Climatron tropical house, origami sculpture, and more: Missouri Botanical Garden, part 1
June 22, 2021 A week ago today I road-tripped with my mom through Arkansas up to St. Louis to visit Missouri Botanical Garden, which I’d long wanted to see. I’d always thought of St. Louis as being not that far away from Austin. After all, Missouri is part of the ...
Hello, flowering cacti and vines; goodbye, pipe-planted sotol
May 07, 2021 After a good rain last week and now temps in the upper 80s, my cacti have started blooming. And oh, those flowers! I love their jewel-bright colors and satiny petals, which strikingly contrast with the spiny, austere plants themselves. Here’s a new one in my collection: peanut ...
Early spring in Hyde Park cottage garden
February 09, 2021 Spring has arrived early at this sweet cottage garden in Austin’s Hyde Park neighborhood. I was passing by on Sunday when the dark-pink roses rambling along a picket fence caught my eye. A sunburst-shaped wheeler’s sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri) and clipped germander bush (Teucrium fruticans) add pretty foliage ...
Palms, agaves, and edibles in Peter Schaar Garden
October 27, 2020 I was happy to have the opportunity to see the garden of Peter Schaar in Dallas in early October. I know Peter as a palm and agave lover, a rose enthusiast (note the Texas Rose Rustler t-shirt), and an avid cook with a taste for growing herbs ...
Autumn comes in yellow and purple
September 30, 2020 The yellow spider lilies (Lycoris aurea) are up 3 weeks earlier than last year, perhaps due to our cooler than usual early fall, and I am here for it. Each afternoon the sunlight slants under the live oaks and hits the lilies like a spotlight, an effect ...
Water, water everywhere in Cat’s wildlife-friendly garden
September 22, 2020 Every time I visit my friend Cat Jones‘s garden, it’s lovelier than the time before. Over the past 4 to 5 years she’s been busily making her Steiner Ranch garden, which overlooks a wildflower meadow and a wooded canyon, into a retreat for her and her family ...
Oxblood lilies cavort with agaves in Tom Ellison’s garden
September 10, 2020 A couple days ago, between rainstorms, I returned to Tom Ellison’s garden to see his crop of oxblood lilies (Rhodophiala bifida). Austin’s gardens, especially in older neighborhoods like Tom’s own Tarrytown, blaze with diminutive red flags after the first good rain of late summer. Although the oxblood ...
Oxblood and rain lilies bloom after late-summer rains
September 08, 2020 Oxblood lilies add a dash of hot color in the raised bed behind the house. It’s oxblood lily time, baby! That excitement you hear is my delight over the early and unexpected end to break from Texas’s interminable summer. Late last week, two inches of rain and ...
Late summer stars of the garden
August 26, 2020 Like a starfish clinging to a rock, this soap aloe (Aloe maculata) I stuck in a pie-pan planter has grown more beautifully than I expected. It seems to love the crevice life. Snaking stems of ghost plant (Graptopetalum paraguayense) add their flower shapes to the composition. A ...
Midsummer garden walkabout
August 08, 2020 Whale’s tongue agave (Agave ovatifolia) Midsummer has never been my favorite season in the garden. It’s hot and humid. Mosquitoes are fierce. And yet this summer, perhaps because I’m spending more time at home and in my own garden than usual, I’m also appreciating it more. Here’s ...
Penstemon and passionflower
April 09, 2020 Spring bounds ahead as we confine ourselves at home, waiting for the corona specter to pass us by. I spent an unproductive couple of hours late last night googling how to cut my own hair and watching makeup tutorials promising to make me look 10 years younger ...
Winter garden flowers thrive in cool weather
January 30, 2020 Winter in my garden brings the sweet flowers of abutilon, or flowering maple. I used to have several different varieties, but harsher winters or drought killed many of them off. ‘Bartley Schwarz’ is not only a survivor but my favorite for its glowing, cantaloupe-colored flowers that dangle ...
Yellow spider lilies at peak and agave weevil death
October 23, 2019 First the good: my yellow spider lilies (Lycoris aurea) are at peak bloom. Every flower has opened and seems filled with golden sunlight. They thrill me every time I look though my office window or step out onto the back patio. Shazam! Cosmo had to get in ...
Happy fall garden
October 20, 2019 With the Death Star at bay and a little rain last week, the plants are rejoicing with a flush of flowers. It’s a second spring for us Texas gardeners. Being mostly shady, my garden isn’t exactly a flower-lover’s paradise. It’s all about foliage and texture and, frankly, ...
Plant This: Yellow spider lilies
October 19, 2019 Golden hour is a lot more golden when yellow spider lilies (Lycoris aurea) are blooming. Even after a hot, dry summer, these tough but glorious bulbs popped up right on schedule with our first fall rain. Each day brings new flowers as tardier blossoms continue to unfurl ...
End-of-summer garden
October 02, 2019 Austin is eager to bid a less-than-fond farewell to summer after a record-breaking hot and dry September. I can already see a change in the light, and my garden got a bit of rain last week. With any luck, by next week temperatures will finally drop 10 ...
