Wildflowers, water features, and flying pigs add charm to no-lawn garden in Cedar Park
June 10, 2021 Whenever I see a no-lawn, front-yard garden in suburbia, I know a daring and enthusiastic gardener lives there. Such is the case with Cedar Park homeowner Frances Fortanely, whose garden I had the pleasure of seeing last week. Pulling up to the curb, I was greeted by ...
A week of bloom spikes and rain
May 22, 2021 We had such prolonged rain this week that I lost track of how many inches it came to — 4 inches for sure if not 5. The garden responded to the extra water and mild May temps with a profusion of growth, including bloom spikes on yuccas, ...
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 ...
My succulents, vines, and groundcovers: Alive, dead or in-between? Evaluating plants 2 months after Texas freeze
May 01, 2021 Foxtail ferns regrowing quickly from the roots Today I’m taking a look at all the remaining plants in my garden: my small succulents and cacti, vines, and groundcovers, as well as bulbs and rhizomes and a few annuals. I grow some of my small succulents in pots, ...
Plant This for purple power: Spiderwort
April 08, 2021 Every year native spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis) seeds itself into rocky nooks and crannies and pops up in new places in the garden. I usually like where it shows up, like this spot at the top of a stone stair. Bees love the flowers too, so having lots ...
All I need is more plants
April 02, 2021 Pop into the restroom at Barton Springs Nursery, and you’ll find you’re not alone in there. An impassive woman wearing a t-shirt that speaks for all of us — All I need is more plants — frolics in a bathtub filled with faux succulents and fiddle-leaf figs ...
Ghost plant in bloom is boo-tiful
April 01, 2021 A few years ago I hung from a tree a dish planter with a few sprigs of ghost plant (Graptopetalum paraguayense) tucked around a variegated squid agave — each one a cutting or pup from existing plants in my garden. A bunch of leftovers. And now it’s ...
Potted characters at East Austin Succulents
March 26, 2021 Weird and wonderful creatures with plants for brains — sound like anybody you know? — greeted me at East Austin Succulents last week. They were silent types with big personalities. This ghostly guy with ghost plant (Graptopetalum paraguayense) sprouting from his forehead may have been my favorite ...
Still cleaning up after the freeze but making progress
March 16, 2021 In the 3 weeks since the Big Freeze, there’s been much gnashing of teeth and grim side-eye given to the cold-toasted garden. There’s been escape. But mostly there’s been a slow acceptance of the changed garden and daily efforts at cutting it all back, removing plants that ...
Read This: Striking Succulent Gardens
March 09, 2021 After the prolonged deep freeze that Texas endured last month, which reduced our beloved agaves and other succulents to oozing mush and browned nearly everything else back to the roots, it may not seem…timely…for a Texan to review a book about succulent gardening. But it would be ...
Cowboy pool, colorful outdoor living: Lorie and Michael Kinler’s Fort Worth Garden
March 05, 2021 Last fall, during a weekend trip to Dallas, I was invited to visit the Fort Worth garden of Lorie and Michael Kinler. The Kinlers are the design duo behind Redenta’s Landscape Design Kinler Landscape Architecture (renamed in 2022), formerly affiliated with Redenta’s Garden nursery in Dallas. A ...
Tropical conservatory and origami sculpture at San Antonio Botanical Garden
December 09, 2020 Rising Peace I’m not much for conservatories, as regular readers know. They give me mall vibes. But maybe I’m starting to come around a little, thanks to the Origami in the Garden exhibit of Kevin Box‘s sculptures at San Antonio Botanical Garden. This is Part 2 of ...
Fall flowers, foliage, and change-ups
November 11, 2020 Ah fall, how I love you. Even though our fall weather is comparable to summer in northerly regions (low to mid-80s F), and colorful foliage rarely occurs, it’s still my favorite season. After all, autumn is our second spring here in Texas, and fall perennials like Philippine ...
Fall garden scenes
November 06, 2020 Fall color is subtle in Austin, but I’ve been enjoying the flowering of autumn perennials like our native fall aster (Aster oblongifolius). Purple sunbursts! This aster grows like a groundcover and benefits from an early summer trim, by about half, to keep it from flopping by fall ...
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 ...
Michael McDowell’s front-yard prairie garden
October 16, 2020 How can it have been 9 years since I first visited Michael McDowell’s front-yard prairie garden? Michael’s garden lives large in my memory, alight with morning sunlight and festive fall color (click for my 2011 tour), and it inspires daily via his blog Plano Prairie Garden and ...
