Digging

Golden hour with a canyon view

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 05:38:39 +0200

May 31, 2023

On a recent golden afternoon I snail-crawled my way through my friend Cat‘s garden as she narrated its spring journey. The tale happily meandered, and so did our feet.

I stopped to admire each glowing moment.

Isn’t this a charming vignette, with a terracotta frog perched among a leopard plant’s lily-pad leaves?

Nearby, a skull with twig antlers — a spirit deer — watches over the garden and its dry creek.

A nubby fountain offers a splashy birdbath. ‘Everillo’ sedge glows at its base. In the stock-tank pond in the background…

…a goldfish convention.

American basketflower shows off lavender, filament-like petals.

And yucca bells ring their sunset song.

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Come learn about garden design from the experts at Garden Spark! I organize in-person talks by inspiring designers, landscape architects, and authors a few times a year in Austin. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance. Simply click this link and ask to be added. Season 7 starts in August. Stay tuned for the lineup!

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Fawns welcome me home

Tue, 30 May 2023 00:05:19 +0200

May 29, 2023

Did you notice it’s been a little quiet around here? If you follow my Instagram, you already know I joined my husband this spring on a 5-week RVing trip to see national parks in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas. (Find my Instagram stories about the trip in my highlights under Nat’l Parks.) The parks were sublime, majestic, abundant with eye-popping wildlife (grizzlies, bison, moose, and more) — all the things we hoped to see. The driving — 6,500 miles of it! — was entertaining (lots of podcasts and out-loud reading), tedious (so. many. miles), thrilling (we drove a canyon-clinging dirt road with an abyss on one side and no guardrails), frustrating (we coped with two different tire blow-outs on our rented RV), and peaceful (that iconic western scenery).

In short, it was an adventure.

We rolled into our driveway last Tuesday, road-weary and eager to be home, and discovered that a doe — maybe two — had commandeered the front garden as a daycare.

A set of twins and maybe another single fawn have been bedding down in the garden, waiting for their moms to return from a few hours of grazing. We startled them a few times after our return, accidentally sending them bounding across the street into a neighbor’s shrubbery.

They seem more used to us now. I spotted the twins in our driveway one afternoon, sticking close to mom but also exploring a bit and nibbling, as they do.

Their mom soon sent them off to bed, watching as they picked their way into the gravel garden between garage and house…

…where they awkwardly knelt and tucked themselves into bed on knobby rocks. We spy on them from the hall bath window.

The gloriously mild and rainy spring Central Texas experienced while I was away turned the roadsides into a kaleidoscope of orange, yellow, and purple wildflowers. It also worked its magic on my garden, filling many of the gaps from two hard winters and last summer. Here’s the serpentine raised bed behind the house, abloom with purple skullcap, ‘Ellen’s Legacy’ red rock rose (a new one I’m trying), hesperaloe, lanceleaf blanketflower, and aloe. A happy sight to come home to.

Another view

A pink rain lily popped up amid ‘Everillo’ sedge, with guara, a moody mangave, and ‘Amistad’ salvia behind.

On the deck, tiny potted succulents seem to be enjoying the mild weather too. From left to right: ‘Cream Spike’ agave, ‘Bloodspot’ mangave, and Leopold agave (I think).

Blushing leaves echo an orange deck chair.

The datura near the back porch has made a Risk-level move to take over the entire bed. Last night a dozen or more tubes unfurled like glowing spotlights. This is the morning after, with flowers still open under a cloudy sky.

It’s officially summer now. I hope it will be as relatively mild as spring has been here in Texas.

I’ll be posting about the national parks and monuments we visited as I have time. I can’t wait to share my favorite images with you!

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Digging Deeper

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Kinder Land Bridge restores coastal prairie and unites Houston’s Memorial Park

Thu, 04 May 2023 17:19:00 +0200

May 04, 2023

Kinder Land Bridge as seen from Memorial Drive

Houston’s Memorial Park, a 1,500-acre urban green space, has for years been sliced and diced by busy roadways, keeping people and wildlife from safe access to all parts of the park. Compounding this design flaw, the heavily wooded park took a hit from Hurricane Ike in 2008 and again during the punishing drought that culminated in 2011. These two events killed off nearly half of the park’s trees.

Local planners might have undertaken a massive tree-planting campaign and called it good. Instead, visionaries reimagined Memorial Park, raising funds and drawing up a master plan for a land bridge to reunite the park, with green space and paths that soar over roadway tunnels, while below-grade a culvert allows additional wildlife passage. The plan also calls for acres of coastal prairie restoration rather than reforestation — a harder sell to the public than trees.

The Kinder Land Bridge and coastal prairie project opened to the public in February 2023. I walked over to see it from the Houston Arboretum a couple weeks ago, following a pedestrian path lined with black-eyed Susans and other native wildflowers.

The plantings are still new and do include some trees. But the prairie plants — grasses and herbaceous flowering plants, i.e., forbs — will do the heavy lifting when it comes to soaking up stormwater. Coastal prairie also provides diversity of habitat for wildlife, with pollinator plants that attract insects and seed-bearing grasses for birds and other creatures. Here’s more info from the Memorial Park Conservancy during the planning phase:

“The Land Bridge and Prairie project is an ecological conversion process, and trees removed during this process will either be relocated or repurposed within the Park to support a network of native Gulf Coastal Prairie and Savanna ecologies, as envisioned by the Memorial Park Master Plan. These ecologies once extended over 9 million acres from Corpus Christi, Texas[,] to Lafayette, Louisiana. Today, less than 1% of native Gulf Coastal Prairie habitat remains. Native prairie and savanna ecology is more resilient than the forested habitat that exists in this area today and will promote regional biodiversity of both plant and wildlife species while also helping to absorb and clean stormwater.”

The walk/bike path that arcs up the land bridge is marked by etched paragraphs that give a wide-angle view of the region’s history. Here we are at 8,000 BCE, when Earth’s climate was warming and Texas was transitioning from forests to grasslands. Bison grazed the coastal prairies of Texas.

By 6,000 BCE, a long drought turned Galveston Bay into a valley, and the modern Texas coastline was taking shape.

In the current era, the coastal prairie has mostly vanished, but “a vision for a more resilient Memorial Park is adopted.”

From atop the land bridge, you see prairie plantings and downtown Houston

At the top of the land bridge, a circular plaza with built-in benches (not pictured) creates space to rest or people-watch or to hold community gatherings. Markers even indicate where to watch the sunrise on the equinox and solstice. Thomas Woltz, principal of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, the firm that created the park’s master plan, said in a Houston Chronicle interview, “In a fractured society, how do we connect people to each other with a sense of community? One way is to create an experience of awe, and that’s a job for landscape architects….Feeling more connected to society gives me hope for bringing back civility in our society and caring for one another and the places we love, like Memorial Park.”

I love seeing projects like this one greening up and restoring native plants in our over-paved — or over-lawned — cities. Are there others you know about? For another example in Texas, read my post about Native Texas Park at the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas. Way to go, Texas cities!

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Digging Deeper

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Pond critters at Houston Arboretum

Sun, 30 Apr 2023 16:03:00 +0200

April 30, 2023

While in Houston a couple of weeks ago, with a few hours to kill, I heeded the call of nature. That is, I visited Houston Arboretum & Nature Center, an oasis for wildlife, native plants, and people who enjoy nature strolls and birding. This 155-acre refuge with 5 miles of trails is free (with paid parking) and located in Memorial Park, just west of downtown in our nation’s fourth largest city.

Located on the Gulf Coast, Houston is far wetter than Austin, with 50 inches of annual precipitation that falls regularly, versus Austin’s dry-dry-dry-flood 36 inches. It’s also vulnerable to hurricanes and storm surges. Protecting and restoring wetlands and coastal prairie reduces the risk of flooding in urban areas and is crucial to Houston’s future. At the Arboretum you can explore both wetlands and coastal prairie ecosystems, along with wooded areas that gave the Arboretum its name.

At the entrance to the nature center, a marsh along the path glows with the backlit foliage of wetland plants like iris. Lifelike metal cattails creatively display the names of donors.

Nearby, a massive crape myrtle splays a silvery nebula of roots across the soil.

With limited time, I randomly chose the Wildflower Trail, which soon led me to a squiggly boardwalk traversing South Woodway Pond.

Here I got held up, watching local residents — bullfrogs, water snakes, turtles, dragonflies, birds, and more — as they croaked, swam, basked, and flitted around the pond.

The deep, groaning vocalizations of bullfrogs give the impression of a much larger animal — although bullfrogs are large by frog standards.

I saw 4 snakes in about 30 minutes of wandering around the ponds. For those with a fear of snakes, know that you’re up on a boardwalk, and it’s fascinating to watch these harmless creatures in their habitat.

Pond plant flowering

An anole missing part of its tail — evidence of a narrow escape from a predator? — was hanging out on a wooden post.

I adore these bold, lime-green lizards. They aren’t particularly skittish and often seem curious, allowing a closer photograph.

A second pond, the North Woodway Pond, offers more wildlife-watching opportunities.

Like this orderly row of turtles basking on a log.

While enjoying the ponds I heard other visitors talking about the Kinder Land Bridge, which I’d seen by car. I hadn’t realized it was nearby, but I googled it and saw I could walk there. I exited the Arboretum through the Woodway Drive gate and strolled along a walking path to it, about a third of a mile away. I’ll share that in my next post.

The Houston Arboretum is located in Memorial Park, with entrances at 4501 Woodway Drive and 120 West Loop North Freeway. It’s open daily from 7 am to dusk. The nature center, with displays of native plants and animals and a book shop, is open daily from 9 am to 4 pm. Admission is free, but parking costs $5.50 per vehicle, unless you’re a member and then it’s free. Parking is free for everyone on Thursdays, but be aware that spaces are limited.

If you visit with kids in tow, don’t miss the fun playground near the nature center.

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Days of yucca and roses…and weeds

Sun, 23 Apr 2023 16:23:00 +0200

April 23, 2023

With seemingly unending cleanup from the February ice storm, which entailed much tree work (more is still needed), a roof repair, A/C replacement, and a side fence replacement, plus extra pruning-back necessitated by the damaging December freeze — whew! — I’ve gotten behind on the usual spring gardening chores. My most hated chore is weeding, and boy, does it show in the lower garden. Still, I manage to avert my eyes most days and just enjoy the sight of Koosh-ball yuccas and pink ‘Peggy Martin’ roses clambering along the fence.

Spiky yuccas and the Katrina rose are happy companions in a sunny patch. Why plant a rose you have to spray and spray when you can grow a disease-resistant variety like ‘Peggy Martin’, which has such an amazing survival story too? Click the Katrina link if you don’t know it.

The ‘Frazzle Dazzle’ dyckias have also started blooming! Is there anything cuter than these mop-top dyckias with honey-yellow bloom spikes? The deer eat the flowers out front, but I can enjoy them for days and days in my back garden.

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On the hunt for a Shantung maple at Metro Maples

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 19:23:54 +0200

April 18, 2023

One thing that may surprise you about North Texas gardens is they frequently indulge a passion for Japanese maples. In the leafy, older neighborhoods of Dallas–Fort Worth, Japanese maples fill the understory with wine-red leaves and a ballerina’s grace. Although they need deep soakings during droughty Texas summers (and are suitable only to the eastern third of the state, with Dallas–Fort Worth just on the edge of that region), Japanese maples grow well given shade and deep soil.

Some of my North Texas gardening friends are also growing the sun-loving Shantung maple (Acer truncatum). I was unfamiliar with this tree until fairly recently. Turns out, Shantung maple is a Texas Superstar: “Reminiscent of Japanese maple but with much greater toughness. This beautiful maple has spreading canopy with attractive foliage that turns spectacular red, red-orange in late fall. Tolerates heat and alkaline soils. Makes wonderful shade tree for smaller yards.”

I decided I had to try a Shantung maple in my own garden, especially now that my garden is a little sunnier. But I couldn’t find any in Austin over the winter. So when I was in Fort Worth a few weeks ago, I paid a visit to Metro Maples, a tree nursery several local gardeners recommended. Metro Maples is open by appointment, which I didn’t realize, but they graciously made time for me when I showed up.

On that cool, cloudy day in late March, I wandered the grounds, enjoying the colorful leaves and delicate, dangling flowers of Japanese maples planted in the ground and for sale in pots. A few azaleas were flowering too.

Who says a shade garden is only green?

While admiring the trees I met owner Scott Hubble, who worked at the nursery for a decade or so before purchasing it from the previous owner in 2016. Soft spoken but welcoming, Scott told me about the nursery and his passion for bonsai. The whole place felt almost like a nature park, quiet and woodsy.

‘Orangeola’ Japanese maple

‘Orange Dream’ Japanese maple

Frilly pink-and-white azaleas made a pretty complement to the burgundy trees.

There were beautiful pines too.

I’d never seen a weeping Japanese maple, but Metro Maples had one: ‘Ryusen’.

A big maple, balled and burlapped

Look at the claw-like leaves, pretty flowers, and tiny moths sipping nectar on this Japanese maple. I didn’t get the cultivar name.

‘Osakazuki’ Japanese maple

Fall-like color

A large koi pond enclosed by a Japanese-style fence adds more orange.

The koi swarmed a hello.

Behind the fence, I spotted a tall Shantung maple with a rounded canopy of fresh green leaves.

Metro Maples carries several cultivars of the Shantung with richer coloring and a smaller mature size, like ‘Super Dragon’.

I settled on a 5-gallon ‘Fire Dragon’ Shantung maple and planted it in the back garden near the deck, which I hope it will eventually shade. It’s one of my sunniest spaces, and I planted it high as I was advised. Shantungs do not like to have their crown sitting in moist soil, I was told. I hope it grows fast and has good fall color. It’ll be nice to have some diversity amid all the live oaks.

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Digging Deeper

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Last of the bluebonnets in Ruthie’s garden

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 16:03:00 +0200

April 14, 2023

Whenever there’s a chance to show more bluebonnets, before they’re gone, show more bluebonnets.

I spotted these in Ruthie Burrus’s garden last week. Her spring garden is always a vision, but the last of the bluebonnets, mingling here with pink evening primrose, are what I’m thinking of today. I love those Texas native wildflowers.

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Digging Deeper

Experience the Surreal Garden at Zilker Botanical Garden, an enchanting neon-art display throughout the gardens, with food and drink, music and dancing, surreal performers, and interactive art sculptures. Surreal costumes encouraged! 25% of event proceeds benefit the Zilker Botanical Garden Conservancy. Runs April 6 (VIP Night), April 7-8, and April 13-15, from 6:30 pm to 11 pm.

Add to your succulent collection at the Austin Cactus & Succulent Society Spring Show & Sale on April 15 and 16, from 10 am to 5 pm, at Zilker Botanical Garden. Come enjoy the plant show, shop for unique plants and pottery, and participate in a silent auction and raffles. Free with paid admission to Zilker Botanical Garden.

Tour 9 designer landscapes on the 2023 Austin Outdoor Living Tour on May 6. Designers and builders will be on hand to answer your questions. Cost is $33.85 for adults and $17.85 for kids aged 12 to 17. For safety, no one under 12 years of age except for carried infants.

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Zilker Garden lights up with neon, costumes for Surreal Garden

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 21:34:02 +0200

April 12, 2023

These flowers are watching you

If you enjoy seeing a familiar garden with a twist of surreality, humor, and neon art, the Surreal Garden event at Zilker Botanical Garden is for you. And for me! I attended last year’s inaugural event and happily returned this year.

The Surreal Garden is a neon art exhibition by Austin-based Ion Art and includes a live DJ and dancing, performance artists, food trucks, cash bars, and Austinites turned out in creative costumes. It all takes place in Zilker Garden’s rose garden, prehistoric garden, and entry garden.

I love a good costume party, and the Surreal Garden delivers. This couple wearing disconcertingly realistic barn owl get-ups were my favorites. They played up the effect by remaining silent and cocking their heads in an owly way when asked to pose for a photo. My husband dubbed them “owls in cowls.”

As you stroll through the garden, neon animals glow in the foliage like something out of a dream.

Here is another terrific costume: a mushroom lady!

She coordinates with a neon mushroom with eyes, who watches as you pass.

Oh look, someone else with three eyes!

Neon agave

A people-eating neon monster — an oversized anglerfish — returned from last year’s event.

As did this long-legged elephant.

Lots of Austinites “tuned in” to the Surreal Garden last Saturday after Thursday and Friday were rained out. The event takes place again this week on April 13th, 14th, and 15th. A fancier VIP night is also available on the 16th.

It’s a good way to get your hula on and support Zilker Botanical Garden Conservancy, which receives 25% of the proceeds, funds that Zilker Garden uses to maintain and improve the gardens.

Consider becoming a ZBG Conservancy member too! You get free admission to the garden for a year, plus reciprocal admission to many other botanic gardens, including the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Dallas Arboretum, and the John Fairey Garden in Hempstead.

Projected lights on Zilker’s gazebo reflect in the koi pond.

A neon hippo rises from another pond.

And a leaping hammerhead shark adds a little menace.

This cheerful couple, both wearing pink and rabbit ears, stood out in the crowd.

An Alice in Wonderland reference suits the surreal theme. Follow the neon white rabbit down the reflective rabbit hole.

Neon chameleon

Picasso-esque face paint turned her into a work of art.

More faces, of the Easter Island variety

Even the plants take on a surreal quality under neon lighting, like this sago palm.

Neon sea dragon

And another anglerfish

Uh-oh, the aliens have landed.

In the prehistoric garden, a limestone cliff wall glows with neon petroglyphs. A sub-sardine chugs along too.

Neon headwear of all kinds is popular at the Surreal Garden. Fairy and butterfly wings too. This cute couple shows off both.

Neon jellyfish dangle from trees near the dinosaur sculpture — who wears neon cowboy boots! — in the prehistoric garden.

More Easter Island heads, in conversation

And neon tigers, itching for a fight

A woman on a flying fish soars over the waterfall in the prehistoric garden. She’s living her best neon life, and you can too. Tickets to the Surreal Garden‘s final weekend are available for $50 in advance and at the door. Surreal costumes are encouraged.

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Digging Deeper

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Spring spurs spuria irises

Fri, 07 Apr 2023 16:28:00 +0200

April 07, 2023

The spuria irises have sprung! Their burnt gold, droopy-petaled flowers perch atop tall stems, surrounded by slender, sword-shaped leaves, sheltered under a crape myrtle canopy.

Their distinctive color pops against a green backdrop.

They glow behind mauve, fleshy ‘Fiercely Fabulous’ mangave.

They make a golden filling between gray stained deck stairs and gray sinuous crape myrtle trunks. ‘Little Grapes’ gomphrena‘s button-like, magenta flowers add subtle contrast in the foreground.

The bluebonnets and redbuds and plums are over. Middle spring is upon us here in Central Texas. I’m happy to see the spurias return once again.

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Garden party at Lucinda’s purple casita

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 16:03:00 +0200

April 05, 2023

I kicked up my heels at Lucinda Hutson‘s purple casita a week ago, charmed as ever by her festive, Tex-Mex garden and her way of celebrating life through good food, friendship, and color.

I wore a Mexican-style dress like Lucinda often does, but I left the purple to her. She wears it well!

I’ve photographed Lucinda’s garden many times over the years, but I always find a new perspective to enchant me.

Mexican tiles and pottery arranged on a garden stool

The flirty mermaid in the Mermaid Garden perches in her bower of seashells and capiz shells. Succulents create a coral-reef vibe, and kelp-like snake plants on either side complete the under-the-sea look.

In the sunny vegetable garden, colorful potted annuals and herbs complement the purple garage with its mosaic-tiled eaves.

In back, Lucinda’s tequila cantina is ready to host another party.

Scrumptious small plates pleased my eye and my taste buds. Look how pretty it all is.

Thank you, Lucinda, for a beautiful time in your home and garden!

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Digging Deeper

Shop for native Texas plants at the Wildflower Center’s spring Native Plant Sale. Held on Fridays through Sundays, March 24 to May 7, from 9 am to 1 pm. The first weekend is just for Wildflower Center members, so join to enjoy this perk, plus get free admission all year and more.

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Flowers going up and coming down

Mon, 03 Apr 2023 17:39:00 +0200

April 03, 2023

The first hummingbird appeared last weekend, zooming under the dangling red flowers of soap aloes. No surprise there. Those aloes put out quite the welcome mat for hummers.

The spiderwort has had a good run — here’s a volunteer by the covered porch, looking pretty — but the mild days of spring are rapidly drawing to an end. We’ve already had a 90-degree day or two, and more are expected today and tomorrow. That means ratty, gone-to-seed spiderwort, so I’ll be getting out the pruners and cutting them down this week.

Spuria iris are starting to flower, and according to my records, they’re about a month early. Wow!

I gave the ‘Winter Gem’ boxwoods a haircut last week with my battery-powered hedge trimmers. I’ve learned a new trick for doing this chore: spread a couple of old sheets around the base of the shrub before trimming. Afterward, gather the trimmed leaves in the sheets and dump them into the yard waste bin. No more yellowing leaves scattered on the ground!

The next day, as I reached across a boxwood to pluck a missed leaf, I sucked in my breath and yanked back my hand — that involuntary “zero at the bone” reaction. It was just a harmless rat snake stretched across the boxwood ball, resting there. I suspect it was hunting birds. A pair of titmice are raising chicks in the owl box on the deck post high above. I hope they stay safe, but I didn’t intervene.

I did intervene on something else. Last week I noticed a change in the leaf pattern at the top of the big Yucca rostrata. Was it going to bloom after all these years, I wondered?

Sure enough, a view from the deck revealed a bloom spike rising from the top. An exciting moment, especially because yuccas, unlike agaves, don’t die after they flower. But then I remembered that I treat my big, valuable yuccas and agaves annually with a systemic drench to keep them safe from the agave snout-nosed weevil. Systemic insecticides are taken up by the roots and stay in the system of a plant for a year. That means that when the flowers open and pollinators like bees or moths find them, they would be poisoned. That’s a big nope. So I used a pole saw to cut off the bloom spike.

I’m sorry not to be able to enjoy the drama and beauty of the yucca’s flowering. But I would feel terrible about harming pollinators that were drawn to it. Removing it was the responsible thing to do.

I’m unwilling to take a chance on losing my big yuccas and agaves to the weevil, so I treat them — carefully and slowly, avoiding runoff onto other plants. And then I must take care not to let them flower. That way, only pests that chew into the plants are affected.

In the night garden, palm fronds add fringey silhouettes…

…and an ‘Opal’ agave’s yellow stripes glow.

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Digging Deeper

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Fields awash in Texas bluebonnets and other wildflowers

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 17:22:31 +0200

March 25, 2023

Galvanized by swaths of bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) coloring Austin’s urban roadsides, I drove east on Thursday morning to wander the dirt roads of Industry, a berg of around 273 people. There I found farmsteads in rolling fields of denim blue.

The bluebonnets are showing off this spring, blooming a couple of weeks ahead of schedule and in abundance thanks to winter rains, at least around Austin and to the east and south. I don’t know if the Hill Country west of Austin has turned blue yet. If anyone reading this has a recent report, please share.

I’d never been to Industry, but it did not disappoint. The bluebonnets along its back roads are grand right now.

Other wildflowers are looking lovely too.

Bluebonnets mingling with Indian paintbrush and pink evening primrose

And with a tall yellow flower

Indian paintbrush and a weather-sculpted tree

Ka-pow! So many bluebonnets!

A Texas-proud gate sets the scene…

…for a sea of bluebonnets.

Bluebonnets and paintbrush

Another bucolic scene

And another lone star design

Horses and bluebonnets make a picturesque view.

One more

A weathered old building glows in the morning light.

Someone’s been cruising in this field of paintbrush.

Spring greens and a smattering of bluebonnets and pink evening primrose

I saw a cute calf and its mama lounging in blue flowers.

It looks like there’s a twin lying down.

A windmill beyond a field of blue

Indian paintbrush stands tall amid bluebonnets

Waves of blue

I was crawling slower than 30 mph to enjoy the flowers.

This field pops with magenta and yellow wildflowers in addition to bluebonnets.

Butterflies were swooping over the flowers.

Some fields were colored more subtly, including with green-and-copper prickly pear.

Layers of color

Paintbrush and bluebonnets

And more!

OK, one more

If you have time this weekend and can swing east, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

In fact, your heart might sing.

Go get your wildflower fix if you can.

Happy spring!

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Digging Deeper

Tour season kicks off with the new Austin Home’s Great Outdoors Tour on March 25 from 11 am to 4 pm. Visit 7 designer landscapes for $20, and gather ideas for your own outdoor living space.

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I’m writing about the healing power of nature in Wildflower magazine

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 17:50:05 +0200

March 24, 2023

The new issue of Wildflower explores the therapeutic power of nature, a timely topic post-pandemic. I’m happy to say I contributed two articles to the issue.

The first is “Nature Therapy Is Child’s Play,” which starts on page 24. I looked into studies showing that nature play is essential to kids’ mental and physical health, and I talked with experts about how gardens and natural spaces positively impact children and adolescents. Many young people are really struggling right now and need our help — and Mother Nature’s — to feel better in our screen-focused world.

My other article, “Propagating Happiness” on page 42, is about a research study by Rosalie Kelley, a Wildflower Center program manager and U.S. Army veteran. While pursuing a master’s degree at Texas State, she devised a study with university students who were military veterans to see if caring for plants had a positive impact on the students’ mental health. Hint: it did!

You’ll find numerous other articles about the healing power of nature in the issue — but only if you’re a member of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, which gives you a subscription to the magazine.

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Digging Deeper

Tour season kicks off with the new Austin Home’s Great Outdoors Tour on March 25 from 11 am to 4 pm. Visit 7 designer landscapes for $20, and gather ideas for your own outdoor living space.

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Spikes and springtime

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 17:48:00 +0200

March 22, 2023

Spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis), a self-sowing native and a springtime beauty, continues to color my shady spaces purple. Its bee-feeding flowers open at dawn and close in the early afternoon, except on cool, cloudy days, when they may stay open all day.

More flower spikes line the raised bed behind the house, where winter-wounded soap aloes (Aloe maculata) have burst into coral-red bloom, in spite of their missing succulent “arms.” I’ve heard that hummingbirds have returned to Austin. I’ve yet to see one this spring, but these aloe flowers are sure to attract the earliest visitors.

In preparation for hotter weather, I planted a new mangave, ‘Fiercely Fabulous’, in the blue pot on the paver pillar. It bristles like its metal lizard companion.

The UFOs are hovering over the garden again now that spring is here. I overwintered these hanging planters inside whenever we had a freeze, and their ‘Frazzle Dazzle’ dyckias are looking as zany as ever, like crazy, spiky haircuts. ‘Color Guard’ yuccas add height at ground level in short metal pots.

An even bigger yucca — my largest — towers over the side path into the back garden. This ‘Sapphire Skies’ Yucca rostrata is about 12 feet tall now.

The bottle tree is another kind of zany feature in my garden nowadays, plunked into the new stock-tank planter. I’m itching for the silver ponyfoot in the tank to creep its way across the decomposed granite and drape over the sides. But it’s been cool, chilly even, and ponyfoot likes the heat. Must. Be. Patient.

As ever, the sunburst-patterned stone paving makes for a pleasing view from the elevated deck. I can almost ignore those tiny little plants in the stock-tank planter by focusing on the bottle tree glowing in the evening.

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Digging Deeper

Tour season kicks off with the new Austin Home’s Great Outdoors Tour on March 25 from 11 am to 4 pm. Visit 7 designer landscapes for $20, and gather ideas for your own outdoor living space.

The post Spikes and springtime appeared first on Digging.

Juliet Whitsett reimagines native plants and animals and co-curates Really Small Museum ATX

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 22:37:12 +0200

March 20, 2023

Browsing the well-curated garden shop at Barton Springs Nursery recently, I stopped to admire a dozen framed graphic prints of cacti, butterflies, snakes, salamanders, and other Texas flora and fauna. The artist behind these joyful works is Austinite Juliet Whitsett, and they are part of her “Threatened Texas” fine art prints featuring Texas plants and animals on the threatened and endangered species list.

I visited Juliet at her home not long after, where she introduced me to another of her projects, Really Small Museum ATX. Together she and fellow artist Marianne Newsom installed two micro-museum displays in each of their front yards. Reminiscent of a Little Free Library, each RSM is a white cube atop a post, with a plexiglass window displaying a teeny tiny artwork by a local artist. The art on display, curated by Juliet and Marianne, changes every month or so, giving passersby an ongoing opportunity to appreciate new art and learn about the artists.

Juliet and Marianne dubbed each RSM with a name that plays off a well-known Austin art museum. The 14th Corner Contemporary, aka The 14th — with a humorous nod to The Contemporary Austin — greets visitors at 1311 Harvey Street. The Banton Road Museum of Art, aka The Banton — hat tip to The Blanton Museum of Art — can be viewed at 3509 Banton Road.

When Juliet and Marianne launched the Really Small Museum ATX installation, they expected to end it after a year, in November 2022. But its popularity keeps it going. I visited The 14th — the more ecologically focused of the two — in early March 2023, when a work by Tammy West called Ghost Seeds — Prayer for Our Trees was on display. From @reallysmallmuseum_atx, here’s a description of her work:

“Ice storms, extreme heat and drought are stressing our trees. As the climate warms it will eventually be too hot and dry for some trees. Older trees, especially in the West, are producing less seeds and some mature forests aren’t regenerating after fires. Tammy’s installation speaks to this concept with fragile and thin ghost mesquite beans made out of white clay, arranged on drought ridden cracked earth. Pine trees have had a hard time nation-wide due to drought and beetle infestation. Our Loblolly pines in Bastrop have been able to adapt to 30% less water than their eastern cousins, and avoid beetles so far, but will they continue to do so? To address this; prayer flags, made out of pines needles, send wishes to our trees.

You’re invited to help replace our fallen trees from the recent ice storm. In the boxes below, please take some tree seeds and plant them in your yard or on public land, as well as leaving seeds for others.”

In a small box on the ground, mesh jewelry bags contain tree seeds, offered for free in the hope of replacing trees felled by Austin’s February ice storm.

Juliet’s cactus art print

I’m always wowed by the creativity of Austin’s artists (see my recent post about Shawn Smith’s “Ommatidium”), who are moved by the beauty and fragility of our world and compelled to share that understanding with others. Check out Juliet’s personal work and her co-curated Really Small Museum ATX to immerse yourself in an artistic vision.

Read more about Really Small Museum ATX at Glasstire.

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Digging Deeper

Tour season kicks off with the new Austin Home’s Great Outdoors Tour on March 25 from 11 am to 4 pm. Visit 7 designer landscapes for $20, and gather ideas for your own outdoor living space.

The post Juliet Whitsett reimagines native plants and animals and co-curates Really Small Museum ATX appeared first on Digging.

Crossvine trumpeting spring’s arrival

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 17:08:26 +0200

March 12, 2023

Of all the vines that grow well with little care in Central Texas, ‘Tangerine Beauty’ crossvine (Bignonia capreolata ‘Tangerine Beauty’) may be my favorite.

This spring-flowering beauty blushes with abundant orange blossoms with golden centers, and the vine is semi-evergreen in winter too.

It has always bloomed, even in the shade of all our trees. But one upside of last month’s ice storm that broke so many large limbs is more sun, and the crossvine has responded to it with a better-than-ever flowering.

Purple spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis), a self sowing — i.e., weedy — spring beauty, is in full bloom too. Every year it pops up in new places, dotting its purple flowers and daylily-like foliage throughout the shady areas of my garden. I don’t think I planted any of these clumps along a stone stair to the lower garden. They planted themselves perfectly.

The flowers coordinate nicely with the ‘Tangerine Beauty’ crossvine and blueberry-colored tuteur from TerraTrellis. To reduce the self-sowing a little, I’ll whack back the flowering stems once they start going to seed. But in the meantime, the bees adore them, and I’m happy to feed them.

But it’s not all about flowers in my garden. I’m appreciating the spherical, blue-green foliage of beaked yucca (Yucca rostrata) just as much.

The stock-tank planter is still rough-looking as I wait for the agave to recover and for silver ponyfoot to unify the surface. But I like having the tank here again and look forward to tinkering with the plantings as it fills in.

‘Wonderful’ pomegranate leafing out with orange-tinged foliage

‘Traveller’ weeping redbud just starting to flower. That’s a loropetalum flowering hot-pink to the left.

View under another beaked yucca’s fringe. You can see how very sunny the circle garden is now, post-ice storm.

I always have orange accents, like these spray-painted metal chairs on the deck. The orange contrasts nicely with cool blues. Another example: a whale’s tongue agave pup in a terracotta pot. Even the soap aloe (Aloe maculata) is getting in on it, with the increased sun deepening its coloring.

Happy spring, y’all!

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Digging Deeper

Make plans to attend the Budding Out Plant Sale & Festival on March 18 at the John Fairey Garden in Hempstead, TX. Rare and distinctive plants will be offered, as well as art, ceramics, jewelry, food, drink, music, and other entertainment for the whole family. Members have early access and get in free. Non-member admission is $5. Children 12 and under are free.

Tour season kicks off with the new Austin Home’s Great Outdoors Tour on March 25 from 11 am to 4 pm. Visit 7 designer landscapes for $20, and gather ideas for your own outdoor living space.

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A bug’s eye view: Shawn Smith’s Ommatidium exhibition

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 15:05:00 +0200

March 10, 2023

Remnant

I followed the buzz last Saturday and attended the opening of Austin artist Shawn Smith‘s “Ommatidium” exhibition at grayDUCK Gallery. I’ve followed Shawn’s work with interest for years. For one thing, he and his wife, Ann, are neighbors and friends of ours, and sometimes I get a sneak peek of new work in his studio. For another, his focus on the complicated — and often digitally filtered — human perception of nature is fascinating.

Cathedral

Shawn is known for his 3D pixilated wooden sculptures of animals — often astonishingly life-sized. For “Ommatidium,” he diverges from his usual style to create 2D artworks, fanciful insect sculptures, a flickering light installation, and even a stained-glass sculpture of an Australian termite mound (pictured above). It’s a terrific show — thought-provoking, slyly humorous, and oddly beautiful. Here’s the official description:

“Ommatidium explores our complicated relationship with the insect world. The show investigates the darkly humorous marketing of chemical agents to safely annihilate, the extreme championing of aesthetically pleasing and useful insects over all others, the strangely macabre methods of measuring insect population density, and the overlooked beauty of their complex architecture. Ommatidium refers to the compound eye structure that insects use to view the world. With this exhibition, artist Shawn Smith uses this idea of complex vision to encourage viewers to overcome their innate fear and disgust of insects and see them through a different lens.”

MAD

Watch the Red Queen run, and see a secret message revealed in this 55-second video of MAD. The Red Queen Effect, one of the concepts at play here, is a hypothesis about evolutionary biology, named after a character in Alice in Wonderland. The concept of MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction, will be familiar to anyone who lived through the Cold War.

Flit Gun

A flit gun, an old-style pesticide sprayer, greets you at the door of the gallery. A bird’s head is fused to the sprayer — one of the unintended victims of indiscriminate insecticide use, which poisons the food supply of many other animals.

“Kills Pests Dead,” it reads. And more!

Buzzwords

Buzzwords, a gigantic collage of cheery insecticide advertisements, hangs on one wall of the gallery. Many of these made me laugh out loud, or groan in disbelief. The ad at top left (above) proclaims, “DDT is good for me-e-e!”

“No Flies on Me Thanks to DDT,” reads another with a photo of a smiling baby.

NIMBY

Wasp-nest letters spell out NIMBY, an acronym for “Not In My Backyard.” The uncomfortable feeling you get, viewing this exhibition, is knowing you’ve (at least I have) used insecticides to get rid of pesky insects. Wasps building a nest by the back door? Sure. Fire ants? No hesitation. Agave snout-nosed weevils attacking my treasured (and expensive) big agaves and towering yuccas? I’m afraid so. Just this week I coated the interior of my mailbox with Raid when ants started building a nest in there. The guilt! But ants in the mail? Nope.

It’s easy to adore ladybugs, dragonflies, and butterflies, but it’s challenging to embrace all insects, especially destructive or dangerous ones. Shawn’s art recognizes that and asks us to examine our conflicted feelings about bugs. Isn’t there beauty and value here, it asks?

Prepping for the Void series

Of his Prepping for the Void series of insect sculptures, Shawn writes:

“In a typical summer month, 6 billion insects fly over your head. Wind and air currents disperse insects to great distances. Since 1926, scientists have been using airplanes to collect insects as high as 19,000 feet. For this series, I imagined creating space suits to help the insects survive their journey.”

Invisible Cities: Weaver Ant Nest

Pixilated collages of insect “homes” — chrysalises, termite mounds, and ant nests — make up the Invisible Cities series. Shawn’s wife, Ann Berman, collaborated on these intriguing artworks, each of which is collaged from “books of things that humans value: gold, fine art, rare orchids, and golf courses.” Weaver Ant Nest (above) was pieced together from photos of golf courses.

Kaleidoscope in Decline

A caterpillar-shaped, 3D wall sculpture of monarch butterflies is called Kaleidoscope in Decline. “The overall shape represents a graph of the declining monarch butterfly population from 1993 to 2017.”

Remnant

A striking — and squirm-inducing to those with trypophobia — 3D piece called Remnant features a photograph of the artist’s face molded to a found paper wasp nest. Shawn writes:

“Paper wasps use their nests to rear their young. At the end of the season, they leave the nest and never return. I was fascinated that so much labor goes into creating, maintaining, and defending such an intricate architectural structure, only to be abandoned. Paper wasps use facial recognition to identify the members of their hive….I transfigure[d] my portrait by inserting it into a wasp nest. I wanted to identify myself as something in nature not outside of it.”

Artist Shawn Smith

Well done, Shawn (and Ann)! If you’re in Austin, put on your virtual compound eyes and go see “Ommatidium” at grayDUCK Gallery. It runs through April 16, 2023. And if you want to meet Shawn, he’s giving an artist’s talk on April 1st at 2 pm.

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Digging Deeper

Tour season kicks off with the new Austin Home’s Great Outdoors Tour on March 25 from 11 am to 4 pm. Visit 7 designer landscapes for $20, and gather ideas for your own outdoor living space.

The post A bug’s eye view: Shawn Smith’s Ommatidium exhibition appeared first on Digging.

Make a stacked paver pedestal for your garden

Sat, 04 Mar 2023 17:45:00 +0200

March 04, 2023

Need an inexpensive yet eye-catching pedestal to show off a container or elevate a piece of garden art? Get some concrete pavers in two different sizes, and stack them in alternating layers to create a contemporary plinth.

I made this one using 12-inch and 18-inch square pavers. I’ve noticed lizards basking on the sun-warmed pavers, partly sheltered by the overhangs. Lizard habitat and a display space? Win-win! My metal lizard has new friends.

Before you stack your pavers, take the time to make a sturdy, level foundation. Excavate about 8 inches, digging a hole a bit wider than your largest paver. Spread several inches of paver base or decomposed granite, and use a tamper to pack it into a solid, level base. Stack a couple of pavers and use a level to check that there’s no lean. If there is, remove the pavers and add more base material and retamp it. Make sure it’s dead level before stacking your pavers to the desired height.

Use concrete adhesive on each layer for added stability, if desired. If you have young kids or grandkids who might be tempted to climb it, keep it low and/or use one size of paver for extra stability.

I’ve seen variations of stacked-paver pedestals in numerous gardens over the years. Here’s one made of round pavers in the late Eleanor Pratt’s garden in Austin. An article in Midwest Living shows a variation on this design using two different sizes of round pavers. And somewhere I have a photo of a spiral plinth made of stacked square pavers, each one set at a slight turn from the one below.

Bigger plinths can be made from stacked concrete blocks with pavers on top, like this orchid display table in Michael McDowell’s garden in Plano.

Here’s another one, for displaying a work of sculpture, at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center a number of years ago.

The humble concrete paver can be put to work for much more than paths and patios. Get creative with them to achieve some elevation in your garden and showcase a piece of art, a birdbath, or a planter.

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Digging Deeper

Come learn about garden design from the experts at Garden Spark! I organize in-person talks by inspiring designers, landscape architects, and authors a few times a year in Austin. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance. Simply click this link and ask to be added. You can find this year’s speaker lineup here.

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Flowering trees and more unfurling

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 19:18:32 +0200

March 02, 2023

Yesterday the Mexican plum (Prunus mexicana) burst into full bloom, transforming itself from bare twigs to fluffy white flowers seemingly overnight. And early! Last year, according to this blog post, the Mexican plum bloomed 2 weeks later than usual, in late March. This year it bloomed on March 1st!

Much of my garden is still in shades of tan from the Arctic freeze that bullied its way through Austin back in December. So it’s especially sweet to have the plum to enjoy right now.

Weather forecasters are saying a strong thunderstorm could blow in this evening. I hope the blossoms can hold on.

Looking longways across the back garden, another small native tree, Texas persimmon (Diospyros texana), is showing off white bark and tender new leaves. The persimmon narrowly escaped being crushed by falling tree limbs during the recent ice storm, so I’m especially grateful for its graceful shape and the glow of its pale trunks against the dark cedar fence. Those beaked yuccas (Yucca rostrata) aren’t too shabby either!

The ‘Wonderful’ pomegranate (Punica granatum) on the other side of the garden is also putting out new leaves, which glow an autumnal gold and orange. Hey, I thought this was spring!

No sign of spring yet on the weeping redbud (Cercis canadensis var. texensis ‘Traveller’), but it won’t be long. Meanwhile I’m appreciating its sculptural form.

‘Tangerine Beauty’ crossvine (Bignonia capreolata), a native cultivar, is starting to flower.

So is the native spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis).

Blue wall with blue yuccas and blue pool

Taking the side path uphill, you now have a view to the front garden, thanks to a new metal-mesh gate. A little extra air flow is nice too.

Here’s the gate from the other side, looking into the back garden. Nothing fancy, but it’s sturdy, and I love the inviting view it offers, even as it keeps out rabbits and armadillos. The steel frame and mesh will eventually develop a coating of rust.

A prickly pear heart wreath (metal) is the finishing touch.

Gopher plant (Euphorbia rigida) is electrically flowering in sunny spaces along paths. Most of it at this point is self-seeded, and I indulgently sidestep it, happy to have both foliage and flowers.

After the winter we’ve had here in Austin, spring is especially welcome. I know wherever you are, you’re feeling that way too.

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Digging Deeper

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Garden stirrings

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 16:45:00 +0200

February 27, 2023

The freeze-damaged aloes (Aloe maculata) may have lost most of their fleshy arms, but check this out: they’re sending up flower spikes for spring anyway. Go, aloes, go!

Here’s another one with just a couple “limbs,” but look at the size of that flower spike. These plants are so freeze-maimed that I ought to replace them with pups I saved in the garage. But I just don’t have the heart. They’re trying so hard.

We had a new fence built along the east-side property line last week. The old fence lasted about 14 years, but it was leaning and rotting. We followed the trend and went with a horizontal-board fence this time.

The stock tank is fully planted up with Ursula the variegated whale’s tongue agave (recovering from the December deep freeze and then being wrenched out of its rootbound pot), plus lots of oxblood lily bulbs and a few rain lilies, a soon-to-be unifying field of silver ponyfoot…

…and a dash of color from native four-nerve daisy (Tetraneuris scaposa) and winecup (Callirhoe involucrata).

The stock tank gets significantly more sun since the ice storm took out a bunch of big limbs on the live oaks. It’s easy to be OK with that now, when temps are mild(ish). More sun, more flowers after all. I hope I feel the same way this summer.

I love this time of year in the garden. All the promise of spring is in the air, even as reminders of last season still hang on a little longer. Here’s to new beginnings, which is what the garden is always about.

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Digging Deeper

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