Shrubs

May 19, 2015 James and Gary’s entry garden, a gravel garden featuring agaves, aloes, succulents, and other dry-adapted plants from around the world After 36 years devoted to creating an extravagantly plant-rich, terraced, one-of-a-kind garden on two acres in Austin’s Rollingwood neighborhood, landscape architect James David and his partner Gary ...

May 12, 2015 During the horrible drought year of 2011, I swore I’d never complain about rain again, and I’m not tempted now. My garden has had nearly 5 inches of rain since last Tuesday, washing out a gravel path twice and incubating a healthy crop of mosquitoes. And how ...

May 04, 2015 Each time I visit the garden of landscape architect Curt Arnette in southwest Austin, I am absolutely agog over the front courtyard, which occupies a corner lot on a typical suburban street of nicely kept lawns and foundation shrubs. His garden stands out in the best way ...

April 30, 2015 For new visitors, the name Peckerwood tends to elicit raised eyebrows because of the word’s history as a racial slur in the South. But touring Peckerwood Garden itself — it was named, explains the owner, after the plantation in Auntie Mame — induces amazement, both because of ...

April 28, 2015 After weeks of live oak litter, first leaves and then pollen catkins, and weeks of me raking, blowing, and bagging, the garden is finally visible again. Sunday evening I went outside with no expectation of doing any spring chore: no clean-up, no pruning, no planting, no mulching, ...

April 16, 2015 Last evening the garden was bathed in the soft glow of a spring twilight. After a day of planting, mulching, and general tidying, I was glad for a quiet moment to just stop and enjoy the garden. The new “monolith” wall has made a handy spot to ...

April 12, 2015 Central Austin’s front-yard gardens, free of any homeowners’ association rules, vary wildly depending on the owners’ tastes, energy level, and budget. Here are three that caught my eye over the past week, starting with Deborah Hornickel’s subversive formal garden in the Bryker Woods neighborhood. Why subversive? It ...

March 27, 2015 Can you detect a scent of grape Kool-Aid through your screen? I wouldn’t be surprised if you could. Austin’s enjoying a banner year for the fragrant, wisteria-like blooms of our native Texas mountain laurel (Sophora secundiflora). This is the tree that helped sell me on Austin, as ...

March 18, 2015 Spring is in earnest now. Every time I stroll through the garden I see something new blooming, and around town the redbuds and Texas mountain laurels are at peak bloom. Mexican plums and Bradford pears are past peak, and the Texas bluebonnets are just starting. The joyous ...

March 16, 2015 Yesterday was one of those perfect days for working in the garden all day long. And that’s exactly what I did, including potting up this beautiful new purple pot with the twistiest paleleaf yucca (Y. pallida) I’ve ever seen. The leaves look like ribbons curled with scissors, ...

March 11, 2015 A recent conversation on Linda Lehmusvirta‘s Facebook page got a few Austin gardeners talking about winter interest. Tracie, a local gardener, wrote that her mostly native garden looks great spring through fall but is “asleep” in winter, and she wanted ideas. Lori at The Gardener of Good ...

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 ...

February 25, 2015 As winter and spring duke it out in late February, Chinese fringeflower (Loropetalum chinense) starts strutting its stuff, flashing hot-pink, strappy-petaled flowers amid its dusky-purple, evergreen leaves. Dark foliage is kind of rare in central Texas — our native and adapted plants tend to have gray-green and ...

December 08, 2014 Every year I renew my fan-club membership for evergreen sumac (Rhus virens), a fine native shrub or small tree. What’s not to love? It sports handsome, shiny, nearly evergreen leaves, grows in sun or shade, attracts bees in late summer with sprays of tiny, white flowers, and ...

December 05, 2014 I know many of you have mentally moved on to Christmas. But Austin’s fall color comes late, and the golden leaves of my ‘Wonderful’ pomegranate keep catching my eye through the window while I try to work. So naturally, instead of closing the blind so as to ...

March 31, 2014 We’d cruised down Peddie Street in the Houston Heights neighborhood to find the riotously colorful house and garden that locals had urged us to see. But Peddie offers a two-for-one special, and when we spotted this pretty garden across the street from the first one, we got ...