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Spring in Austin . . . with dog
A testimony to what even a small drop of rain can do for an Austin garden in a drought. Hooray!Welcome to our back yard in mid-February. We lost most of the zoysia grass to a fungus last summer, so...
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Here comes color
Our mountain laurel every mid-Feb. decides either to leaf out or flower out. Looks like this Spring it's a bit of both. It smells like Welch's grape juice. Yum.This is an ice plant. Alien-looking....
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Passion in Lent
Spring abounds with surprise: the passion vine I put in a thin layer of old dirt, next to our driveway, has produced its first flower. Check out Wikipedia's entry on Passion Vine for the meaning...
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Planting, planting, yeay!
An established African bulbine, a succulent, and a good grower in droughts. No rain all year and look at this just one bloom of probably thirty or so in its cluster. We've two in the backyard, so far...
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Bluebonnet - Texas' state flower
Here they are, full-grown, with a little bit of red tucked into each petal. They've popped out all along our roadside strip, after I scattered some seeds last year. They just make me smile. Isn't it...
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Sproing!
This is one of three succulents that Jennifer Schaffer put in when she did our landscaping. They are agave celsii and they are, sadly, monocarpic (die after flowering once). We're looking forward...
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Still Sproinging
Our middle of three Agave Celsii is still shooting up its bloom stalk. It must be around 10ft high. Each "bud cluster" is a little trinitarian unit.I keep expecting to come out and find them...
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Spock, don't sniff it
The sproinging agave celsii finally started blooming, and boy is it freaky and wonderful. It reminds us of the old Star Trek episode where Spock takes a whiff of an alien blossom, and goes "mellow."...
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No Rain but Rain Lilies
It's not like I'm watering things much, but these rain lilies I learned about from Pam at Digging truly are a miracle. They don't need much water it seems and they just pop out at the hint of it.They...
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A cold front! 96 high today
I'm proud to present my first Pride of Barbados bloom, which would have done well in the drought anyway, but did better because it's right where the outdoor faucet is, which leaks a little.Garden by...
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A "New" Driveway
After 3 years, we really needed a top up for the driveway - decomposed granite for the level part, slightly larger, similar rosy-colored granite rocks (Fairland pink) for the slope, to hold up to rain...
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Hail to the Survivors
I'm amazed at how plants can make it through a drought as tough as we got in 09. Two Mexican blue sages I was sure were dead, along with some plumbago plants are back, albeit taking their time,...
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Clean Up Time
At long last, our agave americana (so called, even tho it has red spines instead of black) got the pruning it needed. And what a pruning it was. It now looks like a giant pineapple. But hey: it's...
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Still Life
My still life photos are rare, especially now my life is faster than ever. This scene practically made itself, I did a double take as I walked past the dining room table. Roses from the side of the...
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Let's Go Bananas
I have been asking visitors: what type of plant would best screen our back porch from the afternoon heat? One common answer: try a banana plant or two. So I bought one at Barton Springs Nursery for...
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What blooms in over 100 degrees?
Here's what: Pride of Barbados (by far the winner); catmint (in purple, tho not prolifically now; but our cat does love to roll in it);sunflowers (we took most of them out of our median, but it was...
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Where's the yellow in this picture?
Howdy, Garden bloggers,Check out these yellow bells ... but wait, you say, where's the yellow? In fact, where are the bells? These are two plants that just love the space and sun, clearly. But seem...
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Fall Joys
Here are some of the reasons I love our second Spring here in Austin. Especially one that began, at least, with a lot of rain.Esperanza (hope) or Yellow Bells - at last!The giant Muhlys have never...
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A happy goodbye to grass
It's clear that around our part of north central Austin, others are getting the same idea this summer: get rid of the grass, and "furnish" the yard instead. I like the idea of furnishing our yard....
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Grass continuing to go
Just a progressive account of the disappearance (deliberate) of our lawn. I decided to relocate the turf to the back of our garage, where we just had mulch. Even if it doesn't spring back, it'll be...
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Dry Creek Bed
This was last fall. This was last December. I pulled up more grass, and just kept digging, so I have a depression at one end (the visual end of the creek) and the "creek" then going alongside our...
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Progress on our not-so-dry creek bed
Well, I know it doesn't look like much, but it's a start. I'd been wondering how to continue the ditch (still hard to call it a creek at this point) under the fencing, without giving our dog a clear...
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Testing the Creek & Catch-up on Spring Activity
Our Spring started out with buckets of rain. It was a good chance to see if the run-off would flow the way I wanted it to down the creek I'm digging out. Mostly it did. It also went UP, overflowing...
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A Toast!
A friend gave me some winecups, these are called, at the start of Spring. Each plant bursts out of one point in the ground, and spreads out above in beautiful symmetry, one stalk remaining overhead....
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Springtime in the Fall
An iris thinks it's Easter. And here are some updated pics of the dry creek bed I'm building. It's sort of on hold while we wait for the city's approval to build a little second residence in the...
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