Cool weather might make some people think of brown leaves and shriveling plants, but not me. October is, I think, the best garden season—both for planting and photographing—in central Texas. Certainly my streetside garden is fuller and more flowery than at any other time of year. The color and blissfully cool temperatures drew me outside last weekend, and I took a few more pictures of the gardens along the street.

Pictured above is a narrow garden shared by me and my neighbor Dell. It replaced a boring stretch of lawn that crisped up in the drought. Now we both enjoy orange-flowering globe mallow (Sphaeralcea), purple sage (Salvia officinalis), and ‘Color Guard’ yucca. Gulf muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris) is in there too, and about to burst into pinkish purple bloom.

The frosty green leaves and tangerine flowers of globe mallow, a tough, drought-tolerant native of the southwestern U.S. Give it good drainage and full sun for best flowering.

On the other side of my house, I’m sharing gardening space with my neighbor Donna, and this is the view from her driveway, with the garden in full fall bloom.

There’s Mexican bush sage (Salvia leucantha) and an orange lantana…

…plus dwarf firebush (Hamelia patens var. glabra) and a few eryngium poking their thistly, purple heads up through the lantana.

‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (A. ovatifolia) and Autumn sage (Salvia greggii): cool vs. hot color; bold vs. fine texture.

David Salman at High Country Gardens sent me a few plants to trial this spring, including ‘Summer Love’ agastache. I wrote him over the summer to tell him it wasn’t really thriving, but now that fall’s cooler temperatures (especially at night) have arrived, ‘Summer Love’ has perked up quite a bit. It’s only about a foot tall, but the rosy pink color is intense and showy, and I’m glad to see it looking so much happier.

A long view across Donna’s garden and my streetside garden reveals the tall, dusty pink, feathery blooms of ‘Pink Flamingos’ muhly grass.

Here’s another look, with the blue ridgeline of the surrounding hills visible between the trees. We’re surrounded by forested canyons in this neighborhood, which accounts for the heavy deer population. Everything in the front yard must be deer resistant, and of course grasses always fit the bill.

The curb strip in front of our house, with annual purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’) still showy but fading on the right, garlic chives (Allium tuberosum) gone to seed in front (I’m holding up the floppy heads with a hastily fashioned bamboo “fence”), Mexican feathergrass (Nassella tenuissima), and Autumn sage (Salvia greggii). Easy, readily available, and deer resistant plants.

The inflorescence of purple fountain grass is particularly beautiful, dark pink and as fuzzy as a wooly caterpillar.

A wider view

My husband made this swing for my daughter right after we moved into this house four years ago. Now that she’s older, she doesn’t swing so much, but I made the garden around it, and it’s a nice place to sit and rest and just look at the garden on a beautiful fall day.

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

The xeric garden is eye-poppingly bold in bloom this week. The native wildflower winecup (Callirhoe involucrata) is sprawling through the agave bed with her stained chalices held up for refills.

Purple skullcap (Scutellaria drummondii), native to the Hill Country, also thrives amid the spiky plants.

Topping out at 6 feet tall, the bloom spikes of ‘Chocolate Chips’ manfreda are opening their oversized, bottlebrush flowers from the bottom up. That’s a ‘Margaritaville’ yucca in the culvert-pipe planter.

Another look

Nearby, Yucca filamentosa ‘Bright Edge’ is blooming for the first time, her creamy white bells dangling from an undulating, 3-to-4-foot bloom spike.

From another angle

Even the littlest aloe wants in on the action, like this tiny specimen sending up a lovely bloom atop a wire-thin stem.

More plants?! Oh yes! I received a box of Agastache ‘Summer Love’ and silver ironweed (Vernonia linheimeri v. leucophylla), courtesy of Santa Fe-based High Country Gardens this week.

Owner David Salman asked if I’d trial these sun-loving, xeric plants in my garden to see whether they hold up to the heat and humidity of central Texas. I sure hope so; they are both beauties. This is shaping up to be a good weekend for planting, what with the forecast for cooler temperatures.

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

Mahonia eurybracteata ‘Soft Caress’ is new to the nursery trade and beginning to pop up in local garden centers. I recently bought this big 7-gallon ‘Soft Caress’ on discount at Hill Country Water Gardens, where they gave me a deal so I could trial it in my garden. If you’re interested, they have more 7-gallons, and I’ve also seen it offered at Red Barn (5 or 7 gallons) and Barton Springs Nursery (one small one).

I first saw ‘Soft Caress’ mahonia last spring in the Rister-Armstrong garden on the Dallas Open Days garden tour. It was love at first sight! From the cultivar name you might guess that it’s a non-prickly mahonia, and you’d be right. It has a mounding habit and needs full shade in our hot climate. Like all mahonias, it’s considered deer resistant.

Oregon grape holly (Mahonia aquifolium), native to the Pacific Northwest, may be the best-known mahonia, and it grows in shade in Austin too. But we also have a native mahonia that takes sun or shade and grows well in garden settings too: agarita (Mahonia trifoliolata), seen here growing wild in a savannah at Lost Maples State Natural Area.

And at the Wildflower Center…

I grew it in my former garden and keep meaning to add it to my current garden. Its blue-green leaves are lovely year-round, and in spring it holds small clusters of yellow flowers along its woody stems.

I inherited two Chinese mahonias (Mahonia fortunei) with our current house and have grown to admire their handsome leaves, drought tolerance, and deer resistance. I’d never seen them for sale in Austin until recently, at Red Barn. I nearly snapped up several more before realizing I didn’t know where I’d put them.

So there’s my mahonia tribute. Join me in posting about your lovely leaves of March for Foliage Follow-Up, a way to remind ourselves of the importance of foliage in the garden. Just leave a comment here with a link to your foliage post, and please include a link to Digging in your post. If you can’t post so soon after Bloom Day, no worries. Just leave your link when you get to it.

By the way, my blog Digging is a finalist for Best Gardening Blog in the Readers’ Choice Awards at About.com. I’d love to have your vote. You can vote once a day (it’s on a 24-hour cycle) until March 21. So vote early and often! Thanks for your support! (And thank you to Pamela Price for the vote graphic.) Click to VOTE.

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