November 02, 2018
Goodbye, Moby: Removing a dying agave
September 16, 2016 It was time. Moby, my 11-year-old whale’s tongue agave (Agave ovatifolia), valiantly hung on for months after flowering, eventually making bulbils at the top of the bloom stalk. I’d been anticipating the leaf collapse that has occurred with every other agave I’ve ever seen in bloom, and …
First oxblood lily, tree cavities, and last Moby
September 10, 2016 The majority, I think, are waiting for that first fall rain. But two oxblood lilies (Rhodophiala bifida) are trumpeting red in my garden, including this stray in the sedge lawn out front. I transplanted the bulbs from the front to the back last year, after the deer …
The berry good season
September 08, 2016 I’m calling it. We’re over the hump of Death Star Summer and sliding into mellow fall. I know, it’s not exactly mellow out there yet, but I can feel it coming. Can’t you? The beautyberries do. In the lower garden, black beautyberry (Callicarpa acuminata) is laden with …
Time-lapse flowering of my whale’s tongue agave
September 05, 2016 https://www.penick.net/digging/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Agave-ovatifolia-aka-Moby-Flowering-April-to-September-2016.mp4 Want to watch my super-professional video of Moby flowering? Of course you do! And here it is, only 28 seconds long. My beloved whale’s tongue agave (Agave ovatifolia) bloomed this year, as regular readers know. I long ago dubbed it Moby, and I’ve watched it grow …
Zinging through the end of summer
September 01, 2016 Although I was gone for half of it, which no doubt helped, August was one of the most pleasant Augusts I’ve experienced since moving to Austin 22 years ago. It just hasn’t been all that hot (in the low to mid-90s F, and even some days in …
West Texas sky-gazing at McDonald Observatory and Davis Mountains, plus swimming at Balmorhea Pool
August 30, 2016 The last two days of our Southwestern road trip took us through West Texas and the surprisingly green and scenic Davis Mountains, where we visited McDonald Observatory. A land of big sky, low humidity, and dark nights is the perfect place for gazing at stars and planets …
Going underground at Carlsbad Caverns
August 30, 2016 With the 100th birthday of the U.S. National Park Service this month, I’m pleased we were able to visit two National Parks on our recent road trip: Mesa Verde in Colorado and Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. We’d visited before with our eldest when he was little …
Rocky Mountain high by car and rail in southwestern Colorado
August 28, 2016 Colorado’s Rocky Mountains have been our summer playground many times, but we’ve always stayed on the eastern side along the Front Range, or in north-central Breckenridge, never on the western side. To see what we’ve been missing, earlier this month we rented a house in the Durango …
Cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park
August 26, 2016 Yesterday the U.S. National Park Service celebrated its centennial. My family and I love visiting national parks, and during our recent road trip through New Mexico and up to Durango, Colorado, we couldn’t pass up the chance to see a new one (to us): Mesa Verde National …
Chasing Georgia O’Keeffe’s ghost at Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch
August 25, 2016 The day after gazing at Georgia O’Keeffe’s landscapes and monumental flower paintings at the museum in Santa Fe, we drove north through the monsoon-greened high desert of northern New Mexico, the landscape the artist adopted as her own. As soon as I saw it, that was my …
Adobe walls, secret gardens, history & art in Santa Fe
August 24, 2016 Our western road trip earlier this month took us through Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of the oldest cities in the U.S. and the oldest capital city in the country (dating to 1607). The compact historic district is a walkable several blocks of terracotta-colored adobe and adobe-style …
High-altitude garden in bloom at Santa Fe Botanical Garden
August 22, 2016 Two weeks ago today we drove west on a spontaneously planned, cutting-it-close-with-the-first-day-of-school, two-week road trip through West Texas, northern New Mexico, and western Colorado. One of our early stops was Santa Fe, New Mexico, a beautiful old city we once regularly visited but hadn’t seen in 16 …
Hot child in the city: August Foliage Follow-Up
August 16, 2016 Surely August will be our last worst month here in central Texas. It can’t possibly remain blisteringly hot and humid through September, can it? Yes, it can, and it probably will, but that’s why I love agaves, yuccas, prickly pear, and other tough plants. They breeze through …
Out and about in Houston: Public art and an artful home
August 11, 2016 Houston doesn’t always get a lot of love, especially from Austinites who invoke it as a negative example of soulless sprawl and traffic. True, Houston is a sprawling major city with congested highways (although I swear Austin may be its equal in traffic jams). But in-town you’ll …
