Deer resistant & drought tolerant island garden
A week ago I planted out my redesigned island bed in the front yard—my first personal garden in a deer zone, though I’ve designed such for others. ‘Color Guard’ yucca (Y. filamentosa ‘Color Guard’) guards the island with un-tasty leaves but yummy, yummy golden-yellow color. Everyone who passes by wants to know about this plant. Gopher plant (Euphorbia rigida) also stands on my first line of defense.
Here’s how the space looked when we moved in a year and a half ago. Low-maintenance Asian jasmine and star jasmine carpeted the berm; purple lantana and nandina also struggled along. A cluster of twisted live oak trees stands at the top of the berm.
And here it is today. I planted out more than 40 plants to get to this point, but there is still much empty space. Yes, these plants will fill in, but more are needed here and there.
Another “before” shot—a sea of low green foliage with zero interest
And after—texture, color, light, and the illusion of a bigger space
Here is the shadier side: a mix of big-leaf Texas betony, Lindheimer nolina, bamboo muhly, softleaf yucca, red cordyline, and Texas dwarf palmetto.
Through the middle, a stepping-stone path gives access to the new plants and offers an already well-traveled shortcut.
I am eager to watch these plants fill in over the summer and next fall. With luck, by next spring much of the mulch will be hidden by a light-catching combination of feathery and spiky leaves.
All material © 2006-2010 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Marvelous design Pam. It is good that you know the well traveled path and played onto it rather than trying to redirect people. It will be so welcoming with those pavers to draw you through the multi textured planting. Maybe a bench at the top of the berm so you can watch the neighbors walking by, sort of like a front porch.
What Lisa said about incorporating the well-traveled path into the design. I like it already and look forward to seeing it mature in the seasons ahead.
Wow – from boring to zesty! Great variety of foliage. I look forward to seeing it develop.
It looks great, Pam! I really like your color/texture combinations. Very exciting!
Must feel so good to have all the old stuff ripped out. Amazing amount of work! The live oak trunks will be seen to much better advantage with the new plants. Great example of deer-proof planting. Thanks, Pam.
Oh my what a beautiful difference. The path through it all is a wonderful addition also.
I like the after much better. I bet that was a lot of work.
Misty rain here so no gardening.
What a lovely island paradise you’ve made there. Too bad for the deer – they won’t wanna vacation there!
Looks great. All the hard work, begins to pay off.
It was good to meet you, today at Barton Springs Nursery. You have a lovely daughter. And, she didn’t look the least bit bored with plant shopping.
It was nice to run into you and your niece too, Linda. (Niece, right?) Did you end up with some good plants? —Pam
Looks great.
I have plain ole Texas betony, Stachys coccinea. Is big-leaf a different variety or just a different name?
I grew Stachys coccinea in my former garden, and this variety does have a bigger leaf. It was labeled as large- or big-leaf Texas betony at Natural Gardener, where I bought it, but I neglected to save the label, and now I can’t find the botanical name. —Pam
Isn’t it amazing how quick 40 plants can disappear? Your space looks fantastic and I can’t wait to see how it all fills in! It must be so nice to come home and have a space you designed greet you, rather than seeing the previous owners plantings!
Patience, patience. It really will fill in, and will look wonderful. Love the colours!
Pam, how did you exterminate the Asian jasmine? I have found nothing yet that will kill it, and where mine is growing, I can’t get the backhoe close enough to dig it out. Your new plantings look great!
Patricia, I hired two guys with pickaxes and shovels, who worked for about 5 hours to clear this space. They did a good job of getting a lot of the roots out, although it’s not completely exterminated. Here and there pieces of it are trying to come back, as I expected it would, and so I’m patrolling the area every other day to pull or dig out sprigs as they come up. So far it’s not been too much work, but as it heats up I’ll be able to tell how much of it the guys really got. —Pam
I can’t believe I didn’t get any decent shots of this space while I was there. Or yes, I can believe it. I was too busy just taking it all in. The front is going to look great. I’ve got a post up now with a few photos of your backyard!
Hi,
Actually, that was my daughter-in-law. We share a love of gardening. She’s lived here years, so she knows some of the best places for plants.
We had a great day at Zilker, then shopping. Now, we both have to get busy, and plant what we bought.
Good luck with that Asian jasmine. We had it in our DFW front garden. It’s a beast, and took over. I couldn’t even plant things amongst it. So, I just used containers. Never, never want it again.
Wow on the work it must have taken to get rid of the jasmine! It looks great and will only improve with the seasons! I wish I had the energy to rip out the vincas! gail
I hired people to dig it out, Gail. I didn’t have the energy for it either. —Pam
Oh dear, deer…so lovely, so entertaining, so destructive! I love seeing new ways to foil their efforts.
This is so much more interesting than a bed of jasmine. Looking forward to the seasonal shots of this new bed.
Forty plants! – I may have to rest from just thinking about it. Dramatic improvement (great before/after shots). As always…stealing plant names & ideas. Let us know if you recover big-leaf Texas Betony botanical name (Google failed me; well, it did find your posting…).
I can’t find it on Google either, RBell. So I called Natural Gardener, where I bought it, to see if they could give me the cultivar name. Nope, the person I spoke with didn’t know it either, but she confirmed that it is a variety with a bigger leaf than regular old Texas betony. —Pam
Where we live in Spicewood, the deer eat the flowerbuds off the softleaf yucca ( which was here when we built our house) but leave the plant intact. It wasn’t until we fenced in an area for our dogs that we got to enjoy the beautiful creamy white flower spikes. Maybe with all the other deer resistant plants, they won’t venture far enough to find your yucca!
Yes, deer like yucca flowers. Luckily I have room for a few of these yuccas in the back garden, where the deer aren’t able to get them. —Pam
Once it’s all filled in, it’s hard to remember what it looked like way back when … But right now, it is hard to accept how many plants you just planted and how much bare space there still is. But the path and those great tree trunks make it easy to see what it will all look like down the road.
What a magnificent makeover! It’s lovely even now while everything is young. Very impressive job. You’ve got a great eye, that is for sure.
The transformation is fabulous, Pam! It’s going to be fun for us to watch it mature.
A friend just bought Asian Jasmine and English Ivy for his cabin near Lake Somerville, much to my horror. He’s under strict instructions to return it and let me find him some suitable groundcovers.
I see alot of ‘Color Guard’ planted around here now – I can certainly understand why, it’s stunning visually.
You have done alot of work! Wow.