Foliage Follow-Up

February 16, 2013 Thank goodness for handsome foliage or my February garden would be sadly bereft of interest, since springtime flowers haven’t kicked into gear yet. Here’s an old favorite for sunny, year-round color, ‘Color Guard’ yucca. ‘Sticks on Fire’ euphorbia glows more brightly in winter, its fleshy stems citrus-tinged ...

January 16, 2013 A big agave will suck up all the attention in the room, so to speak, but I say don’t overlook the more demure but equally beautiful yucca. Just look at this blue Koosh-ball of a plant, for example. Yucca rostrata ‘Sapphire Skies’ is elegant, architectural, and colorful, ...

December 16, 2012Potted plants add popIn the hubbub of the upcoming holiday I nearly forgot to post for Foliage Follow-Up. But recently I’ve had some fun adding colorful potted plants to my entry garden, and since I chose them for their shape and color, not blooms, here they are. I’ve ...

November 16, 2012 I inherited two Chinese mahonia (Mahonia fortunei) when I moved into this house, a plant previously unknown to me. In all my frequent nursery visits for 2-1/2 years, I never saw another one offered for sale, and it wasn’t until I visited the Rister-Armstrong Garden in Dallas ...

October 16, 2012 To celebrate foliage on the day after Bloom Day, I’m leading with one of my favorite agaves, ‘Whale’s Tongue’ (Agave ovatifolia). This is a small, new one I planted in the garden I share with my neighbor. Its red teeth echo the red of the Autumn sage ...

September 16, 2012 Thanks to our first two cool fronts of the season, I’ve spent much of the past two weekends cleaning up the garden, ripping out plants that proved not tough enough and adding plants that I’ve been wanting to try, like little bluestem and a couple of new ...

August 16, 2012 What’s sweeter than a bluebird of happiness for Foliage Follow-Up? Join me in posting about your lovely leaves of August for Foliage Follow-Up, a way to remind ourselves of the importance of foliage in the garden. Leave your link to your Foliage Follow-Up post in a comment ...

July 16, 2012 Yesterday’s post about my recent visit to Denver Botanic Gardens was flower-powerful in honor of Bloom Day. Today, for Foliage Follow-Up, I’m focusing on a hillside swath of two grasses and a prickly southwestern native, both of which thrilled me—meaning I took lots of pictures. Fab foliage, ...

June 16, 2012 As summer’s Death Star begins to bear down on central Texas, and as our blessed spring rainfall dries up, the plants that continue to look good no matter what are the baddest of the bad boys: the spiny-tipped agaves and yuccas. No really, don’t be afraid of ...

May 16, 2012 The fourth garden on this year’s Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour, at 7316 Brecourt Manor Way in southwest Austin, was also the smallest, with only the back yard “gardened up.” The back yard opens to a view of the greenbelt beyond, so native plants were chosen to ...

April 16, 2012 For the love of everything variegated, what was I thinking?! It’s a spiky riot of stripey foliage. Just look at this xeric combo of ‘Bright Edge’ yucca (foreground, with the bloom spike), ‘Oriental Limelight’ atemisia, Agave americana ‘Marginata’ and Mexican feathergrass (in blue pots), and ‘Alphonse Karr’ ...

March 16, 2012 Mahonia eurybracteata ‘Soft Caress’ is new to the nursery trade and beginning to pop up in local garden centers. I recently bought this big 7-gallon ‘Soft Caress’ on discount at Hill Country Water Gardens, where they gave me a deal so I could trial it in my ...

February 16, 2012 Hot on the heels of Bloom Day, we’re once again celebrating Foliage Follow-Up, praising the oft-unsung hero of all good gardens: plants with beautiful or intriguing foliage. My theme this month is bold foliage. Well, that’s my theme most months, as I have a weakness for plants ...

January 16, 2012 Looking out my window as I type this, I see Moby, my great whale of an agave—Agave ovatifolia, to be precise—caught in the morning sunlight. His structural, rose-like form is a matte, pale green that looks whitewashed in strong sunlight. But Moby can be moody, as in ...

December 16, 2011 Although Christmas is only a week away, fall color is just now peaking in Austin. Buttery yellow cedar elms, rusty red oaks, and, in my garden, a red-orange Japanese maple brighten the neighborhood along with colored Christmas lights. Yeah, it’s a little disconcerting, but officially it is ...

November 16, 2011 Has the landscaping at a strip mall ever made you look twice? North Star Home Center, an ordinary shopping strip at Burnet Road and Anderson Lane in North Austin, is doing something right because every time I drive by I’m craning my neck to see how the ...