We are drawing near to the end of the spring veggie season. Night time temperatures are routinely at or above 75 degrees. Almost all veggies stop blooming and/or stop setting fruit. The beans were getting very stringy so I'm cutting them down but leaving their leaves as mulch in the beds. Beans add nutrition to the soil. Once I cut down and clean out the beds I'm adding a inch or so of compost from our very own compost beds. I'll let the beds sit for a month so they are ready for fall planting in August. The tomatoes are going out this week and so are the cucumbers mostly because we are going to be traveling the whole month of July. I'm leaving the eggplant and peppers. My experience is that they revive in October once the night time temperatures cool down. Thank goodness for drip on a timer!
Our first Moy Grande Hibiscus blooms of the year. This is a Texas superstar that blooms all through the summer and fall. It freezes back in the winter but revives even bigger each year. We have two plants that are now in their third season and are a nice size shrubs. It took the longest time for my third plant which I planted in March to sprout. Don't give up if it takes them awhile to revive in the spring. They are waiting for the soil to warm up. They do best in full sun. Mine are doing fine with six hours of sun, mostly from the East. I wish all my yard had an eastern exposure for full sun.
Moy Grande Hibiscus are the largest flowering hibiscus in the world. They were developed by our very own Dr. Moy at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens. Dr. Moy died this past year. He had quite the life and lived under very repressive conditions in China before immigrating to the US. He had a long career at the botanical gardens and was responsible for developing many plants that do well in our climate.
I don't advocate having a goal for perfect grass--but this year I can brag that we do. Of course 10 inches of rain in the last month helps. We also fertilize around May 1 and November 1. Every year we spread top dressing in February. That's it except for every other winter using the mantas tiller to cut up the thatch and air the yard. Joe is careful about mowing at 3 inch height and trimming the edges manually with a clipper.
Foliage can be as beautiful as flowers. Here we have red & green calidums, green lirope , purple and green sweet potato vine, green cast iron plant and multi-colored coleus.
Triple beauty!
Yeah for volunteer plants. They are free! Mexican buttercups, purple sweet potato vine, cora vinca, mexican petunias and ..... lots of oak tree roots as ground cover.
