Circling back to my garden
April 24, 2024 I’ve been running around visiting gardens in Austin and beyond this spring, but every day I stop and breathe deep in my own garden, taking in the green freshness of the season. The Circle Garden view from the deck makes me particularly happy right now. Its graphic ...
Flowers of middle spring in my Austin garden
April 14, 2024 After Texas mountain laurels and plums have dropped their fragrant blossoms, after bluebonnets and other early wildflowers have gone to messy seed, but before heat-loving salvias and skullcap and Turk’s cap get going, we enter what I call middle spring in Central Texas. It’s lush and flowery, ...
Spring in full swing in my garden
April 03, 2024 What a great time of year this is in a Central Texas garden. The days have been comfortable but not hot. The humidity is low. We’ve had a little rain but also plenty of sun. And the plants are racing with new growth and flowers. They’re feeling ...
Shantung maple’s charming flowers
March 17, 2024 When I decided to experiment with a ‘Fire Dragon’ Shantung maple last April — purchased at Metro Maples during a garden scouting expedition in the Dallas/Fort Worth area — I had no idea it would do this: burst into bloom with starry, acid-yellow flowers. My little 5-gallon ...
Man, I got manifold mangaves!
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 ...
Crossvine, plum, and spiderwort at peak bloom
March 10, 2024 What’s making me happiest in my garden right now? Let me show you! My favorite plant this week is ‘Tangerine Beauty’ crossvine. Look at those crinkled, open-throated, mango-hued blossoms, singing spring for all they’re worth. A single vine has crept along the coyote fence at the back ...
Texas flowering trees for bees
March 05, 2024 The sweet, grapey fragrance of Kool-Aid wafts on the breeze at this time of year in Texas. Purple flower clusters that put wisteria to shame dangle from Texas mountain laurel (Sophora secundiflora) trees. Bees go mad for these purple pom-poms, and so do I. Every time I ...
Earliest spring flowers are popping
February 27, 2024 Spring has arrived in earnest in Austin, and it feels about two weeks early. Is that right, long-time Austinites? Temps have been in the mid- to upper 80s F for the past several days, and although that’s warm, it’s still very comfortable in the shade. In response ...