Snow in Austin, Texas!
February 23, 2010 Fat, fluffy snowflakes have quieted the garden and outlined the trees. After our super hot summer, lengthy drought, and record cold temperatures over the past year, I don’t know why this surprises me. But it does. According to Mark Lisheron at Statesman.com, it has snowed in Austin ...
What to do about frozen agaves & other plants
January 12, 2010 The deep freeze of the South has retreated, and now it’s time to assess the damage done to our plants. Native and well-adapted perennials and shrubs should be just fine, even if they look toasted. The best bet is to leave them alone for now, brown stalks ...
Water as a “sacred element” in southwestern gardens
August 27, 2009 Softleaf yucca (Y. recurvifolia) I nearly always read the last page of a magazine first. So when my Garden Design (Sept/Oct 2009) arrived today I flipped to the back to read about Arizona landscape architect Christy Ten Eyck. I’ve seen her work featured in magazines, and I ...
Water as a "sacred element" in southwestern gardens
August 27, 2009 Softleaf yucca (Y. recurvifolia) I nearly always read the last page of a magazine first. So when my Garden Design (Sept/Oct 2009) arrived today I flipped to the back to read about Arizona landscape architect Christy Ten Eyck. I’ve seen her work featured in magazines, and I ...
Succulents bloom despite record heat
June 24, 2009 Despite the record heat wave and dreadful drought that continue to take their toll on Austin’s lush green canopy, the trio of little succulents I planted this spring are blooming their flower-like heads off. Just look at ’em go! I thought these were sempervivums, which die after ...
Sleet and snow in Austin
December 10, 2008 No joke! Yesterday it was warm enough to induce sweating as I worked in the garden (78 F / 25 C), planting some of my raided plants. A cold front swept in around 2 pm, and by that evening it was sleeting. And then snowing! The ssssss ...
Easter eve cold snap
April 08, 2007 Sleet falling on Easter eve It was a day for the record books in Austin. Our normal high temperature at this time of year is 78 degrees. Yesterday, temps hovered in the high 30s for most of the day and overnight dipped close to freezing (but not ...
Devil in the details
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 ...
Ice and snow
January 16, 2007 Icicles on the kids’ playhouse transformed it into a fairy-tale gingerbread house—for about two minutes until they gleefully knocked them down and sampled a few. After 4 inches of gully-washing rain fell on Saturday morning, we drove to Houston for the weekend to watch my husband and ...
So long, August
September 01, 2006 Purple prickly pear (Opuntia macrocentra) Here’s one plant well suited to this summer’s extreme weather. You won’t see a prickly pear give up the ghost easily, even one in a container that got watered maybe three times all summer. One of the Austin American-Statesman‘s front-page stories today ...
