Heather’s Xericstyle garden in San Antonio
Last week I roadtripped south with a few friends to see the gardens of our San Antonio blogger friends, Heather Ginsburg of Xericstyle and Shirley Fox of Rock-Oak-Deer, plus Shirley’s neighbor and gardening friend Melody. I posted about Shirley’s garden here. Today I’ll show you Heather’s garden.
Heather boldly ripped out her entire front lawn when she moved into her suburban ranch house a few years ago. A Canadian transplant, she had a lot to learn about gardening in hot, dry, south-central Texas, but she’s a quick study and soon filled her garden with native grasses; agaves, yuccas, and prickly pear for structure; and flowering perennials for color and to attract wildlife.
As she experimented with lawn alternatives that can survive with only enough supplemental water to get them established, she started a blog called Xericstyle and won over lots of followers with her enthusiasm and her fresh, modern take on the xeriscape garden.
Along with the garden overhaul, Heather and her husband did a lot of work on their house to modernize it, including giving their front porch a facelift with fresh colors and accessories like these mod chairs and zigzag-patterned, orange-and-white pillows. That frothy, silver-green groundcover is ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia.
Terracotta pots filled with sotol, prickly pear, and golden barrel cactus add to the orange color scheme.
The side view
Heather orange-creamsicled her front door, and an orange Circle Pot trailing a Rapunzel-like succulent adds more bold color. And how about this for a fun surprise: Heather hung a string of glass votive holders on the front door…
…and planted them with succulents too!
Butternut squash-colored paint on the brick siding combines well with a grayish orange pumpkin.
A detail on the fence to her back garden
While many of Heather’s potted plants are one-plant-per-pot, like this yellow firecracker fern…
…she’s not afraid of creating combos like this cactus, feathergrass, and silver ponyfoot mash-up.
Heather ripped out all the lawn in back as well, replacing it with a large decomposed-granite patio by the back door that flows into the side yard, creating a sense of openness and room for several seating areas. She broke up the expanse with an island of perennials and potted herbs, accented with a orange-painted bamboo tuteur.
To the left, just out of frame, is an area Heather has been experimenting with, trying to find a lawn alternative that will stand up to kids’ play plus not require regular watering. Frogfruit was a partial success, but a large section suffered this summer in full sun without supplemental water. Heather continues to experiment, and one of the things I love about her blog is how she candidly details these plant trials.
A Mexican Fiesta flag string adds fun color across the back porch. That’s Cat of The Whimsical Gardener snapping me snapping her. I think we have a series of pictures like this. Just beyond Cat you can see a red bench and chairs around a fire pit.
Around the corner of the house are two picnic tables for gatherings of family and friends. A Day of the Dead skull is the centerpiece on one table.
A closer look shows that it’s also a succulent planter.
Hanging on the fence are repurposed exhaust pipes that Heather and her husband turned into succulent and cactus planters.
Heather always has a big, beautiful smile on her face, and she only looks serious here because I caught her explaining something (probably something about worms!). I adore her sense of style, especially that skirt. Thank you, Heather, for taking time off work to give us a tour of your lovely, xeric-style garden! For more, you really don’t want to miss Heather’s star turn on Central Texas Gardener. Her enthusiasm for tough native and adapted plants (and worms!) is contagious; you’ll love it.
Heather and Shirley, plus Rambling Wren, are the only San Antonio garden bloggers I know of, despite the fact that San Antonio is considerably larger than Austin. I wonder why that is? San Antonio is a beautiful city, with more colonial history and old-Mexico influence than you see in Austin. It’s also a particularly adept city at conserving water. In fact, the City of Austin has modeled some of its conservation efforts after San Antonio’s successes. I think Alamo City gardeners have a lot to teach about gardening in drought and heat, and I’d love to see more gardeners there start blogging to share their successes and experiments, and to give interested readers an intimate picture of gardening in central-south Texas.
Up next: Melody’s lushly planted San Antonio oasis of passalong plants framed by rustic cedar arbors and stucco-and-stone structures. For a look back at Shirley Fox’s Hill Country-style garden, also in San Antonio, click here.
All material © 2006-2014 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
What an inspiring garden! I love the subtle color palate of shades of greens and oranges and the attention to detail. I am really enjoying your San Antonio tour! Thank you for the links, more cool blogs to follow : )
Heather is very disciplined about her color choices, with cool, silvery greens and purples out front and hotter colors in back. You’ll enjoy her blog, and Shirley’s too. —Pam
Love all the colorful touches, especially that string of glass votives. That’s an idea I might steal.
Heather is into creative re-use. I love that idea, although I think glass votives would break against my front door, which gets a lot of use. But you could hang it anywhere sheltered enough to keep it from filling up with rainwater. —Pam
Oh lord, we look so serious! You’d think we were discussing battle strategies there, not gardening! (Though come to think of it, so much gardening in this climate really is “battle strategies.” HA.)
Love your pictures! My camera didn’t deal well with that harsh noontime light.
We probably WERE discussing battle strategies, Lori. Gardening under the Death Star takes a lot of rebel-scum strategizing. —Pam
Amen to that, Lori. It does sometimes feel like a battle! Heather’s passion for xeric gardening is so infectious. I’m inspired to pinch a few of her container ideas 🙂
Haha, I read that at first as “pinch a few of her containers”! Ideas are better to pinch than containers. 🙂 —Pam
Oh, me too! I loved all of her unconventional containers. And I also wish I had her discipline in sticking to a color palette!
Pam, it was so fun to visit Heather’s garden with ya’ll and to meet little Luna, her sweet pup!
Heather’s yard is proof that things will survive our hot, dry climate without water. Leave it to a Canadian to show us how!
How I wish my photos of sweet Luna had come out. What a cute pup she is! And yes, it is ironic that a Canadian is leading the charge in showing how far you can push it without irrigating and still have a pretty garden. —Pam
Only 3 bloggers in SA? Extra cheers for Heather and Shirley both then for leading the way. I wonder what the difference is between Austin and San Antonio in that regard? Pam perhaps you need to set up some sort of blogging exchange program or sister blogger thing with SA to promote more action in that area?
[And the meta experience continues with bloggers photographing other bloggers at yet another blogger’s garden. Now all I must do is blog about reading and viewing this, and our garden blogging ouroboros is complete!]
PPS: I wasn’t complaining about the spambot box previously – just found it funny it took me so long to remember to do that on my own. : )
Only three that I know of. There have been one or two others over the years, but they are no longer active. I have often wondered aloud why Austin has so many garden bloggers while bigger Texas cities like Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, and San Antonio have so few. Various theories have been proposed and largely discarded:
1. A youthful, online-oriented population in Austin? Yes, but many of the Austin bloggers are midlifers and older.
2. Is it because Austin’s a tech hub? Yes, but the bloggers are, for the most part, not involved in the tech sector.
3. Is there something unique about Austin’s gardening culture? I think this is getting closer to it. We do have a vibrant gardening culture (as more evidence, consider our wealth of independent nurseries), and maybe our location straddling two vastly different zones/styles (Old South and Southwest) helps fuel creativity.
4. Do bloggers breed more bloggers? This is probably the main reason Austin dominates in the count. Pioneering garden blogs like Soul of the Garden and Zanthan Gardens started here in Austin; their presence definitely led me to start blogging. The more bloggers you see in your own city, the more you want to join the fun and the conversation, and so it goes. Regular meet-ups cement online friendships and encourage bloggers to remain active.
Anyway, those are my theories. I’d love to hear any others! —Pam
I was talking to one of the non-bloggers at lunch, and she said that although there are few bloggers, there’s a lot of local gardening activity on Facebook. So maybe the gardeners in San Antonio are all talking in a similar way that the rest of us garden bloggers do, but just not on a public platform? I know I only started blogging because I knew people locally who blogged (you and Annie and MSS), and Facebook in a large part has taken away the impetus to blog, because I talk to everyone on there instead!
That could very well be the case, Lori. I agree that gardening conversations in private Facebook groups are wonderful and intimate and definitely can reduce the social impetus for blogging. But I believe bloggers who switch entirely to Facebook conversations lose something essential. A blog has a wider reach and can impact people the blogger will never know. Also, a post with pictures and text offers so much more than a quick comment on Facebook ever could. To me, blogging is an expression of generosity to the community as well as a creative outlet, personal journal, and entry to an online gardening club that knows no geographical boundary. Forums and Facebook, valuable as they are, will never equal reading blogs, at least not for me. —Pam
Great tour.
Heather’s blog is another one I follow. Lots of good ideas for drought tolerant gardening.
Definitely, Linda. Her garden was recently on the San Antonio Watersavers Tour, and I’m sure attendees got lots of good ideas from her. —Pam
I am from just north of San Antonio and when I moved here 15 years ago, everyone thought I was nuts for not putting turf grass in my front yard. Now they envy me my water bill.
I bet they do, Dana! You had a lot of foresight. —Pam
I always love seeing Heather’s garden. I admire her courage in taking out the lawn and installing her wonderfully executed xericstyle garden and how she continues to experiment.
I’d also love to see more San Antonio gardeners blogging, including me … lol. My excuse is I sort of use the Texas Garden Web Gallery as a blog and have done so for years. I post there as Roselee.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/txgard/nph-ind.cgi?type=gal
Ragna, I would love to read a blog about your garden! Until you start one, though, thanks for the link to the gardenweb forum. 🙂 —Pam
Jealous of your visit with Heather. Cool beans.
You need to make a Nebraska to Texas roadtrip sometime, Benjamin! I suggest late October to mid-November time frame so you can enjoy the Southern Plains grasses at their peak. —Pam
Well I’m in San Antonio, and that sounds like a challenge. After years of gardening interest, in May 2013 I finally bit the hook and took out my front lawn. I later discovered both yours and Shirley’s blogs while researching native plant care.
There’s been a few deaths, and what seems like a gazillion gallons and hours of hand watering for establishment, but I’ve learned a lot and it’s made me happier. I quickly realized that gardening is a neverending story necessitating continual attention and patience, two things I often lack. So far the greatest lesson gardening has taught me is that not everything needs to be perfect, there really is such a thing as good enough. Hey, this sounds like an introductory blog post. 🙂
Do it, Paul! If it encourages you at all, I dare you. 😉 Please let me know about your blog when it’s up and ready for readers. —Pam
Go for it, Paul! I’d love to read your adventures…
I double-dog dare you, Paul!
You captured so much in her garden. I especially like your long shots – they are fabulous. Your hard work to get the perfect shot really shines in this post.
Thanks, Diana. I enjoyed your photos too. I had a hard time with the dappled light in shadier gardens that day. But Heather’s full-sun areas made my camera happy. —Pam
Pam, having you in my garden was a day I’ll never forget…it was like everything came full circle for me…The one that inspired me the most…encouraged me…mentored me…answered my stupid questions…was in MY garden! What a special, special day. Thank you for everything over the years, today and always!!!! I think I am still processing having you, and the other lovely ladies here!!!!!
…and thank you for making my garden look good in those photos! 😉 Better than in real-life!!!! 🙂
I look forward to seeing you sooner rather than later, friend.
Heather, your sweet comment means so much to me. I am touched, truly, and so very glad to know you. Seeing your garden was a total treat since I’ve been a fan of your blog since you started posting. And hey — there are no stupid questions! See you in Austin next time, I hope. —Pam
P.S. I do love me some WORMS! HAaaaaaaa! Feed me!
I loved your enthusiasm for worms in the CTG segment, Heather. You are adorable. —Pam
Pam, as usual, I am overcome by the quality of your photographs. I dream of the day when you might give my Dallas garden your special treatment.
Melody, it’s often outsiders who best appreciate and understand the local culture ( gardening, cooking, whatever). They bring a perspective we can never have about our own.
Peter, you know I would LOVE to visit your garden one day. Now that I have an excuse to be in Dallas more often, I hope to take you up on your invitation sometime. Of course it’s always a family-oriented trip when I come up, and sadly, the husband and kids just aren’t rabid like me about visiting gardens, so I have to pick and choose what I can see on any given visit. One day, though, OK? —Pam
Anytime, Pam. Just let me know.
This garden is sweet. It is great to see all the succulents etc thriving.
It’s a sweet garden with a backbone of steel. —Pam
this tickles me so!!! i know how much this means to Heather, so exciting… and the garden looks so amazing! i have the biggest smile on my face reading this. Thank you Pam and Heather!
It was a total treat to see her garden in person, Salma. Heather is a lovely person. —Pam
Do you think that because Heather comes originally from Canada made her MORE aware of the different native plants and totally different conditions. After I moved to Italy I found that when I spoke to local gardeners most had no idea which plants were suited to conditions. I’ve followed Heather’s blog for ages and am always impressed by her energy and imagination, it is a shame she doesn’t find so much time to blog now.
I think it’s probably just Heather’s personality and drive to dive head-first into making a sustainable garden under new conditions. She’s got a lot of curiosity and energy! And yes, I miss her regular posts too. —Pam