Colleen Belk’s Old Austin garden
An Old Austin-style garden was featured on the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days tour two weekends ago: Colleen Belk’s 43-year-old garden. Yes, 43 years! What is Old Austin style, you may ask? I think of it as a lushly planted Austin garden with Deep South-meets-Southwest plant choices, sort of rugged, with winding paths, accents of natural limestone and shaggy cedar, and a collection of potted-up succulents. Check, check, and check!
Colleen worked at Barton Springs Nursery for many years, bringing plants home to try them out. Her garden has a wonderfully collected feel, with real beauties like this silver Mediterranean fan palm and Texas palmetto.
Pea gravel paths meander through dense plantings, with groundcovers filling in around everything.
Pretty pink chrysanthemums sprawl across a rock, adding fall color to the garden.
A bunch of Colleen’s potted succulents in vintage containers live on tiered shelving. A greenhouse is situated nearby, perfect for storing tender plants when it gets cold.
A terracotta duck totes a passel of agave pups on her back.
This cactus is one happy camper.
A galvanized tub and cylinder planter perch amid holey limestone to mark where two paths meet.
Colleen says this begonia, charmingly paired with pink gaura in a stock-tank planter, comes back from the roots each spring.
I was smitten with her plume poppy (Macleaya cordata), which has self-sown throughout the shady areas of her garden. I know it can be terribly invasive in some parts of the country, but I wonder if in Austin it’s kept in check by our brutal summers?
Variegated Queen Victoria agave, with its lemon-lime stripes
Colleen’s garden perches on the edge of a canyon, and a large covered deck takes advantage of the view.
Beautiful canyon view
One more
As I was checking out this hanging succulent planter, Colleen came up and said it’s a vintage enema pot, which she collects. I’d never heard of such a thing, and it made me chuckle.
A wood-burning fire pit built into the deck has a substantial vent hood to move smoke out from under the roof.
An old red-and-blue patio set holds a big concrete bowl strikingly planted with a totem pole cactus and other succulents.
A cedar tree (native juniper) that the deck was built around has been lost to storm or other malady. I was charmed to see that Colleen kept a tall section of its trunk and is growing plants on it. In the core, she’s turned a hollow space into a planter for moss rose.
A little hiker frog wearing a backpack stands here, admiring the view.
The main part of the garden surrounds a fishpond outlined with limestone.
Grasses and flowering perennials like cowpen daisy that like full sun are planted here. In the background, two enormous, upright ‘Will Fleming’ yaupon hollies — which Colleen wisely spaced about 10 or 12 feet apart — make living gateposts into the garden.
A pea gravel path wanders off to the left of the pond…
…and overlooks the greenhouse below.
To the right of the pond, lots of fall-season color
Beautyberry in purple glory
Native cowpen daisy (Verbesina encelioides)
Bees were enjoying the cowpen.
An old pump spigot spills recirculating water onto a bowl-shaped limestone rock, making pleasant music. The slanted deck roof is visible in the background, floating over the eave of the house.
Texas sabal palm — its trunk is arrow-straight, but my pano shot gave it a distorting lean.
Fire-engine-red canna
The red canna pairs beautifully with purple smoke bush and ‘Fireworks’ gomphrena.
A mature Queen Victoria agave in all its bloomin’-onion symmetry
A wider view shows Queen Victoria agaves keeping company with a white-trunked Texas persimmon, more cowpen daisy, and Mexican feathergrass.
If you’d like to see more of Colleen’s garden, it was recently featured on Central Texas Gardener. Thank you, Colleen, for opening your garden to the public!
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Digging Deeper
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That’s a garden with character! I love the fishpond.
It does have good character. I agree — the fishpond is the star.
You had me we those silvery palm trees… wow. But then there was the deck… overlooking the canyon! Such fabulous panorama it’d be tough to tear oneself from perching and taking in the view.
Vintage enema pots… hilarious collection and put to excellent use.
Colleen’s A. Victoria Regina are perfection.
They really are. She has wonderful spaces to enjoy her garden and views.
A wonderful garden. I especially liked the tree trunk coming thru the decking. It adds such character and interest. Her pond was lovely too.
Yes indeed. I was so glad her garden was on the tour.
What a stunning garden! Her group of lime-variegated Agave victoriae-reginae is the best I’ve seen. I love that plant. In my garden Macleaya cordata died out completely because I didn’t give it enough summer water!
Interesting tidbit about your plume poppy dying for lack of water in Portland. Sounds like a plant that’s either all or nothing.