November 18, 2009 We flirted with light freezes the past two nights, but, coddled by last year’s mild winter, I didn’t even consider covering any of my tender plants. No worries for the rest of the week, however, with highs predicted in the mid-70s (23.8 C) and lows in the …

November 16, 2009 Mexican feathergrass (Nassella tenuissima) I’ve been participating in Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, the community-building brainchild of Carol at May Dreams Gardens, for almost three years. Inspired by Elizabeth Lawrence, who wrote, “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year,” Carol invites garden bloggers to post …

November 15, 2009 Sunny Dahlberg daisies (Thymophylla tenuiloba) make up for a lack of sun this November morning. The star of Bloom Day this month has to be pineapple sage (Salvia elegans), which blazes crimson above yellow-green foliage that smells like pineapple when crushed between your fingers. It’s just gotten …

November 15, 2009 Sunny Dahlberg daisies (Thymophylla tenuiloba) make up for a lack of sun this November morning. The star of Bloom Day this month has to be pineapple sage (Salvia elegans), which blazes crimson above yellow-green foliage that smells like pineapple when crushed between your fingers. It’s just gotten …

November 12, 2009 The New Low-Maintenance Garden: How to Have a Beautiful, Productive Garden and the Time to Enjoy It, by Valerie Easton, photography by Jacqueline M. Koch (2009) Plant lovers may reject Valerie Easton’s very premise: that you can have a low-maintenance garden by making a “non-plant-centered garden,” one …

November 11, 2009 Here is my entry for this month’s photo contest at Gardening Gone Wild. The theme is “End of the Line.” This is an allium gone to seed, brown and dying, metaphorically at the end of the line. It is also literally at the end of the line—its …

November 10, 2009 Here are a couple more images from the Antique Rose Emporium in San Antonio. Hope you’ve enjoyed the cheery pink zinnias as much as I did—and that butterfly. Have a great day! All material © 2006-2009 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited …

November 10, 2009 Here are a couple more images from the Antique Rose Emporium in San Antonio. Hope you’ve enjoyed the cheery pink zinnias as much as I did—and that butterfly. Have a great day! All material © 2006-2009 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited …

November 09, 2009 Garden path at the Antique Rose Emporium Rose Garden: two words that induce irrepressible yawns. I’ve never enjoyed traditional rose gardens, where different varieties of roses are spaced out across a sunny square and unaccompanied by any other plants. It makes for a hodgepodge of color and …

November 08, 2009 A monarch and honeybee share space on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundiflora) Twelve Austin garden bloggers caravaned to San Antonio on Saturday to visit San Antonio Botanical Garden and the Antique Rose Emporium, with a stop along the way at Madrone Nursery in San Marcos, a native-plant …

November 04, 2009 Forget flowers, why don’t we? Let’s admire instead the silver, feathery soft leaves of ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia. My kids and I like to rub a leaf between our fingers and enjoy the strong fragrance. In a sunny spot this plant has spread out 4 to 5 feet …

November 04, 2009 Forget flowers, why don’t we? Let’s admire instead the silver, feathery soft leaves of ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia. My kids and I like to rub a leaf between our fingers and enjoy the strong fragrance. In a sunny spot this plant has spread out 4 to 5 feet …

November 03, 2009 I can’t say enough good things about orange narrowleaf zinnia (Zinnia angustifolia). It bloomed dependably all summer and is still holding its own, adding a pop of orange amid the silver and blue-green foliage of xeric plants in a sunny bed. Likewise, ‘Senorita Rosalita’ cleome, one of …

November 03, 2009 Every day the honeybees go spelunking—or is it “sbeelunking”?—in the pink cuphea. Spelunking, or caving, is popular in Austin, where limestone caves pocket the area. So I’m not surprised that our bees enjoy this exploratory pastime too. But don’t they understand that long, tubular flowers like this …