Gardens on Tour 2012: Brecourt Manor Garden & Foliage Follow-Up
May 16, 2012 The fourth garden on this year’s Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour, at 7316 Brecourt Manor Way in southwest Austin, was also the smallest, with only the back yard “gardened up.” The back yard opens to a view of the greenbelt beyond, so native plants were chosen to ...
Gardens on Tour 2012: Zadock Woods Garden
May 15, 2012 The third garden on this year’s Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour, at 6400 Zadock Woods Drive in southwest Austin, was perhaps my favorite of the bunch because of the cheerful native-perennial beds out front, the inviting, shaded patio in back, and the attractive mix of enclosing garden ...
Gardens on Tour 2012: Ridgecrest Garden
May 14, 2012 The second garden on this year’s Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour, in the high-dollar Westlake neighborhood, was the exception to the smaller suburban gardens that dominated the tour. Although the garden beds (designed by Lann Sawyer of Lannscape) at 1400 Ridgecrest Drive would scale well to a ...
Gardens on Tour 2012: Shadow Mountain Garden
May 13, 2012 Selected to inspire the 99%, not the 1%, this year’s Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour in Austin was a big success. Past years have sometimes leaned too heavily on mansions with fantasy hardscaping and gardens that seemed beyond the reach of the average Joe. But this year ...
Dallas Open Days Tour 2012: Matthew Nichols Garden
May 10, 2012 Last Saturday I went on the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days tour in Dallas. My first stop was the exuberant foliage garden of Matthew Nichols. Here’s the official description: Matthew Nichols’ tropical, urban garden belies its location in the West Dallas area of Oakcliff. Most of the garden ...
Gorgeous plant combos at the Dallas Arboretum
May 08, 2012 While viewing the Chihuly exhibit at the Dallas Arboretum on Sunday, I admired plenty of garden beds that did not contain stunning glass sculptures, like this gomphrena and drumstick allium combination. The airy, blue-green allium stems complement the purplish pink gomphrena heads so beautifully. A wider view ...
A rainbow of xeric potted plants
May 05, 2012 Agave ‘Royal Spine,’ misshapen ball cactus, Agave desmettiana ‘Variegata,’ and Dyckia fosteriana (I think). Tough plants for tough summer days ahead. All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited ...
Lee Clippard’s naturalistic garden with a modern edge
April 29, 2012 I recently visited the East Austin garden belonging to blogger Lee Clippard of The Grackle and Martha Stewart Living fame to get a few pictures for my upcoming book, Lawn Gone!. As you can see, Lee’s lawn is indeed long gone, replaced by a dappled-shade garden of ...
Visit to The Garden Gate in Houston
April 27, 2012 While in Houston last month for the Houston Open Days tour, my friend Diana and I stopped in at The Garden Gate, a small nursery that specializes in classical statuary, fountains, Provencal pottery, and French antiques and gifts, located on Morningside Drive in the tony West U ...
Garden delights with the Whimsical Gardener
April 26, 2012 My friend and fellow blogger Catherine of The Whimsical Gardener invited me to lunch in her garden yesterday, which was abloom with fragrant star jasmine, glowing white abutilon, and these shell-pink ‘Colorado’ water lilies in her stock-tank pond. Catherine recently moved her 4-foot-diameter tank from a focal-point ...
Manfreda and yucca in bloom, plus plants to trial
April 22, 2012 The xeric garden is eye-poppingly bold in bloom this week. The native wildflower winecup (Callirhoe involucrata) is sprawling through the agave bed with her stained chalices held up for refills. Purple skullcap (Scutellaria wrightii), native to the Hill Country, also thrives amid the spiky plants. Topping out ...
Springtime visit to Shoal Creek Nursery
April 19, 2012 I’ve written about a number of independent nurseries in Austin, but somehow I’ve missed Shoal Creek Nursery, located in west-midtown on Hancock Drive. Tucked into the southwest corner of Allandale neighborhood, you kind of have to know where it is to find it, but it’s worth a ...
Yellow striped jungle for Foliage Follow Up
April 16, 2012 For the love of everything variegated, what was I thinking?! It’s a spiky riot of stripey foliage. Just look at this xeric combo of ‘Bright Edge’ yucca (foreground, with the bloom spike), ‘Oriental Limelight’ atemisia, Agave americana ‘Marginata’ and Mexican feathergrass (in blue pots), and ‘Alphonse Karr’ ...
Upper patio garden, succulent wall & new mod chairs
April 10, 2012 When the aloes are in bloom, everything seems right with my upper patio garden, viewed here from below, in the mid-level garden. They add a punch of hot color that contrasts so well with the chartreuse greens of spring. Looking past them to the cinderblock wall planter ...
Lucinda Hutson’s Easter-egg colorful garden
April 08, 2012 Author and designer Lucinda Hutson‘s gabled purple cottage and garden in the Rosedale neighborhood of Austin is as colorful as a basket of Easter eggs… …but even better because it contains scented petals, billowy texture, and something blooming at every turn, like this ‘Julia Child’ rose. When ...
Yay! Screech owl is in our nesting box
April 07, 2012 After pulling out one squirrel’s nest and then seeing the cute but annoying rodent move back in earlier this spring, we’d given up on seeing a screech owl in our nesting box this year. But two days ago I looked out the kitchen window while making my ...
