Dry Climate Gardening book wins award!
Congrats to my friend Noelle Johnson, a horticulturist and landscape consultant in Phoenix, whose book Dry Climate Gardening has been named winner of a 2024 American Horticultural Society Award!
I reviewed Dry Climate Gardening last year and know what a great resource this book is for desert gardeners. Check it out if you’re gardening in an arid region.
Congrats on the well-deserved award, Noelle!
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Digging Deeper
March 16: Attend the third annual Budding Out Plant Sale & Festival on 3/16 at the John Fairey Garden in Hempstead. Rare and distinctive plants from the garden’s nursery and from select plant vendors will be for sale. Additional offerings include art, ceramics, jewelry, food, music, and presentations. Admission: $5 for members, $10 for non-members, children under 12 free. Hours: 10 am to 4 pm; members get early admission at 9 am (memberships available on day of event).
March 30-31: Come see the Austin Cactus & Succulent Society Show at Zilker Botanical Garden on 3/30 and 3/31, from 10 am to 5 pm. Includes a plant show with specimen cacti and succulents, handcrafted pottery, daily silent auction and hourly plant raffles, and expert advice. Admission is included with paid admission to Zilker Garden, $5 to $8 for adults, $3 to $4 for children (under 2 free).
April 6: Come out to Austin’s Mayfield Park on 4/6 for the Mayfield Park Gardening Symposium & Fundraiser, 8:30 to 11 am. This annual benefit for the park includes a raffle, plant sale, and garden speakers.
May 4: Explore “brilliant backyards, perfect pools and pergolas, and outdoor rooms and gardens” on the ATX Outdoor Living Tour on 5/4, 10 am to 3 pm. Landscape architects, designers, and builders will be on hand to answer questions. Tickets are $33.85 for adults, $17.85 for kids age 10-17.
May 18: On Austin Home’s Great Outdoors Tour, held 5/18 from 10 am to 3 pm, find “Pinterest-worthy pools and outdoor kitchens to thoughtful plantings and stylish urban density solutions.” Tickets are $30.
June 1-2: Take a self-guided, 2-day tour of ponds and gardens in and around Austin on the annual Austin Pond and Garden Tour, held 6/1 and 6/2, 9 am to 5 pm. Tickets are $20 to $25.
Come learn about gardening and design at Garden Spark! I organize in-person talks by inspiring designers, landscape architects, authors, and gardeners a few times a year in Austin. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance; simply click this link and ask to be added. Season 8 kicks off in fall 2024. Stay tuned for more info!
All material © 2024 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Thank you for the wonderful review you wrote for my book and this blog post!
You’re very welcome, Noelle!
Perfect timing as we’ve moved to the hill country elevation 1620 and with the heat and low humidity, I feel close to the Scottsdale/Phoenix region. Look forward to new inspirations for adaptable plants to the Edwards/Balconnes region
I think you’ll enjoy it, as I did, even though we’re not in a desert. There’s some overlap, for sure.
I love your emails and am very intrigued by the Dry Climate Gardening Book. I have all of your books and I am constantly planting native and well adapted plants in my quest to find those that can live in the dry, central Texas black land. I live just slightly east of Austin on the prairie where we receive less rain than Austin does most of the time. With water restrictions (often for watering no more than once a week), I struggle to find plants that can survive the dry climate and then withstand the colder temps we get here (often several degrees colder than Austin). Unfortunately, I find that many shrubs and perennials on the zone 8 plant lists are too tender for the harsher winds and climate on the prairie, so I have started exploring zone 7 plant lists.
I will go ahead and purchase her book and expect I will find some useful information there. I would like to know if you have suggestions for other resources (other than the Lady Bird Wildflower and A&M sites) that I might review in my quest to build an irrigation-free oasis on the prairie.
Thanks for all the wonder pictures you provide in your emails. I love receiving them, even if I can’t grow most of those plants.
First, thanks for subscribing to Digging and reading my books, Denise! I am trying to think of any books or resources specifically about gardening in the Blackland Prairie of Texas. Do you follow Plano Prairie Garden on Instagram? He is gardening north of Dallas using mostly native prairie plants with little irrigation. He has a blog of the same name, and while it’s no longer being updated, you can read his old posts for info. You might also check out Benjamin Vogt’s book Prairie Up, assuming you’re interested in making a prairie garden? He’s based in Nebraska but might have useful tips.
I will say that it’s hard to have a garden garden in Texas (except in rainier East Texas) without some irrigation. By that I mean a garden that doesn’t go through dormancy in summer as a survival strategy. But you can certainly garden with much less watering than most people do. Native grasses and forbs would be a natural choice for your prairie soil. Maybe also establish evergreen plants like yucca, cenizo, prickly pear, Texas mountain laurel, evergreen sumac, and hesperaloe (assuming you have decent drainage; they don’t like moist soil). Once established, they shouldn’t need irrigation except in a long drought.