My friend Lucinda Hutson invited me over to her purple cottage on Sunday to see her angel’s trumpets in bloom, plus all the rest of her exuberant, flowery garden.

Lighting up her quiet Rosedale neighborhood street like a fiesta in full swing, Lucinda’s garden is an irresistible mix of color, romance, humor, and creativity. Colorful paint brightens every vertical surface: house (3 different body colors, depending on which side you’re looking at), wooden fences, and a detached garage-turned-shed. Flowering roses, angel’s trumpets, and sweet peas scent the air. Enticing gates and arbors beckon you onward, through a succession of intimate garden rooms. A “tequila cantina” anchors the rear garden with a party-ready set-up and a tequila-bottle bottle tree.

I long ago fell under the spell of Lucinda’s El Jardin Encantador. Perhaps you will too. Come along with me for a tour.

First of all, you can see she owns the cutest house in the world. Painted purple with lavender trim and a rosy-mango door, its arched frame accented with tiles, the house announces that someone with a zest for life lives here.

The front yard is given over to a flowery cottage garden filled with roses, annuals, and native perennials. There’s no lawn except for a narrow, grassy path near the front door.

The promised angel’s trumpets (Brugmansia) were indeed gorgeous. I inhaled their residual sweet scent left over from the evening.

Lucinda is growing sweet peas this year, and they smelled heavenly too.

A closer look at the sweet peas

And another view of the angel’s trumpets

Buttery roses—’Julia Child’ was one—make a sunny backdrop to the sweet peas.

Star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) in bloom added another sweet scent to the garden. You can see it behind this white-winged dove, which alit on the birdbath and posed for a photo.

A small angel kneels among salvias and snapdragons.

Yellow snapdragons lit up a partly shaded area under a ginkgo tree, one of a few I’ve encountered in Austin.

Sancho the cat lounged on a purple garden seat.

A wider view of the garden reveals an enormous Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruticosa) in full bloom.

Along the left side of the lot is a gravel drive, which no longer leads to the detached garage in the back yard. It stops short, blocked by a stone wall over which heartleaf ice plant (Aptenia cordifolia) cascades and a peaked, wooden arbor supporting a ‘Don Juan’ rose.

An intricate iron gate offers peek-a-boo glimpses of the garden beyond.

I adore this gate! Now we’ve walked through, and here’s a look back, with the front garden abloom in the background.

Another view, with nasturtiums tumbling along the ground

In the very back of her lot, behind her former garage, Lucinda created a festive cantina for her frequent parties. A rustic table serves as a bar, sheltered by an arbor constructed of unpeeled cedar posts topped with a metal agave. On the turquoise wall, a wooden sign proclaims this to be “La Lucinda Cantina.” At left, a tequila bottle tree is mulched with corks, and metal mariachis play. Horseshoes line the eave for luck.

What a perfect setting for Lucinda to show off her brand-new book, Viva Tequila! Cocktails, Cooking, and Other Agave Adventures, soon to be released in May. By the way, if you want to hear the always entertaining Lucinda speak about her new book—and her agave adventures—plan to attend the Garden Club of Austin’s May 23rd meeting, 7 pm, at Zilker Botanical Garden.

I got a sneak peek. It’s a beautiful book!

And the cantina is awfully fun, isn’t it?

Lucinda is bold with color, painting even her wooden privacy fence to festive effect. Here’s her mermaid garden, with blue and green capiz shells creating a watery curtain behind a metal fish and a preening mermaid. Snake plant (Sansevieria) and succulents like ‘Sticks on Fire’ euphorbia add to the wavy, under-the-sea vignette.

Lucinda created this mosaic Madonna altar out of an old bathtub and mortared it into a stone wall.

Mexican folk art is prominently displayed throughout her garden.

These are children’s chairs from Mexico, turned into an artistic collection along an orange wall of her house.

A closer look

In front of her former garage, Lucinda built a large raised bed over her old driveway and planted edibles and more roses.

Silverware flowers pick up the edible theme with a touch of whimsy.

A wider view

An eye-catching flower. This is some sort of African daisy, Lucinda said. Update: This is an Osteospermum hybrid, perhaps ‘Soprano Lilac Spoon’ by Proven Winners.

Aren’t they cool?

This is the dining deck immediately behind the house. A purple umbrella shades the table and cushy chairs. It always amazes me how many distinct garden rooms Lucinda was able to carve out of her tiny lot. And the beauty of it is that they make her garden live much larger than you’d expect.

A frilly metal chair stands by the door to her detached office, where she writes and prepares for her many speaking engagements.

A heart-shaped pad on a spineless prickly pear—Mother Nature’s own valentine?

My thanks to Lucinda for another delightful garden visit! Readers, if you’d like to see more of Lucinda’s festive garden, check out my previous posts:
Lucinda Hutson’s Easter-egg colorful garden, April 2012
Enchanted evening in Lucinda Hutson’s cantina garden, April 2011
El Jardin Encantador: Lucinda Hutson’s garden, October 2009
Lucinda Hutson’s enchanting garden, April 2008

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Driving through near-downtown Bouldin neighborhood last weekend, I was struck by the number of lawnless front yards in one short stretch of W. Live Oak Street. Luckily I had my camera, so I decided a drive-by post was in order—but truth be told, I got out of the car and walked up and down a block of Live Oak to better view several of these gardens.

Traditional Bungalow with Gravel Garden

This traditional bungalow with a spare gravel garden in lieu of lawn is the first one that caught my eye. The Texas Black gravel is a hip choice for contemporary Austin gardens, as are the “floating” concrete pavers. It’s all a little spare for my taste, but I appreciate the softening influence of the Mexican feathergrass on the left and the Knock Out roses on the right. I bet their water bill is low! Look carefully to the left of the roses and you’ll see an old-fashioned reel mower—an ironic yard-art display?

Texas-Style Cottage

Across the street, this yellow cottage says howdy with a bermed, xeric garden outside a rustic plank fence. Agave, bamboo muhly, coral honeysuckle, and various groundcovers combine pleasantly, framed by a low, ranch-style wooden fence and simple, flat-top arbor. The bermed plants and fence provide a sense of privacy for a small lawn and the house.

Contemporary with Feathergrass

Back across the street, next door to the first house I showed you, is this contemporary home with a touseled garden of Mexican feathergrass, shrub daisies, and shoestring acacias. It’s a little messy, definitely shaggy—and I quite like it. The aqua metal planters topped with yellow-flowering bulbine are a funky and fun touch. The one inside the fence is elevated on a chunky, rusty metal post.

Outside the fence, a second planter sits on the ground.

Contemporary with Red Lines & Metal Fence

OK, this one still has a lot of lawn, but the house and fence caught my eye, as did the stoplight-red Knock Out roses. A lot more could be done with this one to complement the style of the house, don’t you think?

I do like their contemporary mailbox.

Contemporary with Desert Garden

This one may be my favorite based on the garden alone. But wow, look at the house too—kind of like a Mondrian painting. I found a lot of info about this home online. Check out the tour of the interior and owner interview on Apartment Therapy. I also learned that Big Red Sun designed the landscaping.

Are any desert gardeners (or Big Red Sun employees) reading this? What kind of cactus are the tall, columnar ones? I’ve never seen any that big growing in Austin. Update: Two readers have ID’d it as Argentine saguaro (Trichocereus terscheckii). The soap aloes were in full bloom already (my own are just starting to bloom) and eye-catching.

Their coral-red blossoms really stand out against the dark siding on the house.

Another view, with golden barrel cactus in the foreground.

Another view shows drought-tolerant bulbine and bamboo muhly as well.

A few agaves, sedum, desert willows, and Lindheimer nolina round out the xeric scene.

Notice how they slightly bermed this garden and mulched with gravel for sharp drainage. These plants will rot in soggy soil.

A lusher aesthetic takes hold behind a low wall with the house number carved into it (love!). A Texas mountain laurel on the right is underplanted with some type of sedge—maybe Texas sedge? The Japanese maple in gravel (at left) in our hot climate makes me cringe a little; they love cool, moist shade, after all. But I do like the sedge “lawn” that doesn’t need mowing. I have reservations about the zig-zagging boardwalk front path. It feels a little too beachy and too haphazard for the clean lines of the house. Wouldn’t a floating concrete-paver walk or Corten-edged path have been a better choice? Still, what an interesting low-water garden!

Contemporary with Bamboo Muhly Grass

Just a few blocks away on West Mary Street, I slammed on the brakes when I spotted this contemporary home floating in a cloud of chartreuse bamboo muhly grass and airy, xeric trees. With a few clumps of Texas bluebonnets, roses, and steel-blue agaves to set it off, this mass planting is really effective.

A closer look at this water-thrifty streetside planting.

A side entrance reveals a citron-yellow door, playing off the chartreuse bamboo muhly, and an irregular, floating-concrete walk. Agave, nolina, and rosemary add evergreen foliage on the right, and huge oaks lean over a graveled court (for parking?).

Some patchy lawn remains in back, but this fuchsia penstemon (I think) is what caught my eye. Cool garden!

Bouldin Castle

If you don’t care for contemporary boxy houses and straight lines, maybe a rugged stone castle is more your style? I’d never come across Bouldin Castle before, located at 715 W. Mary St., but it’s apparently quite well known, as I discovered when I looked it up online. Originally constructed in 1925 as a church, the “castle” has been preserved over the years, most recently as a rental vacation house.

A fortress-like wall hides most of the garden from view. Outside the wall, a spiky “moat” of agaves mulched with decomposed granite, accented with a few xeric trees (Texas persimmon? Texas mountain laurel?), keeps things simple.

How I’d love to step through that gate and see the rest of the garden and inside the house. Luckily, photos of the fascinating interior and the courtyard garden and lap pool are available online.

It looks like an eclectic mix behind that wall.

I hope you enjoyed this mini-tour of a few interesting streets in Bouldin neighborhood. All I could think, as I drove and walked around, was how cool it would be to live in such a diverse neighborhood, with so much to see every time you step out the door.

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Two weekends ago my family and I kicked off spring break with a fun day trip to San Antonio and a visit to San Antonio Botanical Garden. We were greeted with a crayon box of annual color in these containers just inside the entry. Geraniums, nasturtiums, pansies, and tulips and even a little chard tucked in the back for leafy texture—is there anything cheerier?

More annual color

The starry, water-repelling leaves of nasturtium are my favorite part of the plant, but the flowers are charming too.

Mmm, succulent goodness

Massive foxtail ferns, with colorful pots adding a little zing to the scene

Aztec grass Spider plants (Chlorophytum comosum) handsomely cloaked the ground beneath a crepe myrtle, backed by candy-pink cyclamen and tropical-looking variegated shell ginger.

In the shade, delicate blossoms of Japanese roof iris (Iris tectorum) stood erect on long stems.

In the sun, by a Spanish-style fountain and rill, pots of gorgeously arranged succulents caught my eye.

Is that ghost plant (gray) and a blooming echeveria (green)? Update: The green succulent is Sedum palmeri. Thanks to David for the ID.

The small Japanese Garden beckoned to us with its woven-reed-and-bamboo fence.

Naturally elegant with black string holding it together

I’ve always liked this gently arching stone bridge.

Next we explored the Sensory Garden (Garden for the Blind), which is filled with scented and texturally interesting plants—plus this stone bunny.

Red nasturtium seemed to pulse with color on this cloudy day.

Fascinating leaves the size of small parasols

In the conservatory we admired orchids growing in tropical humidity.

Firecracker fern was blooming with abandon throughout the gardens…

…including along these stairs.

On a dry slope, one of my favorite agaves, ‘Whale’s Tongue’ (A. ovatifolia), grew in silvery blue clusters, their broad leaves cupping upward.

A Mexican plum had puffed into bloom, its white blossoms gleaming in the fitful sunlight against satiny black branches.

Acacia were in bloom as well, with charming, yellow puffballs hanging from the green-leafed branches.

Old-fashioned snapdragons brightened up the spring beds too.

More firecracker fern…

…and some sort of thistle-looking plant added their spring flowers to the mix. Update: This is Mexican prickly poppy (Argemone mexicana). Thanks for the ID, Diana.

A lovely, stone fountain surrounded by giant papryus, with a big date palm in the background, puts me in mind of an Egyptian garden along the Nile—or at least that’s how I imagine it to be. Never been there.

Salmon-colored shrimp plant made a colorful groundcover beneath live oaks shedding their old leaves.

We were just slightly too early for the wisteria on the main arbor to be in full bloom. I was sorry. I’ve long wanted to see it in its full glory. In the foreground, annual bedding plants included leafy chard, a fun change from the ordinary.

The edible theme continued out front, with leafy vegetables adding crinkly texture, deep-purple foliage, and brightly colored stems that picked up the golden-yellow of the pansies in front. In back, a large silver agave added contrasting color and form.

For more images from our visit to San Antonio Botanical Garden—specifically the fern room and cactus room in the conservatory—click here.

Posts about my previous visits to San Antonio Botanical Garden can be found on my Noteworthy Gardens page. Feel free to click around for armchair visits.

Upcoming: Lawn Gone! talk and book-signing, this Saturday
Hey, Texas Hill Country peeps! Please join me this Saturday at 10 am at Backbone Valley Nursery in Marble Falls for my talk, “Lawn Alternatives for Central Texas” and a Lawn Gone! book-signing. I don’t know about you, but since it’s bluebonnet season, I’m going to take a little wildflower-peeping drive while I’m out there.

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.