Plant This: Dwarf firebush ignites the fall garden
November 01, 2013 I’m trying a dwarf variety of the popular firebush (Hamelia patens ‘Compacta’ or ‘Glabra’) in a mostly sunny spot in my neighbor’s garden that I help tend, and it’s performed beautifully all summer and into fall, requiring little water once established and blooming its head off through ...
Plant This: Queen Victoria agave
October 28, 2013 With chunky, triangular leaves iced in precise white lines, and with a tight, symmetrical rosette shape almost too perfect to be real, Queen Victoria agave (Agave victoriae-reginae) is as regal as its name suggests. This little agave is decidedly not queen-sized, however. In contrast to the SUV-sized ...
Plant This: Mexican orchid tree
October 21, 2013 Brightening the shade with floppy-petaled, gleaming white flowers, Mexican orchid tree (Bauhinia mexicana) is a gangly but pretty shrub for dappled shade or light morning sun here in central Texas. Cousin to the Hill Country-native, spring-blooming Anacacho orchid tree (Bauhinia lunarioides), Mexican orchid tree blooms spring through ...
Plant This: Indian mallow
September 15, 2013 In my sunniest, driest garden beds, gray globemallow (Sphaeralcea incana) is a true performer. When I first spotted this Indian mallow in the exhibition hall at GWA Tucson last fall, I mistook it for another of the many species of Sphaeralcea. Was I surprised to learn that ...
Plant This: Crinum procerum
September 10, 2013 Hot-climate gardens need a water feature to counteract summer’s heat with a feeling of cool wetness. My stock-tank pond serves that purpose in my garden, plus it gives me a chance to grow a few plants that like wet feet, like this Crinum procerum ‘Splendens’. With burgundy, ...
Plant This: White Turk’s cap
August 27, 2013 While native Turk’s cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii) is easily found in nurseries and growing wild along the greenbelts of central Texas, and pink cultivar ‘Pam Puryear’, a relatively new introduction, is now common in the nursery trade, white Turk’s cap can be hard to find. That’s ...
Plant This: Honeybees love garlic chives and so will you
August 26, 2013 Want more bees in your garden? They do need our help, you know. And we always need theirs. Plant garlic chives (Allium tuberosum), and the bees will be busy. You’ll also enjoy sprays of sparkling, white flowers atop slender, green stems — a crisp, clean bloom to ...
Plant This: Spuria iris bloom at last
April 28, 2013 About 4 years after acquiring them, my spuria iris are blooming at last. Passalongs from Linda Lehmusvirta of Central Texas Gardener, who told me she received her divisions from author/designer Scott Ogden, these tall (about 3 feet), beardless irises would send up their slender leaves each winter, ...
Plant This: Abutilon, or flowering maple
February 06, 2013 Does your central Texas garden need a boost in late winter? Then add a few flowering maples and enjoy colorful, lantern-like blossoms that either hang pendant or are held horizontally on short stems. Large, maple-shaped leaves are a bonus, especially if you choose a showy, variegated variety ...
Plant This: Texas persimmon
January 29, 2013 One of my favorite small trees for winter interest is Texas persimmon (Diospyros texana), which occurs naturally in central and south Texas but is found as far east as Houston and as far west as Big Bend National Park. This picture, which I took at a client’s ...
Plant This: Jaws agave bares its teeth — Rawr!
December 13, 2012 Doesn’t everyone want a plant with a sharky grin in their gardens? I know I do, and Agave gentryi ‘Jaws’ obliges with half-inch-long thorns that leave shadowy “teeth marks” on each emerald-green leaf as it unfurls. I planted a 5-gallon ‘Jaws’ agave last summer in a bottomless ...
Plant This: Mexican heather
December 05, 2012 I confess: I used to be disdainful of Mexican heather (Cuphea hyssopifolia), that sturdy, prolifically blooming sub-shrub offered on the summer-color tables at the big-box stores and plugged into many a planter at local shopping centers. I often saw plants that were leggy and a bit sun-crisped ...
Plant This: Blonde Ambition grama
December 02, 2012 Does the ubiquitous, blonde-maned Mexican feathergrass have a worthy rival at last? I’m beginning to think so. ‘Blonde Ambition’ grama (Bouteloua gracilis ‘Blonde Ambition’), a statuesque cultivar of our native blue grama, is a bunching, blue-green grass that grows to about 12 inches tall and wide. In ...
Plant This: Copper canyon daisy
November 27, 2012 Copper canyon daisy, gopher plant, and ‘Color Guard’ yucca Like warm sunshine on a chilly autumn day, copper canyon daisy (Tagetes lemmonii) brightens the garden in late fall, just before the first frost nips central Texas. In full sun the plant becomes a 4 to 6 foot ...
Plant This: Chinese mahonia for Foliage Follow-Up
November 16, 2012 I inherited two Chinese mahonia (Mahonia fortunei) when I moved into this house, a plant previously unknown to me. In all my frequent nursery visits for 2-1/2 years, I never saw another one offered for sale, and it wasn’t until I visited the Rister-Armstrong Garden in Dallas ...
Plant This: Gulf muhly grass
November 03, 2012 Southern gardeners, are you growing Gulf muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris)? Autumn is its cotton-candy bloom time, and it’s an unforgettable sight. From a distance you see a pinkish-purple haze floating above deep-green foliage. (That’s purple fountain grass in the foreground.) Come closer and the splendor of this native ...
