Tropicalismo drive-by garden
Driving through the South Austin neighborhood where my friend Lori lives, I passed this exuberant, tropical-style front garden. I immediately swung around and lurked at the curb to take in all the color and ka-pow energy of bananas and crinums and poppies, oh my.
Under the shade of a crape myrtle, an orchid cactus (Epiphyllum) was ablaze with gorgeous, scarlet blossoms. More ka-pow!
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Digging Deeper
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What a fun garden! Never know what you will find in Austin.
That’s for sure.
That looks like a fun garden. More like the quirky Austin of earlier times?
I wasn’t here in the old days so can’t really say, haha. But there’s still plenty of quirky to go around.
It totally is. I usually don’t drive the steep hill this house is on, opting for the road down without speed bumps, but I have noticed through the last few years that they love color, have chickens, and put up a unique looking ADU in the back sided with corrugated metal– a DIY ethos that’s very old school Austin!
Lovely! I think my own Epiphyllums need to be freed from my lath house to get a touch more sun to encourage more blooms.
I hope you get some, Kris. They are spectacular.
OMG LOL!!!! My garden neighbor friend Rebecca and I keep saying we’re gonna walk down there and introduce ourselves, but we never do! Now we have no excuse! We both have made lists of stuff we can trade with whoever owns this place because they moved in and went straight from zero to F1 with the tropical makeover and we are both keenly interested in the plant choices!
Or should I say “charismatic megafauna?” XD
Laughing so hard over your use of Greenlee’s humorous “charismatic megafauna”! And yes, please go make friends with these gardeners and see if you can convince them to let us visit!