Containers

March 27, 2008 Squid agave (Agave bracteosa ), silver ponyfoot (Dichondra argentea ), Manfreda ‘Macho Mocha,’ and Hinckley’s columbine in my first stock-tank planter. Over at Gardening Gone Wild, they’re talking about container plantings for this month’s Garden Bloggers’ Design Workshop. You know what that means here at Digging—cattle troughs! ...

March 18, 2008 Front porch vignette Last Friday we drove three hours east to Houston to visit my sister and her partner in their house in the Heights. Despite unseasonably hot and humid weather on Friday and Saturday, we had a wonderful time kicking around at the Houston Rodeo, shopping ...

March 18, 2008 Front porch vignette Last Friday we drove three hours east to Houston to visit my sister and her partner in their house in the Heights. Despite unseasonably hot and humid weather on Friday and Saturday, we had a wonderful time kicking around at the Houston Rodeo, shopping ...

February 28, 2008 Mexican plum (Prunus mexicana ) flowering white against a blue, blue sky. After our up-and-down temperatures earlier in the week, the forecasters promise us perfect spring weather through the weekend, with highs in the low 70s F (low 20s C) and maybe even a sprinkling of rain, ...

February 14, 2008 Taiwanese pear in full bloom at the Dallas Arboretum After a 3-hour landscape design class at the Dallas Arboretum yesterday, and before the 3 1/2-hour drive back home, I took a quick stroll through the gardens, which I’d never seen, despite having stayed over in Big D ...

February 05, 2008 Front garden, Early Summer 2007. Purple coneflower and ‘Belinda’s Dream’ roses harmonize, while silver artemesia and chartreuse Salvia greggii foliage add a little punch. Like many gardeners, I love color in the garden. Pinks reign in the front, reds and blues in the back. At this time ...

February 05, 2008 Front garden, Early Summer 2007. Purple coneflower and ‘Belinda’s Dream’ roses harmonize, while silver artemesia and chartreuse Salvia greggii foliage add a little punch. Like many gardeners, I love color in the garden. Pinks reign in the front, reds and blues in the back. At this time ...

January 21, 2008 ‘Whale’s tongue’ agave (foreground) and Agave americana ‘Marginata’ in sunken stock tank (background) I’ve already sung the praises of stock tanks and cattle troughs as striking yet easy vessels for container ponds and planters. Sold at feed-supply stores like Callahan’s in Austin, these galvanized metal tanks come ...

January 20, 2008 This not-so-gentle giant—my arms still bear scratches from transplanting it last week—takes center stage in my new foundation planting. I fell in love with this variegated agave’s writhing arms and green-and-yellow racing stripes last spring after I spotted one sprawling out of a simple concrete trough at ...

December 08, 2007 Snowy, white, December gardens work so much better with holiday decor than my gaudy garden, now decked out in a mix of late-summer and (finally!) fall color. Those beautiful orange leaves on the new crepe myrtle? They just don’t work with the red-and-green Christmas wreath by the ...

November 28, 2007 Euphorbia tirucallii ‘Sticks on Fire’ A couple I’m friends with gave me this red pencil tree for my birthday. The husband explained, “We thought the pencil tree was appropriate since it is from Africa and there is a cool Texas version of the plant that grows around ...

August 29, 2007 ‘Valentine’ rose. The new camera handled the saturated red pretty well. Kids are back in school. Classes began at the University of Texas today, adding 48,000 college students to our city’s population. The temperature remains surprisingly low for August (low 90s), and we even got a few ...

August 29, 2007 ‘Valentine’ rose. The new camera handled the saturated red pretty well. Kids are back in school. Classes began at the University of Texas today, adding 48,000 college students to our city’s population. The temperature remains surprisingly low for August (low 90s), and we even got a few ...

July 17, 2007 Traveling home from Tanzania, my dad and I stopped for two nights in Amsterdam to have a look around, as we were passing through and neither of us had been to the Netherlands before. What a change from dusty, dry-season Tanzania. Surrounded by water and picturesquely built ...

July 14, 2007 ‘Belinda’s Dream’ is wide awake after all the rain we received recently. Although I missed Bloom Day in June because of my travel schedule, I’m happy to participate this month. The roses and salvias are enjoying a lush rebloom thanks to cooler than normal temperatures and ample ...

July 14, 2007 ‘Belinda’s Dream’ is wide awake after all the rain we received recently. Although I missed Bloom Day in June because of my travel schedule, I’m happy to participate this month. The roses and salvias are enjoying a lush rebloom thanks to cooler than normal temperatures and ample ...