In Texas… But Not That Kind of Ranch
I received this little sugar and creamer set from West Elm, and I really liked it, except for the bamboo tray and spoon. Or rather, did like those as well, just not in my house. I have an old teak Danish modern dining table made by Dux, which I love. This looks too… contemporary.
Passalong plants are handed from one gardener to another, and they’re my favorite kind. It generally means that they’re resilient enough to take the Texas weather and they’ll thrive enough that someone has to actually get rid of them. I can’t tell you how many hundreds of dollars I’ve lost when my expensive Japanese aralias, hostas, heuchera, and hellebores have succumbed to drought. But all of the passalongs I’ve received are doing just fine. (Except for the ferns I plucked from my aunt’s house in Houston; it’s just not humid enough for them here.)
Texas is pretty dreadful for the type of gardens I prefer, but there is one flower that likes it here: irises. I’ve been daydreaming about a pathway lined with irises for about six months now, so I devised a little trick to get some for free. This works well for anything that you’d like to get for free, actually…
Tomato plants from the feed store: $7.86
Compost and amendments to plant them in: I don’t even want to think about it.
It’s been about two years since we last successfully planted a vegetable garden. The year before last I decided to do away with conspicuous raised beds and incorporate the tomatoes and onions inteo our existing landscape. After all, the beds are full of expensive organic compost, so it should work. And it should be very French, on top of it. It didn’t work. Nor did it look at all French.