August 22, 2010 At the Great Outdoors last week, I spotted this shriveled, dying agave holding up a 12-foot flower spike covered in bulbils, tiny clones of the mother plant. Most agaves bloom only once, after many years, and then die. Some, like this one, produce bulbils, which eventually fall …

August 21, 2010 For a nursery located within spitting distance of downtown, on South Congress Avenue, The Great Outdoors is surprisingly large, which befits a place featuring a nearly life-size topiary elephant as its mascot and another on its sign. From the street you glimpse a colorful mural, a screen …

August 18, 2010 Hello, my name is Pam… I spotted this T-shirt at the Great Outdoors Nursery‘s gift shop. Perfect, eh? No, I didn’t buy it. I saved my money for plants I shouldn’t have bought at this time of year. (Come on, autumn!) I also took a lot of …

August 16, 2010 It’s August. It’s Austin. It’s incredibly hot and humid. Flowers for Bloom Day were pretty scarce, but foliage is, as always, carrying the garden through the toughest months. My faves for Foliage Follow-Up this month are visually cooling, with variegated or glaucous leaves. But really, anything that …

August 15, 2010 This Bloom Day post may fool those who skim the pictures without reading the text. You could be led to think that quite a lot is blooming in my garden right now, when really it’s just a few agastaches, some ornamental grasses, and a few tiny, scattered …

August 14, 2010 I spotted this cicada while taking out the trash. We’ve had to raccoon-proof our trash bin with a bungee cord get-up, and the cicada was astraddle it like John Travolta on the mechanical bull. You’ve seen Urban Cowboy, right? Getting my shot I spooked him, and he …

August 12, 2010 It’s a little hoot outside today. I think I’ll stay in. All material © 2006-2010 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited …

August 09, 2010 No, not purple-hearted monster. Attack of the purple heart monster, aka Tradescantia pallida. It’s taking over the exposed limestone in the lower garden, and if you were to brave the mosquitoes and walk back there, you’d have to pick your way through patches of purple heart. It …

August 08, 2010 Summertime is the stock-tank pond’s shining season. Situated as a focal point at one end of the garden, the pond is viewable from many angles. A circular stone path runs all the way around it. The gravel path at back-left leads into the hillside garden. But forget …

August 06, 2010 Good morning! Let’s stroll the garden before it gets too hot. It’s going to be 100 degrees (37.7 C) again today, so early morning or evening strolls, dripping wet from the pool, are recommended. And yet I was crazy enough desperate enough for fall to plant a …

August 05, 2010 Do you remember the online discussion of a few years ago? Carol at May Dreams Gardens, among others, started a conversation about naming one’s garden. It got me thinking, and after a tongue-in-cheek shed remodel, I dubbed my former place Green Hall Garden as a play on …

August 03, 2010 The beautiful, powder-blue leaves of Wheeler’s sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri) show that garden color need not be all about flowers, even in summer. Its soft blue is the visual equivalent of a tall glass of ice water on a hot day. Similarly, the glaucous foliage of these xeric …

August 02, 2010 Purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’) is downright pettable at this time of year. Each inflorescence starts out raspberry colored… …then softens to a reddish brown. Diminutive ruby grass (Melinis nerviglumis ‘Pink Crystals’) blooms are a soft pink…. …but very pettable too. See how small and cute …

August 01, 2010 Two agastache cultivars are doing particularly well in my hillside sun garden. Agastache ‘Acapulco Salmon & Pink,’ pictured here, has tripled in size compared to last year, its first year in my garden. The morning sun incandesces those tubular pinkish-orange flowers. Although I need something more structural, …