Garden Girl

green & white summertime

thanks to spacialist Mr. Garden Girl

Click the pic for more images of  the choked oak.

The house (now gone) that was next door had its front deck built around a live oak that then grew into the deck. When I got a dude from They Might Be Monkeys out to look at my trees, he spotted this & exclaimed that he wished he had a camera since he was doing a presentation on *the stupidest things done to trees*.
I offered to take some shots for him of this live oak. (Ever see the x rays of the guy who survived a railroad spike thru his head or some such? This reminds me of that. )

All yesterday I was pleading with the clouds, “open up, let it go… slow at first please or it’ll all be wasted as run off…”
& lo, for once the contrarian CenTex weather god took pity on gardeners.
We sure could use more tho…
*looks up hopefully*.
I saw a cotton tail on my way to get the mail yesterday & we smelled a skunk last night. Where they are finding food, I don’t know, but the bunny looked sleek enough.
Bunnies & skunks & coyotes , oh my… & I wonder how long this little bit of quasi country will stay country.
They are already talking about a Central Market for Pflugerville (for those of you readers who don’t have Central Market yet– they are a competitor with Whole Foods). It’s a sure sign of the sooner rather than later gentrification of Pflugerville (soon to be the Pfluger neighborhood of NE Austin, I bet).
I have mixed feelings about this.
It’s unavoidable– the toll road, the cost of gas, the booming population of the CenTex corridor & the fact that Pflugerville is closer to Austin than Round Rock is, all just mean development.
& hey, I can’t bark too loudly since I’ll be at Central Market myself in future picking up whatever I didn’t get from my Greenling order that week.
Also, I still believe the more dense walkable neighborhoods connected to city hubs by public transit we have, the less energy we’ll use & the more undeveloped land outside of urban areas we can keep somewhat un-messed up– which is good for birds, bees & watersheds & so is good for us.
Still there’s something I’ll miss about what’s been preserved ’til now of Pflugerville’s unique character that makes it not Austin & certainly not urban.

Oh & speaking of public transit & human friendly cities, here’s two links that made me smile today:

http://www.carectomy.com/index.php/Train/All-Aboard-the-Train-that-Never-Stops

http://www.carectomy.com/index.php/Urban-Planning/Portlands-Depaving-Day

Red, White & Grew - Victory Gardens and More!: This Letter Came in the Mail Last Week

City of Austin - Austin Climate Protection Program

Tags: gardengirl

Congressman Earl Blumenauer is my kinda guy

Bicycle Friendly: Commuting with a Congressman : NPR

Since I’ve made a commitment to myself to buy second hand whenever possible, if I must buy at all, this makes me very very happy. If you don’t know about *Savers* stores for second hand wearables & small appliances, you may wish to check out their site & see if there’s a *Savers* near you:

Welcome to Savers

More good news.

I’m happy to learn that oak galls are not that harmful to the trees:
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/IN022

I’ll be happier come Fall when I can get the dead wood pruned & the trees inspected tho.

aaaaaaaaaaaaand… the peach that was showing no signs of life & even had some withered branches? It’s sprouting leaves & new growth, and it’s become the favorite hang out for the baby cicada killers from the nest on my front deck. It must have just wanted more heat & dryness. Plants can be tenacious, for sure & they’ll surprise you, if only you can find what each individual plant needs. There’s some good life lessons for all of us