Honeybees are out in force, and gopher plant (Euphorbia rigida) is one of their early spring favorites.

I’m abuzz over gopher plant’s chartreuse bracts and yellow flowers too — so sunny on these early spring days.

Lemon-lime rules out front right now, with ‘Color Guard’ yucca, gopher plant, and ‘Scott’s Turf’ sedge (Carex).

More limey goodness.

Gopher plant’s flowers are so pretty against its blue-green leaves.

I’m also appreciating new foliage on ‘Marvel’ mahonia, a trial plant from Southern Living Plant Collection that I received last fall.

I’m growing it in a pot for now, but this mahonia can get big — to 6 feet tall! — so I will probably plant it in the ground next winter.

I’ve been working like a madwoman in the garden this week, taking full advantage of the perfect gardening weather. Today I cleaned out the stock-tank pond and planted a 15-gallon Mexican plum (Prunus mexicana), one of my favorite spring-flowering native trees. It looks awfully small, but I sure had to dig a big hole for it! It’s sweet to look over there and see it blooming, and I’m relieved to have something hardy here to fill this hole, vacated two years ago by the stunning but winter-hating Mexican weeping bamboo. I held out for a year, hoping it would come back, but today I dug up only a small bit of it that survived our Arctic blasts and just stuck it in a pot. I’ll always love you, Mexican weeping bamboo, but you just aren’t dependable.

I got the Mexican plum at Barton Springs Nursery, and when I was leaving I spotted this only-in-Austin motorbike with steer horns. Ride ’em, cowboy or cowgirl!

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Digging Deeper: News and Upcoming Events

Calling all garden bloggers! You’re invited to register for the annual Garden Bloggers Fling tour and meetup, which will be held in Austin this May 3rd-6th! Click this link for information about registering, and you can see our itinerary here. Space is limited, so don’t delay. The 2018 Fling will be the event’s 10th anniversary, which started in Austin in 2008.

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