roses

Vision and creating a new garden or landscape bed

Starting a new garden is scary.  There.  I said it.  Whether you’re gardening in a completely different space, creating a new bed, or just revamping what you’ve got, it can be daunting.

All sorts of things clutter up my brain.  What’s the soil like here?  Will there really be enough sun in that spot?  What if I change my mind later or come up with a better plan?

Realistically, these are all the questions any time we go into the garden, aren’t they?

I’ve given myself some time to sit in this new space, observe it, think long and hard about what I really want and what will bring me joy.  (Thank you, Marie Kondo!)  I wanted new beds immediately.  But creating new beds is an investment and I didn’t want to be rash and then regret my choices later.

I made lists of plants I love – shade plants, sun plants – evergreens, perennials, annuals, bulbs.  NO vines!  Never again.

Go back through a few posts and you’ll see that our current yard, trees and house  are being eaten by not just ivy, but Asian Jasmine, English ivy, Virginia creeper and trumpet vine. And what wasn’t covered in vines, was eroding and lifeless.

Grass originally lived in this area, but the overgrown trees reached across the street and made this full shade spot too dark for healthy grass.

Following my own consulting/design advice, I started by evaluating my goals.  Then I looked at physical/site issues like sun and drainage.  I measured and sat down with a piece of paper and a pencil.

I’ve posted pics of the whole new bed, stretching from under a massive oak along a new dry creek and down to the other end of our property.

Making my list of most-loved plants, I knew that I wanted a rose.  One of the first things we did at the house was prune the lot full of overgrown trees.  That gave us some sunshine along the street, and conditions that I hope will be enough for a Maggie rose.

I had two of them behind the pool at the other house.  They loved the sun and I loved having them.  But it wasn’t the right place for them – I couldn’t ever reach them to prune or care for them.  So, I pulled them out.  But I missed them.

Now I’ve made a special spot for a Maggie in my new garden.

We’ll have to see if she gets enough sun there.

There are some more branches I can prune in the trees directly above if she needs a few more golden rays.  I’ll have to see what happens in the summer sun.

For now, she’s small and spindly.  I ordered her from the Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham, so I know she’s a healthy plant.  She has some buds and I’m babying her for now. With the backdrop of a Mediterranean fan palm, variegated dianella and some neighboring trailing white lantana, I think she’ll be very happy there.

And I’m happy to have her.

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!

Spring flowers scattered around my garden on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

We’ve had a tumultuous winter and spring.  Well, it isn’t officially spring, but here in Central Texas, spring starts in February.  We’ve already had a 91-degree day, then a week or so after that we had a low of 21.  It was the first hard freeze of the winter in my garden.  Of course, everything had already started to sprout and put on buds. We love the warm days, but then we pay for it.

Today is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens, so we can see what’s blooming around the world today.

I covered for the 21-degree freeze.  I normally don’t do that any more — it’s just too much work.  But we’re getting things ready to put our house on the market and move up to northwest Austin and I’d really rather not have to replace plants and fill holes.  (And, I want to take some of the great plants with me!)

Nonetheless, there are things blooming in the garden, in spite of the yo-yoing weather. I planted these Ostespermum, African daisy, late summer last year and I’m getting another round be beautiful blooms.

These pass-along white cemetery iris bloom first among all the iris in the garden. They’ve made the rounds among most of the Austin garden bloggers so they brighten gardens all around town.

I can always count on the bulbs and love the daffodils in my garden.

I’ve had these in the garden for a long time.  It’s called yellow fortune.   The contrast of the almost orange cup with the bright yellow makes a colorful display.  I’ve taken to collecting different varieties of daffodils over the years.  It’s fun to see who comes up each year.

These ice follies have naturalized and definitely need to be divided.  Hmmm…a good opportunity to take some with me to a new garden once we find a house.

The flowering quince makes a lovely backdrop for these frilly, delicate daffodils, called double campernelle.  She’s getting lost in the quince and the primrose jasmine beside her, so I may have to rescue her and bring her with me as well. (See how I keep adding to my list?)

 

The native Texas Mountain Laurels continue to bloom – only the open blooms succumbed to the cold.

Some of the trees hadn’t even produced buds yet, so I will get to enjoy the Kool-Aid, grapey-goodness scent of these beautiful evergreen trees for weeks to come.  And, when brought into the house as part of a cut flower bouquet, I can continue to appreciate Mother Nature’s air freshener!

It was hard to cut back the roses when I had several blooms on Archduke Charles, but I brought them inside and pruned the rest.

The four roses in the new rose parterre aren’t all the same height at maturity, so keeping them similar requires careful pruning.

Livin’ easy, grandma’s yellow and ebb tide show no signs of emerging buds yet.

 

Catmint remains one of my garden favorites.  Mostly evergreen with a compact, clearly defined form, it stays orderly in places where I want a small mounding plant.

‘Walkers low’ makes a pretty, reliable border plant, getting only about 12-14″ in my garden.  Advertised as getting up to 24″ tall, that’s not my experience and I’ve had them for several years.

I’ve enjoyed them in the front bed and last year expanded their reach into a few other beds as well.

The Mexican honeysuckle on the trellis behind the green goblet agave is awash with coral-y/salmon-y blooms.  They grow up into the air and over the fence, draping delicately onto the side of the greenhouse roof.

Hinkley’s columbine has started blooming and brightens up the woodland path garden.

The prairie verbena loves this spot by the street.  Hot and dry, this bed bears the brunt of the full, scorching Texas sun.  The perennial verbena provides a beautiful, soft contrast to the ginormous squid agave next to it.

I think we’re finished with freezes here in Central Texas.

I’m ready to start working in the garden and soaking up the spring sunshine.

How ’bout you?

 

 

Great garden memories from 2018

My garden brings me peace and serenity, and I needed a healthy dose of both in 2018.

I loved the countless hours I spent planning, prepping, and working in the garden.  And sharing it with family and friends was just as wonderful. (Especially 92 of my closest friends – garden bloggers – who braved the terrifying elements on that miserable Friday in May!)

Hope you enjoy a few of my favorite pics of my garden in 2018.  Looking forward to many more happy memories here in 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gardening trends in my landscape

I’m always fascinated about the transformations in the garden each year.  From month to month and season to season, small adjustments often result in big changes.

Here are some of the new plants and hardscape changes in my landscape this year.

January:  We enjoy watching the animals that wander, fly and hop into our garden.  My husband keeps about 10 bird feeders full.  We regularly see cardinals, titmice, sparrows, scrub jays and blue jays, wrens, mockingbirds, road runners, woodpeckers, finches, doves, cliff swallows, and every couple of years, a painted bunting.  Several birdbaths and birdbath fountains provide water for sipping and bathing.

February:  Last year, spring came very early, and the nurseries were full of beautiful plants at least a month ahead of schedule.  If they are selling them, we should be buying them, right?

I didn’t count how many trips I made to our independent nurseries in Austin.  Several times a year, I make all the rounds and come home with the SUV full of flowering friends.

 

Orders I placed over the winter also begin to arrive, ready to join the garden.  The slew of catalogs, full of vibrant photos of unique plant specimens give us visions of plants as we settle in for our long winters naps

They provide promise as gardeners experiment with new colors, sizes and varieties.

March:  I was delighted with the spread of my ground orchids this spring.  The Bletilla striata finally began to naturalize in the woodland garden, making the shady path pop with brilliant fuchsia blooms.

April:  When writing about Central Texas gardening, lush is a rarely used adjective.  But, it was the perfect description for our beds after a unseasonably warm spring and much-needed rains.

May:  This month marked the return of the Rio Grande Leopard frogs to the garden.  We often find them resting in plants in the morning, showering in our accessible fountains during heat of the day, and skinny dipping in the pool at night.  Fletcher runs around the pool in the dark, flushing them out from the neighboring plants so they jump into the pool.  He whines and paces around the perimeter, frustrated that he can’t get to them.  No worries, they can jump back out of the on their own.

June: With most of the garden filling nicely by the onset of the heat, I often shift my focus to decor, pots and creative elements in the landscape.  This piece of aged cedar inspired me to place a few bromeliads in the shade bed.  They had to come in later in the summer, but they added a nice touch for a while.

 July:  By now, the veggie garden provides us with an ongoing  variety of great fruits and vegetables.  Sadly, it is also the time for stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs to attack the tomatoes.  Almost impossible to eliminate, I get depressed about the impending demise of my tomato crop. They multiply so quickly, it’s impossible to control them by hand squishing or spraying them with the hose.

 

 

August:  The dog days of summer are also prime time for many of our native and adapted tropicals.  Pride of Barbados, Caesalpinia pulcherrima, is bursting with blooms by now, like electric orange fireworks all over town — and along the sides of our pool.

September:  This month marked the beginning of my major landscaping project for 2017.  The removal of the playscape paved the way for a new garden.  Eager to create something different, I settled on a pie-shaped parterre garden.  Using the same Oklahoma flagstone in the existing garden path, I had my crew create a rough-edged set of symmetrical beds.  To save money and recycle, I kept some of the pea gravel from the playscape area to build the pathway.

October:  More progress on the parterre.  We revised the existing left path to the vegetable garden, taking out the decomposed granite, flagstone steps and river rock.  This path was a continual source of frustration and weeds.  In spring, it brought forth a profusion of bluebonnets and winecup that were stunning.  But the remaining 10 months of back-breaking proved too much.  We then created a mortared flagstone path, leaving a few periodical spaces for plants — a guarantee that they wouldn’t be able to spread.  I added another path to reach the new parterre.

November:  Fall also brought forth blooms from the newly planted Phillipine Violet, Barleria polytricha.  My first experience growing this plant, it was awelcome addition to the tropical garden.

 

 

 

Finally, we finished the parterre and paths.  Well, almost.  I still need to add one more rose bush and all the accompanying border plants in the beds.  I filled the planting holes in the pathways with purslane. You can be sure I will post after pictures in the spring when the beds are full and blooming. To complete the focal points, I added a center birdbath, a wooden framed mirror on the back fence to provide interest and give the space more dimension, and a floral-themed bench to sit on and enjoy the growing garden.  If you look closely, you can see my taking this photo in the mirror. Once those elements were in place, I sat on the bench and marveled that I have never really looked at my garden from that vantage point.  It’s a wonderful and reflective place to sit and I’m so pleased to see my vision come to life.

December:  This month shocked all Central Texas gardeners with a surprise snowfall.  Not the dusting and melting immediately variety of snow we occasionally see, but a solid inch of sticking snow.  It turned the garden into a southwestern version of a winter wonderland.

Luckily, the blanket of snow insulated the plants and we were spared the worst possible damage of the unseasonably early freeze.

Winter has officially settled in and January feels like January, just colder than normal.  Seed catalogs sit by my chair as I cozy up to the fire with my hot tea, dreaming of garden plans to come in 2018.

What were your favorite garden additions in 2017?  New plants, new beds, new hardscape — what rocked your garden last year?

 

 

 

 

Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham filled with vintage garden charm

The first stop my friend Pam, of Digging, and I made on our way to a delightful gardening weekend  Houston was at the Antique Rose Emporium.  Sadly, with our late Texas spring, we arrived before all the roses were in bloom.  We saw buds galore, though.

In spite of missing the roses in bloom, the rest of this destination nursery’s gardens were filled with beautiful plants, charming vignettes, and lovely gift shops.

We were greeted upon our arrival by this beautiful monarch – having second breakfast on a lantana bloom

As I was perusing the plant table with 4″ pots, I was suprised to find another greeter – but this one was sleeping on the job.  He slept through my camera clicks as I had to get a picture of him curled up so cute among the plants.

And the tables were full of pretty plants that all called out to me: “take me home, take me home.”

We had a full day’s garden agenda, or we would have loved to lounge under this beautiful tree and enjoy the scenery.

 I was fascinated by this beautiful tree and its bark.

The view out to the amazing rose display – I’m not sure if they would be called obelisks, but they are amazing.

While the garden is filled with roses and perennials, it also has a sculptural side – filled with yuccas, agaves and cacti.

This decades-old building houses garden items for sale and is well preserved.

 What a life — being a duck in this garden.

The building is so charming.

And I was fascinated with the preserved structure – imagining folks living in here a long time ago.

The hellebores were getting a head start on the roses, though they were still shy.

Gorgeous.

Another pretty area to stop and sit or gaze across the garden.

While blue is my favorite – this white delphinium really stood out.

On the path to the secret garden – drawing visitors in, wanting more.

Wish, anyone?

Circular paths wind around the rose towers.

More drought tolerant plants along the path.

There’s so much to see — time to sit a spell again.

Having a ginormous artichoke in my own garden, I was wowed by this beautiful display.

What a show of color on this kale.

 The cute kitty napping on the plant table near the entrance can rest easy with this dog on the grounds.

 What a pretty vegetable garden – filled with healthy plants and surrounded by a lovely fence.

I loved wandering around the grounds on my second trip to the Antique Rose Emporium.  It’s a delightful gardening jaunt, and well worth the little drive.  In a word, it’s charming.

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