The Austin garden bloggers recently got a sneak preview of the upcoming Inside Austin Gardens Tour, hosted by the Travis County Master Gardeners. We visited 5 gardens, and I hope to be able to show them all to you before the tour date on October 20th. I’ll start with the Donnis Doyle Garden, which I predict will be a crowd favorite thanks to the owner’s colorful, whimsical decorating style and the garden’s lawn-free, low-maintenance appeal.

Pictured above is the back patio, a raised oval of concrete backed by a corrugated steel screen, which shields the patio from view of a neighboring park. It’s a charming spot, with colorful chairs, twinkle lights dangling from the screen, and wooden, yellow stars hanging from the eave of the yellow-painted ranch house. Donnis uses repetition to advantage throughout her garden, including a rhythmic placement of stock-tank vegetable planters along the back fence, separated by red, wooden stars tacked to the fence posts.

You first glimpse the back patio from the front side yard, through an arch fancifully adorned with blue bottles, red coffee mugs, and yellow duckies.

A closer look

Your eye is drawn down the path to the raised patio and silver galvanized screen. Notice that there are no privacy fences separating the front garden from the back, allowing for an open view through tree trunks.

The owner has had fun with color here, painting her metal dining set purple and hanging yellow stars along the eave.

Red Adirondacks add more color, as does a metal tree decorated with colored-glass ornaments.

Want to see how that screen is constructed? Wooden posts and crosspieces secure the metal panels, nicely finished and painted red to match the chairs on the other side.

A potted aloe makes an easy-care patio plant for the warm season.

More purple chairs

Another look at the purple dining set, which looks great contrasted with the flowering yellow bells at left.

Hanging nesting material for the birds adds even more color to the garden.

A dry stream funnels water away from the house, and an industrial-style metal bridge keeps the owner’s feet dry when it rains.

It leads to another bottle tree, this one even more outlandishly decorated than the arch. Blue bottles compete with CDs, funnels, Mardi Gras beads, and whirligigs for pride of place on the tree.

Hearts join the stars along the back of the house.

The stars aren’t all the same shape either. Someone spent some time on this!

More fun garden art

The carport is brightly painted too, with turquoise rafters, yellow walls, and colorful metal lanterns hanging from the beams.

All this color feels fun and casual, and very inviting.

From the street, here’s the view of the front garden, which, like the back, is lawn free. A mosaic of cut concrete slabs leads to the front door, with low-maintenance, mostly evergreen shrubs and trees surrounding a generous patio of decomposed granite.

Looking left, prostrate rosemary makes an evergreen, fragrant, and edible groundcover.

And looking right, you see more evergreens and more open patio space instead of lawn. If it were my garden, I’d have patio seating out front as well.

A low, sprawling bottle tree strung with festive lights makes a colorful garden accent.

Tour Info
Date: October 20
Time: 9 am to 4 pm
Tickets for the tour (all of the gardens) are $15 in advance, or $20 on the day of the tour ($5 for individual gardens).

Gardening Demonstrations/Education Sessions at the Donnis Doyle Garden
9:30 am – A Fest for Wildlife with Valerie Bugh
10:15 am – Austin Grows! with Jake Stewart
11:30 am – Unconventional Landscape Snacks – Collecting and Cooking Insects with Wizzie Brown
1:30 pm – Planning an Edible Landscape with Sheryl Williams
All Day – The Wall Trip DVD by Ann and Robin Matthews

Tomorrow join me for a tour of the no-lawn Matthews Garden.

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The Romantic Garden at Denver Botanic Garden, which I visited earlier this month, is not festooned with the traditional roses, wisteria, and clematis. In dry, high country style, feathery grasses mingle with aromatic salvias, prairie wildflowers, and felt-leaved lamb’s ears.

Accenting the garden beds stand a handful of Little and Lewis-style columns the colors of sidewalk chalk.

They lean like candy-colored ruins amid the frothy flowers.

Farther along the path we did encounter some lovely roses.

And this pretty mystery plant. Update: Lysimachia punctata ‘Alexander’ — thanks to everyone who provided an ID!

Purple coneflowers

Along one of the central axes of the DBG runs a long, rill-like water feature, with these twin fountains that remind me of Mayan ruins.

Occupying the center of one of the main walks stood this tornado-like sculpture made of bamboo, one of many such pieces placed throughout the gardens.

Moving on…garlic growing amid ornamental grasses.

I like the charming seedheads.

A fragrant lavender walk

And a silvery ‘Kintzley’s Ghost’ grape honeysuckle vine, winding its way up an arbor

In June’s Plant Asia garden, which contains Asian plants that grow in similar conditions to Denver’s, I was distracted by hardscape: this moon gate…

…and this mosaic pebble path that evokes a swirling stream.

Ligularia stood out against a burgundy Japanese maple.

Creeping Oregon grape holly in full berry

More verbascum

In the South African Plaza, torch lilies were ablaze, backed by vertical slabs of dusky pink stone.

This post is a mishmash of impressions from various garden rooms at the DBG. Next up I’ll have a more cohesive set of images from DBG’s Plains Garden, Rock Alpine Garden and Dryland Mesa.

Click to see my other Denver Botanic Garden posts from this visit:
Grasses and cholla for Foliage Follow-Up
Sun-drenched perennial borders

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The Dallas Arboretum is abloom through November 5 with renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly’s colorful, nature-inspired glass sculptures. My family and I visited yesterday, on opening weekend, and were wowed both by the beauty of the pieces and their careful placement in the gardens, sometimes as dramatic focal points, other times as naturalistic accents. This is ‘Blue Icicles,’ one of the first pieces you see as you enter the Arboretum.

I photographed nearly all of the sculptures, so here’s a photo tour to inspire your own visit. And remember, Austinites, if you’re a member of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the Arboretum offers reciprocal membership, so you’ll only have to pay for parking.

‘Blue Marlins’—these should be called Blue Egrets, don’t you think? They stand gracefully in a peaceful, Asian-style pond-and-stream garden…

…along with ‘Turquoise Reeds.’ Clouds of mist emit from beneath the lush ferns periodically, contributing to a sense of moody mystery.

At the other end of the spectrum, color-wise and mood-wise, is ‘Citron Green and Red Tower,’ a curlicued volcano of glass.

A closeup of ‘Citron Green and Red Tower.’ Each of the sculptures, we learned, is taken apart for shipping and reassembled on-site. So really this is just a big bottle tree. Ha!

‘Dallas Star’ was created especially for the Arboretum, we were told.

‘Scarlet and Yellow Asymmetrical Towers’ stand on either side of the entrance to the Woman’s Garden. Just inside, ‘Neodymium Reeds’ glow violet in a shallow reflecting pool, with the spiraling, green horns of ‘Mirrored Hornets’ in front.

‘Neodymium Reeds.’ I don’t know what the green piece in front is called.

But here’s a closeup.

‘Mirrored Hornets’

Detail of ‘Mirrored Hornets’

One of the most festive displays is ‘Carnival Boat’ and ‘Float Boat,’ anchored in a negative-edge pool overlooking White Rock Lake in the Woman’s Garden.

‘Carnival Boat’ and floats—the sheer exuberance of a boat full of party balloons

Another look at ‘Carnival Boat’

And another view

‘Float Boat’—a refugee ship for gazing balls?

A closeup of ‘Float Boat’

A detailed view of the floats reveals a mirrored world.

Standing tall over a sunken courtyard is ‘Aqua Blue and Amber Chandelier,’ a pastel confection.

A closeup shows horns and more spiraling party balloons.

‘Blue and Pink Marlins’ dance in front of a waterfall.

I love these ‘Blue Fiddleheads’ in combination with the moody foliage of elephant ears.

Do you love red? There are ‘Ruby Fiddleheads’ too.

‘Fiori Sun’ writhes in a garden bed.

‘Blue Bulbous Reeds’

‘Blue Polyvitro Crystals,’ like giant chunks of slag glass or boulders from another planet, accent a hillside stream.

After all that bright color, the white lotus leaves of ‘Persian Pond’ offer a quiet respite in a lily pond.

‘Persian Pond’ closeup

‘Tiger Lilies’ remind me of hooded cobras.

‘The Sun’—another stunning focal point

Closeup of ‘The Sun’

And a little closer

‘Red Reeds’

‘Silvered Red Bamboo and Cattails’

Here’s ‘Silvered Red Bamboo and Cattails’ in the background, framed by swaths of ‘Senorita Rosalita’ cleome, purple salvia, and a large purple grass, possibly Pennisetum ‘Vertigo’ (thanks for the ID, Scott).

Like pale, tapered candles, ‘Yellow Reeds’ offer a quieter vision.

There’s nothing quiet about ‘Yellow Icicle Tower,’ a three-story, bristly spike of yellow.

‘Yellow Icicle Tower’ with ‘Silvered Red Bamboo and Cattails’

From another viewpoint, it echoes the shape of a yucca.

And from here it contrasts with the quiet beauty of a stone lantern.

‘Mexican Hat and Horn Tower’ is alive with color and movement.

I hope you enjoyed the tour. The Chihuly exhibit is joyous, fun, and truly amazing. I’d love to see it lit up at night as well, but that requires a reservation-only visit on certain nights. If I didn’t live 3-1/2 hours away, I would definitely return for Chihuly Nights. Or maybe one of you will go and post pictures for me!

Coming up next: My favorite plant combos from our visit to the Dallas Arboretum

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.