Butterfly vine, also known as gallinita (Mascagnia macroptera), brightens up the midsummer garden with lemon-yellow flowers whose petals look as if they were cut out with pinking shears. Flowering best in full sun, this Mexican native is a wonderful addition to the drought-tolerant garden, able to hold its own when the Death Star sets its beam on high during the summer.

Narrow evergreen leaves keep trellises and fences “greened up” in winter. Although a really hard freeze (into the lower 20s or teens) can burn its leaves or kill it to the ground, during most winters it sails through with no damage in Austin’s zone 8b. This is a vigorous climber but safe for wood fences since it climbs by twining. I help it clamber up a wooden fence by stringing thin wires vertically or in a fan shape between eyehooks screwed into the wood.

In late summer, lime-green seedheads appear that resemble papery butterflies flitting among the vine. By fall, the “butterflies” turn brown, but they continue to charm small children, as well as this gardener. Perhaps they would charm you too?

Note: My Plant This posts are written primarily for gardeners in central Texas. The plants I recommend are ones I’ve grown myself and have direct experience with. I wish I could provide more information about how these plants might perform in other parts of the country, but gardening knowledge is local. Consider checking your local online gardening forums to see if a particular plant might work in your region.

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

Last week I took a quick trip to central North Carolina to visit my dad, who lives in the charming Fearrington Village planned community. (Pics of the Fearrington House Inn garden coming soon.) Many of his neighbors—and this is a neighborhood of retirees—have opted out of extensive and time-consuming front lawns and instead left their pine tree-shaded lots largely natural and mulched with fallen pine straw, planting some evergreen shrubs and a few flowering perennials by the front door.

That’s an easy-care, lawn-free approach for sure, but Dad and his wife wanted a courtyard garden in which to entertain, with seating and lots of flowers. So they hired a designer and had a wall constructed around half of their front yard, creating enclosure, privacy, and protection from deer, and filled it with a lovely mix of evergreens, flowering trees for shade, flowering shrubs like hydrangeas and roses, and seasonally blooming perennials. This is the view from the front porch; you can glimpse the white stuccoed wall in the background. The steps lead to a small guest house on the left that forms part of the courtyard enclosure. An attached garage forms the right-side wall.

The paver path from the gate simply widens as it approaches the front door, creating inviting patio spaces that open up the garden and keep the extensive plantings from feeling claustrophobic. A wooden bench overlooks a raised-edge pond with goldfish, and just past it you can see a double wrought-iron gate, which they used to leave open during the day. However, Dad recently surprised a deer munching his impatiens up by the front porch in broad daylight, so now they keep the gate closed.

Summer is the best season in the garden, with pink and watermelon-red crepe myrtles in bloom, along with Knock Out roses, guara, coneflowers, and lantana.

The place was swarming with tiger swallowtails.

You couldn’t walk through the garden without them drunkenly flying into you as they fluttered from flower to flower.

A blue dragonfly made a more sedate appearance on a faded lotus flower.

Its coloring and angular lines seemed to echo…

…the dancing man sculpture in the center of the courtyard.

Portulaca flowers in a rusted, white-painted urn—a Victorian touch

Several benches offer places to sit and enjoy the garden.

Hidden in one corner of the courtyard, tucked away behind a tall hedge with an arched doorway cut out of the hedge, is a dining area shaded by a Mustang grape arbor.

Surrounding walls are painted for a burst of color. It was cool enough for us to have dinner here one evening—very pleasant.

Recent rains had filled this empty urn, and confetti-like crepe myrtle blossoms floated on the surface.

Happy Bloom Day, and I hope you enjoyed the tour. I posted about Dad’s garden last summer too, so just click for more pics. For more Bloom Day posts, visit meme hostess Carol at May Dreams Gardens. And remember, it’s Foliage Follow-Up tomorrow!

Update: For a look at the shops, patio gardens, and, yes, Oreo cows of Fearrington Village, click here.

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

Called by the unlovely names purple bindweed and tievine, Ipomoea cordatotriloba is a native morning glory with a rampant habit. But it looked sweet and demure climbing a cedar-post fence at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center yesterday.

A perfect match—the dainty-flowered but aggressive climber and the rustic cedar fence.

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