Agave

Stunning San Francisco Fling garden tour of my dream garden…

The San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was an amazing adventure into a myriad of unique and beautiful gardens and micro climates.  I expected the weather in San Francisco to be cool and comfortable.  Not so.  As is often the case when I’ve traveled to the annual garden flings, they were having an uncharacteristic heat wave.  (The Texas bloggers have a theory that we bring the beat with us – a tradition we’d love to put an end to!) 

San Francisco was tolerable, though as we ventured further out from the city, it was hotter (103 one day walking through the gardens) and drier.  Of course the beauty of the micro climates is that it enabled us to tour a wonderful variety of gardens, all within driving distance. 

On the last day, we visited the Ann Nichols Garden in Oakland.  This was my favorite garden by far, filled with mysterious paths, babbling water features, unique artwork and an intricate garden of tropical plants and desert plants mixed with traditional plants.  (I have a soft spot for tropicals and I garden in the scorching heat of the southwest in Austin, Texas.)

As you arrive, the garden rises from the street in a succulent-lovers hillside of hot with the tropical colors of agaves, yuccas, phormium and cannas. 

Everyone ooohed and ahhhhed over this intricate spiral agave.  It can’t take our arid heat, so I won’t be searching for one to plant in my garden.

I finally tore myself away from the hillside to follow a delicate, almost-hidden path up to the house.  Lined with papyrus, aloes, ground cover and cannas, it led me to my ultimate destination — a stunning brugmansia, its bell-shaped blooms dripping over the path to envelop garden visitors in an apricot  canopy.

Winding on the other side of the house is another path, filled with ground cover, succulents and grasses, that leads you up into the back garden.


Along the property line is a fence/trellis/jungle creation that hosts bromeliads, tillandsias ferns and other exotic

But unlike so many side gardens that are just an avenue for reaching another area, this was a mystical garden of its own.  Flanked by layers upon layers of plants, the steps lead through a series of unique, artistic ponds that are part of a larger waterway system and all connected. 

 The water runs through channels from the upper lever water feature down to the other ponds.

Here’s a garden blogger capturing a photo in the garden…you’ll laugh at this one.  I was trying to remember who this was and I remember that I was wearing a peach blouse that day, wondering who else did.  Then I realize this is a mirror that was hanging on the fence and that’s ME in the picture!  Working on a creative photo shot, I captured myself and then promptly forgot about it.  In any case, the mirror, tucked behind a treasure trove of plants, was a delightful find for garden visitors.

Next to the gate at the top of the stone steps, a tile mural covers the wall as a backdrop for the pond.  Notice the cat in the mural – you’ll see him again in more art in the back garden.

Now onto the back garden.  There are 3 levels in the back garden.  Through the gate and continuing up the stairs, you pass another water feature as you’re drawn to another gate.

But wait, that’s a door, or is it.  No, it’s a gate… It’s a door to a building, painted to look like the gate, with our friend the cat perched on top and his friend waiting for him at the bottom.  So clever and entertaining.  (And there’s another brugmansia to the left…sigh…)

And then it’s off to the right and up another set of steps, flanked by glorious loropetalums in pots, and up onto the small patch of lawn.  In this lush setting, the grass itself is a focal point.

It was also a perfect gathering spot for the garden bloggers to share their thoughts on this amazing garden.  Ann Nichols even invited a few of us inside the house to view the back garden from upstairs, which is the perch from which I shot this photo.

 Then it’s up the stairs once more, through this Dr. Seuss-like allee of weeping sequoia, tied together and leading you on to the last gate of the garden, a replica of the first gate and the painted gate.

 There are several delightful seating areas in the upper garden, which is filled with fragrant roses, succulents and phormium.
And the look back down the hill, framed by the sequoias, to the back of the house and our friends enjoying refreshments and good company.

The back of the house is flanked by a lower-level patio area, filled with pots of suculents and a rock lined retaining wall filled with hot colors and wonderful textures.

You can see why I fell in love with this garden.  I’m sure I could have spent the entire day there and still not seen everything it has to offer,

Summer comes early to Central Texas gardens…

Although it’s technically still spring, we’ve already had our first 100-degree day here in Central Texas. That means our tough-as-nails perennials are being asked to show their stuff. Many of them are answering the call in my garden this week.

Thryallis, euonymous, salvia greggii, Mexican oregano, lamb’s ears, dianella, indigo spires salvia and Mexican feathergrass surround this agave franzosini with soft, billowing blooms.

This pineapple guava is full of stunning blooms that will soon turn into a yummy snack for us (if the dogs don’t get them before we do!)

Pops of yellow and blue fill this bed with the octopus agave in the cobalt blue pot.  New gold lantana, mealy blue sage, mystic spires salvia, zexmenia and Mexican feather grass love these hot, sunny days.

The show put on by the grey santolina with its tiny, button-like blooms is beautiful.  In the background, salvia greggii, Mexican oregano, thryallis and a few tiny orange narrow-leaf zinnias I just planted.  I could only locate 4 plants, so they are going to have to hurry up and spread fast to make the orange border for the santolina!

One of my all-time favorites, indigo spires salvia is such a vivid purple and blooms all summer long under the worst conditions.

This falls under the category of “I never dreamed this would get this big.”  This Mexican oregano in a raised bed in the full hot sun is clearly in its element.  It is 10 feet wide!

These poolside day lilies just started blooming this week.

One of my favorite combinations — these pale peachy-coral gladiolas provide a beautiful backdrop for the native Texas clematis pitcheri that’s showing off dozens of purple blooms.

Bottle brush blooms are amazing…

As I was making the rounds through the garden this evening, I was struck by the uplighting into the bottle brush tree, Callistemon rigidus.

I have been overwhelmed by the healthy, growth and year-round blooms on this tree.  With a growth habit of 10-12 feet, it is drought-tolerant and attracts bees, butterflies and birds.

This is the freeze replacement tree from Bottlebrush tree #1.  Then the next bad freeze came and wiped this one out.  Or so I thought.  It came back from the roots after last winter and I let it grow like that for a little while to determine what the trunks would look like.  Then I began to prune it up like a small multi-trunked tree, instead of a bushy shrub.  It’s worked out really well and I think I like it even more than the original single trunk.

I like the softness of the flowing bottle brush next to the structural rigidity of the blue agave.

A peek as the blooms first begin to emerge from the buds.

The buds look a little like alien fingers reaching out to you, don’t you think?

Just look at all those blooms. I did have to share space with the bees while I was taking pictures.

Then a last shot of the blooms up against the eerie color of the sky at dusk.

Beautiful, xeric plants in the Sonoran Desert Landscape

Against the backdrop of the rugged Santa Catalina Mountains, tough, structural plants dot the landscape of the Sonoran Desert.

The Garden Writers Association Symposium Tucson, Arizona, included several days of tours of local gardens — an excellent introduction to the unique beauty of the desert.

 This is the view from the lobby of the La Paloma Resort where the symposium was held.

 Cacti, yuccas,  hardy woody perennials and trees thrive in the desert, where the temperatures soar into the 100s throughout the summer, yet also dip below freezing in winter.

 These cool, columnar Mexican Fencepost cacti (Pachycereus marginatus) bring height to the flat desert expanse.

 This desert garden was full of nooks and crannies filled with smaller species of cacti and aloes.  With approximately 2,500 different species of cacti, and about 400 different kinds of aloes, there are plenty from which to choose.

 Pots and other garden art and decor provided strong bursts of color in many of the desert gardens we toured.

 This citrus grove at the Benedictine Order of the Sisters of Adoration was lush with fruit.  The trunks are painted white to help cool the trees.

There were some more tropical plants — like these palms — throughout the desert, though clearly they require much more water to survive the harsh climate.

The light on the mountains at dawn and dusk was stunning. Inspiring hues of coral and lavender wash over the horizon, enveloping the harsh landscape in a robe of gauzy color.

Garden photography – light is everything…

Too often I’m too late to catch that perfect morning light that illuminates the garden and brings our plants to life.

This morning, I decided to wait on breakfast and to ignore distractions.  I ventured out with my camera to capture something special.

But the hottest summer sun is behind us and our mornings are cooler and overcast.

The dawn light on my Franzosini agave caught my eye.

And this is what my camera caught when the flash felt compelled to go off.

Pretty cool, huh?  No editing, photo shopping or enhancing.  Just this.

No filtered morning rays to wish you a good day, but perhaps instead an early, eerie Happy Halloween from my garden!

Heat-loving octopus agave creates garden focal point

It’s hard to plant when it’s 100 degrees.  And it’s not time to buy seeds yet.  And if I order bulbs they won’t come for months.

But this pot spoke to me when I walked by it Friday at Barton Springs Nursery.

It said, “wouldn’t I make a beautiful focal point for the black sheep bed at the end of the driveway?  Wouldn’t I make the other bed across the driveway jealous?  I know you want to take me home.”

I ignored the pot’s pleading and walked on down to the agaves. 

That’s when this octopus agave whispered to me, “wouldn’t I look stunning in a cobalt blue glazed pot?  I know where you can find one.”

Now,  I’m used to talking to myself, and I’m used to answering myself.  But when pots and plants start to talk back, it’s time to listen.

So, into the car they went.  And this morning I grunted and groaned as I raised up the pot, planted the agave with no spiky injuries and stood back, saying to myself,

“Isn’t this a beautiful focal point for the black sheep bed at the end of the driveway?  And isn’t that agave stunning in the cobalt blue glazed pot?”

To which I replied, “yes, it is.”

By |2016-04-14T02:39:34-05:00September 1st, 2012|Agave, Blog, color, octopus agave, pots, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments
Go to Top