On Saturday I joined several garden-blogging friends for the biennial Open Days tour, sponsored by the Garden Conservancy. I consider Open Days to be the best garden tour in Austin. You often see high-design gardens mingled with a gardener’s sensibility and creative, personal touches. This year’s Open Days tour was one of the best I’ve seen thanks to a variety of garden styles, the inclusion of several gardeners’ gardens, with the homeowners on hand to answer questions, and six gardens that were new to the tour (so far as my memory serves). I’d seen two on other tours and one in a private visit. The other three were new to me, including the garden of Jennifer and Fred Myers on West 31st Street in central Austin.

The Myers garden appears on the front cover of a book I’ve long owned, The Welcoming Garden: Designing Your Own Front Garden. From it I know that homeowner and floral designer Jennifer Myers designed this dramatic and eclectic garden herself. She comes from a line of plant people. According to her website, Jennifer’s Gardens, her mother, Alice Staub, was a landscape architect and her father, Jack Staub, was a naturalist. “Working beside her parents,” her About page explains, “she learned and shared in their passions of native plants and the cultivation of roses and collecting rare plants including bromeliads and orchids. Jennifer frequently traveled to Mexico in search of these rare species.”

The Mexican influence is evident in her use of big, bold agaves, yuccas, and palms and exuberant displays of colorful bougainvillea.

Variegated agave—maybe ‘Quadricolor’?

As you approach from the street, you see a casual decomposed-granite path traversing part of the front garden and leading to the main walk to the front door.

The main walk is a straight shot to the front door, and its length is emphasized by an allee of ‘Will Fleming’ yaupon hollies. But Jennifer painted the front door a cheerful cobalt blue to draw the eye to the end…

…and she placed an iron gazebo and potted bougainvillea in a wide point midway down the path to create a pause along the walkway.

The midpoint view

Arriving at the front porch, you see the architectural detail of the 130-year-old stone house. Although the allee adds a formal element, the garden is, by and large, wildly informal and playful, as you can see by the colorful finials, the wire hearts hanging askew on the front door, the dangling string lights along the eave, and the asymmetrical placement of terracotta lanterns. Fossilized ammonites line the stair riser.

Playful color

I love these ovoid terracotta lanterns. It would be incredible to see this garden at night, lit for a party. String lights are everywhere—wrapping the ‘Will Fleming’ yaupon allee, outlining gazebos, dangling across patios, and bundled around architectural relics that dot the garden.

An old wall fountain leans casually against a rock wall. I thought of her as Medusa, but now I see grapes in her hair. Maybe this is Bacchus, not Medusa.

To one side of the house, a drainage swale has been created to let runoff flow through the garden. A path of old brick dips down to a low-water crossing, where water can flow over as needed. Dwarf mondo grass is filling in where water will flow when it rains. Moisture-loving plants fill in the rest of the garden space, shaded by live oaks. You can see a cupola in the background; other architectural remnants are stored there too, waiting to be fitted into the garden.

An enormous iron gazebo creates a dining room in the garden. This too is bedecked with string lights, and star lanterns hang above your head.

Suddenly the side garden drops steeply into a natural ravine, which has been terraced with limestone to create an amphitheater for live music. How cool is that!? And how very Austin.

What a treat it must be to be invited to a performance in this beautiful garden. The amphitheater overlooks Shoal Creek (where all that runoff must go when it rains).

A large carved wooden mirror leans against a stone retaining wall, reflecting the terracing and whimsical string lights shaded by upside-down plastic flowerpots.

A swath of St. Augustine lawn follows the banks of the creek and leads to the rear of the German-style limestone house, which sits atop more terracing and a stair lined with Italian cypress.

Jennifer’s floral decorating talent goes oversized with decorative touches like this twisty piece of wood.

There’s a decadent romanticism to the gardens reminiscent of courtyard gardens in New Orleans.

A sense of history is imparted by architectural relics and aged-stone figures that seem casually placed throughout the garden.

Simple and lovely

The narrow rear terrace is brightened with pots of bougainvillea in various colors.

The Three Graces

Coming around the other side of the house, this contemporary shed with sliding barn doors caught my eye.

As did this little monkey-man figure next to an antler, nested in a tangle of string lights.

Seating and console tables abound in this garden, providing space to linger and enjoy the floral creations of the owner.

An avocado-green table-and-chair set and old iron bedstead are the stars of this garden room, sheltered by a tall, green-painted wall.

Green table with a festive red runner

The outdoor bed is comfortably and colorfully dressed as well. Do people really use outdoor beds in our humid, mosquito-infested climate though? I always wonder.

Another romantic floral display, with artfully dropped petals on the table—a lovely touch.

A closer look

Manning the ticket table was a woman in a brightly patterned yellow dress and broad-brimmed cowboy hat. She wore a button that said “Garden Host,” and I asked if she was the owner, but she said no. Perhaps a friend. I loved her outfit, which perfectly matched the garden’s tropical-meets-Southwest vibe.

And here I am with my garden-blogging peeps, starting a fine day of garden touring together: Jean of Dig, Grow, Compost, Blog, who came all the way from Ruston, Louisiana; Shirley of Rock-Oak-Deer in San Antonio; Diana of Sharing Nature’s Garden; yours truly; and Catherine of The Whimsical Gardener.

Up next: The formal courtyard garden of Yvonne Tocquigny and Tom Fornoff.

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

I don’t remember how I acquired Yard Full of Sun, Scott Calhoun‘s 2005 memoir about making a garden that honors its desert setting. As soon as I read the first pages, his story, told with humor, crisp writing, and enticing photos, hooked me. Since then I’ve read four other books by Scott, reviewing most of them here on my blog, and come to admire not only his writing and photography but his design skills and artistic creativity. Simply put, I’m a fan.

It was partly to meet Scott and hear his scheduled garden talk that I attended the Garden Writers Association symposium in Tucson earlier this month. As I suspected, he turned out to be a great speaker and a really nice guy, generous with his time for this newbie author pumping him for advice on public speaking. I was delighted too to be invited to a gathering at his Zona Gardens design studio one evening.

I rode over there with some friends, and as we pulled up to the in-home studio, I had a half-second regret about not seeing the garden by daylight, and then I saw that the sunset light was beautiful and snapped a few pictures as dusk fell, including the geometric entry garden, softly lit from above and below.

The space is accented by bronze pots of succulents and desert shrubs…

…and orange Adirondack-style chairs that Scott made himself.

Then I went inside, and I met Scott’s wife Deirdre and their other guests, but all I could think was to get into the back courtyard garden, which I could see glowing with candlelight, in order to snap a few more pics before the space filled up. I was literally on the ground at one point, steadying my lens on a chair arm to prevent blurriness in the dim light. Yes, this is apparently the crazed behavior that I am capable of when invited to a civilized party attended by some well-known garden writers, plant experts, and editors and publishers. I’d offer up the vain hope that no one noticed my photography contortions, but at 6 feet tall in heels I’m not exactly a dainty flower. Sigh.

Garden exploration (and accompanying pics) always wins out, however. Before getting a drink and sitting down to talk, I had to admire this wire trellis of hanging egg-shaped pots planted with succulents. A Mexican snapdragon vine winds delicately through the grid.

‘Blonde Ambition’ grama grass sparkled in the soft glow of candlelight.

And a trio of Yucca rostrata creates a shimmering blue-green screen in an orange-painted (or red?) wall planter.

A display of potted succulents on a metal slatted shelf, backed by a steel plaque with letter-shaped cutouts, offers additional space for candles, and perhaps a refreshing drink. Time to go get one! Thanks, Scott and Deirdre, for a wonderful evening in your studio garden.

For a look back at my second post about Tucson Botanical Gardens, click here. Up next: A practical how-to on packing plants in your suitcase to bring home.

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

After 3-1/2 years of dreaming and planning and 3 months of sporadic construction, the front of my house has a fresh, more contemporary look thanks to a small but detailed remodeling project—adding a gable roof to the front porch—and new landscaping. I’m delighted with the new look, which opens up the entry and gives it more prominence, adds dimension to the roofline, updates the front walk and solves a drainage problem, and turns a traditional foundation planting into a xeric courtyard with sculptural accents.

BEFORE: Here’s how it looked last winter—sad and bedraggled. The previous owners took much better care of this area than we did, and it looked pretty nice when we moved in (before we stopped edging and watering the lawn sufficiently, and let the liriope border die out). But the traditional look just wasn’t my style, and I felt the space could be more interesting—more inviting—as a courtyard-style garden with just a few striking plants.

BEFORE: Here’s another view of the entry soon after we bought the house, before I removed the nonfunctional shutters, painted the door green, and ripped out the overcrowded dwarf nandinas on either side of the step. The biggest problem, which I couldn’t solve with a simple cosmetic fix, was the crumbling Saltillo tile walk, which sloped down from the driveway to the front steps, delivering a pool of rainwater to the base of the steps every time it rained. Plus the elevation change just felt wrong: you walked down the sloping path and then had to step up to reach the door. The whole space felt cramped as well.

AFTER: For the new walk, I envisioned floating concrete pads for a more-contemporary look. Poured in place, they span the sloping space between driveway and house, eliminating the downward ramp and allowing just one step up to reach the porch. Gravel-filled spaces between the pads allow water to flow through from the courtyard to the new dry stream on the right, which leads around to the side yard. Originally I thought to replace all the Saltillo tile and resurface the porch, but there was zero clearance for any replacement material thicker than tile, and the Saltillo continues inside the house, so ultimately it seemed appropriate (and cheaper) to leave this portion.

BEFORE: I removed the ‘Will Fleming’ yaupons but transplanted the remaining foundation plants to other places in my garden. All that thirsty, patchy grass on the left? Gone! And see those dinky, builder-grade exterior lights?

AFTER: They’re gone!—replaced with boxy, contemporary lights I ordered online. For those interested in the other materials: the wood is stained cedar, the roof is bronze standing-seam metal, and the concrete pads have a mirror finish. I obtained design help from Robert McKay, and the builder was Archadeck of Austin. The plants on the left include ‘Jaws’ agave in the low planter, toothless sotol (Dasylirion longissimum) in the vertical steel pipe, and Mexican bush sage (Salvia leucantha), bamboo muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa), and ‘Alphonse Karr’ bamboo planted in the ground. I will probably add a few softening Mexican feathergrass behind the agave this fall.

AFTER: A new dry stream will help funnel water off the driveway and around to the side of the house.

AFTER: New porch decor, gleaned from elsewhere in the garden

Now if we could just get a good, long rain to test out the drainage pattern and deliver some relief to the parched garden.

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