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Pam/Digging
Guest
April 24, 2020
Y’all may get weary of seeing my garden each week while I hole up at home during the pandemic. While I’m missing all the gardens I’m usually able to visit and photograph — and share here at Digging — I am enjoying the time spent in my own garden, especially now that the live oak pollen drop is finally cleaned up. Let’s take a tour around the back garden, shall we?
Bulbine and Mexican feathergrass are both abloom in the steel planter by the blue wall.
From behind the wall, the swimming pool makes a turquoise backdrop for bulbine and fiddlehead-shaped steel ornaments.
Behind the blue wall stands a Yucca rostrata, my Better Homes and Gardens prize-money plant. Look how big it’s getting!
I planted it exactly 5 years ago, pictured here newly installed. It’s grown fast and now stands about 6-1/2 feet tall.
I planted a little brother next to it a couple of years ago. In between is ‘Little Volcano’ bush clover (Lespedeza thunbergii subsp. thunbergii), a fall-blooming exotic I first saw in Ruthie Burrus’s garden. It dies to the ground in winter but has come back the past two springs. The pink rose is ‘Peggy Martin’, which I was inspired to try after seeing a cascade of flowers in my friend Vicki’s garden.
‘Peggy Martin’ looks terrific paired with moody ‘Sizzling Pink’ loropetalum (Loropetalum chinense).
Lounging in his favorite spot — a low wall — Cosmo keeps me company.
The back garden is shallow but wide, as seen in the long view along the back of the house. A trio of soap aloes (Aloe maculata) in the raised bed have been blooming for weeks. The metal screen on the chimney wall…
…is a favorite hangout for a big Texas spiny lizard. I see it there nearly every day. Hello, my bug-eating friend!
Below the screen grow variegated flax lily (Dianella tasmanica ‘Variegata’) and a native prickly pear, plants that can take the blast furnace of summer in this south-facing, reflected-heat spot.
The new Circle Garden, defined by 11-year-old ‘Winter Gem’ boxwood balls and a necklace of new ‘Micron’ holly balls, is viewed through a scrim of Verbena bonariensis.
A shade-sprawling Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruticosa) in golden bloom looks pretty against the turquoise door of the pool-pump shed.
Along the eastside path, ‘Traveller’ weeping redbud (Cercis canadensis var. texensis ‘Traveller’) is clothed in new green leaves that contrast with a ‘Plum’ loropetalum. A fringe of ‘Katie’ dwarf ruellia (Ruellia brittoniana ‘Katie’) will be blooming in a few more weeks.
The gold spuria iris are finished, but purple spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis) still ekes out a few more blooms each day. Suspended from a crape myrtle, an orange Hover Dish overflows with flowering ghost plant (Graptopetalum paraguayense).
Check out those gorgeous succulent leaves of pinkish gray and pale aqua! I love this hardy (in an Austin winter) succulent. Hummingbirds have been visiting those delicate, straw-colored flowers too.
Twining through the deck’s cattle-panel railing, ‘Lavender Lady’ passionflower is putting on a good show too. Gulf fritillary butterflies visit daily, laying eggs on the leaves, so I expect to see hungry orange caterpillars any day now. And that’s OK. They need to eat, and butterflies are a pretty ornament in the garden when flowers are gone.
I welcome your comments; please scroll to the end of this post to leave one. If you’re reading this in a subscription email, click here to visit Digging and find the comment box at the end of each post.
_______________________
Digging Deeper: News and Upcoming Events
Stream Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf, a film about the celebrated plant designer of NYC’s High Line and other gardens, previously watchable only through special screenings, this Friday through Sunday on Hauser & Wirth’s website.
Join the mailing list for Garden Spark! Hungry to learn about garden design from the experts? I’m hosting a series of talks by inspiring garden designers, landscape architects, and authors a few times a year. Held in Austin, the talks 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.
All material © 2020 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
The post Back garden walkabout appeared first on Digging.
Continue reading...
Y’all may get weary of seeing my garden each week while I hole up at home during the pandemic. While I’m missing all the gardens I’m usually able to visit and photograph — and share here at Digging — I am enjoying the time spent in my own garden, especially now that the live oak pollen drop is finally cleaned up. Let’s take a tour around the back garden, shall we?
Bulbine and Mexican feathergrass are both abloom in the steel planter by the blue wall.
From behind the wall, the swimming pool makes a turquoise backdrop for bulbine and fiddlehead-shaped steel ornaments.
Behind the blue wall stands a Yucca rostrata, my Better Homes and Gardens prize-money plant. Look how big it’s getting!
I planted it exactly 5 years ago, pictured here newly installed. It’s grown fast and now stands about 6-1/2 feet tall.
I planted a little brother next to it a couple of years ago. In between is ‘Little Volcano’ bush clover (Lespedeza thunbergii subsp. thunbergii), a fall-blooming exotic I first saw in Ruthie Burrus’s garden. It dies to the ground in winter but has come back the past two springs. The pink rose is ‘Peggy Martin’, which I was inspired to try after seeing a cascade of flowers in my friend Vicki’s garden.
‘Peggy Martin’ looks terrific paired with moody ‘Sizzling Pink’ loropetalum (Loropetalum chinense).
Lounging in his favorite spot — a low wall — Cosmo keeps me company.
The back garden is shallow but wide, as seen in the long view along the back of the house. A trio of soap aloes (Aloe maculata) in the raised bed have been blooming for weeks. The metal screen on the chimney wall…
…is a favorite hangout for a big Texas spiny lizard. I see it there nearly every day. Hello, my bug-eating friend!
Below the screen grow variegated flax lily (Dianella tasmanica ‘Variegata’) and a native prickly pear, plants that can take the blast furnace of summer in this south-facing, reflected-heat spot.
The new Circle Garden, defined by 11-year-old ‘Winter Gem’ boxwood balls and a necklace of new ‘Micron’ holly balls, is viewed through a scrim of Verbena bonariensis.
A shade-sprawling Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruticosa) in golden bloom looks pretty against the turquoise door of the pool-pump shed.
Along the eastside path, ‘Traveller’ weeping redbud (Cercis canadensis var. texensis ‘Traveller’) is clothed in new green leaves that contrast with a ‘Plum’ loropetalum. A fringe of ‘Katie’ dwarf ruellia (Ruellia brittoniana ‘Katie’) will be blooming in a few more weeks.
The gold spuria iris are finished, but purple spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis) still ekes out a few more blooms each day. Suspended from a crape myrtle, an orange Hover Dish overflows with flowering ghost plant (Graptopetalum paraguayense).
Check out those gorgeous succulent leaves of pinkish gray and pale aqua! I love this hardy (in an Austin winter) succulent. Hummingbirds have been visiting those delicate, straw-colored flowers too.
Twining through the deck’s cattle-panel railing, ‘Lavender Lady’ passionflower is putting on a good show too. Gulf fritillary butterflies visit daily, laying eggs on the leaves, so I expect to see hungry orange caterpillars any day now. And that’s OK. They need to eat, and butterflies are a pretty ornament in the garden when flowers are gone.
I welcome your comments; please scroll to the end of this post to leave one. If you’re reading this in a subscription email, click here to visit Digging and find the comment box at the end of each post.
_______________________
Digging Deeper: News and Upcoming Events
Stream Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf, a film about the celebrated plant designer of NYC’s High Line and other gardens, previously watchable only through special screenings, this Friday through Sunday on Hauser & Wirth’s website.
Join the mailing list for Garden Spark! Hungry to learn about garden design from the experts? I’m hosting a series of talks by inspiring garden designers, landscape architects, and authors a few times a year. Held in Austin, the talks 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.
All material © 2020 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
The post Back garden walkabout appeared first on Digging.
Continue reading...