It’s so simple, but I really enjoy this collection of potted plants on my back steps. I can see them from my bedroom and living room windows, and they’re a focal point when sitting outside on the upper patio. I just chose single plants to pot up in a few colorful pots, balanced by several terracotta pots — and they’re all attractive foliage plants that appreciate bright shade.

Purple oxalis (Oxalis triangularis) anchors the group in the tall turquoise pot. From the top step moving down, there’s a ‘Sticks on Fire’ euphorbia, variegated Agave desmettiana, a stripey passalong yucca from Diana/Sharing Nature’s Garden (possibly Yucca aloifolia variegata), Aloe brevifolia, Agave desmettiana ‘Joe Hoak’ (a passalong from Bob/Central Texas Gardening), and ‘Bloodspot’ mangave.

In a square terrazzo pot set in a planting bed, a nearly black ‘Burgundy Ice’ dyckia is brightened by a waterfall of silver ponyfoot (Dichondra argentea) spilling over the edge and rooting into the soil.

The silver is picked up nearby in the stock-tank planter that’s home to an Agave weberi ‘Arizona Star’ and Yucca rostrata ‘Sapphire Skies’. Behind those leans an ‘Alphonse Karr’ bamboo. Just visible at right is a variegated Agave americana in a pot. And in front of all is a rapidly growing clump of ‘Bright Edge’ yucca. Yep, this has become a spiky, variegated ghetto.

Another of my favorite yuccas is Y. filamentosa ‘Color Guard’, which looks great with anything and grows well in much colder climates than mine (up to zone 4, according to Plant Delights). Here it’s softened with bamboo muhly grass (Muhlenbergia dumosa) and more silver ponyfoot.

Please join me in posting about your lovely leaves of June for Foliage Follow-Up, a way to remind ourselves of the importance of foliage in the garden on the day after Bloom Day. Leave your link to your Foliage Follow-Up post in a comment. I really appreciate it if you’ll also include a link to this post in your own post (sharing link love!). If you can’t post so soon after Bloom Day, no worries. Just leave your link when you get to it.

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By the way, if you follow me on Facebook (and if not, I hope you will), I’m folding my two separate pages — Digging and Lawn Alternatives — into a new Facebook page called, ahem, Pam Penick. Please “Like” my page to enjoy photos of beautiful gardens and lawn alternatives, get notifications of my blog posts and upcoming talks, and just hang out with me and talk plants! I hope to see you there!

Speaking of garden talks, I’ll be in San Antonio on Monday at noon to give a free talk at the San Antonio Garden Center about losing the lawn and gaining a waterwise landscape or beautiful garden. Lawn Gone! book-signing afterward. Please join me! P.S. If that’s during your work day, just bring a bag lunch and come on out.
Where: 3310 N. New Braunfels, San Antonio, TX (adjacent to the San Antonio Botanical Garden)
What: Essentials of Gardening class, hosted by the Gardening Volunteers of South Texas

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

I’m discovering the joy of growing cactus, not just for the plants’ unique shapes and light-catching spines, but for their stunning flowers as well. Their flowering may be brief — generally just a day or two, so you don’t want to miss it — but what they lack in duration they make up for in beauty.

With oversized flowers, this cactus looks like it’s wearing a hat worthy of a royal wedding.

This week my misshapen little ball cactus bloomed too. Hey, do the flowers always match the coloring of the spines? I just noticed that.

It always amazes me that such prickly, inhospitable plants can produce such stunning flowers.

For Bloom Day, here are a couple of other scenes from my garden right now: ‘Colorado’ water lilies in bloom in the stock-tank pond…

…and purple coneflowers in bloom wherever their seeds have taken root.

For more Bloom Day posts, visit meme hostess Carol at May Dreams Gardens. And remember, it’s Foliage Follow-Up tomorrow!

_____________________
By the way, if you follow me on Facebook (and if not, I hope you will), I’m folding my two separate pages — Digging and Lawn Alternatives — into a new Facebook page called, ahem, Pam Penick. Please “Like” my page to enjoy photos of beautiful gardens and lawn alternatives, get notifications of my blog posts and upcoming talks, and just hang out with me and talk plants! I hope to see you there!

Speaking of garden talks, I’ll be in San Antonio next Monday at noon to give a free talk at the San Antonio Garden Center about losing the lawn and gaining a waterwise landscape or beautiful garden. Lawn Gone! book-signing afterward. Please join me! P.S. If that’s during your work day, just bring a bag lunch and come on out.
Where: 3310 N. New Braunfels, San Antonio, TX (adjacent to the San Antonio Botanical Garden)
What: Essentials of Gardening class, hosted by the Gardening Volunteers of South Texas

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Santa Barbara’s 23rd annual I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival was held Memorial Day weekend on the plaza in front of the Old Mission. We stopped by on that Monday to see both. A crowd was gathering under bright-blue skies to watch the artists — the madonnari — put the finishing touches on their chalk drawings.

Some of the artists had set up colorful umbrellas for shade as they drew.

Others relied on broad-brimmed hats. Either way, this can’t be easy on the knees or back.

The large-scale drawings were amazing. I liked this one, in the style of an old travel poster…

…and this one’s vivid color.

And check out the illusion of 3-dimensionality in this one — incredible! To orient yourself to reality, look for the feet of passers-by in the top of the photo.

An artist’s palette

After admiring the pictures we toured the Old Mission. “Old” is relative in our young country, but the Spanish missions really are old. This one was founded in 1786, and a community of Franciscan friars still live here.

Of course, while a few original walls have been preserved, much of the structure has been reconstructed over the years, like the beautiful golden chapel, which was rebuilt after the great earthquake of 1812 destroyed it.

A large courtyard garden, maintained by volunteers, is fun to explore.

Architectural plants complement the architecture.

This kind of encapsulates Santa Barbara for me: palm, blue skies, and Spanish-style architecture.

The Franciscans provide an opportunity for a little lighthearted fun outside the mission.

Next we visited the historic Santa Barbara County Courthouse. Constructed in 1926, the courthouse is a big tourist attraction and no wonder. Check out the stunning Mural Room, which hundreds of couples a year book for their wedding ceremonies.

According to the website, “The murals depict scenes from California’s history from the native Indians to the construction of the Mission. The murals along the window wall depict renderings of leading industries, agriculture, minerals and live stock.” The ceiling is beautifully hand-stenciled.

Exploring the echoing, high-ceiling hallways, we discovered that the building is fully open to the outdoors! Inconceivable in Austin’s muggy, buggy climate, we marveled over the open-air design, seen here where a spiral stair leads up to the second floor. Sparrows and other birds, we noticed, had made themselves at home in the hallways and atria.

Walls throughout the courthouse are beautifully stenciled. I neglected to get a picture of the tile work along the staircases, but it’s well worth a look.

A bell tower is accessible via a narrow stair (or elevator partway up), and thanks to a plexiglass window, if you visit on the hour you can watch the bells ring to mark the time. We went all the way up to the viewing platform at the top and enjoyed 360-degree views of Santa Barbara’s tiled rooftops and ocean and mountain scenery. That’s the Pacific Ocean in the distance…

…and the Santa Ynez Mountains over my husband’s shoulder.

I can’t conclude my posts about Santa Barbara without showing you a jacaranda tree in full, purple bloom. I’ve been enamored of these tropical trees since visiting San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, a number of years ago. Santa Barbara’s picturesque streets were littered with purple petals as the jacarandas peaked over Memorial Day weekend. What a lovely place to visit, with plenty of natural beauty, exotic and native gardens, and ocean and mountain views.

_____________________
By the way, if you follow me on Facebook (and if not, I hope you will), I’m folding my two separate pages — Digging and Lawn Alternatives — into a new Facebook page called, ahem, Pam Penick. Please “Like” my page to enjoy photos of beautiful gardens and lawn alternatives, get notifications of my blog posts and upcoming talks, and just hang out with me and talk plants! I hope to see you there!

Speaking of garden talks, I’ll be in San Antonio next Monday at noon to give a free talk at the San Antonio Garden Center about losing the lawn and gaining a waterwise landscape or beautiful garden. Lawn Gone! book-signing afterward. Please join me! P.S. If that’s during your work day, just bring a bag lunch and come on out.
Where: 3310 N. New Braunfels, San Antonio, TX (adjacent to the San Antonio Botanical Garden)
What: Essentials of Gardening class, hosted by the Gardening Volunteers of South Texas

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.