Mangave

March 11, 2024 In February I posted on Instagram a summer-memory photo of a mangave I love, and @plantsplantsen messaged me about it. “Nice to meet another mangave fan,” he wrote. We chatted, and he offered to send me some mangave pups in the spring. “Whaaaat? Are you a mangave ...

October 19, 2023 Tropical Storm Ophelia swept across the Philadelphia region during late September’s Philly Area Fling. But Flingers shall not be deterred! On we Flung in raincoats, ponchos, umbrellas, and waterproof shoes — or in sopping wet pants and socks. Our group arrived at plantsman and designer David L ...

October 12, 2023 October! It’s the best month of the year, providing sweet relief from a Texas summer with cooler weather and rain and bringing the garden back to life. Let’s take a stroll ALL around the garden and see what there is to see. It’s oxblood lily season! These ...

August 21, 2023 This summer, y’all. Am I right, my fellow Texas gardeners? But even with two months of surface-of-the-sun temps and zero rain, at least a few plants are happy. Like this pink-flowering mammillaria cactus that burst into silken bloom a few days after I gave it a deep ...

July 31, 2023 During Austin’s infernal summer at least the porch plants are looking good. Coppertone sedum spilling out of a Pot Inc. hanging planter even matches the door color — Benjamin Moore “Wasabi”, if you’re curious. Most of these were grown from cuttings, like the Coppertone sedum, blue chalksticks, ...

July 20, 2023 Heat waves are everywhere all at once right now, and Austin too is broiling in the hottest July on record, according to KXAN. That’s saying something because last summer was incredibly hot. I felt sure, after enduring Snowpocalypse, last summer’s oven-like temps, and then February’s Arbormageddon ice ...

June 26, 2023 Texas summers always test me as a gardener. I dislike the heat and humidity and generally view summer as a holing-up season, a downtime to wait out, the way gardeners up north view winter. Except of course the weeds don’t stop growing during my downtime. But this ...

May 29, 2023 Did you notice it’s been a little quiet around here? If you follow my Instagram, you already know I joined my husband this spring on a 5-week RVing trip to see national parks in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas. (Find my Instagram stories about the ...

April 07, 2023 The spuria irises have sprung! Their burnt gold, droopy-petaled flowers perch atop tall stems, surrounded by slender, sword-shaped leaves, sheltered under a crape myrtle canopy. Their distinctive color pops against a green backdrop. They glow behind mauve, fleshy ‘Fiercely Fabulous’ mangave. They make a golden filling between ...

March 22, 2023 Spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis), a self-sowing native and a springtime beauty, continues to color my shady spaces purple. Its bee-feeding flowers open at dawn and close in the early afternoon, except on cool, cloudy days, when they may stay open all day. More flower spikes line the raised ...

April 04, 2022 In early March, on a quick trip to Houston, I returned to Houston Botanic Garden for an end-of-winter visit. HBG is still a new garden — it opened in September 2020; click for my visit — and the culinary garden with its massive, aqua-tiled water wall is ...

February 23, 2022 Teacup Garden in 2021 A teacup-shaped fountain in the entry garden at Chanticleer gives the Teacup Garden its name. Each year the plantings around the fountain are redesigned to create a bold, new theatrical vignette. I visited Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania, last October on my East Coast ...

November 02, 2021 My Northeast road trip in early October wasn’t only about seeing fall foliage. Naturally it included lots of garden visits too, starting with Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. Only 17 days remained until the garden closed for the season (what a strange concept for this Southerner), ...

September 07, 2021 ‘Moonglow’ mangave I’m a little infatuated with mangaves, those succulent-leaved hybrids of agaves and manfredas. I’ve been growing a couple hardy mangaves (hardy most winters in our zone 8b) for years as focal points in protected beds or containers. My hardy faves are ‘Macho Mocha’ and its ...

November 11, 2020 Ah fall, how I love you. Even though our fall weather is comparable to summer in northerly regions (low to mid-80s F), and colorful foliage rarely occurs, it’s still my favorite season. After all, autumn is our second spring here in Texas, and fall perennials like Philippine ...

September 24, 2020 Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and San Antonio all have botanical gardens, but until now, the biggest and most international city in Texas did not. Last weekend Houston finally got its due with the long-anticipated opening of Houston Botanic Garden. I road-tripped with my daughter three hours east ...