Two weekends ago my family and I kicked off spring break with a fun day trip to San Antonio and a visit to San Antonio Botanical Garden. We were greeted with a crayon box of annual color in these containers just inside the entry. Geraniums, nasturtiums, pansies, and tulips and even a little chard tucked in the back for leafy texture—is there anything cheerier?

More annual color

The starry, water-repelling leaves of nasturtium are my favorite part of the plant, but the flowers are charming too.

Mmm, succulent goodness

Massive foxtail ferns, with colorful pots adding a little zing to the scene

Aztec grass Spider plants (Chlorophytum comosum) handsomely cloaked the ground beneath a crepe myrtle, backed by candy-pink cyclamen and tropical-looking variegated shell ginger.

In the shade, delicate blossoms of Japanese roof iris (Iris tectorum) stood erect on long stems.

In the sun, by a Spanish-style fountain and rill, pots of gorgeously arranged succulents caught my eye.

Is that ghost plant (gray) and a blooming echeveria (green)? Update: The green succulent is Sedum palmeri. Thanks to David for the ID.

The small Japanese Garden beckoned to us with its woven-reed-and-bamboo fence.

Naturally elegant with black string holding it together

I’ve always liked this gently arching stone bridge.

Next we explored the Sensory Garden (Garden for the Blind), which is filled with scented and texturally interesting plants—plus this stone bunny.

Red nasturtium seemed to pulse with color on this cloudy day.

Fascinating leaves the size of small parasols

In the conservatory we admired orchids growing in tropical humidity.

Firecracker fern was blooming with abandon throughout the gardens…

…including along these stairs.

On a dry slope, one of my favorite agaves, ‘Whale’s Tongue’ (A. ovatifolia), grew in silvery blue clusters, their broad leaves cupping upward.

A Mexican plum had puffed into bloom, its white blossoms gleaming in the fitful sunlight against satiny black branches.

Acacia were in bloom as well, with charming, yellow puffballs hanging from the green-leafed branches.

Old-fashioned snapdragons brightened up the spring beds too.

More firecracker fern…

…and some sort of thistle-looking plant added their spring flowers to the mix. Update: This is Mexican prickly poppy (Argemone mexicana). Thanks for the ID, Diana.

A lovely, stone fountain surrounded by giant papryus, with a big date palm in the background, puts me in mind of an Egyptian garden along the Nile—or at least that’s how I imagine it to be. Never been there.

Salmon-colored shrimp plant made a colorful groundcover beneath live oaks shedding their old leaves.

We were just slightly too early for the wisteria on the main arbor to be in full bloom. I was sorry. I’ve long wanted to see it in its full glory. In the foreground, annual bedding plants included leafy chard, a fun change from the ordinary.

The edible theme continued out front, with leafy vegetables adding crinkly texture, deep-purple foliage, and brightly colored stems that picked up the golden-yellow of the pansies in front. In back, a large silver agave added contrasting color and form.

For more images from our visit to San Antonio Botanical Garden—specifically the fern room and cactus room in the conservatory—click here.

Posts about my previous visits to San Antonio Botanical Garden can be found on my Noteworthy Gardens page. Feel free to click around for armchair visits.

Upcoming: Lawn Gone! talk and book-signing, this Saturday
Hey, Texas Hill Country peeps! Please join me this Saturday at 10 am at Backbone Valley Nursery in Marble Falls for my talk, “Lawn Alternatives for Central Texas” and a Lawn Gone! book-signing. I don’t know about you, but since it’s bluebonnet season, I’m going to take a little wildflower-peeping drive while I’m out there.

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

For Foliage Follow-Up this month, I offer up a leafy extravaganza from the conservatory at San Antonio Botanical Garden, which I visited last weekend (for more SABG pics, click here). This is the fern room, a humid, tropical study in lines and texture.

Many of the plants had leaves that looked matte-silver. It seemed to be a primeval world.

Next door, the cactus room offered warm, dry air and spiky foliage, a complete change from the moist, oversized fern leaves.

The textures were equally intriguing.

This plant even had “hair.”

Join me in posting about your lovely leaves of March 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.

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

Day-tripping in San Antonio last weekend, my family and I made time for a stroll through the Japanese Tea Garden, located near the zoo in Brackenridge Park. Constructed in an old limestone quarry, the gardens are framed and accessed by fascinating and unusual stonework, including a pagoda-like pavilion with stacked-stone columns that rise like hoodoos from the pond below; an undulating, “dragon-back” bridge; and paths edged with toothy walls that lead up and down the garden’s cliffside terrain.

The garden is free to the public, and on this cool, early-spring Saturday it was not very crowded, although at least one wedding party was wrapping up an intimate ceremony. Entering the faux-bois gate, you may be confused by the sign that reads Chinese Tea Garden until you read the historical plaque nearby, which explains that during World War II, the Japanese-American family who’d run the tea house for nearly 20 years was evicted due to anti-Japanese public sentiment, and “Japanese” was removed from the garden’s name. At the time of the gate’s construction, the garden was known as the Chinese Tea Garden. In 1984 its original name was restored, but the gate remains as a reminder of the war-fueled paranoia of that time.

A colorful mix of native and tropical plants greets you as you enter, like this red hibiscus and purple-blooming Texas mountain laurel.

I like this wiggly line of dwarf yaupon hollies bordered by colorful marigolds.

Entering the garden you are immediately drawn to a large stone pavilion reminiscent of a Japanese pagoda. Stacked-stone pillars lead the eye up to a dazzling array of stone arches, huge timbers, and the dome-like roof, which is thatched on the exterior with palm leaves.

The pavilion overlooks several large ponds that cover much of the base of the old quarry, and a series of rock stairs lead to the lower gardens. Instead, however, we took the path that winds along the cliff at the top of the garden before descending on the far side.

Halfway around you’re treated to a spectacular view of a ribbon-like waterfall, which drops 60 feet from the top of the quarry to the ponds at the bottom. Lush vegetation on the cliff walls gives the impression of a tropical vista.

An undulating bridge spans a large, shallow pond from the base of the cliff to the lower gardens. It was too early for water lilies, but I imagine in summer their pads and flowers spread across the pond’s surface.

Bridge detail, and my patient family posing for a photo.

Along the trail, the scarred leaves of a cliff-hugging Agave lophantha reveal the impulse of park visitors to leave a record of their passing.

From the initials and date carved into the rock below, you can see it’s not a recent phenomenon.

Bamboo leans over the pond, its leaves yellowing as part of its spring leaf renewal.

Enormous koi swim lazily in the ponds at the bottom of the garden, approaching tamely in hopes of a feeding.

Palms add tropical texture to the garden.

In one section of the garden, an annual display of edibles is paired with spring-blooming Jerusalem sage.

The pavilion as seen from the lower garden—a romantic hideaway for at least one couple.

I remember visiting the Japanese Tea Garden as a senior in college way back in 1989. I was reminded to revisit thanks to Shirley’s post about the tea garden at Rock-Oak-Deer and, before that, Ivette’s reminiscences about the garden at The Germinatrix. Once you read their posts, you’ll be ready to explore the garden too.

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