December 22, 2007Ask and you shall receive. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Whatever you want to call it, Blogger listened to those unhappy with its recent changes in the comment field (discussed at length at Digging, Garden Rant, Mr. Brown Thumb, Blogging Art & Practice, and many other blogs) …

December 21, 2007 It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in garden-blog land, with numerous posts about holiday ornaments. Last night Layanee’s question, “What does your Christmas tree say about you?” made me pause to consider our tannenbaum. As you can see in the photo above, we hang …

December 21, 2007 The amaryllis (Hippeastrum ) I showed you in a recent post is blooming. The ivory trumpets with apple-green throats and petals streaked with cherry red brighten our table at mealtimes. Serendipity—it even matches the screen door on the porch. Unlike the red amaryllis I grew potted in …

December 20, 2007 Sweet Autumn clematis seed A few days ago, while examining the garden for evidence of frost, I noticed the whirligig design of these sweet Autumn clematis (Clematis terniflora ) seeds and paused for a closer look. Like feather-tailed tadpoles on a stem, they look as if they’re …

December 19, 2007 The Southern folk-art bottle tree must have appeal way beyond its humble origins. “Bottle tree” and “bottles for bottle tree” are consistently the number-one search terms leading visitors to Digging. I find it a little ironic that amid all the posts I’ve written about real plants, people …

December 18, 2007 Is anyone else being overrun with ladybugs? Every December or January, ladybugs pop up all over our house, inside and out. We find them crawling on door frames, windowsills, lamps, and must flick them into our palms in order to rescue and release them outdoors. I put …

December 18, 2007 ‘Carefree Beauty,’ burned by frost December’s Bloom Day arrived just in time for this Austin garden. Early in the morning on the 16th and 17th, central Austin received its first light freeze (30 degrees F). By yesterday morning, the dozens of flowers and buds on the front-garden …

December 14, 2007 ‘Belinda’s Dream’ “God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December,” wrote J. M. Barrie. Here in Austin, December is still very much autumn, and you need not rely on memory to enjoy roses. My shrub roses take a star turn in December …

December 14, 2007 ‘Belinda’s Dream’ “God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December,” wrote J. M. Barrie. Here in Austin, December is still very much autumn, and you need not rely on memory to enjoy roses. My shrub roses take a star turn in December …

December 12, 2007 Entry to my front garden via the driveway The folks at Gardening Gone Wild have selected fences and walls for this month’s design workshop. My garden is not blessed with any walls, but I can show you my front-garden fence, which, being in the front yard, makes …

December 10, 2007 ‘Marie Pavie’ Here’s a little pick-me-up for those reading Digging at work this Monday: a plethora of pink posies. Good alliteration, eh? Enjoy! Tarty ‘Carefree Beauty’ is blazing away in the front garden. Where was she in October? Saving it up for Christmastime, apparently. I’m dreaming of …

December 08, 2007 I spotted this beautiful curbside garden at a house near St. Andrew’s Episcopal School and had to stop to admire it. While my own garden is cottage style, with a combination of drought-tolerant natives and tough cottage favorites, I find myself drawn more and more to this …

December 08, 2007 Snowy, white, December gardens work so much better with holiday decor than my gaudy garden, now decked out in a mix of late-summer and (finally!) fall color. Those beautiful orange leaves on the new crepe myrtle? They just don’t work with the red-and-green Christmas wreath by the …

December 07, 2007 When December rolls around and the home-improvement stores fill up with cut Christmas trees and you can’t find anything but pansies on the garden tables, Austinites can still get their gardening fix at several wonderful independent nurseries around town. Since the ground never freezes (we haven’t even …