Bamboo

April 02, 2012 The Garden Conservancy’s 2012 Open Days program opened on March 24 in Houston, a 3-hour drive east of Austin. Diana of Sharing Nature’s Garden and I made a day trip of it and started our tour at the Cortlandt Street Garden. Here’s the official description: Located in ...

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 ...

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 ...

February 14, 2012 Speaking of dialogue between gardeners, I’ve been hankering to make a plant list since reading that Loree at Danger Garden listed hers. And she made her list in response to a query by David of The Desert Edge. So you see how these conversations ricochet around the ...

January 21, 2012 Doesn’t everyone want to go to Margaritaville in the winter? I do, so I planted a Yucca recurvifolia ‘Margaritaville’ in a tall culvert pipe I’ve been hoarding for several months, waiting for inspiration to hit. Now it adds height to the drop-off bed behind the pool, next ...

December 28, 2011 Southern gardens traditionally rely on evergreen shrubs for winter structure and greenery. In my Southern meets Southwestern garden, agaves serve the same purpose. Pictured here is ‘Moby,’ the white whale of my garden—‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (A. ovatifolia), whose broad, cupped leaves, each serrated with thorns and tipped ...

December 22, 2011 Would it be Christmas in Austin without a spin under the Zilker Tree and a stroll down 37th Street? We intended to do both last night, but a welcome rain shower allowed only 37th Street. No matter—the Zilker Tree is lit until New Year’s Eve, and a ...

October 19, 2011It’s Support Your Independent Nursery month! Each Wednesday in October I’m posting about one of my favorite independent garden centers in the Austin area. Today I’m shining a spotlight on The Great Outdoors, located just south of the hip strip known as SoCo on South Congress Avenue. (This ...

September 17, 2011 The approach of autumn is a hopeful time for the central Texas gardener. It means we’ve survived another long, hot summer and can enjoy being outdoors again. It means time for the rains to return to revitalize the summer-weary garden, replenish our aquifers and lakes, and offer ...

September 16, 2011 Not that it’s been the easiest summer to try a new bamboo, a thirstier plant than I usually bother with, but they provide such leafy, touchable, evergreen texture in the garden that I’m willing to give ’em a little extra love, i.e., water. No thirsty annuals or ...

August 04, 2011 I’m baaack! Did you miss me? If you thought I’d gone AWOL from Austin’s summer from hell, well, you were right. I left early for the Garden Bloggers Fling last month, flying into Portland, Oregon, on July 20 in order to meet blogger friend, foliage fiend, and ...

June 29, 2011 As always when visiting a beautiful garden, time was short, so the Walled Garden and conservatory were our final stop at Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, earlier this month. The grounds slope steeply down from the grand house, through the Italian Garden and Shrub Garden, leading ...

May 25, 2011 I think the Munsterman garden, soon to be sold to some lucky buyer, along with the house, was my favorite on the May 21 Dallas Open Days tour. What can I say? I’m a sucker for garden rooms and colorful, inviting seating areas surrounded by striking foliage ...

May 11, 2011 Wendy Brennan’s Zen-style garden, which you can see Saturday on the Inside Austin Gardens Tour, is the creation of her neighbor Link Davidson, whose own garden sits just uphill from Wendy’s. At her request, he continued the terracing from his own garden—designed to slow heavy runoff—with inexpensive ...

April 02, 2011 I recently posted about the prehistoric garden at Zilker, but an older and equally beautiful part of the botanical garden is the Taniguchi Japanese Garden. It’s an intimate, contemplative, green place overlooking downtown Austin. The garden was a gift to the city by 70-year-old Isamu Taniguchi in ...

February 16, 2011 February 14 marks the transition between winter and spring in central Texas gardens. Around Valentine’s Day, Austin gardeners do their big cut-back of summer- and fall-blooming perennials and grasses in preparation for spring growth. We may still get a couple of freezes (the last average freeze date ...