Soaking up the sunshine on the deck
March 11, 2013 Y’all. We’re getting the weather we long for all summer in Austin. Cool, sunny days with a bright blue sky floating overhead and a soft breeze carrying the grape-soda fragrance of Texas mountain laurel. If you’re in the Austin area, I hope you’re dashing outdoors every single ...
Singing in the rain?
January 08, 2013 Whistle, central Texans, if you’re loving the rain today. Tweeeet? Or pbbbtttt? All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited ...
Last blossoms before the first freeze
December 07, 2012 We’re expecting a low around 30F (-1.1C) early next week, so we may be enjoying the last flowers for a little while. ‘Twinkle Pink’ cuphea is still glowing rosily in the afternoon light, but a frost will crisp it for the season. Will it happen? Who knows ...
Winterizing a stock tank pond
November 22, 2012 “How to make a container pond in a stock tank” is consistently one of my most-viewed posts, and many readers have written to tell me they’ve made their own ponds by following my instructions. Recently two people asked me how to winterize their ponds, so I decided ...
Tom Spencer’s Tao of Texas gardening
September 17, 2012 As fall dances toward us, bearing cooler temperatures and gentle rains, we Texas gardeners have before us our easiest gardening season, with almost six months to get plants established (if we plant now) before the heat of summer returns. Still, last year, with its 90 days of ...
Big sky, scorched earth at Big Bend National Park (Day 1)
March 19, 2012 Lured west by the mystery of one of America’s lesser known national parks, we packed broad-brimmed hats, sunscreen, and several gallons of water in the trunk and left behind the crowds of SXSW last Wednesday, driving for 8 hours through increasingly open country to Big Bend. Traveling ...
Forget the groundhog — water lily says spring is here!
February 02, 2012 This ‘Colorado’ water lily doesn’t care what Punxsutawney Phil sees when he pokes his head out of his burrow today. With a high temperature of 81F in Austin yesterday, the lily and many other plants in my garden think spring has sprung. It seems a little early ...
No rain, no watering: Imagining a drier future for Austin & its landscaping industry
November 18, 2011 Photo courtesy of Lee Clippard Are we brave enough to look the worst-case scenario in the eye? Let’s lay it out: the rains don’t return this winter, at least not sufficiently to ease our exceptional drought, and next summer Austin enters Stage 3 watering restrictions, in which ...
The long view: Reflections on Austin’s drought
September 17, 2011 The approach of autumn is a hopeful time for the central Texas gardener. It means we’ve survived another long, hot summer and can enjoy being outdoors again. It means time for the rains to return to revitalize the summer-weary garden, replenish our aquifers and lakes, and offer ...
A hellish summer but the garden still lives
September 12, 2011 The most difficult gardening summer I’ve ever experienced is stuttering to an end. We still have triple digit temperatures. We still have no rain. We have smoky skies from devastating wildfires. And yet the garden continues to give joy. It helps that I’ve planted a lot of ...
Sad agave after the freeze
February 11, 2011 Have you ever seen a sadder agave? Freeze damage has occurred to my potted variegated American agave before, but never this bad. Here’s the same plant last May, recovering from lower-limb amputations after the worst winter we’d seen in 20 years. By October of last year, it ...
Snowy Austin garden, the good & the bad
February 05, 2011 An inch of beautiful, powdery snow—the most snow Austin has received since 2004, the Statesman reported today—greeted us when we awoke on Friday. Three days of below-freezing weather (since Tuesday!) had made the ground cold enough for it to stick. School was cancelled, and our kids took ...
Snowy Austin garden, the good & the bad
February 05, 2011 An inch of beautiful, powdery snow—the most snow Austin has received since 2004, the Statesman reported today—greeted us when we awoke on Friday. Three days of below-freezing weather (since Tuesday!) had made the ground cold enough for it to stick. School was cancelled, and our kids took ...
Snow in Austin!
February 04, 2011 It snowed! We got about an inch overnight, and we’re all excited. Snow is so rare in Austin. The schools are closed, and we’re going out to throw snowballs with the kids, so here’s just a quick picture. I’ll have more later. OK, so cold weather’s not ...
Deep freeze in Austin
February 03, 2011 The monster winter storm of the upper Midwest has extended its icy claws all the way down to Austin, giving us a taste of real winter (send it back!) and making a miniature ice-skating rink of the stock-tank pond. Some of my evergreens are beginning to resemble ...
Austin winter weather: Chili today, hot tamale!
February 01, 2011 Austin’s winter weather is like the punchline of the old joke: Chili today, hot tamale (chilly today, hot tomorrow). Or, in this case, the reverse. It was warm on Sunday and Monday, with highs in the upper 70s (25 C). But during the wee hours this morning, ...
