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wantonamara

Planting seeds Out Back

I see cyclones in the pacific sliding up the Baja. That usually means moisture being thrown off to the East. Also disturbances in the Gulf headed west to the Texas Coast. Weatherbell , my weather guru, says rain for this area of the country. Especially for Jadite and Tx Ranger. Rain chances everyday this week and at a great temperature for germination. I am out adzing my dry hills and stamping in my seeds of all types out back. So far , Ipomosis, liatris punctata, Bluestem. calylophus berlandieri. I move seed out from my garden area into the wilds. I think I while empty my box of saved seed. They are just getting old in there anyway.

It has been a while since I have felt so hopeful for germinating fall seedlings. I hope this wetness will last through the winter. Last year's wet fall's germination dried out in the 6 months of no rain that followed. Here's to hoping. I left some of the seed pods un opened hoping they they would hold shut till spring or the next year.

I was walking around back there and the liatris that I planted in a very steep slope 10 years ago was blooming. They took sporadically. They need more company.

Comments (9)

  • Campanula UK Z8
    9 years ago

    Ho, well you are walking that hopeful seed walk as well as myself, Mara. Like you, too many seeds are just clogging up the system but am far too mean to just fling them about......but on the other hand, I cannot face planting another couple of hundred pots (I am SO sick of pots this year) and faffing over them all winter. I find that once they are 'in the wild' they are out of my hands and relying on fate, destiny, weather, small animals or even the bearded sky god......anything really, other than my not so tender mercies. gathering them all up and going for a huge nursery bed planting session before the real work of moving and transplanting begins in earnest (although I am fairly certain to come up with a great many displacement tricks to dely the inevitable.....although the parlous state of ALL my gardens at this moment (complete crapulous rubbish) is enough to drive me to frenzied digging, hacking and the usual deluded ideas of deep denial of any sort of reality. There are, at least, vegetables to pick and eat.

  • TexasRanger10
    9 years ago

    I'm encouraged. Speaking of out back, I ran across some very exciting info on the internet last night that Sacaton wrightii will perform well in bright shade, you can believe everything you read there, can't you? We shall see. I plan to plant some back there in the spots I hate to deal with (cough cough) where my neighbors inflict dry shade on my prairie and nothing grows well, hopefully it will get tall. I have a whole row of the tough stuff on the east side and in the path are many good sized year old volunteer plants that I didn't cull out of the gravel, just in case I need some more. Actually I left many areas unweeded of native grass to serve as nursery's and I have already started creating drifts by transplanting. I have some seeds I have been collecting to direct sow but I think I will wait for that rain.

    I will have a grocery sack of liatris seed, it will fly south to fill in the gaps. Mine did something weird this year. All the tops kept dying back half way down, then they formed many blooming branches on the tips of the half stems so the plants look like candelabras. Just one of the strange happenings in this weird cooler than normal summer.

  • wantonamara Z8 CenTex
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    The Eupatorium havanense will do well there also. Mine is budding up. I need to collects seed and distribute it this winter and move some babies of it back to the valley. God so much to do this winter. No Veg garden this year. I am NOT super woman.

    Your red rubekia just got planted where I throw the hand washing water by the cow pen daisies. I am keeping it in the adobe soil Around the shop because I usually see the wild rubeckias in flat fields by streams around here.

  • wantonamara Z8 CenTex
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Campanula, you make me laugh. Love your language. I gave up flinging a while back. I did do that buy lbs of seed and gleefully fling it in the wind. $$$$into the wind. WEEEEEEEEEE! such carefree hopeless hope. Live and learn scenario for a silly girl. Now, I collect most of my seed or trade with others that collect. I loosen soil and rake them in and then stomp on it. I try to mimic where I find the plants. I always save some seed to start some 4" pots with . So I cover my ass. I have had some success seeding. It is hard to see and evaluate because it might not sprout for years. Those sprouted in two years very nicely in the wild , but then many died in the subsequent drought.. I got 5 plants out of hundreds and hundreds of seeds adzed into a steep slope of caliche. They have good amount of seeds on each one of them this year , so I think that is a success considering the difficulty of the site and that it has survived the many years of drought in its site. They are a beginning of a new patch .

    TxR, I think that you had bug damage, possibly a type of spit bug that ate it. I had that happen three years in a row and this year I saw some spit bugs in that foamy stuff on the young spears in the late spring and I squeezed the grit in the foam. They did not get eaten this year. I am only connecting the dots. So keep your eyes peeled for foam. For years, I thought it was deer eating them.

    I have a box full of Texas Blue bonnets that I need to plant out there next.

  • wantonamara Z8 CenTex
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    My seeding for the day ended with gentle rain storms moving in at sunset , a double rainbow amongst the anvils, coupled with the finding of a almost complete deer spine. I looked at the weather and rain everyday for 10 days. I have a good feeling about this.

  • TexasRanger10
    9 years ago

    Camp, how many gardens are we talking about over there? "ALL my gardens" sounds rather plural -- like more than three. I'm a direct sower for the most part. I like living on the edge and think most are happier in the ground rather than being transplanted by 'yours truly' who is actually a good mother but keeps the pots down to a manageable #. I do have to say I have good sandy soil with gravel and stuff does come up unaided pretty easily here. I do the easter egg hunt thing a lot looking for any interesting things that have volunteered. I'm so cheap its my main way of extending my plantings.

    Well, I did it. I moved all those free Sacaton wrightii grasses out there in the back and there were some nice big ones too. We shall see next year if its a good idea or not. The Muhley lindheimerri grasses do OK, but don't reach that typical big size and they don't bloom but even so, they form pretty blue thick clumps about 2ft tall in the driest of the dry where the worst tree roots are. I stuck in a couple volunteer deergrass muhly's and a lot of volunteer Pine Muhly's in the area so its all dry hardy tough stuff. Its getting really grassy around here. I am sparing no expense.

    I never considered bug damage on the liatris. Seemed like everyday there was a new stalk that was dried out on top and turned wheat colored, they just broke off clean. I never looked that close for bugs but I bet it was.

    The Eupatorium havenense you sent me have just sat there all year not growing much at all. They aren't in bad soil either, not overly dry, just planted in mostly shade. Do I need to move them? I'm hoping they are just spending the summer making roots? I don't know. On the other hand, the Zexmenia you sent took off, got big and have bloomed pretty good in shade. You sent me some kind of bulbs and I now have no idea what it was but they're doing good too, no blooms yet. Of all things, Salvia greggii does real well back there and so does mealy cup sage. Otherwise I have some kind of carex I got from around here that I keep dividing until I get something that looks like that cool stuff John Greenlee does with it in a mass planting. I'm copy-catting that look.

    I have two other plants you sent me that are growing real well but I forgot what they are too -- I'm exposing myself as a person who doesn't keep track of things I know. I will have to take a picture so you can ID them for me, so far its just green leaves on both on either side of a Ninebark shrub which is finally coming around in the corner.

  • wantonamara Z8 CenTex
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    We had 3.33" of rain on all my seeds last night. Here is the mess of seeds being processed for planting.

    {{gwi:270066}}

    I took a wad of plants out for planting in my wheel barrow with my pick axe. Some germinated Texas Buckeye, a great many weddings of my garden natives up close to the buildings that I have been growing hard without water .

    {{gwi:270067}}

    It was real interesting because I could look to where the washes we're and pick axe in and check how deep the moisture went. Often only the top 1" of Cedar duff was wet and the soil below it was dry as a bone. Doing it after the rain allowed me to pick spots that got water fairly deeply when it rained.

    I finished and the sky was threatening for hours and let loose another 2 " of rain after I got back to the shop..

    Unfortunately , I fell while carrying too many pots and my pick down the slope and twisted my knee. No free hands. I did not feel any injury and continued working all day , But now my knee is swelling and painful. OH well.

  • dbarron
    9 years ago

    Gardening is painful...we all know that;) Glad you got some into the ground. I did the same thing last week, planting while the light rain fell on my head.

  • wantonamara Z8 CenTex
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    When it rained it was not light. It was torrential! Not like the gentile rainbow at the end of the seeding episode. I expect the same again today. I need to go out and flag the new plantings so I do not LOOSE them in the litter . My leg is better but I am not sure that traversing a slippery slope on it is not advisable today.