Going vertical: Jeff Pavlat’s hillside Austin garden
September 02, 2009 Cascading down a steep-sloping front yard, Jeff Pavlat’s 8-year-old terraced xeric garden is a symphony of form, texture, and subtle color echoes. I met Jeff a year ago at an Oracle Gorge Nursery sale and have asked his advice about agaves and aloes from time to time ...
Going vertical: Jeff Pavlat's hillside Austin garden
September 02, 2009 Cascading down a steep-sloping front yard, Jeff Pavlat’s 8-year-old terraced xeric garden is a symphony of form, texture, and subtle color echoes. I met Jeff a year ago at an Oracle Gorge Nursery sale and have asked his advice about agaves and aloes from time to time ...
Separating agave pups is ruff but doggone rewarding
August 17, 2009 When you grow agaves, mangaves, and aloes—which love our Texas summers—you often get pups. That’s what you call the baby plants that grow up under or beside the mother plant’s leaves. Not all agaves produce pups (the ‘Whale’s Tongue’ does not), and that can be a plus ...
Read This: Designing with Succulents
August 08, 2009 When the Death Star trains its energy-sapping, plant-frying beam on central Texas each summer, I find inspiration in succulent gardens, which use heat-loving, water-thrifty agaves, aloes, cacti, and groundcover succulents to create a tapestry of colorful foliage. This summer I’ve been devouring the images and design ideas ...
I fell off the flower wagon
February 26, 2009 Remember how I was giving up flowers for Lent? I really meant it. What? This? No, it’s not a flower. It’s a colored pencil I was sketching with in the garden. Oh all right. I’m busted. It’s almost a flower. One of my first spring indicators, in ...
Sunday morning blues
March 09, 2008 ‘Blue Elf’ aloe flowers stand out against blue containers After being grazed by a very light frost early Saturday morning (I suspect temps simply hovered around 32 F in my garden for an hour or so), I noticed that a few new leaves had curled on the ...
Tanzanian plants
July 15, 2007 Beautiful Sunbird on flowering aloe. Tarangire National Park, Tanzania Carol commented recently that my African animal photos were nice and people photos would be fine too, but what she really wanted to see were photos of flowers from my trip to Tanzania. So here ya go, Carol—a ...
Rainy morning
February 21, 2006Another cool, wet morning. It’s been misting for hours, which made for interesting close-ups of some of my plants. I’d like to see a deep, soaking rain, but for now droplets of rain will have to do. The fuchsia berries of coralberry In a previous garden I paired ...
