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Diana C. Kirby

About Diana C. Kirby

Diana Kirby is a lifelong gardener and longtime Austinite, who loves the Central Texas climate for the almost year-round opportunities it offers for active gardening and seasonal splendor. Known as an impassioned and successful gardener, Diana began by helping friends design and implement their landscapes. Soon, she was contracted as a professional designer by a popular local landscaping installation firm, where she designed landscapes for residential and commercial clients for several years. In 2007, her new passion blossomed with the launch of her own firm, Diana’s Designs. ... Diana is a member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers, the Garden Writers Association of America, and she writes a monthly gardening column for the Austin American-Statesman. Diana teaches the Landscape Design classes for several county Texas Agrilife Extension Service Master Gardener certification programs and speaks about gardening and design for garden centers and other groups. Learn more about presentation topics, availability and speaking fees.

It’s coming, it’s coming …


I hope.

Sure looks like some rain is out there headed our way. Last night we tried to fool Mother Nature by leaving the umbrella up and some lounge chair cushions out…but it didn’t work.

I just put the cushions away. I’m giving up on the superstitions. I’m just going to go outside and do a naked rain dance instead. (Just kidding!) But I’m almost desperate enough to do it.

And, because I can’t go out and take just one picture, here are a few shots of some plants that are happy in the heat.


This is a Hyacinth bean vine that was sent to me by my blogging friend, Michelle. It is on the fence of the new lily garden bed.


And this is my Pavonia, tucked into the same bed, and safely out of the way of munching deer who’ve always eaten them before!

By |2017-11-29T23:27:53-06:00August 12th, 2008|Blog, rain, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments
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The ugly side of Summer…

Bonnie, at Kiss of Sun, posted about the sad and sagging plants in her hot Central Texas garden, and thus inspired me to post my dying plant pictures, too!

So, here is a lovely garden tour of the hot, dry, or dying plants in my veggie garden. The top photo is half-dead tomato plants with a few dessicated marigolds around the perimeter.
Here are some more dehydrating tomatoes!
The lush, green plant is a malabar spinach, and the white, paper-like leaves are the remnants of the wonderful cucumbers we had earlier in the season.
This is the biggest casualty of our vacation — this tomatillo completely gave up the ghost while we were gone. I spent about an hour out there today cutting all the dead stalks off and then pulling it out of the ground. There’s a tomato growing under it, so it now occupies that cage and maybe it will be happier with some room to grow.

What you can’t really see is the prolific Cypress vines that continue to HAUNT me!

I jokingly told Bonnie that I think when the earth stops spinning, only cockroaches and Cypress vines will remain! The one, measly little vine that I planted last year is trying to come back by the thousands and just won’t give up. But I am bound and determined to win, so I just keep plucking them out of the ground, otherwise they will choke everything in the garden. They are definitely POT only plants (like mint!).

So, what’s dying in your hot, summer garden?!!

By |2017-11-29T23:27:53-06:00August 10th, 2008|Blog, dead, heat, Sharing Nature's Garden, vegetable garden|5 Comments
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A little German Garden…

About 20 minutes outside of Cologne, Germany, in the quaint little town of Weilerswist, we spent 4 days with my cousin and her husband.

He is an avid gardener, and has a beautiful garden We spent many hours on their lovely patio, taking in the view (and a little wine, and sauerbraten and herring salad and lots of other yummy traditional fare.)

While walking around the area, we saw many gorgeous gardens. I was surprised to find that most of the plants were actually familiar.

Their gardening style is quite different, and the gardens don’t look much like mine or my neighbors’, but I do know and grow most of the plants that I saw there.

Even though I am back home again, I thought I’d share with you a little sampling of my German garden tour!




Now that you’ve wandered through with me, do you recognize all of these — are you growing any of them in your garden today?

By |2016-04-14T02:45:10-05:00August 8th, 2008|Blog, Germany, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments
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Things that don’t broil…

Imagine our surprise to come home from 19 days in Europe to…ta-dah! 

A watermelon!!!
My first-ever, home-grown watermelon.  I’m so excited about it.  
The deer thought they might like to eat the vines, so I made a makeshift lean-to with some screens and sticks and twine, and it seems the deer weren’t interested in  working for it, so we now have a cute little watermelon ripening on our vine!

Since I had a friend watering for me daily, my clusters of pots all look great now, in spite of this broiling heat.  I did have to group them — they were in the trees and scattered about, but that’s so hard to get watered.  

And, I’m not scattering them about again, either, because it’s easier for ME to water them every single freaking day this way!
I also came home to find a nice collection of Agapanthus blooms.  How exciting that they are behaving like they are supposed to for a change!
And, the best for last.  This is our newly-adopted girl, Dakota Blue.  She joined our family yesterday from the PawMatch shelter.  
She and Tanner seem to get along ok, though truth be told, Tanner was perfectly fine being the only dog.  She’s about 3, a Catahoula/hound mix, and as sweet as can be.  She has some manners and knows some commands.  They really didn’t know much about her, other than she kills chickens.  We don’t have any chickens, so I figure that’s ok.
Frankly, I think most dogs let loose would at least chase if not kill chickens.  I know Tanner would go after anything he could catch!  So, now we won’t be getting any chickens.
By |2016-04-14T02:45:11-05:00August 7th, 2008|Blog, Dakota, pots, Sharing Nature's Garden, watermelon|0 Comments
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A castle around every corner!

Traveling along the Rhine River from Frankfurt toward Cologne last week, we simply couldn’t keep up with the cameras. There was a castle (or two) around every corner. Some small ruins and some fully preserved.

You can’t really tell from the pictures, but the Rhine really is a massive, fast-moving river. We saw many barges transporting materials up and down the river, going through locks and keeping commerce moving in a very traditional manner.

By |2016-04-14T02:45:11-05:00July 28th, 2008|Blog, Germany, Sharing Nature's Garden, vacation|0 Comments
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How quaint…

After a lovely traditional lunch of schnitzel, pommes frites and beer, we went up to this castle for an afternoon of exploring. This is the castle Schoenburg, in Oberwesel, right on the majestic Rhine River.
This is where we ate lunch.
How quaint this doorway is.
I’d have a hangover if I drank this whole glass of wine!
And this is the farmhouse at a place that that raises and shows horses.

Struggling a little with photo programs since my DH flew home a few days ago and we are working with an unfamiliar PC program and not my normal Mac, but we’re figuring it out. Tomorrow is our last day and we’ve planned some light sightseeing in Frankfurt and some shopping.

By |2016-04-14T02:45:11-05:00July 27th, 2008|Blog, Germany, Sharing Nature's Garden, vacation|0 Comments
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