Foliage Follow-Up

January 16, 2017 Hello, winter! We’re not used to seeing you here in Central Texas. Despite predictions of a mild winter, with the warming influence of a La Niña, we’ve already had two multi-day stretches of hard freezes, with a couple of nights dropping into the upper teens. The result? ...

December 16, 2016 I’ve been celebrating a belated fall here at Digging and on Instagram this week, as our Japanese maple flamed into orange and then red. Although it’s a little odd to see brilliant fall color at Christmastime, we deprived Texas gardeners happily take it whenever we can get ...

November 16, 2016 Today is Foliage Follow-Up, a day to celebrate great foliage after the flower celebration of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Let’s take a spin around the back garden for my foliage faves this month, starting with the stock-tank pond garden. No flowers here since the water lilies slowed ...

October 17, 2016 I can’t believe I forgot about Foliage Follow-Up yesterday, and I’m the host! To make up for it, I’m combining my Foliage Follow-Up post with Drive-By Gardens, always a reader favorite. I have two Austin gardens to share with you for this Drive-By, and both are largely ...

September 16, 2016 It was time. Moby, my 11-year-old whale’s tongue agave (Agave ovatifolia), valiantly hung on for months after flowering, eventually making bulbils at the top of the bloom stalk. I’d been anticipating the leaf collapse that has occurred with every other agave I’ve ever seen in bloom, and ...

August 16, 2016 Surely August will be our last worst month here in central Texas. It can’t possibly remain blisteringly hot and humid through September, can it? Yes, it can, and it probably will, but that’s why I love agaves, yuccas, prickly pear, and other tough plants. They breeze through ...

July 16, 2016 Mid-summer is all about foliage in my garden. The spring flowers are long gone, but evergreen plants like ‘Winter Gem’ boxwood, ‘Color Guard’ yucca, bamboo muhly grass, and squid agave look good even when the Death Star’s on full blast. The stock-tank pond helps the garden feel ...

June 16, 2016 Even plants we grow primarily for the beauty of their leaves and their form will flower. On this Foliage Follow-Up, I’m sharing two bold-foliage plants that are adding a jolt of drama with surprising bloom stalks. One is dwarf Texas palmetto (Sabal minor), a native Texas plant ...

May 16, 2016 The day after Bloom Day is Foliage Follow-Up, a day to give foliage plants their due. This month I’m leading with the fresh spring greens of ornamental grasses, like shade-loving inland sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium). Their “oats” are just forming, and by mid-summer will turn from apple ...

April 16, 2016 I get succulent fever every time I see a display like this. A luscious succulent fountain dripping with string-of-pearls senecio — what better way to introduce a “watery” feature into your garden without using much actual H2O? Let’s take a little field trip to Hill Country Water ...

March 16, 2016 Chartreuse and dark gray make a trendy combo that’s as pleasing in the garden as in the home. Evergreen Texas sedge (Carex texensis) practically glows in spring with the addition of nubby seedheads. A wider view shows purple heart (Tradescantia pallida) romping through the sedge, with the ...

February 16, 2016 I have shrub trouble (shrubble?). No, this isn’t a picture of it. This is my succulent wall, which is doing beautifully this mild, dry winter, and which simply glows in late afternoon light. Here’s the “shrubble.” One of my favorite evergreens for shade and deer resistance, Chinese ...

January 16, 2016 I wait all summer for winter days like these. China-blue skies. Warm sunshine on my face, the Death Star tame and friendly. A garden as yet untouched by a freeze — which is unusual, actually. We would normally have had several overnight freezes by mid-January, but so ...

December 16, 2015 A hard freeze has not yet walloped my garden, but even if it had I’d still be able to enjoy the plants I’m showing today for Foliage Follow-Up. Take pearl millet, aka ‘Vertigo’ grass (Pennisetum purpureum ‘Vertigo’), for example. This was the most-asked-about plant on my garden ...

November 16, 2015 It’s a little early for fall color, such as we get here in Austin. But this Japanese maple at Zilker Botanical Garden is getting a jump on the season. Red leaves mingle with green Shades of green still predominate in the Taniguchi Japanese Garden. I’ve always liked ...

November 16, 2015 It’s a little early for fall color, such as we get here in Austin. But this Japanese maple at Zilker Botanical Garden is getting a jump on the season. Red leaves mingle with green Shades of green still predominate in the Taniguchi Japanese Garden. I’ve always liked ...