A visitor

So this fella paid us a visit yesterday. He seemed very comfortable on top of the fence, walked up and down a bit, looked around etc.

From my "Birds of Texas" book we have decided it's a 'Cooper's Hawk'.

How lovely :)

Is it hot?

Yes. Yes it is. For our celsius friends out there, 110.5 is basically 44C. It has been over 100 for the past week, but 110 was a new one :)

The garden is starting to suffer a little with the heat. We had rain yesterday but that was first in 3 weeks. My new Texas Star Hibiscus celebrated the rain by flowering today!! They are going great guns at the moment and have shot up 3 feet since they were planted.

The "water garden" although a little dry, is filling in nicely.

I first saw these flowers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center (near Austin) while on a visit with English Mum and Dad. I found 2 plants locally and though they didn't look to be doing much except dying, they have come into their own lately. The flowers close at night.

So, for a while we have had a mystery plant growing in the compost bin. As many of you know, I am not very good at killing things so I let this one grow, just to see what it was. Well, when we got back from our road trip, the little plant had grown 4 feet, flowered and has fruit! After looking through every garden book we have and some extensive google research, we are the proud owners of a papaya plant!! :)
There is no hiding it from MM anymore ...

Hurricane Season 2010 - Alex

We have the first named storm - Alex - in the Gulf of Mexico. At the moment all the forcast models show it crossing land well to the south west of us between Corpus Christi and the Mexico Border.

We will not be out of the storms reach however. Predictions are for between 3-12 inches of rain with high winds.

Time to test out the new drainage and water garden we finished!

We have a pergola

So we went against the suggestion of gargoyles (thanks Canavan) for the trim on the poles and we're really happy with this less chunky version.

The furniture fits nicely underneath and the BGE finally has a permanent home!

There's still a couple of little things to be done - some work on the sprinklers (they spray all over the new patio!), some grading and maybe another flower bed. You can never have to many :D

A new garden bed

One of the conditions of the pergola permit was for us to put in plants along the fence between us our next door neighbour. Apparently it's for privacy but unless they're standing on their a/c unit, they can't be bothered by us BUT we who are we to argue!

Here are the plants I picked out. This part of the yard is a low spot and can get very very wet. After a big storm it's not unusual for it to get an inch of standing water so all these plants are "water garden" or bog garden rated and are natives for our area. They are a mix of turk's cap, louisiana iris, swamp iris, canna lily, texas star hibiscus and strawberry bush.

And let the digging begin!

And after we dug in some compost and soil, the plants went in. We've covered the beds in some mulch to help keep the weeds down and give them some definition.
The rock in between the beds is over the existing french (aggie) drain. We also moved the bird bath to this area because it wont matter if it drips water all over the place!

Fingers crossed they all survive. :D

More progress

The focus of yesterday was the electrical. We have a line going from the existing outdoor outlet, under the ground the back, left and side post. It come out there with another outlet and switch for the fan then runs up the pole and along the top to the fan. Looks pretty good :)

The forms were also done ready for the concrete. All the hard stuff is nearly done!

A pergola update

It's amazing what 2 guys can do in one day of hard work! We not only have the 4th pole in place but the beams, joists and rafters are all in place.

We're not sure about a couple of the details, like the trim pieces around the top of the posts where they meet the beams.

Any thoughts?