April visit to Antique Rose Emporium garden
May 10, 2020 In early April I took a wildflower-hunting drive through the country east of Austin. I ended up driving out to Brenham and past The Antique Rose Emporium, which was open to visitors, so I stopped for a quick tour of the gardens, socially distanced of course. The ...
Back garden walkabout
April 24, 2020 Y’all may get weary of seeing my garden each week while I hole up at home during the pandemic. While I’m missing all the gardens I’m usually able to visit and photograph — and share here at Digging — I am enjoying the time spent in my ...
Lauren’s Grape poppy pops open
April 19, 2020 I’m not a big seed sower. A well-mulched, shady garden isn’t really conducive to growing plants from seed. But last fall, having pulled out a few under-performing plants from the back garden’s raised beds, I had a few square feet of bare soil at my disposal. Fishing ...
Wildflowers for an Easter quarantine
April 12, 2020 This Easter Sunday, we can’t join family and friends around the table or at church. We’re worried about big stuff like losing jobs and getting sick, as well as smaller stuff like finding flour and toilet paper at the grocery store. We’re missing springtime rituals like buying ...
Penstemon and passionflower
April 09, 2020 Spring bounds ahead as we confine ourselves at home, waiting for the corona specter to pass us by. I spent an unproductive couple of hours late last night googling how to cut my own hair and watching makeup tutorials promising to make me look 10 years younger ...
All cleaned up after live oak deluge
March 30, 2020 The garden reemerged last weekend, after copious raking and blowing and bagging, from the annual spring deluge of last season’s live oak leaves and subsequent pollen catkins. I ran around with the camera, capturing the gorgeousness of new flowers and fresh foliage, like this pretty combo of ...
Early spring flowers, some are memories now
March 22, 2020 Two weeks ago the ephemeral pink flowers of Mexican buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa) began blushing on bare branches. Not quite bare! Impatient olive-green leaves were already unfurling alongside the flowers. And then, as quickly as it began, the buckeye’s spring show ended. But other flowers, bolder and longer lasting, ...
Grapey gorgeous Texas mountain laurel
March 13, 2020 Who poured out a gallon of grape Kool-Aid around here? Central Texans recognize that sweet grape scent as the smell of springtime. It came a few weeks early this year, as the Texas mountain laurels (Sophora secundiflora) took advantage of a mild winter to explode into wisteria-like ...
Springtime garden glow
March 07, 2020 Responding to warm temps and a good rain this week, the garden is awash with new growth and pockets of spring color, like glowing yellow bulbine. Mild winter temps didn’t kill it back, and now each bloom spike is a yellow sunbeam. The coral-red flowers of ‘Blue ...
Palo verde path at new Mueller neighborhood park
May 29, 2019 Branch Park, the newest public park in the Mueller neighborhood, opened recently, and I swung by one afternoon to take a look. The play spaces (including a waterscape “river”, play airplane, and conical climbing obstacles) and round playing field are terrific additions to the other parks at ...
Spring is abloom in shades of pink and turquoise
May 01, 2019 I haven’t done a photo tour of my own garden in a while, so let’s go, starting with a new planting of Gulf Coast penstemon (Penstemon tenuis) and winecup (Callirhoe involucrata), both Texas natives. Along with an artichoke — I’ve always wanted to try one — they’re ...
Mermaids welcome in Lucinda Hutson’s garden
April 26, 2019 Austin may be 200 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, but for beachy ambience look no further than Lucinda Hutson‘s mermaid garden. The ¡Viva Tequila! author created an under-the-sea vibe with a shell-encrusted arbor dripping with capiz shells, under which a cast-iron mermaid poses seductively. Potted sansevieria, asparagus ...
Spring flowers and foliage at Dallas Arboretum
April 25, 2019 At Dallas Arboretum last week, masses of foxgloves were blooming throughout the gardens. Hot pink is lovely… …but I like even better these lilac and mauve foxgloves planted under gnarled vitex trees. Pretty from any angle Honeybees enjoy the freckled flowers too. We stopped in A Woman’s ...
Wildflowers and Succulents: A Texas-English garden, part 2
April 11, 2019 Doorways in chunky stucco walls frame vista after flowery vista in the garden of Jenny Stocker, also known as Rock Rose, the title of her blog. I showed you half of her Austin garden yesterday. Today I’ll lead you through the rest, starting with the sunken garden ...
Foxgloves and cacti: A Texas-English garden, part 1
April 09, 2019 Ah, let us return to the always-stunning garden of Jenny Stocker, aka Rock Rose. Born and raised in England, Jenny and her husband, David, years ago adopted Texas as their home. Jenny’s garden, a series of stucco-walled courtyards surrounding their contemporary house, reflects her English roots but ...
Hill Country bluebonnet drive
April 05, 2019 Bluebonnets peak a little later in the Hill Country than in Austin and San Antonio. The superbloom I photographed south of San Antonio two weeks ago whetted my appetite for more, and since Austin’s roadside ‘bonnets have faded, I headed into the Hill Country on Wednesday. Cruising ...
