Mellow fall garden for November Foliage Follow-Up
November 16, 2016 Today is Foliage Follow-Up, a day to celebrate great foliage after the flower celebration of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Let’s take a spin around the back garden for my foliage faves this month, starting with the stock-tank pond garden. No flowers here since the water lilies slowed ...
Early autumn color at the Wildflower Center, part 1
October 02, 2016 Showy palafoxia (Palafoxia hookeriana) That first hit of cool autumn air early last week sent me running (well, battling Austin traffic) for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Arriving on a solemn, overcast morning, I was surprised to see quite a few other visitors there too. But ...
Around the stock-tank pond
September 23, 2016 Despite the heat (which may be coming to an end this weekend — yay!), I’ve been working in the garden nearly every day this week, doing the usual end-of-summer tidying plus cleaning up Moby’s old bed and potting up all his bulbils. It’s given me plenty of ...
The berry good season
September 08, 2016 I’m calling it. We’re over the hump of Death Star Summer and sliding into mellow fall. I know, it’s not exactly mellow out there yet, but I can feel it coming. Can’t you? The beautyberries do. In the lower garden, black beautyberry (Callicarpa acuminata) is laden with ...
Stock-tank pond garden is cool even in summer’s heat
July 16, 2016 Mid-summer is all about foliage in my garden. The spring flowers are long gone, but evergreen plants like ‘Winter Gem’ boxwood, ‘Color Guard’ yucca, bamboo muhly grass, and squid agave look good even when the Death Star’s on full blast. The stock-tank pond helps the garden feel ...
Blue twilight garden
May 07, 2016 Cobalt blue may be overused in gardens, but I don’t care. It’s such a lovely color to complement the green plants, and it’s so cooling in Austin’s hot climate. Add a little turquoise and robin’s-egg blue to the mix, and it’s even better. I added more blue, ...
Where there’s a whale, there’s a way
April 29, 2016 Moby, my 10-year-old whale’s tongue agave (A. ovatifolia), which for 22 days has been sending a bloom stalk skyward, seems to be in transition. The stalk is now about 10 or 11 feet tall and holding. Meanwhile, clusters of yellow flowers are emerging along the asparagus-shaped stalk ...
Moby death vigil and other flowerings
April 11, 2016 In case you don’t follow me on Facebook or Instagram, where I’ve been posting pictures since last Wednesday, when I first noticed it, I must break the news to you: Moby is dying. Moby is my beloved whale’s tongue agave (A. ovatifolia) and the most iconic plant ...
Aloe from the other siiiiiide
February 02, 2016 With apologies to Adele and her earworm of a song, aloes are still saying hello in my garden this mild winter with spring-like flowering. I find their leaves equally eye-catching, with white spots reminiscent of disco-ball light effects. Believe it or not, this is the same aloe ...
Aloe surprise and prepping for owls
January 10, 2016 Aloes bloom in profusion at the Huntington in Los Angeles at this time of year, and my winter-blooming ‘Blue Elf’ aloe is already sending up asparagus-shaped bloom spikes. But soap aloe (Aloe maculata) prefers warmer weather to strut its stuff in my Austin garden. And yet… …with ...
Evening garden design musings
September 08, 2015 Dusk is falling more softly as summer wanes, and the lingering evening glow is inviting, even if Austin is still hot and dry. Here are a few random shots from a recent walk-around at dusk. (The rest are in my post about foliage gardening apologies.) This view ...
Foliage gardening apologies: do you do it?
September 06, 2015 At least once or twice a month I find myself trying to explain my garden to politely interested non-gardeners. A couple of days ago the smiling inquiry was from a new doctor. Upon learning that I liked to garden, she asked the standard question, “What do you ...
The Gardener of Good and Evil makes my garden look good
August 28, 2015 Water visually cools Pam’s back garden. Photo by Lori Daul. Although she claims both a halo and a pitchfork in her blog name, Lori Daul of The Gardener of Good and Evil is purely a force for good — or at least that’s what I believe after ...
Fling wrap-up at Toronto Botanical Garden: Toronto Garden Bloggers Fling
July 01, 2015 Wherever I travel, I enjoy visiting local botanical gardens. So I was happy to see that Toronto Botanical Garden would be our final stop — including a catered dinner — on the recent Garden Bloggers Fling in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Upon arrival we 70 garden bloggers were ...
Before and after: 6 years making a garden
May 25, 2015 Bluesy garden: our upper patio, just off the living room and master bedroom It’s always eye-opening to see how much a garden has evolved by comparing before and after images. We moved into our current home in October 2008, and I started tinkering with a few beds ...
Soggy garden blues make me happy
May 12, 2015 During the horrible drought year of 2011, I swore I’d never complain about rain again, and I’m not tempted now. My garden has had nearly 5 inches of rain since last Tuesday, washing out a gravel path twice and incubating a healthy crop of mosquitoes. And how ...
