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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.

A peek at Spring…

These phlox were just alive with color today, after having a lovely, rainy and cool day yesterday.  The weather forcasters were off on their projected high temp for the day by 23 degrees!  It was 42 instead of 65….the storms and hail and tornadoes they warned about never materialized.  Instead, we enjoyed a good steady rain all day.  

And while it was very cold to be outside on a landscape job (my teeth were literally chattering while we were walking the yard), we needed it.  We also needed the reminder that it’s still technically winter, even if it doesn’t act like it much around here!


I know you will never tire of seeing my slowly evolving daffodil, so here she is again today – just about to open early in the morning.  Some of her friends joined her this afternoon when the sun came out and it was 69 for a while.  They’ll probably make a showing here tomorrow.  (I know you can’t wait!)

By |2016-04-14T02:47:54-05:00February 17th, 2008|Blog, daffodils, Sharing Nature's Garden, storm|0 Comments
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Gray Day

Well, I guess this is winter for us here in Central Texas. At 10:30 a.m., it is gray and overcast and we’re having a light rain. (which is good for us because a real rain usually turns into flooding here very quickly). It’s 41 degrees and the forecast says it will get to 65, but I think they are mistaken! The bad news: as this front blows in this afternoon, we are also on the lookout for severe thunderstorms, hail and possible tornadoes as cool air meets warm air.

We need the rain – after last summer’s endless rain, we’ve now been exceptionally dry all fall and winter. So, right now, our gardens are pretty happy. I’m not sure how happy they’ll be (little daffodils and such) if we get heavy storms and hail.

So, I’m inside blogging (instead of at the soccer game which was cancelled – yeah!) and about to try again to bake a pie for my husband’s birthday today. The first one didn’t set yesterday — buttermilk pie — but the crust was good and that’s the bane of my existence. I’m a really good cook, but I can’t bake. And he loves pie, so every few years I try, try again. Today, literally, again!



By |2017-11-29T23:27:56-06:00February 16th, 2008|Blog, rain, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments
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Bloom Day…sort of!


Carol at May Dreams Gardens invites us to share what’s blooming in our gardens on the 15th of the month and bloggers around the world join in this sense of community to appreciate each others’ work and species and climate.

There are just a few things blooming in my garden on this Bloom Day. This geranium is just the most delicious color of salmon that I had to have it. It’s another of today’s nursery purchases, along with a statue and a Japanese maple (no blooms there – just sticks!)

These little phlox love the cooler weather. (I can barely keep them alive in the heat of August), so they’re happy now.
Even in our temperate Texas climate, most things in my garden are starting to sprout up, but haven’t sported buds or blooms yet.
Here is my partially completed fence! We still need to put a gate on and then I’ll put an arbor in front of the gate.

While they were hammering away, I was fantasizing about little brackets for hanging plants and garden decor, finials for the tops of the posts, and other decorative touches! I guess a fence isn’t just a fence to me.
And this is my new-found friend. I fell in love with her while doing some Spring Fling business at a fabulous local nursery, the Great Outdoors, (they have a Blog, too) and just couldn’t walk away from her. She’s intruiging, and I knew I had the perfect focal point spot for her at the end of a river rock pathway. So, she’s mine, now. I want to name her; still mulling over options — something classic, yet unimposing, warm and inviting — any suggestions for naming my new garden friend?

By |2017-11-29T23:27:56-06:00February 14th, 2008|Blog, fence, Sharing Nature's Garden, statue, vegetable garden|0 Comments
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A little bit of this, a little bit of that…


See my little pretties? I visited some local nurseries to talk about donations for the Garden Bloggers’ Spring Fling and couldn’t help myself! Heck – I was at 3 nurseries today and they were full of eye candy! I bought a beautiful Texas Scarlett Japanese Quince at one, and three roses at another. Annie at the Transplantable Rose inspired me with her pots and talk of roses. I pulled one out when we moved in here – it was in the wrong place and not doing well. And then, last year, some construction required that we pull out a huge, lovely pink climber that I was in love with. It went high into our oak trees. So, I missing some roses and I decided to remedy that!

Because I don’t have a full sun spot for them, I was somewhat limited in what I could purchase, so I am now the proud mother of an Old Blush Climbing Rose, Mrs. B.R. Cant, 1901 and a Martha Gonzales that I’m going to put in a pot like Annie’s! The other two will enjoy a nice morning to early afternoon sunny spot on the east side of the house. They are all supposed to be sun/part shade, so we’ll see if that’s accurate. I will have to take a walk to see them, but I will have them and can cut them and bring them in the house. I’m psyched!

Can you see the numbers on this thermometer here today? I think it’s skewed a little, but suffice it to say, it was warm today.
My mahonia is now in full bloom. But still enjoying the cooler weather – it gets kind of hot here for them if they get any sun and I have one that may have to be moved this year.

WOW! See my garden. All the dead stuff is gone. Including any last dead tomato bits that might have been lingering and calling to the dogs! They scaled the fence again before the garden got cleaned out and ate something — who knows what — there were only leeks and parsley in there other than dead scraps and mulch. Tomorrow I’ll show you the rest of today’s progress (it got too dark and I couldn’t take a picture), but the fence is UP! And, if they can scale this fence, then I’ll quit blogging — they’ll be in the Guiness Book of World Records and I’ll be a rich woman!

These are the leeks I pulled from the garden today. I guess I will make some leek soup and then sautee the rest. I am assuming I can just freeze them sliced up and sauteed for use in soups and stews and sauces later on. There are far too many for me to use right now! But I want all the garden beds tilled and new garden soil brought in and it’s just better if it’s empty when you do that.
Here are a few other things peeking up in my beds these days. Above are some lovely red Daylilies and below are the shoots of a black Elephant Ear.
Below are some beautiful yellow and orange cannas…well, that’s what they WILL be in a few months!
And these are a few of the shoots in my cloche inside. These are tomatoes.
I planted nasturtiums, they got so tall so fast I took them out of the cloche, and they instantly started to dry out and die. Help! They are bumping against the top of the other cloche, and turn black when they do that, but they clearly aren’t ready to be out on their own. Or, maybe I needed to get them sopping wet…Any ideas?

By |2017-11-29T23:27:57-06:00February 13th, 2008|Blog, cannas, Garden, quince, roses, seeds, Sharing Nature's Garden, vegetables|0 Comments
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One little bud…

One tiny little bud, trying with all of his (or) her might to peek out and say hello to the world! In a week or so, I should have some lovely daffodils swaying in the breeze. The clumps that I planted in the fall appear to be coming up, but the ones that have been there for 3 years haven’t surfaced yet. I sure hope they didn’t get damaged in any way when we replanted that bed. They were far away from the other plants, but you never know how they can be traumatized. And I have a clump by the front of the driveway that is always the very last of the bulbs to appear, so they will be spread out this year for sure.

Yesterday I planted some California orange poppy plants and some other little things from the Natural Gardener. And while I was hunched over the bed pruning, I almost poked my eye out with the dead lantana and salvia stems, so I started pruning. And before I knew it (or about an hour and a half later, I had one whole side of the river rock path finished! It looks so much better with the dead stuff gone. And now I can actually see some new growth coming up from the ground on the indigo spires and the salvia and maybe even the Mexican oregano. I don’t know why pruning always feels like such a monumental project for me.

Maybe it’s because I am a bee by nature! But yesterday I was the ant and just powered right through a small section of it. Felt good to put on the rubber gloves and get dirty.

P.S. Note to self: Buy some new gloves — these are stinky!

By |2016-04-14T02:47:54-05:00February 11th, 2008|Blog, bulbs, pruning, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring|0 Comments
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They’re Baaaaaaaaack!

Oh my. Oh my my. This is the first bluebonnet of Spring. I’m sure it must be one of the first in Central Texas because it is MUCH too early! I can’t say that it’s mine, though. I noticed it yesterday while walking the stupiddogs in our neighborhood. (That’s my new name for my mutts who are causing me unbelieveable grief!

My neighbors have this small clump of blue bonnet leaves — probably a foot square — that’s been as green and happy as it can be for a month now. Their whole front area by the street is usually a field of bluebonnets in March or April, but this is the first little clump to appear.
And I can’t for the life of me get the name of these daisies off my tongue — are they nerve daisies? Anyone know? I think that’s what they are, but we have so many daisy wildflowers that I can’t always keep up with them. Wildflowers. On February 10. wow. Not much else to say but that. Enjoy.

By |2016-04-14T02:47:54-05:00February 10th, 2008|Blog, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring, Wildflowers|10 Comments
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