In lieu of...

My own posts, check out the Houston Chronicle's growing gardening community:

• The Lazy Gardener--Brenda Beust Smith's blog (http://blogs.chron.com/lazygardener/)
• Garden Scheduler--BBBS's other blog (http://blogs.chron.com/gardenscheduler/)
• Gardening tips--Readers' blog (http://www.chron.com/commons/readerblogs/gardeningtips.html)
• Gardening forum

And more to come.

Mercer Garden Faire.

Mercer Arboretum & Botanic Gardens will host a garden faire next weekend, sept. 23-24. (via K. Huber)

Speaking Latin.

Those Latin plant names give growers fits

Yard Sprout.

this is about as close to gardening as i get these days--taking pictures of the baby outside. grass needs mowing (darin will do that), but it's remarkably green for late august. i think we've only watered twice this summer, and that was back in june.

to make this post at least a little about gardening, i'll note that among the background greenery, you can see a pineapple (far left), russelia equisetiformis (firecracker plant, orange flowers) and tecoma stans (yellow bells, woody plant on the right). all three are plants we've propagated ourselves. the pineapple from a grocery store pineapple top; the other two from cuttings.

in addition to being cheap/free, i'll also praise these plants for how well they've stood up to the extended period of neglect. i'd be happier with the yellow bells if it weren't so tall, but that's a minor complaint that's easily remedied. (note to self: ask darin to cut back the yellow bells this winter.)

Technorati tags: pineapple, firecracker plant, yellow bells, baby

Looking Back.

i have little (read, no) time for gardening and blogging these days, but i did enjoy participating in Kathy Purdy's excellent (multipart!) garden blogging retrospective over at Cold Climate Gardening. she'll be publishing several more installments in the coming days--don't miss them!

Technorati tags: garden blog

For the Birds.

ages and ages ago, darin brought me a bird pepper (capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum). the poor thing has been mostly forgotten in a pot on the deck for the past two-and-a-half years, but has, nonetheless, survived, if not thrived.

but at least someone appreciates this woeful pepper plant. earlier this morning, as i was carrying the sprout around the yard (and trying to herd one of the cats back inside), a mockingbird flew down to dine on the ripe peppers! thanks to our unseasonably warm spring, there are many, many more peppers to ripen for the birds, so i'll keep my eyes open and maybe get a picture one day.

Technorati tags: pepper, chile, mockingbird

Indian Summer.

what is the springtime-equivalent of indian summer?

a front came through the houston area tuesday night, dropping some much-needed rain and the unseasonably-high temperature. it obviously won't last long, but in the meantime, the respite from a too-early summer is greatly appreciated.

Green Space.

over the last few months the houston chronicle has been introducing various reader blogs. among the most recent is green space--a reader blog about gardening. so, given the sporadic posting here, i suggest checking them out!

the two authors can also be read at cybertoad's garden and garden obsession.

now, if only the chronicle's garden editor, kathy huber, had a blog...

This is not a Pregnancy/Baby Blog.

i promise. however, since i did just spend the last nine months pregnant, i'll briefly expound on the topic of gardening in that state.

in short, forget it. my first four months (mid-june through mid-september) coincided with the height of houston's summer. it's hard enough gardening without being perpetually exhausted and mildly nauseated; add stifling heat and humidity and just thinking about being outside was enough to send me to bed. thus nothing was accomplished outside last summer.

after about mid-september our weather generally becomes more pleasant, sometimes downright delightful. and i should have been experiencing that "second trimester" energy burst. cruel myth; didn't happen. i certainly felt a little better, but it was about all i could do to get through the day at work. by the time i came home i just wanted to sleep. and sleep was generally all i did on the weekends.

as usual, we had some wonderful early spring weather this year (say, late january and february), and i did want to get out and work in the yard, especially since it looked so dreadful. but add to the ongoing exhaustion an inability to bend over and breathe at the same time, and, well, no gardening for me.

despite my grumbling about not being able to garden, i really did have a relatively easy pregnancy. it's just that when you start adding a lot of weight--my weight gain was about 28% over my normal weight--in a relatively short period of time, and much of that weight is another little being trying to displace all your internal organs, it gets very hard and very uncomfortable to do much of anything. one of the first things i noticed after the sprout was born (besides the fact that she was absolutely adorable and not at all squinched up and wrinkly like some newborns) was that i could inhale again!

so now that the sprout has arrived, why haven't i done any gardening? she's four weeks old today, but, as with all infants (or so i'm told), she pretty much determines my schedule and my activities. and it comes down to feed the baby, change the baby's diaper, sleep with the baby, repeat. oh well, she'll be ready to help dig in the dirt (eat the dirt, more likely) soon enough.

Our Springtime Sprout.

i haven't forgotten the blog, i've just been preoccupied with a different "project."

on march 16, darin and i welcomed the arrival of our first child, an adorable little girl. (i'll be referring to her as "the sprout" in a probably futile effort to keep her name off the web for a while.) the three of us are still settling into our new roles, and for the most part she's a very agreeable baby. darin is disappointed, however, that she isn't quite ready to mow the yard.

needless to say, plants and yard have suffered a fair amount of neglect, and that will likely continue for the forseeable future. i do hope to find time to at least post the occasional update on what plants can survive this new, heightened level of neglect.