spring bloomers Archives | Diana's Designs Austin

Spring in full swing at Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

It was a beautiful morning. Drizzling, foggy, chilly and damp. But, I was at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center spring plant sale with my friend, Laura, of Wills Family Acres, with a smile on my face and money in my pocket!

Modified for Covid protections, reservations were required and the sale has been stretched out over multiple weekends. While there were less plants in a smaller space, that wasn’t surprising given the winter we just had and the spreading out of the event time.

As is often the case in the spring, we were greeted by one of the baby owlets that are hatched each year. For the last 10+ years, the entrance to the center has been home to a pair of great horned owls. The mom’s name is Athena, and she and her little ones can be seen high above the entrance arch for 6 to 7 weeks in spring. Can you see the little one peeking over the ledge just under plant on the right side? Learn more about our iconic feathered friends here

They still had lots of great natives in 4-inch pots and gallons. Sun plants, shade plants, trees, agaves and grasses and yuccas. As always, I was fascinated to learn about natives new to me, and a few of them ended up in my cart. (Surprise, surprise!)

I’m trying Geum canadense, a woodland herb that grows as a ground cover in a woodland setting, it has strawberry-like evergreen foliage and a sweet little white bloom April – June. Also new to my garden, I bought a Solidago – I admire them every fall and have said for years that I’d like to have one. Well, now I do!

I also picked up several of my annual sale favorites – Helianthus maximus, calylophus, Henry Duelberg salvia, and Datura. Having a new garden helps me rationalize my purchases these days.

After our retail therapy, we treated ourselves to a leisurely walk around the grounds. The spring wildflowers and other bloomers blanket the beds, filling them with a patchwork of colors and textures like a beautiful quilt.

Engleman’s sage clusters brightened the beds all through the grounds.

Winecup makes a beautiful border.

Several windows create a secret garden effect, allowing visitors to peek from one part of the garden into another.

I’ll try to keep up my blogging momentum and post the rest of my pics this week, so pop back over!

By Diana C. Kirby|2021-04-19T11:09:05-05:00April 19th, 2021|Engelman's daisy, geum, hardscape, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring, spring bloomers, spring planting, winecup|5 Comments

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!

By Diana C. Kirby|2020-01-05T10:39:28-06:00January 5th, 2020|2019, bulbs, Cordyline, cover plants, Crocosmia, daffodils, day lilies, Dianella, ditch lily, drainage, dry creek, flax lily, four-nerve daisy, Garden, Hellebore, irises, japanese quince, lady bugs, lily, loropetalum, mountain laurel, narcissus, new bed, passalongs, quince, river rock, river rock bed, rose, roses, screen, sculpture, shade plants, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring, spring bloomers, Swedish ivy, Uncategorized|6 Comments

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?

By Diana C. Kirby|2019-03-15T12:51:34-05:00March 15th, 2019|bulbs, columbines, daffodils, double campernelle, green goblet agave, iris, irises, Mexican honeysuckle, mountain laurel, narcissus, passalongs, Prairie Verbena, rose, roses, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring, spring bloomers, squid agave, Uncategorized|2 Comments

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?

By Diana C. Kirby|2018-01-13T11:42:26-06:00January 13th, 2018|beds, bench, bird feeders, birds, Bletilla Striata, bromeliads, cardinal, frog, frogs, hard scape, hardscape, path, paths, pathway, Pride of Barbados, projects, Rio Grande leopard frog, roses, Sharing Nature's Garden, snow, spring bloomers, tropicals, Uncategorized, vegetable garden, vegetables, winter|2 Comments

Spring has sprung in the garden…

It feels like spring here in Central Texas, with sunny, 85-degree days dotting our early February weeks. That might sound more like summer to gardeners far north of here, but it’s heavenly spring for us.

The Japanese Quince has been blooming since the cooler, late-fall days, drawing butterflies to the sole flowers in the winter garden. I’ve had a few white cemetery irises bloom and the peach irises opened up this week. When I checked early this morning, I did detect the faintest sweet scent in the peach ones.

A few daffodils have opened. A labeling failure two years ago is to blame for my not knowing each variety, since I do collect new ones each year. But I recognize the Tete-a-Tetes and they’re starting to open in different parts of the garden.

Then yesterday, the Mountain Laurels burst forth. I’d been eyeing the buds for several days, and trying to catch a whiff of the grape Kool-Aid aroma they dust on the breeze.

I banned myself from Facebook this morning because it’s been eating my mornings. So, what do I do then? I take the scissors outside and look for blooms to bring indoors! I tried to put a peach iris with this little posie, but it was too big and didn’t work with these delicate little flowers, so I put it in its own vase.

Now, spring has sprung in my kitchen and it smells delicious — just like grape Kool-Aid!

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:26:54-06:00February 16th, 2017|Blog, cut flowers, daffodils, japanese quince, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring, spring bloomers, Texas Mountain Laurel, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Brilliant bluebonnets brighten the spring countryside in Central Texas…

It’s a banner year for Texas wildflowers. Just the right amount of fall and spring rain has bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, Indian Blanket and a slew of other wildflowers cover Central Texas.

This burst of blooms even made the national news; I was delighted to see it on Monday night’s NBC Nightly News. We’re so proud of our wildflower displays that have their roots in the beautification efforts started by Lady Bird Johnson while her husband was president.

Lady Bird wanted to clean up Washington D.C. and the country’s highways by regulating billboards, junkyards and other unsightly displays that she felt marred the natural beauty of our nation’s countryside.

President Johnson announced the America the Beautiful initiative during his State of the Union speech in January 1965, saying:

“I want to make sure that the America we see from these major highways is a beautiful America.”

Thus followed Highway Beautification act that called for control of outdoor advertising and other items along Interstate or primary highways and encouraged scenic enhancement of our nation’s roadsides.

On her 70th birthday in 1982, Mrs. Johnson founded the National Wildflower Research Center, a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to the preservation and re-establishment of native plants in natural and planned landscapes. She donated 60 acres of land to establish the Center. In December, 1997, the Center was renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in honor of Mrs. Johnson’s 85th birthday. Mrs. Johnson was chairman of the Wildflower Center’s board of directors until her death in 2007.

I remember well her passing, as the people of Texas lined up for miles along her funeral procession route, the hearse coming through Oak Hill on its way to her final resting place beside her husband at the family cemetery at the LBJ ranch.

She accomplished so much in her lifetime, and she left us an amazing legacy by raising awareness of the importance of preserving natural and native beauty in our nation.

Bluebonnets against the backdrop of the Hill Country.

The bluebonnet show is just as dramatic in contrast to Indian Paintbrush.

In my own garden, bluebonnets blanket my stone and granite path and my daughter’s play scape pea gravel, taking their place with another of my spring favorites, winecup.

Up close or as distant blur of constant blue along the hills of Texas, bluebonnets herald the arrival of spring like no other.

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:02-06:00April 11th, 2015|Blog, bluebonnet, Indian paintbrush, path, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring bloomers, Wildflower Center, Wildflowers, wildlflower, winecup|0 Comments

12 Next

spring bloomers