New leaves coming up, old leaves coming down
Spring looks a lot like fall in my garden, as this photo shows: fresh green leaves surrounded by brown live oak leaves. Live oaks stay green all winter, like an evergreen tree, but come spring they do actually drop their leaves and swiftly leaf out again. Casting off thousands (millions?) of leathery leaves, which turn brown right before they drop, live oaks make a total mess of my spring garden — and indeed my entire neighborhood and the entire city of Austin.
Yet who can begrudge the live oaks their moment to glow green with fresh new leaves, echoing all the spring growth at their feet? I’ve got volunteer Texas bluebonnets coming up in the gravel of the dry creek, washed here by last summer’s rain showers. I can’t wait to see them bloom, but their white-edged and -eyed leaves are pretty too.
The Japanese maple sports tender new chartreuse leaves, while brown live oak leaves pile up at its feet, fill the dry creek, and try to smother the recently cut-back sedges.
At least on the porch I can mostly keep the live oak leaves at bay, although I spy a few in the foxtail fern’s pot.
In the side yard, Mediterranean fan palm’s evergreen leaves neatly shed most of the live oak litter. (But wait until the pollen drop comes, snicker the live oaks.)
Grassy shoots of inland sea oats push up through the leaves, undeterred.
But — the horror! This is why we take photos of our gardens, y’all: to see what we’ve grown blind to. I seldom spend time in this stretch of the side garden, which is on the far side of the house, and yet how did I fail to notice how weedy it’s become? The liriope that’s straggling up through this entire bed was here when we moved in, but during the drought years it struggled and then disappeared. But not for good, and now it’s infiltrating my garden. I need to dig this whole area up, weed out the liriope to the roots, and replant the prickly pear, gopher plant, and Mexican feathergrass.
I need to cleanse my eyeballs after that, so here’s a peek at the pink-blooming ‘Traveller’ weeping redbud. New leaves of ‘Peter’s Purple’ monarda and ‘Katie’ ruellia are just coming up around it, and that’s a ‘Plum’ loropetalum beside it, also flowering.
‘Bright Edge’ yucca is looking stripey and stunning, as usual. Note the live oaks leaves. They are everywhere except in the trees, y’all.
The “leaves” of the bottle tree never change. I’ve been moving around various pieces of garden art this spring, and I relocated the ocotillo bottle tree to the lower garden, where it’s flanked by a quintet of upright ‘Will Fleming’ yaupon hollies. It doesn’t catch as much sunlight down here, but I like the way the bottles give color to this shady spot. ‘Tangerine Beauty’ crossvine is adding a bit of spring color as well.
This is my March post for Foliage Follow-Up. Fellow bloggers, what leafy loveliness is happening in your garden this month? Please join me in giving foliage its due on the day after Bloom Day. Leave a link to your post in a comment below. I’d appreciate it if you’ll also link to my post in your own — sharing link love! I look forward to seeing your foliage faves.
I welcome your comments; please scroll to the end of this post to leave one. If you’re reading this in a subscription email, click here to visit Digging and find the comment box at the end of each post.
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Digging Deeper: News and Upcoming Events
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Beautiful! Love the foxtail fern! I have never heard of a weeping redbud, but the regular redbuds are blooming like crazy here in MS.
Here is my link for foliage follow-up
https://leasmenagerie.blogspot.com/2018/03/foliage-sedum-march-16-2018.html
Have a wonderful week-end!
Your garden is looking like spring has just about arrived. I love your Weeping Redbud, dragonfly wall hanging and of course, your bottle tree! I always enjoy seeing the combination of plants and art that you have so perfectly placed. Here is my foliage post for March at http://landscapedesignbylee.blogspot.com/2018/03/garden-bloggers-bloom-day-foliage.html#.Wqu9t1opChA
Everything looks gorgeous to my winter-burned eyes! I don’t think I’ve ever noticed how attractive the bluebonnet leaves are. Once the flowers appear that’s all one notices. And what a great sounding combo of plants you have with that redbud. We have a large Forest Pansy variety that has one bloomed once or twice. OK with us as those flowers are really raucous. My post is featuring the tragic plants of spring! http://www.lindabrazill.com/each_little_world/2018/03/foliage-follow-up-3162018.html
We have a large Live Oak in the front yard, close to the driveway. Not only have the roots caused cracks in the driveway concrete but it is forever throwing down what seems like tons of litter of some form or another, whether it is leaves, pollen, seeds and, my favorite (NOT!), twigs and stems. There is absolutely no time of the year that does not require us to daily sweep the driveway (and a sidewalk) clear of live oak litter. I had no idea that live oaks were such a littering tree! And don’t even get me on the subject of them sending all their roots into the garden beds you have worked so hard on – an achievement in the muggy, mosquito-ridden long hot summers (around 8 months out of the year) in Houston. (Yes, hard-core gardening is good for you but I feel that every time I go outside into my garden, I risk my health with some exotic, tropical virus or disease transmitted by mosquitoes They love me – I could go outside and attract the only one within a five mile area. I do use a spray but I end up wiping it off while I am wiping off the sweat. Spraying my clothes every time doesn’t keep them from my head.).
Anyway, back to the Live Oak! The only reason we have not cut it down is that it provides unbelievable relief from the hot late afternoon sun. I protects the roof it is by from the intensity of that sun. If you are outside in the sun in summer and then step under the live oak, there is an incredible difference immediately felt. If not for the live oak, that Death Star (hahah, love your name for it!) would be sending its death rays into the kitchen windows, making the kitchen even hotter in summer. Because of it, our living room is a cool refuge from the heat. So, we deal with all the tons of litter it throws down!
But, seriously, there should be a law about a required distance that a Live Oak can be planted from a house or any concrete. To me, they are like pine trees (omg, all that pine leaf litter, not to mention the pinecones!) in that they are best left in the wild or, at best, planted on very large lots. One of the best trees ever (so gorgeous when given the room to grow naturally) but definitely one that should be planted wisely.
That was quite a tree rant, Lara. But I feel your pain where the live oaks are concerned. We need their shade, and they are beautiful, but they never stop dropping stuff or pushing up oak sprouts. —Pam
Live oak litter or free mulch? It’s all how you look at it and for lazy gardeners like myself, mulch it is! Your evergreen (everblue?) bottle tree looks great in it’s new home near the orange blooms of crossvine! Happy almost spring! My Foliage Follow-Up post is here: https://outlawgarden.blogspot.com/2018/03/march-18-foliage-follow-up.html
I always have plenty of piles of leaves still hanging around on the ground from fall that never get cleaned up by spring. Eventually they all get cleared away, but it seems to take forever because I do it pretty much by hand, seldom use a blower. I did a Foliage Followup post this month, Yay! It focuses on emerging foliage. It’s here: http://bonneylassie.blogspot.com/2018/03/foliage-followup-march-2018.html
Pam, I wonder if it wouldn’t be a worthwhile experiment to _not_ dig up your side bed with the resurgent liriope, but instead cut off the liriope and any other unwanted plant’s foliage at the soil line (and maybe add a layer of stone mulch). I’m coming off a late winter bout of reading Larry Weaner’s Garden Revolution and watching no-dig gardening videos, and have a renewed respect for soil structure and soil organisms. Being dug up and replanted is also a setback for the big plants (and real, not-fun work for you), with uncertain net benefits when you consider the soil disturbance and potential for bringing weed seeds to the surface.
Preserving soil structure and not stirring up weed seeds are two good reasons not to dig. But I think I’ll have to resort to herbicide otherwise. The liriope is too vigorous to be hand-pulled or cut off, and I don’t have the time or knees for repeatedly doing that anyway. And using gravel as mulch here tends to invite more weeds. I had hoped the drought, Death Star, and a thick layer of wood mulch would do the trick on knocking back the liriope, but it’s rallying. It’s time to go nuclear. —Pam
I really want a weeping Redbud! I just can’t decide where to put one. Do you like yours? Here is a link to my post – https://phillipoliver.blogspot.com/2018/03/foliage-follow-up-for-march.html
Yes, I love weeping redbud, Phillip. I’ve had this only about 2 years, and it’s been slow to put on any growth, but it’s doing well. I hear they can get quite large eventually. —Pam
I can’t wait to see all those lupine in bloom, Pam! As to the Liriope, best wishes! I’ve been trying to dig out some of the Liriope spicata I foolishly planted for years. (I was warned it was “vigorous.”) I love the ‘Bright Edge’ Yucca. Here’s my foliage follow-up: https://krispgarden.blogspot.com/2018/03/foliage-follow-up-standouts-and-hidden.html
I’m afraid the bluebonnets (lupine) will be mostly done by the time you’re in Austin for the Fling, but I’ll show them here at Digging, if that’s any consolation, Kris. And argh, yes, that liriope is super stubborn about giving up the ghost. If it looked good in my garden, I wouldn’t mind. But it’s straggly and half brown — ugh. —Pam
Grin, I have a few carefully nurtured clumps of variegated Liriope.
Fallen leaves from the carob, which sheds boughs, branches, twigs and leaves year round. Great thick drifts piling up in that corner, as I battle to clear them from the pond. But that tree is always filled with a variety of happy birds.
Joining FF as my from the
garden vase is all leafy.
http://eefalsebay.blogspot.co.za/2018/03/in-vase-on-monday-and-mountain-flowers.html