September 15, 2013 In my sunniest, driest garden beds, gray globemallow (Sphaeralcea incana) is a true performer. When I first spotted this Indian mallow in the exhibition hall at GWA Tucson last fall, I mistook it for another of the many species of Sphaeralcea. Was I surprised to learn that …

September 13, 2013 I don’t know when my Rick Van Dyke pottery obsession started, but I have it totally under control. I can stop anytime I want. Anyway, I needed a little pick-me-up a few weekends ago and found this fun snake pot at Rick’s booth at the Austin Cactus …

September 10, 2013 Hot-climate gardens need a water feature to counteract summer’s heat with a feeling of cool wetness. My stock-tank pond serves that purpose in my garden, plus it gives me a chance to grow a few plants that like wet feet, like this Crinum procerum ‘Splendens’. With burgundy, …

September 09, 2013 Heat and drought may still grip Texas in an iron fist, but cheery oxblood lilies (Rhodophiala bifida) are popping up anyway to remind us that autumn will be here soon. I treasure fall heralds like these for their hopeful message as much as for their seasonal flowering …

September 06, 2013 Plumbago auriculata Happy Friday, everyone! All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited …

September 05, 2013 Jumping on board a few days late with Heather’s new meme at Xericstyle — “Wide Shot,” for posting on the first of the month — I went out at high noon to take a few wide-angle snaps of the front garden. Although midday is not the best …

September 03, 2013 Pretty, yes? This silver-leaved lovely with buttons of purple-pink flowers, growing in 4 or 5 inches of decomposed granite with no irrigation, has an interesting back story. In April 2012 David Salman of High Country Gardens (since closed and reopened under American Meadows’ ownership) sent me a …

August 30, 2013 Whether you call it devil’s trumpet, jimsonweed, or Datura wrightii, this native perennial is a stunner during long summer evenings and into early mornings. Big ole moon-faced blossoms unfurl at sunset with a sweetly perfumed fragrance that attracts sphinx moths. Held up like trumpets on coarse, leafy …

August 29, 2013 Agave art! It’s only a print from Michael’s or someplace like that, but I had it framed and hung it in the living room next to the patio doors. A wider view reveals why: art imitating life. That’s Moby, my ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (A. ovatifolia), visible through …

August 28, 2013 They might have heard me whooping all the way up in Quebec City last Monday when I learned that I’d won the 2013 Gold Award from Garden Writers Association (now GardenComm) for Best Magazine Writing. I couldn’t make it to the GWA symposium, held in Canada this …

August 27, 2013 While native Turk’s cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii) is easily found in nurseries and growing wild along the greenbelts of central Texas, and pink cultivar ‘Pam Puryear’, a relatively new introduction, is now common in the nursery trade, white Turk’s cap can be hard to find. That’s …

August 26, 2013 Want more bees in your garden? They do need our help, you know. And we always need theirs. Plant garlic chives (Allium tuberosum), and the bees will be busy. You’ll also enjoy sprays of sparkling, white flowers atop slender, green stems — a crisp, clean bloom to …

August 23, 2013 If mowing once a year sounds good, if pouring less water on the ground is a goal, and if you appreciate or can tolerate a shaggy, meadowy look, a sedge lawn may be your perfect alternative to a thirsty, summer-crisped St. Augustine lawn. Sedges exist for seemingly …

August 21, 2013 After escaping another Austin summer by reliving my recent California vacation it’s time to refocus attention on my own garden. The Berkeley sedge (Carex divulsa) that I planted in early March is finally filling in. Well, the left part is. The section on the right still looks …