quince

My garden and design photo faves of 2019

It’s a new year and I’ve just passed the 6 month  milestone in a new garden.  I miss so many things about my previous garden – an acre and a half that I nurtured and loved for more than 16 years.  I’m also excited about having a new challenge.  A BIG new challenge!

So, I’m recapping some of my favorite 2019 photos of my gardens, both old and new.

This Japanese flowering quince always joined the daffodils and hellebores as the first harbingers of spring.  These are plants I will definitely incorporate into the new garden.  I’ve already planted several varieties of daffodil bulbs.

The row of Mountain Laurels lining the old driveway was heady with grape-y goodness when they were all in bloom.  Luckily, there is a Mountain Laurel in the new garden.

I dug up and brought several hellebores from my collection to the new house and they are thriving.  I lost one in the process (I might have been too busy to take good care of them in their pots for months before I began creating a bed for them).

These lyre leaf sage also came with me.  They provide lovely ground cover all year and put up these delicate blooms in the spring.

All of the Austin Garden Bloggers will recognize this as Lucinda’s iris – passalongs that I believe we all share.

Rest assured, Lori, the ditch lilies you brought me back from Wisconsin in a bucket traveled with me to the new house, too.  I’d never leave those behind!

Dianella and loropetalum were building blocks in the previous garden and the will be again when I start building some big beds.

I think I’ll find a home for another ebb tide rose, too.

The current yard (it’s not a garden!) is covered with ivy.  I hope to craft a happier habitat for beneficials and pollinators and birds.

I loved the hot, confetti pops of color in the front bed at the previous house.  This is the one I jokingly called the hideous bed.

Swedish ivy always perked up the shadier nooks and crannies in the garden.

I fell in love with crocosmia at many Garden Bloggers Flings and was happy to add some to my garden two years ago.

I always made room for cordyline in the garden and in ornamental pots.

Of course I brought all of my pots with me.  I think we moved 75 of them – yikes!  Having them all here made us feel right out home on the big back deck and outdoor living areas.

This eyesore area at the new house needed an overhaul.  We had to regrade, take out trees, build a French drain and dig out a dozen trashy shrub volunteers.  As a small project, it was my first garden creation.

I started by giving some curves and shape to this part of the French drain to define a new bed area in this square space.  Then I painted the dilapidated concrete.  This area is the view out of the dining room French doors that open onto a courtyard.  I designed these steel panels and had them custom built  to surround the AC units at the previous house, but don’t need them here.  They were perfect for adding interest to this odd space.

Plants and a bird bath were the crowning touches!  The wrought iron table and chairs in the courtyard offer a lovely spot for morning coffee.

Lots of fun projects are on tap for 2020.  I hope you’ll come see how things are progressing.

Happy New Year and Happy Gardening!

Beautiful blooms in the early spring garden…

Even though we officially have to practice 45 more days of gardening patience until we reach spring, Central Texas seems to be unaware that it’s winter.

We’ve had a two or three freezes at our house – barely – but it’s been a warm, dry winter.

And last week we were in the 80s, breaking a winter high record at 81.

But the garden perseveres and plants know what day it really is.

Reliable like clockwork, my Japanese quince (Chaenomeles japonica) is the first harbinger of spring in my landscape.  Dotted with compact pink buds and a few blooms that have already freed themselves, it’s a pop of brilliant color in a subdued and mostly dormant garden.

What’s exciting you in your garden today?


Fall color in the Central Texas garden

The fall color in my garden this week isn’t from autumnal leaves on trees, it’s from a nice 1.5 inch rain last week and a few days and nights of cooler temperatures.

These zinnias have a whole fresh set of flowers.

All the perennials shrubs and wildflowers are flush with blooms.  Not just fall colors – all colors.

The firecracker gomphrena I planted just a month ago is spreading and has made the transplant with flying colors.

I guess the change of seasons is making them happy and giving them some relief.

These wildflowers just popped up in my cutting garden.  They reseeded from somewhere into a mass clump of perky yellow blooms.

My carefree beauty rose is dotted with pretty pink blooms and the deep purple indigo spires make a lovely contrast.


I was surprised to find the Japanese quince in bloom – it must have happened over night when I wasn’t paying attention.

The lackluster purple hyacinth bean vine, which has struggled all summer long – is finally showing off.

The change of seasons makes me happy, too. 

Spring bulbs are starting to bloom…


Ah…the promise of spring.

When renewal is in the air and the garden begins to awaken from a long winter’s nap. Well, not really this year. It was more like a quick cat nap.

I love it when the early spring bulbs start coming up and making buds. The daffodils, the muscari, the irises … they are are all putting on their finery.

These are the true harbingers of spring.

And they are some of my favorite favorites in the garden. (I really have too many favorites to count.)

I’m especially fond of the daffodils – there are up to 200 different species of them. I just have a handful of the different varieties, but it’s so much fun to see how unique they can be.

Japanese quince is another reliable plant that signals the arrival of spring. I think of it as an nice old historic plant – you often find very large ones in the gardens of older homes in central Austin. I imagine them being lovingly planted decades ago and being cared for by successive families over the years.

Mine is still small, but those delicate salmony-rose blooms are sure to bring a smile to my face every time I pass by.
These sweet little peeks are traditional muscari (grape hyacinths) that came home from the grocery store with me in a mixed bulb pot and then found their way into the garden to bloom another day. And bloom they do. This will be their third year to perk up the mulch on a drab day.
These are very special little specimens — muscari golden fragrance. Unlike most muscari, these are not the tell-tale purple, but rather a soft yellow and they have a wonderful scent. They are very low to the ground – about 5 inches high – so I literally have to get down on the ground to get a whiff of them. But it’s worth it!
Are you enjoying any early season bloomers in your garden yet?

My little pretties are popping up…

Oh, the pretty ladies of Spring are putting on their finery to come to the party.

I’ve been all excited about the little green stalks of Narcissus peeking up out of the mulch in various garden beds.

So you can imagine how worked up I got when I realized today, that I actually have things in bloom!

Several Grape Hyacinths are blooming and have clearly naturalized with lots of little friends popping up right behind them.

I forgot I’d planted them, but when I searched previous posts, I found them here: http://bit.ly/8aqGGs

I realized that they came in an indoor pot with daffodils that I put in the ground when they were done blooming indoors!

How fun.

Love those little surprises.

Strolling through the mostly brown and dormant garden, seeing the little splashes of color just cheers me up.

One clump of Daffodils — the “Yellow Fortune” that I planted last year (yes, in January!), is already about to bloom.

Should be another day or two. And in 2008 it was February before the first Daffodil bloomed. Go figure.
And while crouched down looking at the Daffodils in amazement, I saw — beautiful buds all over my Japanese Quince, just waiting to pop open and show off their luscious salmon colored petals.

The sweet smell of Spring…

…is about to be in the air here in Austin.


My Mountain laurels are plump with buds and a few, ever-so-slightly open blooms.

It seems early, so I checked my blog from last year, and in fact, my post about the beautiful Mountain Laurel blooms in 2008 was dated February 28th, so I guess they are not so early, after all.  (Nice to be able to look back, isn’t it?)

And I am ready. I saw one in our part of town that is a good 15+ feet tall and already full of blooms — it’s stunning. I can’t wait to walk along my driveway and smell all 5 of mine at once.

Just a shot to show you Ms. Phoebe Hellebore’s sister bud who will be joining us soon. Even the buds are delicate.

And the misty weather yesterday has made the Japanese quince really pop today, with even more pretty blooms.
And the garden Fairies were recently hard at work, adding a nicely-lined walkway up to the Fairy House.
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