New Flowers for the Garden

About a month ago, we were on an outing with several members of my side of the family. This outing took us out in the country to explore what was my Great Grandfather's homestead. It was a lot of fun looking around, trying to imagine my ancestors working in the garden or plowing a field. My sister, Jeanne was walking close by and spotted what looked to be a weed of some sort. She decided to dig it up and try to keep it alive and plant it in her garden. I don't think it was so much the plant itself, but more of a reminder of the day and that she can say that the plant came from the area of our forefathers. Anyway, it was a neat idea and she actually kept the plant alive and it seems to be thriving.

So this past weekend I went on a camp out with a men's group from  my church. We went to Beaver's Bend State Park in southeastern Oklahoma. We had a good time fishing, canoeing, and even a little hiking. Along one particular hike, I spotted some interesting and pretty wildflowers along the way. I was taken back to when Jeanne dug up that plant and successfully kept it alive and transplanted it. I decided that I would like to try to do the same thing. Why not? Beaver's Bend is one of my favorite places to camp and this would be a way to remember the weekend and the State Park itself.  The one that caught my eye was a tall, single stemmed plant with small, purple flowers. When I say tall, I mean about 4 feet tall and I had no idea what it was, but what interested me was that it was growing in what appeared to be full shade. And I have a lot of shade around the yard. So I thought that if I could just keep it alive on the trip home, it might grow in my yard. I had nothing to dig with except my bare hands, but I did have a foam cup that I could put it in. So with as much strength as I could, I dug around with my fingers and got as much soil and hopefully all the root system. It actually wasn't too hard. It was growing on the side of a hill and the dirt was pretty soft around the plant.

Amazingly enough, the plant made it back to the campground, then the 2 1/2 hour trip back home. Here is what it looks like.

And I finally found out what this plant is. This is a Streptanthus maculatus ssp. obtusifolius or more commonly known as a Twistflower. It is native to Arkansas but I guess has crept into eastern Oklahoma. Yes, I know, I don't live in Arkansas or Oklahoma, but don't tell the plant that. We will see what it does if it survives my flower bed.

Look What I Invented!

Okay, not invented. Taken from the internet is more correct. But, I did build it myself.

Some might ask "what is it?" Well, it's a compost screen. I have a pretty sizable compost pile, and have had it for quite some time. My only problem is that if I keep adding to it, it never really gets 100% composted. So I was looking around on the www the other day and I saw a guy demonstrate his compost screen. It looked great so I had to try it. I purchased a little hardware cloth, used some scrap 2x4's and built what you see above. It's 24" wide and about 24" high, almost square. It fits perfectly on the wheelbarrow.

 That is the compost as it is in the pile. You will see that there are some pretty big chunks. This is about two full shovels. I didn't put any more because I'm going to have to shake the thing over the wheelbarrow and when you factor in the weight of the wood, this is about the perfect amount.

This is what it looks like. There are still a few minor chunks, but overall, this stuff is perfect. And it's all mine, straight from my compost pile!

Black gold!

I have already used it with some plants and they look happy. That screen works perfectly and if I screen too much, I just throw it back on the pile. Now I can get compost whenever I need it.

I can't believe that it's been a year since my last post. That's really inexcusable, is it not? So here it is April 21, 2012 and really lots of things have happened over the last year. Maybe I will be able to get to some of it and maybe I can keep this posting up. And I know I have probably said that every time I post after a long period of silence.

So let's pretend I've been posting all along and this is just another entry in a blog that I know you have been enjoying reading daily.


In all honesty, I do find it difficult to keep up with some regularity, but I enjoy it when I can. Today was a beautiful day and I got a lot of things done outside. It started off with a visit to the yearly plant sale at the Grayson County Master Gardener's sale in downtown Sherman. They had a great selection and the prices were really good.

This is the selection of what I got. Each one was $1 and I thought that was a good price. Most are very common for this area and are easy to grow. I have Canna Lillies, Four O'clocks, Aster's, Shasta Daisy's and a few others. I have a definite location for most of the plants and am looking forward to getting them situated in their new home.

One of the big jobs today was to clean and prepare a rather large bed on the northwest side of the house. This side gets about 4 to 5 hours of sun and in the summer, the heat can be brutal. Here is a picture of some of the construction of this bed. This construction took place about 18 months ago.

Several years ago, I created a small retaining wall at the corner of the house with block. I didn't really want to spend the money on more block, so I decided to continue the wall with railroad ties and try to make it look half decent.

Unfortunately, these are the only "in progress" pictures I could find, but you can see there was quite a big of work to be done. There is actually a pretty good slope and I had to back fill quite a bit. Just for reference, this was May of 2010.

Now fast forward to April of 2012, the raised bed has been long finished but I never put anything in it, and it became ugly and overgrown. So this year, this was one of my "to do" items. I didn't really know what I wanted to put here, then I found out that a teacher friend at school has kids who are selling plants as an FFA project. They had several different species to choose from, but what caught my eye was lantana. I have found out that these are easy to grow in our yard. And once established they are big and fill in a large bed nicely. So that's what I decided to plant.

 These two pictures are of the bed and the lantanas all in there home. There is more than I need in this bed, I think, but once I see just how much space they will ultimately take up, I will probably move some to another area of the yard.

 We have talked it over and will add some iris's in the back. They bloom early in the spring and will provide a nice bit of color before the lantanas really show off. Then, the iris's will be done for the summer. We will also put some low growing plants in the front.

Here is a nice close up of one of them.