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.

Texas dwarf palmetto (Sabal minor), foxtail fern (Asparagus densiflorus ‘Meyersii’), heartleaf skullcap (Scutellaria ovata), sparkler sedge (Carex phyllocephala ‘Sparkler’), and bamboo muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa) add plenty of greenery to the winter garden.

Audrey, a regular reader of Digging, recently asked me how to plant for winter greenery, explaining that her garden needed some green for the off-season. “I would love to see a picture of an area of your garden in full bloom and the exact same shot in the winter,” she wrote. What a great idea! Not that my garden is totally fab in winter or anything, but I do have quite a lot of evergreen interest, plus a few other tricks that help liven up the winter garden here in Austin.

I will point out that my garden is not particularly flowery in general. There are three reasons for this. One, my garden is fairly shady. Two, I love the architectural plants of the Southwest, and they are essentially evergreen shrubs. Three, I planted this garden to be low-maintenance, and that means more evergreens and ornamental grasses and fewer flowering perennials and annuals.

That adds up to a garden that doesn’t go through dramatic seasonal changes, and I’m OK with that. I do still enjoy smatterings of flowers throughout the growing season, as well as berries, bulbs, a little fall color, and the unfurling of bright-green leaves in the spring. Bees, butterflies, and other pollinators visit my garden, and I see lots of birds, which goes to show that even a largely evergreen garden, planted diversely with plenty of cover, nesting material, and seed and fruit sources, can be a wildlife habitat.

OK, let’s look at a few wide-shot views of my garden in mid-winter, paired with similar views from a more flowery season.

Today. (The garden in the foreground belongs to my neighbor, though I planted and help maintain it, and I frequently blog about it as if it were mine. Hi, Donna!)

Early October. Salvia greggii and Salvia leucantha brighten up this bed with flowers in spring and fall, and most other plants are a brighter green. In winter, though the S. leucantha shrivels away, the Salvia greggii remains green. Mexican feathergrass (Nassella tenuissima) and Gulf muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris) turn tawny, but they’re still there, as are evergreen (or everblue?) Agave ovatifolia, red yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora), and bamboo muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa).

Today

Mid-October. Not much difference, really. It’s all a bit more faded and tawny, and the copper canyon daisy (Tagetes lemmonii) at left is frost-shriveled now. However, this is a very evergreen bed. You can get color from evergreen plants too, as shown by the yellow-striped ‘Color Guard’ yucca, the blue-green gopher plant (Euphorbia rigida), and the silver ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia.

Today

Early March. Again, pretty similar thanks to a mass planting of Mexican feathergrass and prickly pear. Even the little four-nerve daisy (Tetraneuris scaposa) is still blooming sporadically. Springtime adds the chartreuse flowering of gopher plant (Euphorbia rigida) to the mix. You’ll notice I added a potted Agave lophantha for vertical interest since the spring. Potted evergreens are a great way to get additional winter greenery and to make a focal point of it.

Another example of winter interest in a pot: ‘Color Guard’ yucca in a blue glazed container, with foxtail fern at its feet.

Today

Late March. Pulling back a bit, you see globe mallow (Sphaeralcea) in full bloom. This heat-loving plant flowers spring through fall but shrivels up in winter. The evergreen Arizona cypress ‘Blue Ice’, bamboo muhly, gopher plant, and butterfly vine (Mascagnia macroptera) add up to plenty of winter greenery.

Today

Late May. A tighter image, with purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) and ‘Peter’s Purple’ monarda in bloom in beds on either side of the pond. The pond will also have been blooming with water lilies. Look back up at today’s image and you’ll actually see two hangers-on purple coneflowers, but the other flowering plants are dormant. But what carries this area through winter is the structure of the stock tank, shed, and disappearing fountain (in the foreground), the colorful shed doors and fountain, the reflective quality of the water in the pond, ‘Winter Gem’ boxwoods marking the path “doorways” all around the pond, ‘Color Guard’ yuccas, and Mexican feathergrass. Also, don’t overlook the power of hardscape to give life to your garden in winter. The sunburst path around the pond is a striking feature of this space, all the more noticeable in winter when the garden is quieter.

On the other side of the stock-tank pond, a trio of culvert-pipe planters with squid agaves (A. bracteosa) adds height and texture to the winter garden. Winter-through-spring groundcover heartleaf skullcap (Scutellaria ovata) adds a blue-green carpet at their feet.

Today

Mid-April, when the Aloe saponaria was in bloom. Let’s face it, this raised bed overlooking the pool is all about texture and form, with hits of variegated yellow color, and not about flowers. Even so, the soap aloes bloom a couple of times a year, and in fall oxblood lily bulbs pop up along the edge of the bed, providing a jolt of seasonal color.

Today

Early June. I couldn’t find the same viewpoint for the raised bed containing the ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (A. ovatifolia), but you can see from another angle what it looks like in June. Winecup (Callirhoe involucrata) rambles and purple skullcap (Scutellaria wrightii) flowers profusely. Earlier in the season, iris add their ruffled flowers to the mix.

Here then are my tips for greening up your winter garden: add lots of evergreen shrubs, sub-shrubs (like Salvia greggii), and ornamental grasses, especially evergreen ones like bamboo muhly. Add punches of color with cold-hardy potted plants set into your beds and with painted surfaces like sheds, benches, and garden art. And leave frostbitten plants standing through winter, because even tan and brown are colors, and it all adds up to an interesting winter garden.

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

I don’t think I ever mentioned last October that I received a fabulous red Circle Pot from my fabulous sister and sister-in-law. Sis had told me to expect a package and to keep my mitts off it until my birthday because it wouldn’t be wrapped. When the box arrived I took one look at the shipping label, which read Potted, Los Angeles, CA, and whooped! Potted!—a garden shop I’ve only visited online but whose planters, garden decor, and other goodies I simply drool over. I dashed an email off to my sister, probably in all caps: “You got me something from Potted!” Amused, she tapped back, “How do you even know about that place?” (She’d stumbled across their online catalog by accident.)

Oh, I have my ways.

(Potted just announced on Facebook that their Circle Pot maker, an American ceramics company, has shut its doors. No! I hope they can find another company, preferably not overseas, to make their iconic planter.)

For Christmas Sis and sister-in-law gave me this cool Zen-style bell, which I hung from the Texas persimmon behind the house. Every time I walk by I can’t help giving it a little push to hear its deep gong.

This image represents a garden present from the garden itself—tremendous growth after 3-1/2 years. I simply adore the ‘Blue Ice’ Arizona cypress, which was so little when I planted it. Now look at it! Don’t even warn me that it’ll get too big for the space. I simply don’t care. If you want to know about the low-growing blue plant along the path edges, it’s gopher plant (Euphorbia rigida), a heat-, drought-, and deer-tolerant favorite of mine.

And the rain, rain, rain came down, down, down all day Tuesday and Wednesday, delivering a most welcome garden present of 3-3/4 inches of rain.

The stock-tank pond is brimming, plants are glistening, and I’m sure sticky-plant weeds and oak sprouts are already sending up grateful, unfurling leaves.

And last but not least, Cosmo has been a sweet gift to our family this year. He’s pretty easy on the garden as well, digging only in one spot under the deck stairs so far. What a good dog!

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