Bamboo

January 18, 2011 The sun came out and I went out, out into the garden to explore after several dreary days spent indoors. Delightfully spongy earth, fungi on the coir doormats, and a revitalized winter garden attested to our recent rainfall—who knows how much, as I had turned my gauge ...

January 18, 2011 The sun came out and I went out, out into the garden to explore after several dreary days spent indoors. Delightfully spongy earth, fungi on the coir doormats, and a revitalized winter garden attested to our recent rainfall—who knows how much, as I had turned my gauge ...

January 06, 2011 Austin has so many mild winter days that it’s really a shame not to be out enjoying your garden at this time of year. But what if your flowery perennial garden dies back in winter and you’re left with brown grass, leaf-strewn beds, and a shade tree ...

October 20, 2010 Deborah Hornickel added on to her charming Bryker Woods home a couple of years ago, extending its footprint into her back garden, which you can see pre-remodel in my Open Days 2006 post about Deborah’s garden. Visiting post-remodel on Saturday’s Open Days tour, I found it to ...

October 17, 2010 ‘Sharkskin’ agave and ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave at the Utility Research Garden The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Austin tour was held yesterday, with 6 private gardens open to the public. My first stop was the ambiguously named Utility Research Garden, which I imagined to be an experimental garden ...

October 16, 2010 I hope you’ll join me today for Foliage Follow-Up, the day after Bloom Day when we celebrate leaves, bark, seedheads, etc.—plant characteristics often overlooked in favor of flowers. Share your favorite foliage for October, and then leave a link here in the comments so we can find ...

October 11, 2010 Afternoon is the golden time in my garden. Morning light only briefly touches it. Agaves, yuccas, bamboos, and grasses are clustered on the west end of my garden because it gets the most sun, and they look illuminated from within as the setting sun shines through their ...

August 16, 2010 It’s August. It’s Austin. It’s incredibly hot and humid. Flowers for Bloom Day were pretty scarce, but foliage is, as always, carrying the garden through the toughest months. My faves for Foliage Follow-Up this month are visually cooling, with variegated or glaucous leaves. But really, anything that ...

August 09, 2010 No, not purple-hearted monster. Attack of the purple heart monster, aka Tradescantia pallida. It’s taking over the exposed limestone in the lower garden, and if you were to brave the mosquitoes and walk back there, you’d have to pick your way through patches of purple heart. It ...

August 06, 2010 Good morning! Let’s stroll the garden before it gets too hot. It’s going to be 100 degrees (37.7 C) again today, so early morning or evening strolls, dripping wet from the pool, are recommended. And yet I was crazy enough desperate enough for fall to plant a ...

October 25, 2009 My favorite garden for plants on Saturday’s Inside Austin Gardens tour was the Westlake garden of Gail Sapp. Her plants are big, bold, and architectural, and she crams them in with abandon, making a visit to her garden the delighted exploration of a strange new world. Her ...

July 10, 2009 Although its stems and feathery leaves resemble bamboo, bamboo muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa ) is a 4-to-5-ft-tall clumping grass native to Arizona. I use it lavishly in my gardens because I love the way it catches the light and the breeze, and it’s hardy in full sun or ...

April 27, 2009 The Austin garden bloggers met up on Sunday in the walled gardens of two talented local gardeners: designer and author Jill Nokes and our own Jenny Stocker, whom you may know as Lancashire Rose on her blog, Rock Rose. I didn’t take an official count, but I ...

April 27, 2009 The Austin garden bloggers met up on Sunday in the walled gardens of two talented local gardeners: designer and author Jill Nokes and our own Jenny Stocker, whom you may know as Lancashire Rose on her blog, Rock Rose. I didn’t take an official count, but I ...

March 06, 2009 Ever since I spotted it in author and designer Jill Nokes’s garden two years ago, Mexican weeping bamboo (Otatea acuminata aztecorum ) has been at the top of my wish list. This tall, clumping, feathery bamboo adds texture and movement to a garden, and I just had ...

July 22, 2008 During our tour of Chanticleer in early July, the mistiness of early afternoon gave way to bright sunshine as we dipped into the Asian Woods garden below the main house. Tall trees, their lower trunks wrapped in wire trellises for climbing vines, create a serene wood and ...