I used to walk by this house every day while picking up my son from kindergarten, and each time I’d gape at the lush, shade garden fronting the charming cottage with the welcoming front porch, wondering what the rest of the place looked like. Twelve years later, I finally found out. The Highland Terrace West garden, located in north-central Austin’s Highland Park neighborhood, was the fourth we visited on the Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour last Saturday. Let’s take a tour together, shall we?

The deep front porch has always called to me. It’s so inviting, and I love the cozy, red-and-brown color scheme.

One of the porch columns has been partially removed (I assume it wasn’t weight-bearing), and the remaining section now serves as a plant pedestal. For a red pot, of course, with coleus to match, sweet potato vines providing chartreuse and eggplant accents, and a reddish grass adding height.

At its base, a homemade concrete dish holds a tiny cactus and succulent collection.

The garden is packed with charming details, with interesting vignettes around every turn. But I knew the owners were fearless when I spotted this window box packed with succulents and my touring buddy Cat leaned in to touch the leaves of the large, purple echeverias. “They’re not real,” she said. They sure do pass though. I decided on the spot that someone with the chutzpah to pull off a mix-up of real and fake plants was going to be defying expectations in other ways, and I hoisted my camera to be ready.

One thing this garden excels at is using commonplace plants in particularly beautiful ways. Here, softleaf yucca, purple heart, and ‘Katie’ dwarf ruellia combine long, pointy leaf shapes in various hues, making a pretty setting for a piece of garden sculpture. Silver ponyfoot froths at its feet.

As you walk around the right side of the house, you see another fabulous combination in silvery pale-green, anchored by a silver Mediterranean fan palm (I think). Groundcovers flow around a large boulder set in the bed, and on the fence a frilly metal ornament provides a color echo of the plants.

I covet this combo. And to think I used not to care much for palms. Scenes like this have converted me.

Side yards are often repositories for trash bins and workbenches, and the owners have beautified even these necessaries. The trash bins and wheelbarrow are tucked behind a handsome, gated extension of the board fence.

A wider view reveals the gated bin corral on the right and a winding path that ducks around a tree as it leads to the rear garden. Two structures ahead obscure a longer view and entice you forward.

But eye-catching details along the path also grab your attention, like this marble-mulched succulent bowl. Oakleaf hydrangea blooms behind a rusty-leaved loropetalum.

Just past the tree, a glassed-in structure reveals a work sink and storage for potting supplies and tools.

Across the gravel path, on an open stretch of fence, hang three charming “pictures” of white pottery planted up with green ivies and ferns. A living still life.

Now you see the sunlit back garden opening up, but first you pass through a shady, peaked arbor hung with crystal decorations and a candelabra. Can you imagine this all lit up for an evening lawn party?

Looking back from the other side. The windows and hanging decor have caught another visitor’s eye.

Now you step onto a circular lawn — and you start turning in circles yourself, taking everything in, starting with this vine-draped, roofed seating area on the far side of the garden. Those fiery, red-cushioned chairs attract the eye and brighten up the dark-stained structure. To the right, a weeping willow drapes protectively over a stone fountain and pool.

A closer look at the water feature tucked into the garden border.

To the right of that, a tidy square-foot garden is situated in a sunny spot.

Panning right again, you see a colorful bed of salvia and annual larkspur, accented here with a large lantern.

And finishing the 360-degree circuit (skipping past the covered arbor I already showed you), you see the back of the house, painted dark brown with creamy white trim. My touring companions David of The Desert Edge and Cat of The Whimsical Gardener are giving me goofy grins while Shirley from Rock-Oak-Deer is intent upon another shot in a small rear courtyard.

More red! These gardeners love hot color. A crimson rose clambers along the house, accented by a red gazing ball and glazed container on a small deck.

A comfortable lounging spot for one is tucked by the back door.

An aside: I think I was stopped at least once, sometimes twice, at every garden on this tour by readers who recognized me. Embarrassingly, I am getting somewhat used to being recognized on area garden tours, but it’s still kind of a strange experience for this introvert writer. Plus Cat teased me mercilessly about it. (Gotcha, Cat!) But one big perk about being recognized is a sense of community that you get (Central Texas gardeners unite!), not to mention the gratifying realization that people who aren’t even related to you read your blog. More than that, you get to meet lovely individuals like the mom here with her adorable 5-week-old baby. After she introduced herself as a reader, I had to take her baby’s picture to share with you. (If you’re reading, my friend, thanks for the dose of cuteness!)

Anyway, while admiring the shade structure on the far side of the garden…

…I was recognized by the owners of the garden, Bruce Baldwin and Colleen Jamison, who came over to introduce themselves. I was thrilled to meet them and told them that I’d been hoping to visit their garden for 12 years, since those long-ago kindergarten pick-up days. Bruce is the builder of the garden structures, and Colleen is the plant designer. Together they make a fine team.

Taking a peek inside the shade structure, I was half-tempted to sink into one of these red-cushioned chairs or sofas, but there was still plenty of garden to see.

A parting look reveals an electric chandelier hanging from the peaked roof. Clearly this is a garden meant to be used at night as well as during the day.

Hung on a post, this vertical succulent planter caught my eye.

Just outside in a sunny bed, this succulent and cactus planter set amid purple heart and verbena makes a beautiful focal point.

A wider view of a perennial bed with a curving decomposed-granite path cutting through it.

Purple!

In the back corner, hidden in a screen of pomegranate foliage, a ceramic frog holds court atop an old tree stump.

Still with me? Now we venture down the other side of the house. The owners have made appealing gardens even in the tricky side yards. Why tricky? Side yards are notoriously narrow and often deeply shaded and lacking in privacy. A board fence takes care of the privacy issue, and the typical bowling-alley effect is avoided by incorporating curves in the path and large shrubs that obscure the long view. Destinations along the way — a fountain, a bench, an intimate deck — give you reasons to stop and look.

Shade-loving plants like oakleaf hydrangea and glossy-leaved holly fern brighten up dark corners…

…as do sparkly garden ornaments.

This was one of four water features in the garden, and my favorite. A classic pool and fountain, with a garden bench and “window” on the fence, surrounded by greenery, evokes New Orleans-style courtyards.

I doubt this bench really gets used, situated amid groundcovering Asian jasmine as it is, but it adds such a welcoming touch to the garden. The owners framed a poster with a cast-off window and hung it on the fence. I don’t know how they keep the poster weatherproofed, but I love the idea.

More of their fearlessness on display: a tall blue pot is planted with a few cascading plants and accented with a blue, sparkly floral arrangement.

Nearby, sparkling blue ornaments hang from a wire holder.

Looking back along the side-garden path. As you can see, ordinary, glossy-leaved shrubs like holly and pittosporum are used liberally but not pushed in a tight line along the foundation. Instead they bow out, adding dimension to the space. Likewise with commonplace (and often reviled) Asian jasmine, which here is put to good use as a shade-tolerant, light-reflecting, evergreen groundcover. Keeping them neatly edged and trimmed is key to their good looks.

A small deck is shoehorned into the side garden — perfect, I imagine, for breakfast on a summer morning. A wired chandelier hangs above a table and chairs, creating an implied ceiling and also adding to after-dark enjoyment.

Cat and David take a break on the back steps. David is contemplating a move to Austin from Albuquerque, New Mexico. There’s always room for another gardener, garden blogger, and garden designer here, right?

I love the design of the wooden privacy fence, with different-width boards and even a slanting detail on this section.

From the outside you can really appreciate the design. Even the gate — a repurposed old door with a hand-cultivator handle — is a work of art.

In front, under a spreading tree, a soft, feathery sweep of yarrow makes an appealing groundcover.

Bruce and Colleen began gardening in the formerly weedy median in front of their house several years ago, creating a very low-water landscape to screen the view of cars parked across the street. Their neighbors along the street have gotten into the spirit as well and have extended the median garden and help maintain it. What a gift the neighbors are giving to each other by creating a shared garden space!

My garden-tour companions: from left, David, Shirley, Jenny, me, and Cat. Check out their blogs for more perspectives on the gardens I’ve been showing you, especially Jenny’s post about this garden. She volunteered in it for several hours during the tour and enjoyed a personal tour with the owners before the crowds arrived.

Next up: The architectural Bonnell Garden. For a look back at the naturalistic Placid Place Garden, click here.

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

No, I’m not looking for a Mildred or Louise to eat bugs and lay eggs in my garden. But I couldn’t resist buying a ticket to Austin’s 5th annual Funky Chicken Coop Tour after watching a recent Central Texas Gardener episode (below) about Dani and Gary Moss’s charming and playful garden in southwest Austin.

Located on Westview Road, the garden is a homegrown creation by the retired but hard-working owners, who clearly can create anything they set their minds to. Dani envisions projects like their whimsical Chicksville hen house, and Gary builds them. He also welds metal into flowery stair railings, arbors…

…and decorative accents placed throughout the garden, like this metal heart inscribed with Dani’s nickname. How adorable is that?

Their chicken coop is sturdily constructed of wood and wire, with a metal roof for shelter from sun and rain. A ramp leads up through a hen-sized doorway in the stone foundation…

…into the colorful hen house itself, which also offers storage space for food and other supplies. It looks more like a lucky little girl’s playhouse than a hen house, doesn’t it? A tiny chandelier even hangs from the porch ceiling.

Similarly, the English-style conservatory that Gary built for Dani is dressed up inside with two chandeliers.

In the garden, roses were in bloom—lots of red Knock Outs plus a climbing pink rose and this flaming orange-and-yellow beauty.

Gary’s metal flowers provide nonstop blooms along the fence.

As does a bottle tree set in a garden bed near another of Gary’s heart creations.

What don’t they have? There was even this metal giraffe, cheekily wearing Mardi Gras beads…

…and a banded armadillo made of scrap metal.

Everywhere you looked, there were more of the couple’s creations, as well as lush plantings of evergreens and flowering perennials.

I’m glad I had a chance to see it, along with these two docents wearing hilarious chicken hats.

Happy Easter and happy spring!

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

Texas dwarf palmetto (Sabal minor), foxtail fern (Asparagus densiflorus ‘Meyersii’), heartleaf skullcap (Scutellaria ovata), sparkler sedge (Carex phyllocephala ‘Sparkler’), and bamboo muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa) add plenty of greenery to the winter garden.

Audrey, a regular reader of Digging, recently asked me how to plant for winter greenery, explaining that her garden needed some green for the off-season. “I would love to see a picture of an area of your garden in full bloom and the exact same shot in the winter,” she wrote. What a great idea! Not that my garden is totally fab in winter or anything, but I do have quite a lot of evergreen interest, plus a few other tricks that help liven up the winter garden here in Austin.

I will point out that my garden is not particularly flowery in general. There are three reasons for this. One, my garden is fairly shady. Two, I love the architectural plants of the Southwest, and they are essentially evergreen shrubs. Three, I planted this garden to be low-maintenance, and that means more evergreens and ornamental grasses and fewer flowering perennials and annuals.

That adds up to a garden that doesn’t go through dramatic seasonal changes, and I’m OK with that. I do still enjoy smatterings of flowers throughout the growing season, as well as berries, bulbs, a little fall color, and the unfurling of bright-green leaves in the spring. Bees, butterflies, and other pollinators visit my garden, and I see lots of birds, which goes to show that even a largely evergreen garden, planted diversely with plenty of cover, nesting material, and seed and fruit sources, can be a wildlife habitat.

OK, let’s look at a few wide-shot views of my garden in mid-winter, paired with similar views from a more flowery season.

Today. (The garden in the foreground belongs to my neighbor, though I planted and help maintain it, and I frequently blog about it as if it were mine. Hi, Donna!)

Early October. Salvia greggii and Salvia leucantha brighten up this bed with flowers in spring and fall, and most other plants are a brighter green. In winter, though the S. leucantha shrivels away, the Salvia greggii remains green. Mexican feathergrass (Nassella tenuissima) and Gulf muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris) turn tawny, but they’re still there, as are evergreen (or everblue?) Agave ovatifolia, red yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora), and bamboo muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa).

Today

Mid-October. Not much difference, really. It’s all a bit more faded and tawny, and the copper canyon daisy (Tagetes lemmonii) at left is frost-shriveled now. However, this is a very evergreen bed. You can get color from evergreen plants too, as shown by the yellow-striped ‘Color Guard’ yucca, the blue-green gopher plant (Euphorbia rigida), and the silver ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia.

Today

Early March. Again, pretty similar thanks to a mass planting of Mexican feathergrass and prickly pear. Even the little four-nerve daisy (Tetraneuris scaposa) is still blooming sporadically. Springtime adds the chartreuse flowering of gopher plant (Euphorbia rigida) to the mix. You’ll notice I added a potted Agave lophantha for vertical interest since the spring. Potted evergreens are a great way to get additional winter greenery and to make a focal point of it.

Another example of winter interest in a pot: ‘Color Guard’ yucca in a blue glazed container, with foxtail fern at its feet.

Today

Late March. Pulling back a bit, you see globe mallow (Sphaeralcea) in full bloom. This heat-loving plant flowers spring through fall but shrivels up in winter. The evergreen Arizona cypress ‘Blue Ice’, bamboo muhly, gopher plant, and butterfly vine (Mascagnia macroptera) add up to plenty of winter greenery.

Today

Late May. A tighter image, with purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) and ‘Peter’s Purple’ monarda in bloom in beds on either side of the pond. The pond will also have been blooming with water lilies. Look back up at today’s image and you’ll actually see two hangers-on purple coneflowers, but the other flowering plants are dormant. But what carries this area through winter is the structure of the stock tank, shed, and disappearing fountain (in the foreground), the colorful shed doors and fountain, the reflective quality of the water in the pond, ‘Winter Gem’ boxwoods marking the path “doorways” all around the pond, ‘Color Guard’ yuccas, and Mexican feathergrass. Also, don’t overlook the power of hardscape to give life to your garden in winter. The sunburst path around the pond is a striking feature of this space, all the more noticeable in winter when the garden is quieter.

On the other side of the stock-tank pond, a trio of culvert-pipe planters with squid agaves (A. bracteosa) adds height and texture to the winter garden. Winter-through-spring groundcover heartleaf skullcap (Scutellaria ovata) adds a blue-green carpet at their feet.

Today

Mid-April, when the Aloe saponaria was in bloom. Let’s face it, this raised bed overlooking the pool is all about texture and form, with hits of variegated yellow color, and not about flowers. Even so, the soap aloes bloom a couple of times a year, and in fall oxblood lily bulbs pop up along the edge of the bed, providing a jolt of seasonal color.

Today

Early June. I couldn’t find the same viewpoint for the raised bed containing the ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (A. ovatifolia), but you can see from another angle what it looks like in June. Winecup (Callirhoe involucrata) rambles and purple skullcap (Scutellaria wrightii) flowers profusely. Earlier in the season, iris add their ruffled flowers to the mix.

Here then are my tips for greening up your winter garden: add lots of evergreen shrubs, sub-shrubs (like Salvia greggii), and ornamental grasses, especially evergreen ones like bamboo muhly. Add punches of color with cold-hardy potted plants set into your beds and with painted surfaces like sheds, benches, and garden art. And leave frostbitten plants standing through winter, because even tan and brown are colors, and it all adds up to an interesting winter garden.

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