Changing Out the Beds

We have begun changing out our color beds. These are the beds that always contain annual or seasonal color. This means that at the end of each season we the color starts to die or fade and replace it with new color appropriate for the season. We are now pulling our summer plants and putting in winter/spring plantings. In the past I have used pansies or violas with tulips or daffodils in all our color beds during winter and spring. Pansies and violas are beautiful but they are incredibly labor intensive with several different fungi and aphids they require lots of chemicals to keep them looking good through the entire season. So this year am planting some other cool season annuals in beds where I can get away with it. These would be less prominent beds on campus. Yesterday we installed 'Coronation Cherry Magic' Dianthus, 'Bright Lights' Swiss Chard, Giant Red Mustard, and yellow snapdragons. We will begin planting the bulbs and violas after Thanksgiving.

Planting Dianthus.

Planting Giant Red Mustard

Eventually I will do a blog on tailgating. There is a lot of preparation and even more destruction. The rye grass takes the hardest hit.

Bench pulverized during last weekend's tailgate.

Bobby watering in the snaps.

Pulling up the asparagus fern. We will pot these up and save them for next year.

Asparagus fern is a great plant. I would use it in all my summer beds if I could get away with it. It will take full sun and shade so it works great in beds that get both. It requires no special attention and doesn't need lots of water. It goes dormant in the winter so we have to pull it out of our color beds but I save and plant it again in the spring. It makes a great plant to border large, tropical plants like canna.

Ek and Rosebel

Jose tilling the bed before we lay out the plants.

Jose laying out the Dianthus.

Hanging Christmas lights at Dallas Hall.

Installing Christmas lights

Christmas lights

Blowing leaves for Bush's visit last week.

Leaves!!!! It Has Begun.

The leaves started falling fast and furious last week as if a switch was flippled. Usually leaf fall starts slowly and gradually builds but this year almost every tree seemed to start dropping it's leaves at the same time. We will begin cleaning leaves now and will finish in May right before graduation. Our leaf removal season is so long because the live oaks whose canopies cover our campus will drop leaves all spring. They start losing leaves around the time most deciduous trees stop. We have to remove leaves daily to keep on top of it. We put all our leaves in the a dumpster that is trucked away to a giant compost pile. You will have the pleasure of seeing many leaf removal pictures in the next six months.

Yellow leaves on redbuds

Rosebel removing red oak leaves from Blanton's entrance.

Bright red, orange, and yellow leaves from a Bradford pear.

Abraham's pile of Chinese pistache leaves at Hughes Trigg

Rosebel and Ek blowing leaves into a pile.

Rosebel

Leaving Mrs. Bairds

Cleaning up tissue paper from the homecoming floats at Mrs. Bairds. Blowing little pieces of tissue paper in the wind ain't easy. I had dust all over my face, body, and in my mouth.

Joel and Roberto blowing tissue paper.

Getting the billy goat off the truck.

Roberto blowing tissue paper. Most of it blew under the fence and onto the service road. As Roberto said most of the paper is probably blowing around downtown now.

Well Oiled Machine

My crew is absolutely amazing. Here is a look at just some of what they accomplished before 10:00 this morning. This Saturday is homecoming so we are scrambling to get campus ready for all the tailgaters to destroy it. I have also posted some pictures of what looks good right now.

Belinda's Dream Rose. This is a tough rose. It requires very little special attention and it smells amazing.

Red bor and asparagus fern.

This pot continues to look good into Novermber. It contains Philodendron, dragonwing begonias, and asparagus fern.

The large containers also look good into the fall. They contain cannas, coleus, verbena and lantana.

Crape myrtles red with vibrant fall color.

The Earthkind rose 'Belinda's Dream'.

Joel raking mulch off of the roses.

Iceland poppies loaded up and ready to be taken out on campus.

Simon blowing at the stadium.

Simon pulling weeds from cracks.

Planting Winter Bor Kale

Planting, planting, planting

Planted kale at the mustang sculpture.

Roberto watering newly planted English daisies.

Pete blowing leaves at the Faculty Club.

Fall Color

It is a beautiful fall day. The trees are getting their fall color. I think the leaves are more vivid than they have been in years. From all the rain perhaps? Cool nights, warm days? I'm not sure why but they are beautiful. The red oaks are showing more color than they have in the past several years too.

All these trees are Chinese Pistache. The one in the middle is an early bloomer. I guess she just could wait.

'Regal Mist' Gulf Coast Muhly Grass

Dallas Hall hidden by the trees.

Falling caladiums are a sure sign of fall.

Rosemary 'Prostratus' growing over the side of a planter. These are about 3 years old.

New path for foot traffic that was cutting through the grass.

Sigala and Torres

White Star Zinnias

Acanthus coming back now that it's cool.

Valentine antique roses

Valentine roses bloom in a large cluster.

Sea Foam antique rose

Red Drift rose in a pot.

Abraham's roses. He gives these guys a lot of tlc so they bloom three times a year.

Our new bike racks at Dedman sports.

Dwarf Pampus grass and aster

Black pearl ornamental pepper

Red oak turning red!

Yellow Chinese pistache trees.

Red bud trees turning yellow and dropping their leaves.

Sugar Maples