A Gardening Sob Story

My Three Rivers Yard

When we lived in South Texas, I had a great garden all around my house. The front yard was filled with all sorts of herbs, flowering plants, and native plants. We had more flowering plants on the sides of our house, and in the back yard I had a big vegetable garden. The only gardening problem I had in South Texas was the fact that bugs would eat up much of my summer vegetables. That was fine. I just did most of my vegetable gardening for the other nine months of the year!

Then we moved to the ranch here in San Saba County eight years ago and I have not been able to get my gardening mojo back. The drought we have been in for the past few years has not helped a bit. I have planted lots and lots of seeds, plants, shrubs, cacti, and trees over the past eight years and only a fraction of them have survived.

On the vegetable front, I have tried raised beds in several configurations. Sometimes the plants will come on strong in the beginning, then suddenly dry up and die. Sometimes a swarm of one kind of insect or another will come along and make a meal of my plants. Sometimes cows get ahold of whatever I have planted. I have had some luck with flowering plants, but nothing lasts for long. Sometimes the summer heat and drought will burn up everything, and other times we will get a ridiculously cold winter that will kill what was supposed to have been cold-hardy.

We have done some remodeling around our house over the years and have had fill dirt brought in twice. Apparently the fill we got is mostly clay. I have discovered that clay soil and drought-tolerant plants do not mix well. The rosemary I planted in the clay is doing fine, and finally one antique rose is going to pull through—oh, and the plants labeled “Spanish Broom” are doing very, very well in my clay-filled spots.

Finally my husband grew tired of looking at one of the crusted-over clay spots and decided he would turn it into a sort of desert garden. We spent most of the weekend putting down weed blocker and spreading large river stone gravel over the area. The plan is to dig large holes in the clay until we reach the sandy soil below, then fill it with a good soil mix for our plants. So far we have put in more prostrate rosemary, some blackfoot daisies, santolina, and a four-nerve daisy. I have an assortment of agaves with pups to contribute to the project, a huge cholla we are trying to figure out how to transplant, and we are on the search for a desert willow.

A Good Year at the
Ranch (Pre-drought)

Meanwhile, closer to the house, after having no luck with trying to grow pretty flowers in the various pots (drought, heat, turkeys pulling things up by the roots, chickens eating everything) I am trying the Southern California way. As much as I did not enjoy the big picture of Los Angeles, I loved the landscaping and container gardening I saw there. I especially loved the containers planted in various shapes and colors of succulents. Recently, I found an assortment of succulents at Home Depot so I brought them home, planted them all, and stood back to see what the chickens would do. I can see that they have sampled some of them but they apparently find them to be unpalatable (YAY!).

If anyone knows of any kind of gardening demon exorcism I can do or has a suggestion on how to (safely) transplant that monster cholla, please let me know. Meanwhile, if you have beautiful roses or vegetables, you will likely see me lurking about, admiring your gardening mojo! I will put this on my blog (springcreekartsguild.blogspot.com) along with some photos of past glory and present failure for your entertainment!