Digging
Growing a central Austin cottage garden

Our second hailstorm in a week pounded us Wednesday night. Like machine-gun fire—rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—chunks of ice flew horizontally at the west-facing windows and piled up on the patio. We moved the sleeping kids away from the windows, I listened to reports of “tornadic rotation” on the TV, and my husband stood vigil on the back porch, watching his car take a beating in the driveway. When it was over and morning revealed the damage, it was mercifully minor. Unlike neighborhoods to the east and south of us, no trees were lost, no windows broken, and even the car seems undented. In the garden, the daylilies, a few new roses, and the cut-leaf daisies were a little ragged and torn, but otherwise everything looked fine. Plus we got three-quarters of an inch of rain, which is always welcome.

I’m a day late for the Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day party, and I didn’t try to document every flower with a photo this time. So here’s an abridged version of what’s blooming in my garden this May 15. To see what’s flowering in other gardens all over the world, visit May Dreams Gardens for links to other Bloom Day posts.

‘Wilson’s Yellow’ daylily defiantly opened the day after the hailstorm.

Autumn sage (Salvia greggii ) welcomes visitors to my garden on each side of the entry with cheery flowers and fragrant foliage. To the left of the blue-green agave, rock penstemon and bulbine are blooming. Jerusalem sage and four-nerve daisy show their yellow flowers in the background on either side of the variegated agave.

Bat-face cuphea (Cuphea llavea ). Do you see the little bat face with big ears?

The purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea ) look a little bedraggled after the hailstorm, but I like the way they’re mingling with the leaves of Gulf muhly grass.

Pink skullcap (Scutellaria suffrutescens ), like a tidy alpine shrub, grows in a small mound of tiny, green leaves topped by tubular, lipstick-pink flowers.

Heartleaf skullcap (Scutellaria ovata ), visibly fuzzy in the morning light, sends up lavender spires.

Along the curb, where summer sun and drought would shrivel fainter hearts, the native damianita (Chrysactinia mexicana ) and Mexican feathergrass (Nassella tenuissima ) make a pretty, yellow combo. The feathergrass also acts as a weathervane for me. Here you see it blowing southward, which tells me at a glance from the window that a cool north wind is blowing, and the humidity will be low—perfect for gardening.

‘Best of Friends’—still hanging in there after the hailstorm

‘Indigo Spires’ salvia

Also blooming this month
‘Carefree Beauty’ rose
‘Radrazz’ Knockout rose
‘The Fairy’ rose
Engelmann’s daisy
Rock penstemon
Bulbine
Mexican snapdragon vine
Pink cuphea
Barbardos cherry
‘Hot Lips’ salvia
Salvia guaranitica
Coral honeysuckle
Passionflower
Cosmos
Zinnias
Blackfoot daisy
Winecup
Kidneywood tree
Gulf Coast penstemon
Salvia leucantha
Pigeonberry
White oxalis
Purple oxalis
Pomegranate tree
Zexmenia
Lion’s tail
Blue mealy sage
Guara
Texas betony
Star grass

Blooming, but nearly finished
Orchid tree
Star jasmine
Crossvine
Nasturtium
Bluebonnets (blue and maroon)
Columbine

All material © 2006-2008 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The 2008 Mouse & Trowel Award winners were announced this morning, and Digging won in two categories: Best Photography in a Garden Blog and Best Garden Blog Design. Thank you so much, dear readers, for voting for me. I’m honored and delighted. Fuzzy, green hearts to everyone!

Congratulations to the other winners, hard-working and creative garden bloggers, every one. And a big thank-you to Colleen for all her work on the awards, especially as they coincided with the due date of her third child. That baby is surely a little Mousie-keteer.

All material © 2006-2008 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Blue pot with dianthus

Can a garden you’ve visited only three times, briefly, seem almost as familiar as your own? It can if it’s Tom Spencer’s. At Soul of the Garden, Tom has been chronicling his garden—and “exploring the garden of life”—with stunning photographs and introspective essays for eight years. So last Saturday, when my husband and I made Possumhaw Hollow our first stop on Gardens on Tour 2008, I found myself leading my DH from garden room to garden room, telling him the names of each space and explaining the meaning behind Tom’s design. (It was a little weird, actually. That feeling of intimacy, while not really knowing, is both the delight and the downfall of reading someone’s garden blog, but that’s a subject for another day.)

Tom has an attractive and shady front garden…

…but the back garden is where most of the action is. Passing through the back gate, you step onto a checkerboard granite-and-limestone patio (see MSS’s post for a photo) that sits several steps above the garden for a sweeping view of the extra-long lot. Taking in the view with us stood a man in a Mr. Smarty Plants t-shirt. Of course, I had to ask if he was Mr. Smarty Plants, a Wildflower Center gardening expert who answers readers’ questions online, and to my surprise he said he was, with assistance from several others. He introduced himself by name, but I see on his webpage that his identity is meant to remain a mystery, so I won’t reveal more. Suffice it to say he was very nice and expressed interest in the Austin garden-blogging community (yes, I plugged it).

At that point, we spotted Tom, his camera dangling from his shoulder, and he came over to say hello. He looked excited yet relaxed, and I hope the day went well for him. It can’t be easy to welcome 750 visitors into your garden on one day (see his post about it; you must scroll down to May 11–evening), but his garden’s generous layout and linear design make for good flow, which surely helped.

This hideaway nook, created with a semi-circle of possumhaw hollies, gave the garden its name, Possumhaw Hollow. It anchors one end of the transverse axis of the garden.

Just outside the hollow, this pyramidal boxwood parterre and the bald cypress allee behind it exert a magnetic pull from the elevated vista of the patio. Explore me, cries this path.

Obligingly, we strolled down the allee as I explained to my DH, like a tour guide, that Tom planted the double line of bald cypresses to evoke the beauty of the cypress-lined Hill Country rivers he fell in love with when he moved here. We marveled over how much the trees had grown since we’d last seen the garden a couple of years ago.

In a circular node at the end of the allee, this vignette begs you to pause for a moment to observe.

One of the garden’s beautiful collection of religious statuary, from Mexico, I’m guessing.

To the right, orange daylilies brightened a side path that led back toward the possumhaw hollow.

Tucked among lush native palms, a Buddha head contributes to a tropical feel along the south fence.

We backtracked to the circle node, however, to continue along the back of the garden. Visible behind this ‘Santa Rita’ prickly pear, writhing, white-painted branches constitute a sculpture called “Tree Bones” by Hank Waddell.

Another sculpture in the labyrinth

Emerging from the labyrinth through an arched trellis, the path draws you toward a long, rectangular pond, centered along the same axis.

Water lilies were blooming.

Dwarf papyrus added its pretty chartreuse green and pincushiony texture.

Another meditative sculpture

Working our way back to the center of the garden, we found the conversation room, as Tom calls it. This beautiful agave backed by pink-blooming salvia grew nearby.

The conversation room and a sharkskin agave (I think)

A miniature Zen garden amid the southwestern natives. Contemplative spaces and vignettes abound in Tom’s garden.

As do circles and other geometric shapes, imparting a sense of order. Here’s another look at the agave bed deliciously mulched in blue glass. It’s mesmerizing.

We went on to see all the private gardens on the tour, and I’ll have a few images from some of them in a later post. By mid-afternoon, when we called it a day, the temperature was a muggy, sizzling 95 degrees F. But after dinner, a hailstorm hit our neighborhood, chipping golf-ball sized chunks of ice into my own garden. By some miracle, nothing was damaged, not even our cars. A lovely north wind followed the storm, and by Sunday morning we had cool, dry temperatures and perfect weather for Mother’s Day.

All material © 2006-2008 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

I’ll be touring Austin gardens on Saturday and visiting with out-of-town family this weekend, so I may not have time to post again until early next week. Voting for the Mouse & Trowel Awards wraps up soon, with the 13th being the last day to vote. Digging has been nominated for Best Photography and Best Design. If you enjoy my photos and/or the look of this site, I’d love to have your vote. Click here for the list of finalists; you have to scroll to the bottom of the page for the link to the ballot. Thanks for your support and good wishes!

I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite images from Digging. Have a great weekend!

All material © 2006-2008 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.