Grasses

October 20, 2007 Gulf muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris ) The siren song of a big, full Gulf muhly grass on sale at Red Barn Nursery proved irresistible last week, and I bought two to fill a bare spot in the front garden. I’ve tried growing this muhly before, with little success, ...

October 19, 2007 Miscanthus sinensis ‘Purpurascens’ (Flame Grass) At the Chicago Botanic Garden last week, we bypassed several other gardens in order to see Evening Island before we had to catch the train back to town. It wasn’t yet evening when we crossed the bridge onto this 5-acre island garden, ...

October 17, 2007 During last week’s 6-hour visit to the Chicago Botanic Garden, we found ourselves rushing to get to Evening Island before we had to catch our train back to the city. So, after a nice lunch at the visitor’s center, we walked briskly past the Model Railroad Garden ...

October 11, 2007 Cloud Gate, popularly known as the Bean, in Millennium Park I would return to Chicago for the gardens alone. From street-corner planting boxes filled with tumbling perennials and annuals to prairie-style Lurie Garden to the vast Botanic Garden, Chicago had my head swiveling to take it all ...

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 ...

September 18, 2007 Miscanthus sinensis ‘Adagio’ Several garden-bloggers who live farther north have posted beautiful photos (and videos) of their ornamental grasses in recent weeks, and invited others to do the same. I’ve held off because here in Austin the grasses still aren’t at peak bloom. But then I thought ...

September 06, 2007 At summer’s end, Pride of Barbados ( Caesalpinia pulcherrima) steals the show at the entrance to the Botanical Garden, paired with butterfly weed and a tall ornamental grass. On a business trip in San Antonio last week, I lucked into an hour to spare before I needed ...

August 02, 2007 Bamboo muhly underplanted with zexmenia The darling of my garden right now is bamboo muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa ). Tactile, feathery, evergreen (a little more straw colored in winter), this clump-forming grass is reminiscent of bamboo but without the worries about invasiveness or extreme height. In my garden, ...

July 17, 2007 Traveling home from Tanzania, my dad and I stopped for two nights in Amsterdam to have a look around, as we were passing through and neither of us had been to the Netherlands before. What a change from dusty, dry-season Tanzania. Surrounded by water and picturesquely built ...

May 18, 2007 The homeowner’s front porch. Do you sense that a garden lover lives here? We headed to central Austin’s tony Tarrytown neighborhood for the last garden of the tour. I didn’t expect much from this garden, frankly, after looking at the black-and-white brochure photo. Shot in winter, with ...

May 17, 2007 I’d never seen a green roof before, and as this is the first one in Austin I didn’t want to miss my chance. So mom and I drove down to southwest Austin’s Circle C neighborhood, which is near the Wildflower Center, the sponsor of this tour and ...

May 10, 2007 Does this look like Texas to you? More specifically, does it look like Austin? I hope so. I posted two days ago about The Landscaping Revolution, which proposes, among other things, that homeowners make their landscaping look less homogenous and more regionally diverse—and therefore more interesting—by using ...

May 10, 2007 Does this look like Texas to you? More specifically, does it look like Austin? I hope so. I posted two days ago about The Landscaping Revolution, which proposes, among other things, that homeowners make their landscaping look less homogenous and more regionally diverse—and therefore more interesting—by using ...

January 17, 2007 Hymenoxys (four-nerve daisy) The icicles are long and dagger-like on the eaves, but they are melting. Drip, drip, drip—we can hear it indoors. When I stepped gingerly into the front garden this morning to poke around, evidence of melting and refreezing overnight was written on the plants ...

January 02, 2007 Barton Creek One of our favorite family activities in winter is a trail hike on one of Austin’s greenbelts or at St. Edward’s Park. This New Year’s Day, we decided on an early afternoon hike at the Barton Creek Greenbelt along the popular Twin Falls trail. It ...