screen

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 spruce up from a wide angle lens

One of the rites of spring (even though it has already been 94 degrees here in Austin, Texas), after the whining about winter, pruning, planting and mulching, is taking photos of the garden as it grows.

I recently bought a wide angle lens, primarily for use in photographing our landscaping jobs and getting a good overview.  But, I haven’t put it to use here at home. 

When I finished the recent spring planting and mulching work on the back garden (which is technically outside of our property line in the neighborhood easement), I decided to try out the new lens. 

If you’re wondering WHY I am gardening and watering outside of our property, it’s because the back is bordered by hideous cedar trees. 

Several years ago I decided to remedy the ugly cedar problem.  I  started a deer-resistant, drought-tolerant “trial bed” — all things that are tough as nails and can survive with next-to-no water.  In the heat of summer I would drag the hose all the way back there and water with a oscillating sprinkler head only once a month if we hadn’t had rain.

But then came the barn.  The neighbor on the country road far behind us decided he needed to build a barn — a RED barn — right on the back edge of our easement.  Which you can see through the trees — see the silver metal roof — and below the little bit of red peeking through?   Well, I can see it.  So, I expanded the bed, planted soon-to-be large, screening plants, shrubs and trees and added an actual sprinkler head to make it easier to get the plants established at least, though I still don’t water often back there. 

My goal is to eventually remove the cedars when the nicer plants have gotten large enough to provide some screen.  On this end you’ll find a sharkskin agave, some quadricolor agaves, some creeping germander, two Kentucky coffee trees, given to me by my father, (thanks, Daddy!), a green goblet agave passalong from Pam of Digging , some newly planted Yaupon holly trees, and far in the back, a Mexican olive tree. Oh, and two hot pink oleander to coordinate with the desert willow and salvia on the other end.

I’ve added things slowly — some passalongs, some things that didn’t behave elsewhere in the garden and some things I just had to have.  The goal is for this bed to be low maintenance.  So, toward this end of the bed, you’ll find my beautiful whale’s tongue agave, a desert willow tree, some salvia, Jerusalem sage, zexmenia, euphorbia, dyckia, a few muhly grasses, indigo spires salvia, bright edge yucca, and some recently transplanted large native yuccas that came from a client’s overcrowded natural area. There are also two yaupon hollies on this end, hidden behind the other plantings.

This bed is mostly out of sight from the back deck, unless you walk down the steps leading to the back of the pool.  The aerial shots (well, high as I could get them — me on the back pool sheer wall) give you a sense of the breath of the bed.

We’ve started pruning out some of the dead wood on the cedars and hope to start taking some of them out entirely in a few years. I have babies from my loquat tree in the front, so I think there will be a few loquats back there soon, as well.  I will have to fence them until they get tall, since the deer have free reign back there and will think I finally served up something that they like to eat!

It’s nice when things come together in the garden, isn’t it?

Go to Top