This is apple country.

A few weeks ago, we finally got to visit Apple Country Orchards.  Situated right off the road a few miles east of Idalou, I'd seen these orchards dozens of times driving the long stretch of 114 to Dallas.  Each time I passed it, the trees blossoming or sleeping empty with the season, I wanted to stop and explore.  I finally got my chance.

The 6,000 tree orchard is run by Cal Brints, who knew I was coming.  We ate a BBQ lunch with tart potato salad, smoky baked beans, and - you guessed it - homemade apple pie.  I had lots of questions for Cal, the first of which was, "What is the name of your dog?"  "Red," he said.

The apples in our country are some of the sweetest in the nation, he explained.  The constant sun concentrates the sugars in the apples, making them very, very good.  It was 100 degrees the day we went.

The weekend we visited, Cal was working on de-fruiting the trees.  All the trees we saw were thick with budding fruit.  Too much fruit means not enough room for the fruit to grow.

Since picking season hadn't started yet, I settled for their apple butter and fresh cotton blossom honey.  Choosing from all their canned goods was hard!

Red Yucca

 In "Gardens of Sand and Cactus," Walt McDonald's subject watches his wife transform "this desert we call home into ... / wind chimes and swings, bird feeders in every tree."  She salvages bone, rusted wire, stones, and broken salt blocks from the landscape and transforms them into "artwork" for her desert garden.  Visiting my great aunt and uncle's farm near the canyon, I was amazed as a child by the pieces of wrought iron and rusted sheet metal dotting their land.  They had a vegetable garden and lots of crepe myrtle bushes that bloomed pink from tiny green pods all summer, and castaway materials, including old farm equipment, broken pottery, and forgotten cinderblock made their outdoor space interesting and useful. To some people, such a garden, staccato with drought-happy plants and a lack of delicate blooms, wouldn't be a garden at all.  But I have to disagree!  There is beauty in such a pragmatic space - one that I slowly find myself trying to recreate in my own small garden.

Beautiful cactus and succulent garden from the Zilker Botanical Garden

This year, I planted bright purple celosia.  An annual, it won't come back again next year, something I am rethinking as I try to make the most from a waterless, hot climate.  The dusty miller, with its silvery leaves, and a hardy lantana did come back this spring, so I planted more of it.  The best prize this spring?  Two red yuccas that I will plant this weekend in my front beds.  Not a true yucca, hesperaloe parviflora is actually in the lily family.  Drought-resistant, it attracts hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees with its salmon-colored blooming stalks and thrives in the heat.  Other plants that go well with red yucca include Russian sage, salvia, agastache, echinacea, allium, and lavender.  I hope to slowly add these to my front gardens so that eventually I have a xeric space that unobtrusively fits into this landscape.  What do you wish you could add to your garden?