From 20 degrees to 80, down to 15, then back up to the 70's, all in the same month -- could anything be more bizarre than a Texas winter? Our poor plants stay in a constant state of confusion! March is the time of year when we usually get a long enough warm-spell to trick the fruit trees into blooming, but invariably, one last cold front will blow through and zap them all.
Coral Honeysuckle
This is why I suck at growning veggies. In all of my previous gardens (mostly perennials), I have taken a "survival of the fittest" attitude, which is why they always ended up being filled with so many natives. There was no spraying or dusting, no hooping or staking, no cold frames or floating row covers. If you couldn't hunker down and come back from a freeze, and thumb your nose at a few grasshoppers, you didn't deserve a place in my garden!
Damianita
I'm afraid it allowed me to become a very lazy gardener. Guess I will have to work on that fault, huh, if I ever hope to actually feed myself from this garden of mine.
Salvia greggii/Autumn Sage
In the meantime, my friend Paula said I should post pictures of all my best plants so far -- the ones that managed to pass their first survival-of-the-fittest-test, this year's "Big Freeze."
Winecup
Number one, up at the top there, is the amazing Knockout Rose. I'm not a fan of roses, which are way too finicky for my tastes, but I came home one day to find that DH had stuck this one in the worst bed on our property -- a bed that has killed everything I ever planted in it, including those two Copper Canyon Daisies (the toughest plant around!) on either side of it.
Sedum -- most of my succulents died, but not this little cutie, a great trailer/creeper!
But it hasn't killed that rose. She may not be thriving, but she's still alive and kicking! As are all the rest of these beauties, including those amazing heucheras I showed you a few days ago.
Red Yucca/Hesperaloe parviflora
So there you have it, my list of Spring Super-Troopers. The next test will be Sizzling Summer Test. We'll see who's still kicking then!
