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 ...
Owl’ll be watching you
April 28, 2015 After weeks of live oak litter, first leaves and then pollen catkins, and weeks of me raking, blowing, and bagging, the garden is finally visible again. Sunday evening I went outside with no expectation of doing any spring chore: no clean-up, no pruning, no planting, no mulching, ...
Rock Rose garden abloom before the hailstorm
April 27, 2015 Two weeks ago my friend Jenny Stocker, blogger at Rock Rose and gardener extraordinaire, offered me a division of a water iris for my pond. When I arrived, mid-morning on a sunny, warm day, Jenny gave me a tour and then kindly set me loose to wander ...
Twilight garden for Foliage Follow-Up
April 16, 2015 Last evening the garden was bathed in the soft glow of a spring twilight. After a day of planting, mulching, and general tidying, I was glad for a quiet moment to just stop and enjoy the garden. The new “monolith” wall has made a handy spot to ...
Birds and blooms at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
April 13, 2015 Rain was forecast all weekend, but although clouds hung low and dark, little rain actually fell. We Austinites pouted for our lakes and gardens, but garden visitors with cameras could find no reason to complain. My garden of choice, when I have several hours of free time, ...
First water lily is blooming but pond cleanup awaits
March 23, 2015 Despite a cool spring, an early-bird ‘Colorado’ water lily has already opened in the stock-tank pond, pale but undaunted. Future lilies will blush a deeper peachy pink as the days grow warmer. Before it decides to bloom in earnest, I really need to muck out a year’s ...
Evergreens, color, and hardscape carry garden through winter into spring
March 11, 2015 A recent conversation on Linda Lehmusvirta‘s Facebook page got a few Austin gardeners talking about winter interest. Tracie, a local gardener, wrote that her mostly native garden looks great spring through fall but is “asleep” in winter, and she wanted ideas. Lori at The Gardener of Good ...
Golden pomegranate is pretty wonderful for fall color
December 05, 2014 I know many of you have mentally moved on to Christmas. But Austin’s fall color comes late, and the golden leaves of my ‘Wonderful’ pomegranate keep catching my eye through the window while I try to work. So naturally, instead of closing the blind so as to ...
New orange Hover Dish is sedged up
November 07, 2014 I planted up my birthday-present orange Hover Dish, but not with succulents. I went with a grassy mix of Texas sedge (Carex texensis) and yellow columbine (Aquilegia hinckleyana), with pink rain lilies (Zephryanthes ‘Labuffarosea’), divided from elsewhere in my garden, mixed in for good measure. All should ...
Visiting a San Antonio garden with rocks, oaks, and deer
October 25, 2014 Ahh, I’m back and enjoying our mellow Texas fall after a garden-visiting weekend in New York City, and guess what I’ve been doing since I got back? Yep! Visiting more gardens. Last Friday a few friends and I headed south to San Antonio to visit the gardens ...
Stuck on my stucco walls
October 01, 2014 I’m in love with the new walls. They’re not even painted yet (the stucco has to cure for a few weeks first), and I love them. I love their sturdy form and embracing curves. Swoop! The culvert-pipe yucca is being moved, by the way. Man, it’s heavy ...
Construction in the garden and other happenings
September 17, 2014 It was a one-two punch, seeing colorful stuccoed walls in Phoenix and Tucson in April and then in Portland in July. Unable to resist the siren song of structure, functionality, and color, I’ve hired a mason to build some walls in the back garden. Two days ago ...
Trying Duranta ‘Sapphire Showers’ for end-of-summer color
September 14, 2014 My late-summer garden was feeling kind of puny to me last week — before we got the November-worthy cold front yesterday that dropped Austin’s high temperature to 65 incredible-freaking degrees and brought 1-1/4 inches of rain to my garden!! Sorry, I digress. Before that blessed weather event ...
Garden magic and whimsy at Floramagoria: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
August 13, 2014 As we entered the intriguingly named Floramagoria garden on the recent Portland Garden Bloggers Fling, thunder rumbled and raindrops pelted our group of 40 or so bloggers. The reasonable — and hungry — among us ran for the two covered pavilions with box lunches in hand. The ...
Splendor in the grass at Rhone Street Gardens: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
August 07, 2014 The 3rd and final day of touring on the recent Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland, Oregon, dawned cool and misty — exactly what Portland should be, at least according to heat-shunning me. After two days of unusual heat, I was thrilled, even when it started to thunder ...
