alamo Fire Bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) - they germinate fast!


a photo of the bluebells from Wildseed Farms website...

I also planted some wild flower seeds, and the remaining bluebell seeds, in the backyard but I don't have high hopes. I tried this last year and it did not work well. I think the soil in my back yard is not sandy enough - it is pretty much decomposed limestone with a little organic material in it.

We are experiencing a cold snap here and we might get an ice storm tonight. Work outside may be put on hold for a few days...

A Windy Day...

Well, it was warm but terribly windy today in the hill country. So much so that it was not a good day to work out in the yard. But, I did spend some time doing some Internet research.

I had a wonderful evening last night with my neighbors at a great restaurant that cooks everthing in a wood-fired oven (the Roaring Fork - http://www.eddiev.com/). One conversation centered on gardening. One couple talked about planting a few olive trees in their yard and remarking how well they were doing. I had a flashback a favorite spot in Turkey, a small fishing town named Kalkan, that is surrounded by olive groves up in the hills...



So, I got online and bought a number of plants that I recall from my visits to the Med....

Pomegranate


Texas Everbearing Fig

Olive Trees (Olea europaea)

And a gorgeous plant that my neighbor has in their yard...

Bottlebrush Tree

Day 1: Continued

Well, on the way to dinner with friends I stopped by Lowe's and picked up some more yellow day lily bulbs. I will plant them tomorrow.

On the herb and vege department, I got seeds I ordered from Thailand (off of eBay) yesterday and began soaking them in water. I ordered three packages. The first was for Thai basil. I see Thai basil plants in the garden stores here but it did not have the exact flavor I recall in Thailand. I also ordered some Thai bird chili seeds. Super Target sold these chilis when I first came to Texas but they do not anymore. I don't see them at any of the Asian markets here in San Antonio. The third packet I ordered was Kaffir lime. Kaffir limes are inedible (I think) but their leaves are a key ingrediant of Thai cooking. Since I ordered three things, they sent me some red Thai basil seeds as well. I suspect this is similar or the same as the purple basil you see around sometimes.

The instructions said to soak the seeds for 24 hours before planting. They are soaking now and the basil seeds are very, very tiny. Almost the size of small grains of salt. Tomorrow they will be planted.

seeds from Thailand soaking

I took some pictures of the backyard to give folks an idea of what I am starting with...

My primary objective is to maximize on the view of the Texas Hill Country. Would you believe I'm just 15 minute's drive from Neiman Marcus?

the fire pit is behind the pool - I need to get a walkway in place and get plants around it

I would like to get more vines around the pool walls - currently there is some star jasmine planted that is nice. Whatever I put in there needs to not shed too much in the pool.

These are the succulents that I will transplant and replace with perennial herbs.

I've planted Texas flowering sage, which I propagated from cuttings, along the pool fence.

This is the area behind the pool where I planted some day lilies and need to decide what more to do with it. Part of it may host the outdoor wood oven I'd like to have.

Day 1: planting things that were already purchased

Well, I successfully planted a number of bulbs that I purchased at Lowe's and from eBay this noontime. They were mostly lilies that are supposed to do well in the hill country climate and soil type. We are currently experiencing a drought, so I will water them each day to make sure they get a good start before they are left to their own devices - live or die!

I started by planting two honeysuckle plants along the edge of the property near some cedar trees that mark the property line that my neighbor and I share. Honeysuckle, if it is in the right environment, will grow 8-10 feet high here in Texas. This should fill in the bare spots where the cedars to do not and give the backyard a little more privacy.

pink honeysuckle

red honeysuckle

Day lilies are supposed to do well here according to Texas A&M's horticulture website. I found that interesting because they did really well on Cape Cod and that is a completely different climate. The ones I chose are supposed to be drought tolerant. The first ones I planted were dwarf and I am already considering buying some more. I love yellow flowers and I hope these are as pretty as they appear in the photos.

dwarf rebloomer MiniStella daylilies

I have a number of young (i.e. not very tall yet) crepe myrtle bushes that have deep red flowers. In front of them I placed two types of pink/red day lilies.

rose passion daylilies

rebloomer Rosie Meyer

On Texas A&M's website I found a heirloom lily that is supposed to do really well here, but is hard to find these days. I was able purchase some bulbs on eBay and have put them on the far end corners of the fire pit.

oxblood lilies (Rhodophiala bifida)

I also put down some wild flower seed in the area behind the pool where there are a few standing rocks and some existing plantings including Mexican Oregano (which has nice, small flowers).

A day gardening in Texas is not complete without getting bitten by fire ants, and today was no exception. Now for a poach in the spa...

First posting: the plan...

My goal for this spring is to get the portion of the backyard that extends from the back of the house to just past the fire pit to look less like a open field. It is a disaster! I also want to start working towards building some raised beds along the property line and plant some sort of shrubbery that will provide a degree of privacy.

This work can be broken down into several tasks...

1. come up with a general layout that can potentially accommodate an outdoor, wood-fired pizza/bread oven.
   
2. clean out the pool planter of the existing succulents and replace with an herb garden consisting primarily of perennials.
3. build a slightly raised bed around the fire pit and plant flowering perenials around it.
4. construct some sort of walkway from the pool gate to the fire pit.
5. figure out where to construct the raised beds along the property line and what materials to use (probably indigenous limestone bricks) with a goal of getting them in and ready for a fall planting.
   

I've got several constraints. The first is that it needs to be xeriscape and not require a sprinkler system. The second is that it needs to be low maintenance and low cost to maintain. The third is that I want to use perennials and annuals that reseed themselves as well as indigenous or close to being indigenous.