Flower power out front; in back a serene, green garden

March 02, 2015


Last year I featured this Houston Heights garden in a Drive-By Gardens post. But last Saturday, while in Houston to visit family, I had the pleasure of meeting the owner, David Morello, who kindly gave me a full tour.


David owns the design and build company David Morello Garden Enterprises, and he’s an avid gardener who makes time for his own glorious garden as well. In the sunny front yard of his khaki bungalow, he’s created an elegantly structured space with clipped boxwood and geometric lines, colored in with a riotous but disciplined color scheme of flowering annuals. Every spring he experiments with new colors. This year he’s playing with yellow and gold.


Pops of purple and white give depth to the yellows.


Near the porch, a stand of ‘World’s Favorite’ tulips — orange-red edged in yellow (see top photo) — brightens the entry. The front garden will be at peak spring bloom in about three weeks, David said. The earliest Texas bluebonnets were starting to flower along the street, probably thanks to the reflected heat.


In back, the garden tells a different story. Gone are the colorful annuals. Instead a serene, ferny bower encloses a circular flagstone patio. A low boxwood parterre outlines the perimeter, and a hedge of evergreen Spartan juniper (Juniperus chinensis ‘Spartan’) makes a pleasing backdrop to a tall, rusty-red pot fountain. The color of the pot picks up the coppery-orange of the garage door, seat cushions, and even the terracotta pots.


The small patio is a work of art, with meticulously pieced flagstone “mortared” with Mexican beach pebbles.


Another view, from the garage door, which is accessed via a gray gravel path running alongside the garage. Looking directly across the patio, a pop of yellow catches your eye.


It’s leopard plant (Farfugium japonicum, formerly Ligularia) in bloom, with variegated shell ginger (Alpinia zerumbet) behind. Asparagus fern (Asparagus densiflorus ‘Sprengeri’) adds cloud-like softness in the pots.


i was charmed by this scalloped-leaf rambler with dainty, white flowers atop tall stems — a white spiderwort, David told me — which he allows to spread at will along the boxwood parterre.


The view back toward the house. David said that Houston has not experienced a freeze this winter, so there’s been no die-back, although it’s been unseasonably cool.


This focal-point pot set on a plinth of stacked ledgestone grabs your eye as you enter the back garden from the driveway. Pink cyclamen mingles with a chartreuse-leaved plant (I didn’t get the ID) under a graceful tuteur that adds height. A bracelet of gray river rock rings the base of the pot, and vining plants are encouraged to twine an embrace as well. Unfussy, expertly crafted details like these give David’s garden a timeless appeal.

My thanks to David for sharing his lovely garden with me! If you’d like to see more, check out my pictures of his front garden from last spring.

Stay tuned for a visit to the plant-packed nursery and garden-art fantasia of Joshua’s Native Plants & Garden Antiques.

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Vote early and often! I’d love to have your vote in the Better Homes and Gardens 2015 Blogger Awards. Skip through to the Gardening category, select Digging, and then skip to the last page for your vote to be counted. You can vote as much as you like. Thanks for your support!

All material © 2006-2015 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

25 responses to “Flower power out front; in back a serene, green garden”

  1. Lisa at Greenbow says:

    What a splendid garden. I could move right in. 🙂 I love the idea of a plinth with rocks around a pot. My head is full of ideas. Just waiting for the snow to melt.

  2. Jenny says:

    Just what I needed on another cold and damp day. An infusion of spring. Hard to believe that their spring is so far ahead of ours. All looks lush in his landscape and how nice of Mr Morello to give you a personal tour of his garden.

  3. Love the curved stone patios and gardens surrounding them. Thank you for sharing these beautifully designed gardens.

  4. sandy lawrence says:

    OK. Voted and good luck to you! Maybe I’m more stupid than the average bear, but people need to not be sidetracked by the colored photos slide show. I was stumped for a minute ’til I caught on that these are photos for 2014, not this year. I’m probably the only one who did this. :/
    Thanks for lovely Houston garden tour. So uplifting on a grey day.

  5. Love seeing the new plants in the front. The back is so lush and green — I’m envious. How nice that you got the personal tour. I remember years when we didn’t get a freeze here in Austin. (sigh)

    • Pam/Digging says:

      I do too, Diana. I don’t actually mind a few freezes to kill some mosquitoes, but I sure don’t love having two cold winters in a row. —Pam

  6. ks says:

    What a zippy front garden ! For some reason it doesn’t seem dated at all, as some of the annual bedding schemes I’ve seen do. I’d love to see what he does in summer after the Pansies, Snaps and Nemesias bite the dust.. you’ll just have to go back in June Pam..!

    • Pam/Digging says:

      David has a way with annuals. I actually think annuals are having a moment again. I keep reading articles about them and seeing designers use them in fresh ways. For me they’re too much maintenance to ever use a lot of them, but I always plant a few each year — grasses and vines, mostly — for long-season color. —Pam

  7. Pam Duffy says:

    Those are lush looking cypress. They look really hefty for Italian and more uniform in shape than Leyland. Could you tell what kind they were?

  8. Kris P says:

    I like this year’s front garden even better than last year’s (but then I have a great fondness for yellow). Did you get a look at the red house across the street you featured last year as well? It was more idiosyncratic but I still remember how much I liked it.

    Best wishes on the BHG award! I voted again.

    • Pam/Digging says:

      I did, but my pictures didn’t turn out as I’d hoped, partly because I was in a hurry and didn’t take the time to frame them up well. The garden looked as colorful as ever. I’ll try to get new pics the next time I’m in town. Thanks for voting again, Kris! —Pam

  9. Ally says:

    What a fabulous garden! I’ve been looking for some ideas for a rock patio and walkway. I love the one in his backyard. That really is gorgeous and has given me a wonderful idea for my front courtyard project. Do you think it would have the same effect with a lighter flagstone combined with Arizona river rock? I’d like to stick with materials that are similar to what we already have in place.

  10. Peter/Outlaw says:

    What a fabulous garden! Love it all & especially the flagstone paving with pebbles between! While the gardens change from front to back, there is a cohesiveness about the whole that is very calming.

  11. Les says:

    I am rarely smitten by hardscape, but that patio is a work of art.