What I love about Spring in Texas

All my flowering bushes & especially the vines start budding out & make the most beautiful flowers of the year. Not only that, the leaves also look pretty & green. As the weather gets hot, the leaves get fried!
I love when my bald Japanese maple gets it's first flush of leaves.
I have a variety of semidwarf azaleas that produce the most amazing amount of flowers, despite the fact that they've always had some kind of leaf disease (fungus?)--Red Ruffles azalea.
And this year I have several borderline plants that seem to have made it over the hump & are thriving--my Angel Trumpet & Satsuma.
These pictures are from past seasons. I love purple!
What do you love about Spring in Texas? :)

4 seasons in one day? Different wildflowers in different parts of the state. Rain that is warm. Chili cookoffs that get hot, ice cream that gets chocolatey!

Such pretty blooms!

It was in the 30s this am....at least the wind has died down.

It was nice and cool today, rebuilt a waterfall. have my tomatoes mostly in 5 gal pots and tidy cat buckets in case mother nature gets cranky

Speaking of tomatoes...I read how people start their seeds indoors weeks before they can go outside. They use grow lights & sing sweet melodies to them. I decided to throw some seeds right on top of my nicely weeded, tilled & fertilized garden soil. Several have come up! These were seeds I harvested & dried myself from a tomato tasting at, I can't remember the organization, but heirlooms, several years ago. The seeds were just hanging around waiting for me. But I'm not going to spend the time to start them early. It'll be fun to see if they make it & produce tomatoes before it gets too hot. I also did that with flower seeds I bought quite a few years ago. Just sprinkled them on top of the flower bed. I think mostly calendula are coming up & maybe a zinnia. Lazy gardener...

You might get a fall harvest from these tomato plants. Most of us start our seeds inside of buy transplants bc there isn't enough time for tomato plants to grow and produce by spring/summer. I do sow flower seeds like this every year mostly zinnias, cosmos and sunflowers.

I sow outdoors mostly. I did start about 20 tomatoes and buy 4 starts. Hail got a lot of the ones I started. But I didn't start them til late February this year, last year's January adventures got too big in the greenhouse and failed to produce anything before they died in the garden. I put 6 starts and 4 that I bought in 3 to 5 gallon landscape pots and half a dozen drilled tidy cat buckets this past week, so if we get flooding rains they will NOT get flooded out. My daughter had her best fall harvest out of tidy cat bucketed plants last year, so I am hoping to imitate her success BUT to get an early harvest too

In general, tomatoes start producing about 5 months after they germinate. Depending on variety. That's why peppers, eggplant and tomato plants are started early....but it sure doesn't hurt to try.

Oh Gypsi, that must have hurt! Darn hail... I used those soft-sided fiber "buckets" several years ago. I got some onions & cherry tomatoes. The okra was not the thing to plant in them! I even got those inexpensive big plastic toy buckets from Target, drilled drain holes & planted. My only problem with container gardening is keeping up with the watering & fertilizing in the scorching TX summers. A year or 2 ago, I got rid of almost all my outdoor potted plants. But it's amazing how they try to creep back into your yard!
Hey, that's good to know, Lisa. I'm not as intensive as yall are with gardening & so don't know things like when a veggie will produce after planting. It makes perfect sense (now) to start edibles indoors😃

I will be running a dripline irrigation system to those buckets I am pretty sure. and to anything else I want to make it through our annual drought. But with the buckets I get to pick where to run it. I can pick them up and move them

We've had such a weird spring! Warm earlier than normal, then cool, now lots of rain expected. I put down some blood meal on my onions and side dressed with some sheep manure to get watered in by the rains. I also planted two smart pots with luffa seeds. Something different to try in the garden this year. I need to pick up some more potting soil to pot up plants to trade and give away to friends. My irises have been blooming! I'm so happy with them. Chocolate Daisies are starting to bloom. I love their little flowers. Poppies and winecups are also blooming.

will blood meal help with onion bulb size?

Yes, it's high in nitrogen and helps the onions produce leaves. Each leaf represents one ring on the onion. Feed high nitrogen fertilizer weekly until they start bulbing, then stop and water only. Sheep manure is also a good source of nitrogen, though not nearly as high as blood meal. Some of my onions have already starting bolting. I think they are confused by the weather this year. Here's my bed ready for the rains.

my problem is usually too much nitrogen from fish pond compost, so maybe I won't blood meal? rain is going to handle the watering. Mine always bolt with small bulbs and big leaves, tried a different bed this year, slightly raised and did ok for sweet potatoes last year

We follow the planting guide on the Dixondale Farms site and have had success with it.

Janet, many edibles can be direct sown. The ones I mentioned above are the only warm weather crops, that I can think of, that really benefit from getting an early start. I learned most of this on the veggie and tomato forum.

Dixondale is Amazing! I didn't realize we had shorter summer days than the north, or any of this, thank you Stephanie

Hey Gypsi, my hubby just got one of those black plastic tubing systems with some extra pieces to water our 2 beds instead of soaker hoses. Hope they last longer than 1 summer😋
Stephanie, your blooms are gorgeous! I am crazy about winecups. The color is amazing & I love deep, vivid colors of all types. That's why I'm loving jewelry making. Not many neutrals in my collection! My shop is JGBRainbowDesigns on Etsy. That tells ya something right there! (Shameless plug...)!!
Lisa, thanks! I do direct sow my okra, cucs, cantaloupe & such but have always bought tomatoes, peppers & eggplant as babies. Since I have such a small garden, it's not bad money-wise. I can see why people start their own seeds if they need many plants. I believe I remember you grow commercially?
How pretty is this guy doing?! Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow
Enjoy the rainy days. Great for the plants & great for jewelry making!

Janet, you should invest in a pouch of tomato seeds and grow your tomatoes from seeds. One pouch will last about 2 years for me. I give away my extras.

This year I bought my starts due to personal issues I'm not growing commercially. But even buying the starts puts you where your supposed to be time wise. if you want tomatoes you might want to buy a few plants. There are many people that start their own plants even if it's only a few.

Here are a few of my April blooms.
1. This purple salvia was a surprise. Label says it's Cathedral Salvia. I say for $1 at Lowe's last fall I got a good deal.
2. My Oakleaf Hydrangea has been loving our weather.
3. Yellow NOID irises 'liberated' from the alley.
4. Don't remember the name of this hot pink salvia, but it's also very happy this year.
5. The Rue grew all 'winter' and it's starting to bloom now.

Here's some more.
1. Scabiosa (bricks prevent lawn mowers from cutting off their heads.)
2. Augusta Duelberg. Last year she barely grew let alone bloomed. She's growing like crazy this year.
3. My new acquisition: a Passiflora Biflora from the Texas Discovery Gardens sale.
4. Gregg is spreading everywhere and I'll have to keep my eye on him. Not blooming yet but I'm sure he'll put on a good show.
5. This Passaflora decided to green up and is starting to climb. Too bad I lost the tag and don't know which Passion Vine this is. When it blooms, then all will be revealed.

My mistflower doesn't bloom until late in the summer. I let it spread and go where it wants because it's easy to pull out in unwanted areas.

Tx f child, that salvia is AMAZING!! I love purple. And I love the pink too.

We're getting a huge downpour complete with hail. Mark & I are supposed to drive to Fredericksburg for a few days of fun. But I'm thinking we might need to reschedule. Lots more rain in the forecast. Hope everyone is ok & your crops too💜

Beautiful pics Flower Child. I have had to remove weeds to find my flowers or the rest are sitting in pots in the front yard. some are staying in pots til the roof is done, if I have the luck with roofers I have had with the truck's body shop. (who cost me a sign on saturday telling me it would stick where it did not. he used too much bondo)

Stephanie - Good to know that the mistflower doesn't bloom until later.

Gypsi - Is your passion vine blooming now? I love it.

Bariolio - Yep, that purple is as bright as the picture. So is the pink one. Sometimes those dollar plants are good investments. And if they don't work out, then you've only lost $1. Here's a not very good picture (looking down b/c I was too tired to get on the ground to take the picture) of one labeled Pink Autumn Sage. I bought it for a neighbor but think I may just keep it. Even tho it's still in a 4" pot placed in a bigger pot, it seems very happy where I set it down last fall.

Don't know why but when I click on the picture to enlarge it, my post and picture disappear. Is this happening to anyone else?

This message was edited Apr 19, 2016 11:23 PM

It's doing the same thing for me....never had that happen before.

Weird. And then I couldn't just delete and start over.

We went to Fredericksburg & guess what I saw this morning. A hummer! I 'm going to make some sugar water & put up my feeder when I get home:). They are so adorable!

Going to try again with the picture of the pink sage. The label says Pink Salvia Greggii. Guess will know more after it starts blooming.
At least I picked up the dirty pot and placed it higher to get a better picture.

The first picture went away, but the second one did fine.

Don't know if you'll be able to see this without squinting, but I was able to snap a picture of a goldfinch at its favorite feeder. Haven't been able to get pics of any other birds even tho I remind them that I'm the one that feeds 'em.

Beautiful! I haven't seen one of those around here in years. They use to be very common.

Oh how sweet! I've never seen any birds other than mockingbirds, occasional bluejays, cardinals & the ever-present sparrow-type birds. And hummers when they're around. But I had to remove my feeder because we were sitting outside at dusk & saw a RAT eating their food. We think they're living behind a neighbors garage behind us. Yuck!

Ok, I know Jo has one, and several others do. My brother in Midlothian yanked his hollies out of the ground and wants a new 'something'. Does Texas have a mountain laurel that can take heat?

I have mountain laurel growing here. They are all over Austin.

What i find for mountain laurel is also named mescal bush, is it the same that you have?

Arlington has goldfinches, I did not think I had any out here, but I moved a sunflower seed feeder out from the house a bit and I think I have seen a couple of lesser goldfinches. I need a camera mounted to the outside of my kitchen window with a controller inside. The screen messes up my photos badly

One of my passion flower vines is blooming now, the big one. The other snuck and died on me this past winter, it was a foetida. Stayed alive in the pot, died almost as soon as I put it in the ground. Low area of ground, maybe too wet?

This message was edited Apr 24, 2016 7:55 PM

Foetida likes it warm and is always one of the last things to poke out of the ground for me. I'm still waiting to see if mine comes back.

Some recent blooms. My poor poppies didn't do all that well this year. They were either beaten by the rain and hail or the petals were blown off by the wind. This Mexican Milkweed has been blooming all winter! It's covered in seed pods, too.