How I Did It

July 14, 2009Over the years of blogging about my stock-tank ponds (a 100-gallon container pond in my former garden, and this new 717-gallon one), I’ve been asked many times how I constructed them. I finished the new pond yesterday evening, so I’ll explain how I did it, from start to ...

January 27, 2009 See that hint of blue glass behind the ‘Radrazz’ rose? Could it be? Yes! The bottle tree is back. It’s more of a bottlebrush tree than before because I used more bottles and shorter branches. As you can see, I still need a couple more bottles to ...

November 01, 2008 If you’ve been following the saga of my ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (Agave ovatifolia ), you’ll know how I wrestled it out of the dirt in my old garden in order to bring it to my new house. This agave is just too hard to find and too ...

September 28, 2008As regular readers know, I’m moving to a new house this week, and I’ve vowed to take my prized ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (Agave ovatifolia ) with me rather than leave it to the vagaries of fate and a new owner who may not appreciate its prickly charms.Still, I ...

March 05, 2008 Next to my front door hangs a “wish” wreath made for me by my mother about 9 years ago. It remains one of my most treasured gifts. Why do I love it? Aside from its appealing Texas-gardening theme—the grapevine wreath is accented by a barbed-wire star, tiny ...

January 01, 2008 Many months after I set out to remodel my garden shed, its makeover is complete. Nearly. The frame around the new screen door still requires painting, but everything else is done, several months after starting this project. Isn’t it amazing how seemingly simple projects get dragged out? ...

November 20, 2007 May 2007. The Vitex agnus-castus in bloom was a sight to behold. Unfortunately, its beauty as a front-yard focal point was limited to about three months in late spring–early summer. Each summer it put on a tremendous amount of growth up top, but underneath the canopy, even ...

November 16, 2007 Once again I find that the Germinatrix and I are on the same wavelength. It must be the Texas connection. Ivette, whose agave fascination is more fully realized than mine, just posted about stringing party lights in her garden as a permanent fixture. Some of her more ...

November 12, 2007 The folks at Gardening Gone Wild have taken a page out of Carol’s book by issuing a community-building invitation to post about aspects of garden design—a different topic each month. The first topic, for November, is paths and walkways. Limestone, decomposed-granite, stepping-stone, cypress mulch, and concrete paths ...

October 01, 2007 Gulf muhly grass glows pink against the setting sun in the school garden. Welcome to part two of “Growing a School Garden.” Click here to read part one. It takes vision to look at a dead courtyard like this and envision a garden. However, teachers tend to ...

October 01, 2007 Gulf muhly grass glows pink against the setting sun in the school garden. Welcome to part two of “Growing a School Garden.” Click here to read part one. It takes vision to look at a dead courtyard like this and envision a garden. However, teachers tend to ...

July 29, 2007 Stone patio, October 2006 I wasn’t yet blogging in 2003, when I dry-laid a small, stone patio in the back garden. So when South Carolina Pam asked me about its construction, after its appearance in my last post, I decided to write a belated “how I did ...

April 27, 2007 When I visited MSS‘s garden a couple of days ago to collect the promised agave pup, I offhandedly asked her whether any empty sake bottles, which are cobalt blue, might be lying around. No, she said, but I do have a few empty, blue-glass water bottles in ...

April 27, 2007 When I visited MSS‘s garden a couple of days ago to collect the promised agave pup, I offhandedly asked her whether any empty sake bottles, which are cobalt blue, might be lying around. No, she said, but I do have a few empty, blue-glass water bottles in ...

March 16, 2007 Cattle troughs, or stock tanks, are popping up in public and private gardens all around Austin. They look great in many styles of gardens—informal cottage, sleek contemporary, rustic—and can be planted or filled with water to make container ponds. I have a small, round one (3-ft diameter, ...

March 05, 2007 A couple of weeks ago, I posted about my winter-garden eyesore, the trampoline. Undisguised at this time of year by towering summer perennials like Tecoma stans (Yellow Bells), the safety-netted, blue-and-green plaything is the unfortunate view from my back porch. A trio of colorful birdhouses on 5-foot ...