New flowers & a new blogger
Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea ) adds its starry shape to the mix of pinks and yellows in the front garden.
Now that we’ve gotten that last gasp of winter out of the way, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming. Today the purple coneflower was noticeably in bloom, with more yet to open. This humble prairie plant is one of my favorite flowers, so I’m especially glad to see it appear.
I’m also glad to welcome another Austin garden blogger to cyberspace. Dawn at Suburban Wildlife Garden joins us this month from NW Austin, on the edge of the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve. Perched as she is on the verge of Austin’s lovely canyons, which teem with deer, javelinas, armadillos, and other critters challenging to gardeners, Dawn will offer a different perspective on gardening in Austin than the rest of us (mostly) in-town gardeners.
Dawn brings our number to nine. Yes, nine gardeners blogging about gardening in Austin. Are we a gardening city or what? Here’s my list (most links can be found in my sidebar): Zanthan Gardens, The Transplantable Rose, Soul of the Garden (not really an interactive blog, but close enough), South of the River, The Great Experiment, Human Flower Project, Larvalbug’s Garden Bits, newly minted Suburban Wildlife Garden, and yours truly at Digging.
Beat that, all you other garden-proud cities. (Buffalo, NY? No contest. Savannah, GA? Nothing.) I notice on Stuart’s world-map directory that Brooklyn, NY, has bragging rights with 3 garden blogs, which I find interesting—go, urban gardeners! While there are a lot of garden bloggers clustered in the northeast and the Midwest, central Texas is still the blogging capital.
Must be all that hot air we have down here. 😉
Texas betony
What a sweet surprise to see my baby blog’s name on your site. Thank you, Pam!
Glad to see your flowers are still blooming after the *very* cold weather this weekend. Your Echinacea and Texas betony are gorgeous.
I’m still thawing up here in the hills. Central Texas has more surprising weather in some ways than I experienced in Central Florida…well, if one doesn’t could the hurricanes at least. 😉
Afraid a couple of the fish in my new container garden didn’t survive the weekend chill, even though I put in a water heater for them. I’d better go back to Hill Country Water Gardens for more tips…and maybe a few more fish.
Thanks again!
Dawn
Good luck with the fish. I’ve gone through a few replacements in my time too. —Pam
Loved your blog….those pics are fantastic….i must get some echinaceas for my garden.
Thank you. And I agree—you must get some echinaceas. They’re such cheery flowers. —Pam
Yep, Austin is the garden bloggers capital of the world, or so it seems. 🙂
Personally I still get a kick out of seeing my very small village of Dinteloord representing the Netherlands on Stuarts map. Hilarious! Amsterdam, Rotterdam, eat your heart out. Or something. 😉
Yes, indeed. And perhaps our good-natured taunting will inspire gardeners in other towns to start blogging. That would be a win-win situation because we’d all have more blogs to enjoy. —Pam
Alas, I will have to confess that Austin is certainly taking their share of the garden blogging pie. Until I started blogging I had never even heard of Austin, Texas and now it seems like it could become the place to be for gardening.
If it keeps growing at this rate, Austin may become the gardening capital of the world.
We Austinites like to think so. 😉 —Pam