Spider lilies are up
September 19, 2016 So much for calling the end of summer. It’s been as hot as Georgia asphalt for the past week, and I’ve been out in it every day, getting the garden in shape for fall. At least it’s given me a chance to appreciate the spider lilies (Lycoris ...
Out and about in Austin nurseries and parks
September 18, 2016 Lately I’m taking as many garden photos with my phone as with my “real” camera, and these often get posted to my Instagram. But not all of them, and sometimes I like to share them on my blog too. So here’s some cool stuff I spotted last ...
The berry good season
September 08, 2016 I’m calling it. We’re over the hump of Death Star Summer and sliding into mellow fall. I know, it’s not exactly mellow out there yet, but I can feel it coming. Can’t you? The beautyberries do. In the lower garden, black beautyberry (Callicarpa acuminata) is laden with ...
High-altitude garden in bloom at Santa Fe Botanical Garden
August 22, 2016 Two weeks ago today we drove west on a spontaneously planned, cutting-it-close-with-the-first-day-of-school, two-week road trip through West Texas, northern New Mexico, and western Colorado. One of our early stops was Santa Fe, New Mexico, a beautiful old city we once regularly visited but hadn’t seen in 16 ...
May flowers from A (agave) to V (vitex)
May 27, 2016 As the days fly toward summer, the daylilies are showing off their lovely throats… …and blushing, ruffled petals. Here’s ‘Best of Friends’. The first ‘Apple Tart’ smolders among the white-striped flax lilies. Stretching on long stems like giraffe necks, ‘Wilson’s Yellow’ daylily stands tall amid grasses and ...
Berry-eating birds flock to the Wildflower Center
February 08, 2016 While admiring possumhaw hollies (Ilex decidua) at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center last Friday, I couldn’t help noticing lots of birds doing the same. A solitary cedar waxwing commuted for snacks from a bald cypress, where my son was able to get a few photos of ...
Bluebonnets already a-blue-m at the Wildflower Center
February 06, 2016 Well, this is a surprise! Bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) ordinarily bloom in April, but a bonny patch was abloom yesterday in the family garden at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Don’t go running over for your photo op with the kids. Only about 3 plants are blooming ...
Decked and swinging at the Wildflower Center
December 10, 2015 The weather has been so beautiful lately — Austin’s payoff for making it through another summer. Last Sunday, the whole family joined me for an afternoon stroll at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, one of my very favorite places. Right now it’s a mix of fall ...
Smart, water-saving landscaping at UT’s Dealey Center
December 08, 2015 On a chilly, rainy Saturday in mid-November — a quiet traffic day — I headed to the University of Texas campus and actually found street parking at the G. B. Dealey Center for New Media (renamed from the Belo Center in 2021), whose landscaping I’ve wanted to ...
Fall flowers for a Texas garden
October 20, 2015 My shady, evergreen garden will never be showy with flowers. But I have pockets of seasonal blooms that brighten the garden for a week or two at a time and please me when they appear. Right now, Philippine violet (Barleria cristata) is one of these. I have ...
Oxblood lilies pop up after first fall rain
September 12, 2015 Maybe last week’s inch of rain — the first in two months — wasn’t technically the first fall rain. After all, it still sweltered into the 90s that day and the day after. But by the reckoning of the oxblood lilies (Rhodophiala bifida), the soil is refreshed ...
Foliage gardening apologies: do you do it?
September 06, 2015 At least once or twice a month I find myself trying to explain my garden to politely interested non-gardeners. A couple of days ago the smiling inquiry was from a new doctor. Upon learning that I liked to garden, she asked the standard question, “What do you ...
The garden knows summer is slipping away
August 20, 2015 As yet another long, hot Austin summer drags on, with no real relief expected until early October, I start combing the garden for signs of a change in season. Late yesterday afternoon I found quite a few — hallelujah! The dangling seedheads of inland sea oats (Chasmanthium ...
Plant This: Turk’s cap
July 21, 2015 Death Star-adapted plants tend to be small-leaved and airy, the better to retain precious water. But our native Turk’s cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii) defies that expectation with vaguely heart-shaped leaves the size of a napkin scrounged out of your car’s glove box, and just as crinkled ...
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 ...
Possumhaws coming into glory
February 08, 2015 The reddening of possumhaw holly (Ilex decidua) berries seems a couple of weeks late this year. (Click the link to see how they look at peak.) Usually the red-berried trees are blazing by mid-to-late January in my northwest Austin neighborhood, but this year they’re just starting to ...
