Fred and the mockingbirds

We have lots of birds around the nursery. I love watching and listening to the mockingbirds - so named because they mimic the calls of other birds. Several years ago we had a resident mockingbird who had the sound of tree frogs in his repertoire. It took us a while to recognize it, but it was definitely a "frog song", not a bird song he was imitating.
The mockingbirds are searching for a place to nest. They thought the bald cypress behind out office, which is still bald from winter, looked promising. Fred, our fat orange cat, was checking out the same tree. When he saw the birds in the bare branches, he took off up that tree. We didn't think he could move that fast.

Mockingbirds are large and aggressive and not frightened of a big orange cat. They chattered, swooped, and kept out of his way. By the time Fred gave up, he was at least 20 feet high in the tree.

We called to him that we wouldn't help him down and the local VFD did not make cat rescues, so he finally made his way down to the ground. The birds continued to call at him and are on the lookout for him now, dive-bombing him whenever he is anywhere near them.

As I write this there is a chickadee on our porch checking out the top of light for a possible nesting sight.

East Texas in Spring

East Texas is gorgeous in the spring. So many native trees and shrubs are in bloom along with the garden plants in many yards. Mary and I and our wonderful employees really enjoy this time of year. Nursery people are usually plant crazy and I know we all are. It's fun to stock the nursery with all our beautiful plants and to shop for the ones we don't grow ourselves. Every day is like Christmas with new things arriving and something different coming into bloom.

It seems warmer, earlier to me this year but the weather in Texas is always a surprise.  

Quickly now everything is greening up. The flower buds on many of the deciduous shrubs are swelling.

Visit to Antique Rose Emporium

Yesterday I drove down to Round Top to deliver plants for the Festival Hill Herbal Forum. On the way home I stopped at Antique Rose Emporium, one of my favorite places to visit. We modeled our nursery on their layout: natural gardens surrounding the sales area.

The look there was still early spring; plants were small and perennials were not up yet. But they had lots of roses and things were greening up.
One thing that struck me is how different our nurseries look. I think it is the fact that Blue Moon Gardens is owned by women and Antique Rose Emporium is owned by a man. There they have lots of massive structure.

Pergolas, arbors, trellises, all on a large scale.

I love this structure pictured below. It is ropes from ships. They are at least 3 inches in diameter, maybe more, hung like swags between cedar posts the size of telephone poles.

We would love to have these types of structures but we don't handle the construction process well. We don't want to have to supervise and we do not like the noise, dust and mess of construction. So we keep it simple and add more gardens, which we maintain better.

If you have never visited Antique Rose Emporium in Independence, TX you should take the time. It is just north of Brenham, where you can tour the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory while you are there.

cool new flowers

As you know if you have visited the nursery, we love plants! We like to try new plants to see how they work in our climate. We just love getting in unusual and beautiful things to sell (and buy for ourselves). Here are cool new things we got in this week.

Here is a lovely flowering shrub, Pieris, paired with
a tender ornamental grass, Pennisetum 'Fireworks'.

These petunias are so dark purple they appear black. The striped one is named 'phantom' but we thought a better name would be 'harlequin' or 'Mardi Gras'. No matter what the name, we thought it was very interesting.

Hanging baskets are available now. Growers are doing wonderful combinations these days. Here is a mix we thought was fabulous. A sort of coral-colored petunia that we don't know the name of mixed with 'Tequila sunrise' million bells and burgundy verbena. It should bloom all summer long. Mary had to take one home to decorate her porch.

New plants

We just love this time of year, even though it wears us out. Trucks come in every day bringing new things.

We unloaded 8 plant trucks this week so we have acres of shrubs and flowers now.
Here are some of the beautiful new things we got in.

It seems it is nearly dusk when I stop long enough to take pictures. The Tulip Magnolia is just about to burst into color. We are supposed to have a frost tomorrow night (Wednesday night) so we hope it doesn't get nipped. Some years it does get caught. We don't know the variety but the blooms are huge and fragrant. It seems to flower a little bit later than some. Over the 15 years it has been planted, it has become a beautifully shaped tree that we find attractive year-round.

It is amazing how the nursery looked like winter last week and now spring has greened everything up. Each

year is so different and spring is happening very fast this year. The tulip tree will be open this weekend and  the wild pears up and down the highway are in full bloom. It's lovely.

 

Our first shrub shipment comes tomorrow and we are like children at Christmas. It's hard work to unload and place everything but we get so excited about deliveries. It's fun to see what we ordered and how it looks. Decorating with it is great too.