Upper patio garden, succulent wall & new mod chairs
April 10, 2012 When the aloes are in bloom, everything seems right with my upper patio garden, viewed here from below, in the mid-level garden. They add a punch of hot color that contrasts so well with the chartreuse greens of spring. Looking past them to the cinderblock wall planter ...
Streetside garden is greening up and filling in
April 09, 2012 After last summer’s heat and drought, many local readers, I suspect, are ripping out burned-up lawn along the street and replacing it with drought-tolerant plants and hardscaping. That’s what I did a year ago with my own curbside lawn, putting in a decomposed-granite parking strip edged with ...
Yay! Screech owl is in our nesting box
April 07, 2012 After pulling out one squirrel’s nest and then seeing the cute but annoying rodent move back in earlier this spring, we’d given up on seeing a screech owl in our nesting box this year. But two days ago I looked out the kitchen window while making my ...
You voted for Digging — thank you!
March 31, 2012 Dear readers, thank you for voting all through last month for Digging in the About.com 2012 Readers’ Choice Awards! I found out yesterday that Digging won for Best Gardening Blog! Now, I know how many really good garden blogs are out there, and I know how excellent ...
Plant This: Anacacho orchid tree
March 29, 2012 Almost everyone (in central Texas’ zone 8 or 9) has room for an Anacacho orchid tree (Bauhinia lunarioides) in their garden. After all, it only grows 8 to 12 feet tall and 6 to 10 feet wide, with an airy habit and tiny, semi-evergreen leaves shaped like ...
Spring riot in the garden
March 23, 2012 A riot of spring color—and tremendous foliage growth—is the result of winter and spring rains in central Texas, including in my garden. Here’s a small sampling, starting with shade-loving Salvia coccinea ‘Molly Ivins.’ A new favorite for tough, dry, sunny conditions: gray globemallow (Sphaeralcea incana) Our native ...
Mahonia adds evergreen texture for Foliage Follow Up
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 ...
Agave and upper patio garden on a slope
March 13, 2012 Close-ups are great for appreciating the beauty of a single plant, but it’s harder to convey the overall feeling of a garden with a wide shot. While taking a break this afternoon from design work, I stepped into the back garden with camera in hand and took ...
Best-smelling tree in Texas: Sophora secundiflora
March 11, 2012 In my 18 years in Austin, I cannot remember the Texas mountain laurels blooming as beautifully as they are doing this spring. Look—even as a parking-lot tree surrounded by cars it’s stunning. This one, in an office complex near my house, has been catching my eye as ...
Marching into spring
March 09, 2012 For a mostly evergreen garden, mine is looking pretty flowery right now, although perhaps not in the wide view. I took these pics yesterday after I’d planted several new plants and before the cold front and rain blew in, dropping temperatures from the 80s to the 50s ...
Plant This: Carex leavenworthii, or Texas sedge
March 08, 2012 If you’re lucky enough to have shade in central Texas, you may be unlucky in your attempts to grow traditional lawn grass. St. Augustine is the only dependable turf grass for shade, and during the drought, thirsty St. Augustine dried up and blew away all over Austin ...
Spiky plant love
March 05, 2012 Yes, I went back to the nursery to pick up this beautiful new agave for my collection, ‘Royal Spine’ (not hardy here, folks, so it’ll have to be brought indoors during freezes). I picked the pot to match the blood-red thorns. What else is looking beautiful and ...
First flowers of spring are brightening the garden
March 02, 2012 Care to take a garden stroll with me? Spring has sprung in Austin. The earliest sign, the Texas mountain laurels, are already past peak. But in my garden the mountain laurels aren’t big enough to really flower, and the early show is at knee level. Case in ...
Plant This: Mexican honeysuckle
February 29, 2012 Like February 29, Mexican honeysuckle (Justicia spicigera) seems an infrequent presence in Austin gardens, even though it puts on a particularly fine show at the very beginning of spring, when other plants are just yawning and stretching and sniffing the air for breakfast. Although its orange, tubular ...
Owl box? Who says?
February 26, 2012 So this is why we don’t have an owl in our screech owl box this year. An interloper! And just look how snug and content she looks, snoozing in the doorway. Sigh. I suppose it’s too late to evict her at this point. By the way, my ...
Purple oxalis for the porch
February 21, 2012 I just potted up a purple oxalis in a pretty blue pot for the porch. It really pops against the bronze pots I have there. Glass bead “mulch” is the finishing touch. Hello, spring! All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited ...
