Digging » Lizards

August 24, 2010

Garden Designers Roundtable: Gardening with Nature, Gardening for Wildlife

Filed under: 2nd garden--2010, Bees, Berries, Birds, Bugs, Butterflies/Moths, Design, Garden Designers Roundtable, Lizards, Sustainable Gardening, Wildlife — Pam/Digging @ 10:33 am

Just in from a morning stroll through my garden, and what delights I witnessed. A tiny, blurry-winged hummingbird making the rounds from Mexican oregano to flame-leaf acanthus to Turk’s cap to Agastache. Honeybees spelunking for pollen. A leggy, spotted fawn tucked into a stand of bamboo muhly in the unfenced front garden, who bolted skittishly because I unknowingly stood too long near his hiding place.

Had I a typical expanse of flat, featureless lawn (like this example on Watersaver Lane at San Antonio Botanical Garden), relieved only by a few shade trees and a line of evergreen foundation shrubs, devoid of insect- and bird-attracting flowers and seeds, empty of plants that provide shelter, nurseries, and food for wildlife, I would not see many such visitors. Why would they visit a virtual desert, particularly if it were sprayed regularly with pesticides? And if they wouldn’t, why would we want to?

So how does one go about inviting wildlife into the garden from a design perspective?

1. Plant a variety of plants that change with the seasons, offering flowers for nectar or pollen, foliage for food or nests, and seeds for late-season food supplies. Using a very limited palette of plants may provide that clean, contemporary look you see in certain design magazines, but it won’t be as attractive to wildlife.

2. Add a mid-level of plants that fill the niche between lawn and shade trees. These plants provide shelter and food for wildlife. Think small trees; small to medium-sized shrubs, particularly those with fall or winter berries; ornamental grasses; and flowering perennials.

3. Don’t be in a hurry to “clean up” the garden in winter. Seedheads left standing provide food for birds, and even shriveled foliage and leaf litter offer protection for beneficial insects, lizards, etc.

4. Be tolerant when a plant gets “attacked” by caterpillars. Without caterpillars we wouldn’t have butterflies—or sphinx moths in this case.

5. Add water to your garden. Birds and insects get thirsty and need a safe place to drink. Provide a bird bath or small pond, and they will come.

6. Add nesting boxes to your garden. They not only offer birds a safe place to raise chicks but provide hours of enjoyment for you as you watch them get fed and learn to fly.

Visit all the participants in this month’s Garden Designers Roundtable for more posts about Gardening with Nature:

Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT
Douglas Owens-Pike : Energyscapes : Minneapolis, MN
Genevieve Schmidt : North Coast Gardening : Arcata, CA
Pam Penick : Digging : Austin, TX
Rebecca Sweet : Gossip In the Garden : Los Altos, CA
Scott Hokunson : Blue Heron Landscapes : Granby, CT

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March 22, 2010

Naples Botanical Garden: Gardens with Latitude

Filed under: Botanical Gardens, Containers, Design, Garden tours 2010, Grasses, Lizards, Palms, Travel, Vines, Water gardening — Pam/Digging @ 6:03 am

Over spring break we drove 3,200 miles (5,149 km) round-trip to Florida, with stops in Orlando, Miami, the Everglades, the Keys, and finally Naples to see the brand-new botanical garden there. Planted last August and opened to the public in November, Naples Botanical Garden is in its infancy, but it will grow up fast under the Florida sun.

The approach from the parking lot sets the stage with bold color. A lime-green wall with hot-pink bougainvillea contrasts with the salmon-colored entry planted with palms and orange, red, and green rainbow bromeliads.

The gardens showcase subtropical plants that grow around the world between the 26th latitude north, where Naples is located, and the 26th latitude south.

The centerpiece is the Brazilian Garden…

…where a negative-edge waterfall and pond are overlooked by a large mosaic tile mural by renowned Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx.

Miami landscape architect Raymond Jungles, who studied under Marx, donated the mural and designed the contemporary Brazilian Garden.

Swaths of one kind of plant…

…blocks of color (Portea shown here)

…contrasts in form: it’s a mod, mod world.

So many of the plants were entirely foreign to me, Seussian in shape, and their deeply colored, broad, glossy leaves were strikingly different from the silvery green, small, and often fuzzy leaves I’m used to seeing on xeric sun-lovers here in Austin. This is Neoregelia petra.

This one, in the foreground, looks more familiar. In fact, I mistook it for a yucca at first, but it’s actually a bromeliad called Alcantarea odorata.

More Portea, I think

Neoregelia mcwilliamsii

Climbing up to the pavilion behind the waterfall, you look out over the negative edge at a colorful and palm-studded garden. You can see that some of the trees were still bare. According to a horticulturalist I spoke with, some of the plants were recovering from transplant shock and the same January cold snap that hit much of the southern U.S. It dipped down to 31 F (-.5 C) in the garden one night and remained cold for several days, killing some of the subtropical plants and setting back others. For all that, I thought the garden looked remarkably healthy and established considering its recent planting.

Tropical water lilies

Red water lily leaves look like stepping stones

A path on the other side of the pond…

…leads to the Caribbean Garden.

The focal point of the Caribbean Garden is a turquoise cabana-like structure, providing welcome shade and open to cooling breezes.

The front yard, with crushed-shell “gravel” that looks almost like beach sand.

View from a bench inside

Gulf muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris) grows outside.

As does a cultivated grove of pineapple.

Palms dominate the view, no matter where you are in the botanical garden. I noticed a beautiful yellow fruit on this palm.

A closer look

The name of this one intrigued me: zombie palm.

A river of grass represents the Everglades, which begins just south of Naples.

Several lakes, whose excavation during the garden’s construction provided soil used to create topographical interest, offer a naturalistic experience and good bird-watching opportunities.

But signs warn you to look out for alligators! The horticulturalist I spoke to assured me that alligators do inhabit their lakes. But they haven’t eaten anyone yet.

The only reptile we spotted here, however, was rather small: this little lizard on a fence in the Children’s Garden.

Kids would have a fun time exploring this garden—as did we, even though our children are too old for many of the features, including an interactive fountain for cooling off in and a charming playhouse, where children are invited to use one of numerous watering cans to water the vegetables growing all around.

Aside from a treehouse, a tall watchtower, a stream with stepping stones, chalk for drawing on the sidewalk, a sandpit, and a stroll-behind waterfall, the children’s garden entices small gardeners with colorful flowers like this pink cosmos…

…and fun purse planters that decorate a garden wall. Many other everyday objects were planted up and placed throughout the garden to provide a little surprise.

Bees were attracted too.

A few softer flowering plants like this beautiful vine…

…and this pink trumpet tree stood out amid the sea of colorful, dramatic foliage in the gardens.

But my main impression was of foliage—palms and bromeliads, especially. I never knew there were so many varieties of each, and such diversity of form and color.

I would love to see Naples Botanical Garden again in a few years, when the palms and other plants have had a chance to spread out and fill in and create even more drama.

My thanks to Shannon Palmer, NBG’s communications manager, who tweets about happenings in the garden at @NaplesBotanical, for taking the time to say hello and sharing some of the garden’s publications with me.

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October 30, 2009

Perfect fall morning

Filed under: 2nd garden--2009, Cactus, Lizards, Roses, Xeric plants — Pam/Digging @ 12:32 pm

‘Radrazz’ Knock Out roses in the morning light of late October

I should have been working all morning in the garden. The weather is perfect—cool, sunny, and calm—and I’m still in the process of digging out grass in the side yard by the new fence, plus the new gate needs a second coat of paint.

Instead I’ve been carrying my camera around, leaning in for closer looks, feeling the leaves and smelling the roses. Even the normally scentless ‘Radrazz’ roses next to the ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (A. ovatifolia) smell warm and sweet in the sunlight this morning.

Their cherry red absolutely pops against the blue of the pool and the blue-green of the ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave. And you know I like my garden to pop.

Annie in Austin’s passalong pink cuphea is in full, lush, bee-attracting bloom next to the softleaf yucca (Y. recurvifolia).

Maybe I even prefer this cuphea to the bat-face (C. llavea).

This baby golden barrel (Echinocactus grusonii) glows in the sunlight.

Another passalong from Annie, Salvia madrensis, is beginning to bloom. I first saw this plant in the Circle Garden at Chicago Botanic Garden, and recently I admired a large swath in Lucinda Hutson’s garden.

Like many salvias, it has a fuzzy flower spike.

Its leaf is sandpapery, like a cat’s tongue.

Agastache ‘Ava’ continues to look lovely against the powder blue Wheeler’s sotol.

And Agastache neomexicana is blooming again. Both agastaches were part of Gardening Gone Wild’s photo contest prize, courtesy of High Country Gardens.

Pineapple sage (Salvia elegans) blazes red with contrasting chartreuse leaves.

‘Helvola’ water lily seems to be the only one taking the approach of fall seriously. Its flowers have faded, and its floating leaves are turning yellow.

This Texas spiny lizard simply wants to bask on the sun-warmed boards of the deck. I understand. I’m feeling lazy today too.

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May 3, 2009

New-baby garden mash-up

Filed under: 2nd garden--2009, Lizards — Pam/Digging @ 11:32 am

In the new-baby garden this May 3rd, it’s a mash-up of spring hangers-on and summer debutantes, of inherited plants from the previous owners and transplants I brought over from my old garden last fall. And of course new plants I purchased for the new garden are doing their thing too. Pictured above, transplanted winecup flowers dance on long stems over a blue-green ~~sempervivum~~ echeveria I recently bought.

I love the symmetrical detail, cool color, and fleshy texture of the echeveria.

Winecup (Callirhoe involucrata ), a Texas native wildflower, glows against the blue-green leaves of a ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave.

When I purchased this columbine for the new garden, I thought it was the standard ‘Hinckley’s.’ But I don’t remember those having any white on them. Beautiful though, isn’t it?

Another inherited plant, this pretty green heuchera, has sent up a bloom stalk.

The flowers are autumnal in color, but I like the way they show up against the white bark of the Texas persimmon behind it.

I transplanted a clump of majestic sage (Salvia guaranitica ) from my old garden last fall. This salvia blooms even in shade (in fact, it prefers afternoon shade in our climate) and attracts hummingbirds. Easily divided, it’s a good passalong plant.

Hello! I spotted this handsome fellow on the back wall of the house. I’ve not encountered a single anole in the new garden (and how I miss them!), but seeing this lizard was a pleasant surprise. ~~Does anyone know what it is?~~ Thanks to MSS for her ID of this Texas spiny lizard.

The ‘Macho Mocha’ mangave flower spike continues to grow. It’s well over six feet now and will soon be in the Texas persimmon branches.

My daughter’s English peas have a few flowers, despite the recent heat and humidity. We know we probably won’t see any peas due to the lateness of our sowing, but she’s enjoyed the plants’ growth anyway.

And here’s something I’m particularly enjoying—a little bit of Dee’s garden growing here. Last summer my mom and I visited Dee and her lovely garden, and she sent me home with a division of her phlox and, of course, some red dirt. It was too hot to plant until fall, so I kept it on the shady side of my house and remembered to water it occasionally. The tips browned, but it hung on, and then we decided to move, so I couldn’t plant it that fall after all. In October I moved the pot, along with dozens and dozens of transplants, to the new garden, and finally by January or February I’d created a bed where it could be planted. And now the three divisions are growing nicely. I can’t wait to see them flower this summer, reminding me of Dee’s garden each time I admire them.

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