Last weekend Lori, a gardener in southwest Austin who blogs at The Gardener of Good and Evil, hosted a meet-up of local garden bloggers. It was my second visit. I’d seen her lovely garden three years ago and posted about it then. Lori loves roses, and in 2010 they dominated her garden. Today, due to the drought and increasing shade from maturing trees, Lori has reduced the number of roses and added plenty of structural plants like agave and yucca to contrast with the billowy foliage of her roses and ornamental grasses.

As you approach the house, a dramatic scene greets you: Agave weberi on one side of the front walk, Agave americana on the other. ‘Margaritaville’ yucca, salvias, rosemary, and feathergrass are tucked in at their feet, and shrub roses and bamboo muhly back up the agaves to completely screen half the front garden from view.

Annual poppies make a cheerful appearance here as well.

A straight-on view of the front walk shows a feathergrass gauntlet accented with California poppies. Lori constructed the front walk herself out of concrete pavers and cinderblocks.

Stepping up into private front garden, you’re treated to eye-catching combos like this: ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia, smooth sotol (I think), yellow bulbine, ‘Color Guard’ yucca (in the pot), and Mexican feathergrass.

A wider view reveals the front walk (leading through the feathergrass) and a perpendicular walk that runs in front of the house and around to the side.

A hidden patio composed of a geometric arrangement of concrete pavers comes into view from the front porch.

A closer look reveals a fun accent: a half-face planter. We’ll see many more of these placed throughout Lori’s garden.

The deep, shady porch provides respite from the Death Star. Lori has accented the eaves with cut-out wooden stars inspired by the garden of Donnis Doyle.

Along the front porch, foxtail fern softens the step in a pretty pot, with a diminutive ajuga colonizing the shady gravel path. Heartleaf skullcap and flowering violas add seasonal color.

Violas

Taking the perpendicular path along the front porch, you enter the geometric patio, where you’re treated to multicolored ‘Mutabilis’ roses and a color-coordinated aeonium in the face planter.

A closer look

A narrow side path bordered by Mexican feathergrass leads to the back gate — a charming peek-a-boo gate, with metal screening creating a window and framing a garden view.

From the other side it’s just as appealing. Lori has stained her fence and gate blue, the color of her home, porch, and wooden decks. The plants really “pop” against that dusky blue.

The long, narrow side garden is greened up with a mix of fence-hugging vines and bright, variegated groundcovers, all mulched with shredded wood, with no edging to separate planting bed from path.

Walking along the path, you see another face planter ahead, with Southern wax myrtle screening the rest of the garden from view.

Lori has mixed dwarf ruellia, both purple- and white-blooming, and variegated liriope along the path — “a strategic choice,” she says, “since I don’t have lighting in that side yard. All of those whites glow at twilight so I can see where to walk. I water it only rarely, even during periods of horrible drought, and cut it all down to the ground once a year, so it’s pretty much the perfect low-maintenance planting.”

A cut-leaf philodendron marks the end of the path, and it’s underplanted with that brightly variegated liriope.

Now the back garden opens to view. Deep borders along the fence lines are packed with a mix of textural, blooming, and structural plants, many of which are native to central Texas: datura, rosemary, heartleaf skullcap, prickly pear, agaves in pots, roses, Mexican buckeye, Mexican feathergrass, and bamboo muhly, to name a few. A bit of lawn remains, and it functions primarily as a wide, curvy path through the garden and as a negative space to rest the eye.

A native mesquite tree anchors the center of the garden, its sculptural limbs supporting a feathery canopy of leaves.

One branch serves as a bottle tree, with carriage screws supporting an assortment of blue bottles.

A deep porch and a Florida room (not pictured) along the back of the house provide plenty of space to sit and view the garden. A shed (pictured), brightened with window-like mirrors, anchors one end of the porch. In the L-shaped space between shed and porch, Lori solved a persistent drainage problem by constructing a decomposed-granite patio raised one step to the level of the porch. A double line of concrete pavers leads the eye (and the feet) from the porch directly to the lawn.

I like the way Lori created a bed around the mesquite that’s mostly at ground level but also continues at patio level, with feathergrass and pink evening primrose planted directly in the decomposed granite.

Pink evening primrose

This beautiful vessel fountain is a new addition since last time I visited. Plumbing pipe pours water into a glazed, sculptural container, which spills into an arrangement of Mexican beach pebbles. The water circulates into an underground basin and back up through the pipe. Update from Lori about the basin: “The basin for the fountain is by John Lamos, an artist based in northern California. He specializes in lightweight sculpture using sustainable materials.”

Following the line of pavers, your eye is drawn to a trio of face planters arranged on a low retaining wall.

Blue-green heartleaf skullcap behind the faces will be blooming soon.

Another trio — this time golden barrel cacti in a metal planter. Ice plant trails along the edge.

Lori has a flair for displaying pots in an eye-catching way. In this collection on her patio, she sets another face planter on a mini-plinth of concrete pavers and elevates a cobalt-blue pot on a few tinted pavers. Glass beads and Mexican beach pebbles used as mulch add a finishing touch.

An enormous cardoon adds bold foliage to a small vegetable garden planted along the shed.

Looking back to the mesquite bed. Light-catching grasses are complemented by chunky Opuntia pads and sword-like agave leaves.

The fountain is pretty from every angle.

On a wall on the covered porch, Lori creatively hung a leftover section of gutter, painted it blue, and planted it up with grandfather’s pipe (Callisia fragans) cuttings. The shady space is brightened with mirrors disguised as windows.

Blue is definitely the color of choice in Lori’s garden, including in this charming vignette along a corner of the foundation. Yellow in the golden barrel cactus, yucca, and agave makes a perfect complement.

At the gate on the other side of the house, a variegated agave and purple heart in a silver container, set on a homemade plinth of concrete pavers, make an eye-catching focal point. A round mirror reflects light like a silver moon.

Along the back of the house, a line of ‘Color Guard’ yucca is surrounded by colorful, blooming ice plant, orange narrowleaf zinnia, and blackfoot daisy. Like all of Lori’s garden, it’s a charming and creative combination with an element of surprise.

Lori, thanks so much for letting me come back to photograph your garden as it continues to evolve! Readers, if you’d like to read my previous post about the Garden of Good and Evil, click here.

You’re Invited!
I’ll be at BookPeople on Saturday, May 4, at 4 pm , along with author Jenny Peterson, to talk briefly about design tips for losing the lawn or paring it back. Jenny will be sharing styling tips for houseplants. And we newbie authors will BOTH be signing copies of our books! Whether you have a green thumb or a brown one, let’s fill up BookPeople with people who care about plants and the earth!

The talk is free and open to the public, and I’d love to see a lot of friendly faces! If you do want an autographed book, BookPeople requires an in-store purchase. Just FYI.

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

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.

So many wildflowers were in bloom last Friday at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center that it’s taken three posts for me to show you everything. Today I’m leading with the eye-popping hotness of a swath of Indian blanket, also known as firewheel (Gaillardia pulchella).

Can’t you just bask in its warmth?

Pink evening primrose (Oenothera speciosa) blooming behind it added a sweetness to the scene—a sweetness belied by that plant’s aggressive nature.

But what a surprisingly pretty combo it makes.

Another meadow scene stars twistleaf yucca (Yucca rupicola), an unknown penstemon, and Texas bluebonnets, as well as various native grasses.

Could this be standing cypress (Ipomopsis rubra)? I admired the vertical, ferny foliage against last season’s tawny grasses.

Another interesting textural contrast was provided by gone-to-seed golden groundsel (Packera obovata) backed by Texas bluegrass (Poa arachnifera), a grass I hadn’t encountered before.

A closeup of the golden groundsel seedheads

Moving on to something a little fresher, I spotted this beautiful iris blooming in a shallow pond…

…as well as this pretty white flower.

Heading back toward the parking lot, I passed another open meadow awash in sunlight. This Texas persimmon (Diospyros texana) seemed spotlit, its gnarled, silvery-gray trunks edged with white, its fresh green leaves illuminated like stained glass.

Then I noticed that a live oak’s low branches perfectly framed another trio of Texas persimmons, like dancing nymphs.

Bluebonnets and penstemons bloomed at my feet.

A closer look

An aqueduct, draped in Virginia creeper, transports rainwater from one of the building’s roofs to a stone-sided cistern—the first structure you see as you enter the Wildflower Center. Here, water is treated as the precious resource it is.

Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), so pretty in fall when it turns red, is equally pretty in springtime, cloaking a stone pillar in greenery.

And here’s one last kinetic sculpture, part of a temporary art display, to bid you goodbye.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of posts about my recent visit to the Wildflower Center. For a look back at Part 1 and Part 2, please click the links.

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