Gardens on Tour 2007: Maury Hollow
The second stop on our tour included two gardens on a cul-de-sac in the hills of northwest Austin, one belonging to Cathy Nordstrom, owner of San Souci Gardens, the second belonging to her client and next-door neighbor. We visited the designer’s garden first.
Native bee balm and winecups soften a stand of tall yucca.
Cathy’s small, L-shaped garden is a native-plant jewel box. A narrow side yard in front, packed with a thick scrim of shrubs and perennials, leads to the front entry and around the house to the back garden. Absolutely packed with plants, the scene offered much to look at, but my main impressions were of native wildflowers mixed with yuccas . . .
. . . small sitting areas tucked into shady alcoves . . .
. . . and a lush, green screen of shrubs (no fence) around the perimeter of the compact space.
Gravel hardscaping tied it all together, from a crushed gravel path to gravel mulch to a gravel-and-river-rock dry streambed along the rear of the garden.
Wildflowers stole the show in the sunny section. Pictured here are Pringle’s bee balm (Monarda pringeliei ) and winecup (Callirhoe involucrata ), along with a native sedge.
Yucca flower
This sculptural desert plant caught my eye right away as I entered the garden, though I wasn’t sure if it was alive or dead. Having traveled through Arizona, I should have recognized it as ocotillo, but I had to ask Cathy for the name before I remembered where I’d seen it before. I was struck by its sculptural quality and thought it worthy of garden space even if it had croaked due to adventurous placement, far from its natural range.
Curious to know more, I emailed Cathy about the ocotillo and got the story on it.
I bought it last fall (quite expensive) and planted it with good drainage, as advised. I keep checking on it to see if it’s alive, and it is! Consensus comments from tour visitors is that it is waiting for the right conditions, much as it does at Big Bend. Usually the “condition” it’s waiting for is rain, so I’m worried that maybe it’s just not going to do well [as we’ve had a good deal of rain this spring]. Soon I will take it up and replant in a mound to give it even more drainage. Some people commented to me that they heard visitors wonder “why she would have a dead plant” in such an important place in the garden!!!! Indeed! I agree that it has a sculptural quality even when it’s doing well, but now it almost looks as if it is wrought iron! Taking this story a little further, my more “pure” native landscaping friends chided me for having an Ocotillo at all! True enough . . .
Another attention-grabber, these red flowers from a coralbean (Erythrina herbacea ) soared to eye level in the rear of the garden. Like the ocotillo, this legume is an exotic from several states away (in this case, the deep Southeast), but it apparently grows well in partial shade here in Austin, though it freezes to the ground in winter.
Another textural composition: spiny, bold-leaved yuccas; soft, wavy grasses; and reflective, glassy water.
Leaving Cathy’s garden, we strolled next door for a quick look at her neighbor’s garden, which Cathy also designed. It was similarly lushly planted with a token bit of grass in the front and none in the back. The homeowner was on hand and graciously answered visitors’ questions on her shady back deck.
Screening shrubs lined the fence, and Hill Country plants played king-of-the-hill on a gravelly berm in the back garden. I’m sure this naturalistic garden attracts a great number of birds and butterflies looking for safety, shade, and native fruits, seeds, and nectar.
Tune in tomorrow for a tour of the Corum Cove garden.
I’ve lusted after an ocotillo ever since I saw them in Big Bend. I did buy a coral bean a couple of years ago and it started blooming on April 24th last year. Nothing yet this year. It does freeze to the ground each winter.
I guess ocotillo might do well here in a container, don’t you think? Though it would be tricky to move before a freeze—all those spines! If your coralbean comes back and sets seed, I’d love to try some if you have enough to share. —Pam
Thank you for the excellent tour. Here in Northern AZ, it is too cold for Ocotillo unless planted against the southwestern wall of the house. They need hot/hot weather to leaf out. Monsoons bring it on here (end of july-september humidity and rain) I would think the rain and humidity so early in the season would kill the Ocotillo, just a guess from my own killing of two of them. (dirt cheap here, every home depot has them, couple of bucks for a bundle)
I really like the lush, woodland look. Very much an oasis here, I am going for the same look in area’s of my yard. Pretty difficult to do in the high desert. We all want what we shouldn’t really have garden wize don’t we? My “yard” is interesting. Pinion/juniper and scrub oak are the dominant life forms. I have elevation changes of 40 feet in different locations of my “yard” (5 acres) and the lowest, flattest, area is where I am trying to create a little bit of deciduous forest.(grew up in Wisconsin) I would love it to look like the above pictures in 5 or 7 years. Thanks again. (don’t worry about my water use, everything is very low water/native/adapted exotics, that is why I love your website – good inspiration)
Hi, Joe. I’m interested to hear that Home Depot sells ocotillo so cheaply. Does it grow quickly? I wouldn’t think so. Do you think they’re being harvested from the desert?
I love pinion. I’m envious that you have so much of it. Your property sounds wonderful with all those elevation changes. I’m still hoping you’ll start a blog one day. Arizona is underrepresented in the garden-blogging world. —Pam
Speaking about shady, tree filled gardens – is it me or are the prices of Japanese maples waaaaay over the top???
I realize they are slow growing, but come on – give me a break people. Speaking of costs (random thoughts), around here
the prices for plants have gone up quite a bit this year. I realize, shipping is more expensive, etc but wow.
Trey mentions Monrovia and how branding has worked for them, etc…. but their prices are outragous. I can’t afford any
Monrovia plant period. They are no doubt well grown, excellent plants, but out of my price range. Maybe they are status
symbol plants???
I wouldn’t know about Japanese maple prices. They are beautiful trees but ill-suited for Austin’s soil and climate. Regarding Monrovia plants, I have purchased a few, but I much prefer buying plants that have been grown locally, as they are usually better adapted to our climate. Barton Springs Nursery propagates many of their plants, and Shoal Creek Nursery advertises that they buy locally grown plants, so Austinites have some good options in that regard. I’m betting that Natural Gardener carries mostly locally grown plants as well, though I don’t know for sure. —Pam
What a lovely website! All these flowers are a treat to the eyes.Very different from what I see growing here right now 😉 Everything looks wonderful.
The lens I use for my pictures is an Zoom-Objectiv EF 75-300 mm (Canon)
Garden greets ,Lenie
Thanks for the info about your zoom lens. Your photos really are amazing. —Pam
Hi, I’m new to your blog–it’s a great resource for my eventual project of converting my front lawn (at least partially) to native plants. Just wanted to mention that there is a huge coral bean on the UT campus, in front of the greenhouses opposite Hogg Auditorium. It inspired me to purchase one at the Zilker Garden Festival, and I planted it in my backyard where it gets mid-day sun and then afternoon dappled shade. The seeds are supposed to be very toxic, although the vendor at the garden festival said that the pods are difficult to break open.
Thanks for the information about coralbean, GBS. Maybe I’ll get over to UT one of these days to check out their “bean.” —Pam
Thanks for all these enjoyable garden tours. This garden is definitely nice, and I the yucca and wildflowers have inspired me with ideas for my new garden
You’re welcome. I’m glad you’re finding inspiration in these gardens, as I did. —Pam
I have been visting your blog few times and it´s very interesting to see so different gardens than ours here in northern Europe. Information in your site is interesting too and photos are nice. I can do some garden traveling just by visitin here. Thank you for that!
Welcome, Sanni, and thanks for commenting. Yes, I feel the same way when I visit blogs about faraway gardens. It gives you a fresh perspective to see what gardeners do in different climates and with different plants. —Pam
San Souci Gardens just designed a garden in my neighborhood. It’s quite striking and you will recongize it when you drive by, plus their sign in the yard helps. It’s on Sinclair or Ramsey, north of 45th and south of the elementry school, closer to the school. You might enjoy driving by, it’s a new installation this year.
Thanks for the info. I’ll drive by sometime and take a look. —Pam
Hi Pam,
Yeah, I wonder about the collecting of Ocotillo also, but there are many many growers/wholesale operations outside of Phoenix and Tucson. Even though Phoenix is only 2 hour drive away from me, it is a completely different world. (both in terms of gardening and everything else). It is funny, you can be driving along and see pickup trucks on the side of a busy highway selling plants in Phoenix (all native, all collected from somewhere) Not sure how that works legally. Pretty interesting. Most if not all collected cactus need gov. tags, Ocotillo should also but you never see any. Very strange. (yes Ocotillo grow pretty slowly)
Please, please do not be envious of Pinion Pines. In northern Arizona and most of the southwest they are dirty, dying trees. They ooze sap over everything if they are healthy. My deck (before they all died) was disgusting. Could not sit anywhere. Now I am spending thousands of dollars on water and injections/spray for a local arborist to help me save some of them. I am a realist, we are only trying to save some that have a chance in prime locations around our house. The rest are on there own. I agree they are beautiful, we have one tree that is over 50 feet tall (very tall for a pinion) that has completely split a boulder with its roots, it is growing out of the rocks, looks amazing. The arborist figures the tree is over 200 years old. Yet they are all dying, we are in max fire danger this year, bug infestations, 12 years drought with no end in sight. No measurable precip since feb. Gardening can get kind of depressing around here. To top it off, I actually killed a couple of cactus, how depressing is that??
Well, thanks for letting me talk to you. I enjoy your blog.
A 12-year drought. Yikes! That does sound depressing. Good luck saving your trees. —Pam