2nd garden–2010

September 29, 2010 Blissful weather has this Austin gardener walking on air. Summer is banished this week, with dry, cool air from the north and highs in the lower to mid-80s, and lows in the upper 50s giving us a little nip in the air in the morning. The garden ...

September 28, 2010 My favorite salvia for fall is Mexican bush sage (Salvia leucantha). Fuzzy, purple-and-white spires pop up all over the plant at this time of year, contrasting with narrow, deep-green leaves and pairing beautifully with yellows like copper canyon daisy, tawny ornamental grasses, and the reds and pinks ...

September 27, 2010 Austin’s big show of oxblood lilies (Rhodophiala bifida) came right after Tropical Storm Hermine dumped buckets of rain on us. I went out of town for a few days and came home to find spent and wilted blooms, empty stems, and pictures of the dark-red flowers on ...

September 03, 2010 ‘Black Pearl’ ornamental pepper (Capsicum annuum) is intriguing in all its stages. Papery, dainty, purple flowers appear before the black pearl-shaped fruit… …which gives the plant its name. The black peppers eventually ripen to red… …and wrinkle up like prunes. The whole cycle is attractive and interesting ...

September 01, 2010 Awful August ends, and I always feel like dancing a celebratory jig. But in central Texas we know that summer doesn’t truly release its hot, sticky grip until about mid-October. No matter. The arrival of September brings psychological relief, and that’s better than nothing. Certain plants help ...

August 31, 2010 Flowers have a youthful beauty, but agaves and other succulents are like living sculpture. I find them fascinating and irresistibly touchable, despite those fierce thorns. This is ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (A. ovatifolia), a giant, blue-green rose of a plant. Its serrated leaves are defended by thorns that ...

August 30, 2010 Like the school bus in August, bright yellow usually indicates that summer is winding down and autumn is on the way. Around here, the hot yellows of Mexican mint marigold and copper canyon daisy will soon join summer’s sunny hymenoxys and black-eyed Susans. I’m not afraid of ...

August 26, 2010 Since I wrote about inviting wildlife into the garden for Tuesday’s Garden Designers Roundtable, I’ve been looking more carefully to see who is visiting my garden. Lurking among the orange narrowleaf zinnias (Zinnia angustifolia), a tiny spider waits for lunch. At the stock-tank pond, a scruffy (perhaps ...

August 24, 2010 Just in from a morning stroll through my garden, and what delights I witnessed. A tiny, blurry-winged hummingbird making the rounds from Mexican oregano to flame-leaf acanthus to Turk’s cap to Agastache. Honeybees spelunking for pollen. A leggy, spotted fawn tucked into a stand of bamboo muhly ...

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 ...