Garden tour season in central Texas kicked off last Saturday with the annual Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour, which this year featured five Austin gardens in which native plants play a predominant role. I toured with three other bloggers — Cat from The Whimsical Gardener, Shirley from San Antonio’s Rock-Oak-Deer, and David from Albuquerque’s The Desert Edge — and if you check out their blogs you may get additional perspectives on the gardens I’ll be posting about this week.

We began the tour with the Kathy Cove Garden, a remodeled property in south Austin’s Barton Hills neighborhood. Perched on the edge of a canyon overlooking the Barton Creek greenbelt, the home and garden enjoy spectacular views of both the greenbelt and downtown Austin. The front garden, as you see, is still a work-in-progress, with rock work by Environmental Survey Consulting in place and just a few plants situated.

A vibrant clump of standing cypress (Ipomopsis rubra) captured attention out front.

Moving around to the back garden, you pass this monumental sculpture, which looked vaguely Mayan to me.

Picking your way down a rugged limestone stair, you pass a teak hot tub nestled alongside limestone boulders and the entrance to a mid-level deck that stretches along the back of the house. Continuing to the bottom of the stone steps leads you to…

…a beautiful swimming pool surrounded by a pieced-limestone pool deck. Check out that view of the greenbelt.

You’d never know this home is 10 minutes from Zilker Park and downtown Austin.

The tightly fitted rock work is a trademark look by Environmental Survey Consulting that we saw echoed in two other gardens on this tour.

Under the deck, a surprising water feature — a stacked-limestone wall trickling with water (refreshed by A/C condensate) and colonized by maidenhair fern — adds visual cooling and creates a green view in place of the usual shadowy under-deck eyesore.

It reminded me of the natural cliffside waterfalls that can be found along Austin’s greenbelts.

A wider view shows the under-deck water-wall at left, with the cobalt pool extending the length of the terrace.

The garden is very naturalistic overall, in keeping with the rugged hillside setting. Red yucca and salvia were in bloom, attracting hummingbirds that zipped around us.

The homeowner has a large sculpture collection, which includes this bird (a raven?) perched atop a boulder, a glass orb in its beak.

Religious sculpture also finds a home here. I can’t help wondering — is the cactus collection at Christ’s feet a reference to his crown of thorns?

A Lady of Guadalupe with a spark-plug aura illustrates a similarly playful/ironic take on this traditional Catholic icon.

A pieced-stone path leads along the back of the house, hugging the top of the canyon. Amid the naturalistic plantings, a series of turquoise pots — each a miniature container pond — adds necessary rhythm to the scene.

A charming pond in miniature

Rugged paths lead down into the canyon, but I didn’t follow them. Instead I climbed up to the deck, past naturalistic garden beds. Red-blooming Texas betony spilled over limestone terracing.

Pausing to look back down the stone steps, I enjoyed a view of downtown Austin and a cardinal that shot across my field of view at just that moment.

The deck wraps the back of the house and provides several intimate seating areas to enjoy the treetop view.

I admired this simple trough with multi-colored succulents. The succulents are still in their nursery pots, rather than planted into the trough, making for a quick and attractive display.

More succulent troughs create a linear centerpiece on a dining table nearby.

They almost look good enough to eat!

Looking down at the path traversing the back of the house, you can see that the garden is still very new. Many of the plants have not had time to fill in yet.

When they do, this will be an even more spectacular space.

Next up: The contemporary Westridge Drive Garden, with a unique rebar awning and yucca and manfreda in full bloom.

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

Last weekend Lori, a gardener in southwest Austin who blogs at The Gardener of Good and Evil, hosted a meet-up of local garden bloggers. It was my second visit. I’d seen her lovely garden three years ago and posted about it then. Lori loves roses, and in 2010 they dominated her garden. Today, due to the drought and increasing shade from maturing trees, Lori has reduced the number of roses and added plenty of structural plants like agave and yucca to contrast with the billowy foliage of her roses and ornamental grasses.

As you approach the house, a dramatic scene greets you: Agave weberi on one side of the front walk, Agave americana on the other. ‘Margaritaville’ yucca, salvias, rosemary, and feathergrass are tucked in at their feet, and shrub roses and bamboo muhly back up the agaves to completely screen half the front garden from view.

Annual poppies make a cheerful appearance here as well.

A straight-on view of the front walk shows a feathergrass gauntlet accented with California poppies. Lori constructed the front walk herself out of concrete pavers and cinderblocks.

Stepping up into private front garden, you’re treated to eye-catching combos like this: ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia, smooth sotol (I think), yellow bulbine, ‘Color Guard’ yucca (in the pot), and Mexican feathergrass.

A wider view reveals the front walk (leading through the feathergrass) and a perpendicular walk that runs in front of the house and around to the side.

A hidden patio composed of a geometric arrangement of concrete pavers comes into view from the front porch.

A closer look reveals a fun accent: a half-face planter. We’ll see many more of these placed throughout Lori’s garden.

The deep, shady porch provides respite from the Death Star. Lori has accented the eaves with cut-out wooden stars inspired by the garden of Donnis Doyle.

Along the front porch, foxtail fern softens the step in a pretty pot, with a diminutive ajuga colonizing the shady gravel path. Heartleaf skullcap and flowering violas add seasonal color.

Violas

Taking the perpendicular path along the front porch, you enter the geometric patio, where you’re treated to multicolored ‘Mutabilis’ roses and a color-coordinated aeonium in the face planter.

A closer look

A narrow side path bordered by Mexican feathergrass leads to the back gate — a charming peek-a-boo gate, with metal screening creating a window and framing a garden view.

From the other side it’s just as appealing. Lori has stained her fence and gate blue, the color of her home, porch, and wooden decks. The plants really “pop” against that dusky blue.

The long, narrow side garden is greened up with a mix of fence-hugging vines and bright, variegated groundcovers, all mulched with shredded wood, with no edging to separate planting bed from path.

Walking along the path, you see another face planter ahead, with Southern wax myrtle screening the rest of the garden from view.

Lori has mixed dwarf ruellia, both purple- and white-blooming, and variegated liriope along the path — “a strategic choice,” she says, “since I don’t have lighting in that side yard. All of those whites glow at twilight so I can see where to walk. I water it only rarely, even during periods of horrible drought, and cut it all down to the ground once a year, so it’s pretty much the perfect low-maintenance planting.”

A cut-leaf philodendron marks the end of the path, and it’s underplanted with that brightly variegated liriope.

Now the back garden opens to view. Deep borders along the fence lines are packed with a mix of textural, blooming, and structural plants, many of which are native to central Texas: datura, rosemary, heartleaf skullcap, prickly pear, agaves in pots, roses, Mexican buckeye, Mexican feathergrass, and bamboo muhly, to name a few. A bit of lawn remains, and it functions primarily as a wide, curvy path through the garden and as a negative space to rest the eye.

A native mesquite tree anchors the center of the garden, its sculptural limbs supporting a feathery canopy of leaves.

One branch serves as a bottle tree, with carriage screws supporting an assortment of blue bottles.

A deep porch and a Florida room (not pictured) along the back of the house provide plenty of space to sit and view the garden. A shed (pictured), brightened with window-like mirrors, anchors one end of the porch. In the L-shaped space between shed and porch, Lori solved a persistent drainage problem by constructing a decomposed-granite patio raised one step to the level of the porch. A double line of concrete pavers leads the eye (and the feet) from the porch directly to the lawn.

I like the way Lori created a bed around the mesquite that’s mostly at ground level but also continues at patio level, with feathergrass and pink evening primrose planted directly in the decomposed granite.

Pink evening primrose

This beautiful vessel fountain is a new addition since last time I visited. Plumbing pipe pours water into a glazed, sculptural container, which spills into an arrangement of Mexican beach pebbles. The water circulates into an underground basin and back up through the pipe. Update from Lori about the basin: “The basin for the fountain is by John Lamos, an artist based in northern California. He specializes in lightweight sculpture using sustainable materials.”

Following the line of pavers, your eye is drawn to a trio of face planters arranged on a low retaining wall.

Blue-green heartleaf skullcap behind the faces will be blooming soon.

Another trio — this time golden barrel cacti in a metal planter. Ice plant trails along the edge.

Lori has a flair for displaying pots in an eye-catching way. In this collection on her patio, she sets another face planter on a mini-plinth of concrete pavers and elevates a cobalt-blue pot on a few tinted pavers. Glass beads and Mexican beach pebbles used as mulch add a finishing touch.

An enormous cardoon adds bold foliage to a small vegetable garden planted along the shed.

Looking back to the mesquite bed. Light-catching grasses are complemented by chunky Opuntia pads and sword-like agave leaves.

The fountain is pretty from every angle.

On a wall on the covered porch, Lori creatively hung a leftover section of gutter, painted it blue, and planted it up with grandfather’s pipe (Callisia fragans) cuttings. The shady space is brightened with mirrors disguised as windows.

Blue is definitely the color of choice in Lori’s garden, including in this charming vignette along a corner of the foundation. Yellow in the golden barrel cactus, yucca, and agave makes a perfect complement.

At the gate on the other side of the house, a variegated agave and purple heart in a silver container, set on a homemade plinth of concrete pavers, make an eye-catching focal point. A round mirror reflects light like a silver moon.

Along the back of the house, a line of ‘Color Guard’ yucca is surrounded by colorful, blooming ice plant, orange narrowleaf zinnia, and blackfoot daisy. Like all of Lori’s garden, it’s a charming and creative combination with an element of surprise.

Lori, thanks so much for letting me come back to photograph your garden as it continues to evolve! Readers, if you’d like to read my previous post about the Garden of Good and Evil, click here.

You’re Invited!
I’ll be at BookPeople on Saturday, May 4, at 4 pm , along with author Jenny Peterson, to talk briefly about design tips for losing the lawn or paring it back. Jenny will be sharing styling tips for houseplants. And we newbie authors will BOTH be signing copies of our books! Whether you have a green thumb or a brown one, let’s fill up BookPeople with people who care about plants and the earth!

The talk is free and open to the public, and I’d love to see a lot of friendly faces! If you do want an autographed book, BookPeople requires an in-store purchase. Just FYI.

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

Wow, check out this stunning succulent bowl! It was a gift from my friend Diana of Sharing Nature’s Garden, put together by Vivero Growers Nursery, and I LOVE it!

The colorful aeonium (please let it live through our hot, humid summers!), the teeny-tiny yellow sedum (?), the snakey-looking cactus or euphorbia, that hunky concrete bowl—it all adds up to one gorgeous addition to my patio garden. Thank you, Diana!!

I’m also loving this cute, triangular skeleton pot from local artist Rick Van Dyke. I popped in a cactus that I carted back from GWA Tucson for a fun combo.

Have I shown you my newest agave acquisition? I bought this ‘Desert Diamond’ agave from Plant Delights and added Sedum mexicanum ‘Lemon Ball’, which is supposed to be more tolerant of heat and sun than ‘Angelina’ sedum, to fluff out the pot until the agave grows bigger. This baby ‘Desert Diamond’ is not as pretty as the one in their catalog, but I’m hopeful that it’ll achieve that pale coloration and red teeth over time.

And a parting look at the succulent wall (click for the how-to), all fluffed out with spring growth. Once you start growing succulents, it sure is hard to stop with just a few.

You’re Invited!
I’ll be at BookPeople on Saturday, May 4, at 4 pm , along with author Jenny Peterson, to talk briefly about design tips for losing the lawn or paring it back. Jenny will be sharing styling tips for houseplants. And we newbie authors will BOTH be signing copies of our books! Whether you have a green thumb or a brown one, let’s fill up BookPeople with people who care about plants and the earth!

The talk is free and open to the public, and I’d love to see a lot of friendly faces! If you do want an autographed book, BookPeople requires an in-store purchase. Just FYI.

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