First water lily is blooming but pond cleanup awaits
March 23, 2015 Despite a cool spring, an early-bird ‘Colorado’ water lily has already opened in the stock-tank pond, pale but undaunted. Future lilies will blush a deeper peachy pink as the days grow warmer. Before it decides to bloom in earnest, I really need to muck out a year’s ...
New mirrored trellises add depth to a blank wall
March 22, 2015 There’s something new in the side garden. Yes, the Texas mountain laurel (Sophora secundiflora), my favorite native ornamental tree, is blooming and wafting the sweet fragrance of grape Kool-Aid through the air. Does anything say springtime in Austin as much as that smell? But something else is ...
Spiderwort, Blue Elf aloe, and other spring blooms
March 18, 2015 Spring is in earnest now. Every time I stroll through the garden I see something new blooming, and around town the redbuds and Texas mountain laurels are at peak bloom. Mexican plums and Bradford pears are past peak, and the Texas bluebonnets are just starting. The joyous ...
Two little screech owls sitting in a tree
March 17, 2015 No, they’re not k-i-s-s-i-n-g, but they do trill to each other, he (above) in his ligustrum behind the back fence… …she in the owl box, which faces away from him and toward the house. I took these pictures on Sunday afternoon, while working in the garden below ...
Foliage Follow-Up: Colorful new pots and plants for spring
March 16, 2015 Yesterday was one of those perfect days for working in the garden all day long. And that’s exactly what I did, including potting up this beautiful new purple pot with the twistiest paleleaf yucca (Y. pallida) I’ve ever seen. The leaves look like ribbons curled with scissors, ...
Hootin’ Annie the screech owl
March 13, 2015 Making dinner last night, we glanced out the kitchen window and saw our little screech owl perched in the doorway of the owl box, just chillin’. I grabbed my camera and crept out on the deck to get a few pictures. When she didn’t stir, I eased ...
Evergreens, color, and hardscape carry garden through winter into spring
March 11, 2015 A recent conversation on Linda Lehmusvirta‘s Facebook page got a few Austin gardeners talking about winter interest. Tracie, a local gardener, wrote that her mostly native garden looks great spring through fall but is “asleep” in winter, and she wanted ideas. Lori at The Gardener of Good ...
Passalong plant from Rancho Reubidoux
March 03, 2015 The mailman delivered a much-anticipated package yesterday. What is this, a big green pickle? A freakishly large chrysalis? Oh, it’s better than that! This prickly baby is a piece of a sky-blue Pilosocereus pachycladus (syn. P. azureus) from Reuben Muñoz’s garden in Riverside, CA, near Los Angeles ...
Screech owl in the owl box
February 28, 2015 I can’t tell if it’s the same one I spotted in a tree last week, but yesterday evening my daughter looked out the kitchen window and spotted a screech owl in the owl box. She came running to find me, and I went running for my camera ...
Yellow fever on a cold day
February 27, 2015 February is our squirreliest month, springlike one minute, cold and gray the next. We Texas gardeners are longing for spring but feeling a sense of urgency to get the garden prepped before summer’s heat returns. Despite a long stretch of dreary cold, which has put on hold ...
Plant This: Chinese fringeflower
February 25, 2015 As winter and spring duke it out in late February, Chinese fringeflower (Loropetalum chinense) starts strutting its stuff, flashing hot-pink, strappy-petaled flowers amid its dusky-purple, evergreen leaves. Dark foliage is kind of rare in central Texas — our native and adapted plants tend to have gray-green and ...
Trying ‘Nabob’ abutilon
February 18, 2015 I opened the Plant Delights catalog recently and was coveting the rich-red ‘Voodoo’ abutilon in its pages, though balking at the shipping cost. A few days later I found ‘Nabob’ abutilon at Vivero Growers right here in Austin and scooped up three of them. Y’all know how ...
The boy’s back in town! Mr. Screech Owl, that is
February 17, 2015 Guess who just got back today That wild-eyed boy that had been away Haven’t changed that much to say But man, I still think them owls are crazy With apologies to Thin Lizzy, I did feel like shouting with joy when I looked up from my yard ...
If I’d gnome you were coming: February Foliage Follow-Up
February 16, 2015 Can it already be mid-February and time for Foliage Follow-Up? Here in Austin, winter may yet drop in for a surprise visit, but spring has already stepped inside and hung up her coat and hat. She’ll be putting her feet up on the ottoman soon. I saw ...
Puff balls and the virtue of laziness
January 23, 2015 I love seasonal changes, don’t you? Even winter has its own beauty, if you look closely. These tawny puffballs are the seedheads of silver ironweed (Vernonia lindheimeri var. leucophylla)… …which in summer looks like this. I think it may be more eye-catching at this time of year, ...
New year in green and gold: January Foliage Follow-Up
January 16, 2015 It’s a new year in the garden, and I haven’t really been out in it for a while. An unusually long stretch of cold, gray days had me feeling like I was in Seattle, and let me tell you, it made me feel pretty gray myself. But ...
