Soft-n-Spiky

Posted on October 22, 2016 by Tina

Promoting Texas Native Plants Week, I’d like to put in a good word for Texas plants known for lovely or interesting foliage. Foliage is often overlooked when planning a garden and it shouldn’t be; foliage is the bedrock of most winter gardens and sets the tone and backdrop for all blooms. In my gardens, it seems like plants fall into three foliage categories: scratchy, spiky, or soft. I won’t give scratchy plants attention for now (looking at YOU, Lantana and Barbados cherry!), but I will profile a few foliage beauties from the other two categories.

The soil in my gardens is clayey, so I haven’t had much luck with the soft-as-a-baby’s-bottom leaves of the Wooly stemodia, Stemodia lanata. This plant requires excellent drainage and a good amount of sun. I am successful with a couple of individuals planted in containers and they’re thriving.

This Wooly stemodia gracefully cascades over the cherry-red pot, while its partner, an American century plant, Agave americana sits firmly in the pot and the spiky category. Both plants share a beautiful gray-green coloring, which is a characteristic of foliage of many Texas native plants.

In this photo, spiky dominates the scene with a second and larger American century plant, this time complemented by a deep blue pot that is its home.

A spiky garden buddy, Pale-leaf yucca, Yucca pallida, echos the gray of the agave, though I think the color suggests more blue than the gray-green agave. The yucca also doesn’t have “teeth” like the agave, though the ends pointedly exhibit their own danger, especially when the gardener is careless and/or forgets about the needling yucca while pruning or weeding. Ouch! Truthfully, I’m not a member of the spiky-plant club that so many Austin gardeners belong to. However, native yuccas and agaves provide low-maintenance beauty and structure and every Texas garden should showcase at least one.

The softer plants in the photo–Turk’s cap, Malvaviscus arboreus, Plateau goldeneye, Viguiera dentata, and Frostweed, Verbesina virginica, all exhibit larger, “tropical” leaves, and are typically considered shade-dwellers, although all three thrive in full-to-part sun. The Zexmenia, Wedelia texana, has small, hairy leaves, which are an adaptation with allows the leaves to absorb atmospheric moisture. The Zexmenia is an extremely drought-tolerant perennial.

Another spiky native is this Twistleaf yucca, Yucca rupicola, here haloed by blooming Zexmenia.

A true green, the Twistleaf yucca, like its cousin, the Pale-leaf yucca, bloom in the spring and sometimes, later in autumn. Four foot blooms stalks topped with clusters of fragrant, creamy flowers, provide for many interested pollinators. For the most of the year, handsome foliage dominates.

More gray-green in the landscape comes from Big muhly , Muhlenbergia lindheimeri.

A yearling Big muhly fronts a crown of blooming White tropical sage (Salvia coccinea)

I’ve struggled to find a good spot for the three specimens in my garden as they love full, blasting Texas sun and my garden is hampered by shade.

Really, I’m complaining about shade? In Texas?

Big muhly is an elegant native grass. I’ve contented myself with appreciating those that grow in other gardens (or in open spaces). I’m crossing-fingers that the few in my garden will prosper–I believe I finally have good spots for each.

I am successful with this far West Texas native, Mexican feathergrass, Nassella tenuissima.

These grasses are gorgeous in containers and planted in the ground, as well as happy in sun or shade–a win for the garden! Stunning in the spring with frothy, silvery-green foliage, they evolve into a toastier autumn presence as the growing season advances.

Texas beargrass, Nolina texana, is one more “grass” that is beautiful in a pot or directly in the garden.

This slow-grower is in the Liliaceae family and works well as an ornamental grass. Evergreen with a draping habit, it makes a statement, especially when planted in groups of two or three. This is another plant which flourishes when planted in containers.

Native Texas Plant Week is winding down, but the use of native plants in commercial and home gardens is on the upswing, not only in Texas but in many other places. Now is a good time here in Texas to plant trees and perennials and to plan for next year. Whether you live in Texas, or not–go native! Native plants are easy and special because they belong in and to the unique place you call home.

Whatever foliage you grow, please check out Christina’s lovely Creating my own garden of the Hesperides Garden Bloggers’ Foliage Day. See interesting foliage from many gardens and from many places, and then share your own leafy loveliness.

May Flowers

Posted on May 14, 2016 by Tina

May flowers–it’s such a cliché–but one that I’m going to embrace on this balmy May bloom day. The pinks in my garden seem to be front and center at the moment. Dusty pink blooms of this Red yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora, pop against a backdrop of Soft-leaf yucca foliage.

While the blooms adorning a different Red yucca bloom stalk flash a bit of yellow–just enough to keep things interesting.

With abundant rain, the Rock rose, Pavonia lasiopetala, is flushed full of foliage growth, but the few first blooms are opening up,

…and many more will follow during the long growing season. In truth, this is a plant that is floriferous in moderate drought; lots of rain produces lots of leaves, but fewer blooms. No matter, our summers are reliably dry and the multitudes of Barbie-pink blooms will turn heads as they open early in the morning, close by mid-day, throughout the long summer.

The pollinators and the gardener will enjoy the on-n-off bloom cycles of this hardy, small shrub well into October.

Purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea (which look pink to me) are in full spring show.

And the large shrub, Barbados Cherry, Malpighia glabra, is blasting the garden with its clustered version of the pink and yellow combo.

Additionally, the Barbados Cherry blooms fill the air with a lovely fragrance. You can’t smell the blooms while reading this post, but the fragrance is special–a May garden delight.

Barbados Cherry and Purple coneflower are pink pals in the garden.

Pink does not rule all of my garden though. The yellow (Aquilegia chrysantha) and yellow-red (Aquilegia canadensis) Columbines are on their way out, having bloomed since late February. However, they’re still producing for the pollinators, with some energy set aside for future seed production.

Columbines soldier on as spring wanes and the temperatures warm. A cool season plant here in zone 8b, I miss Columbines when they’re done, but always enjoy their fairy-like, shooting-star charm in the cool spring garden.

Heartleaf Skullcap, Scutellaria ovata, is filling the back garden with drifts of grey and blue.

While Majestic Sage, Salvia guaranitica, is truly grand in the royal blue it wears.

Finally, the creamy blooms of Twistleaf yucca, Yucca rupicola, have made their once-per-year appearance in the front garden. Poised atop the tall (5 foot) stalk, they beckon to native and honeybees to sip and gather from their floral bounty.

Once the blooms are done, I’ll trim the stalk–maybe drying it for further use as a stake for some wayward plant later in the year. The foliage is handsome, year-round, lending structure and evergreen sturdiness to the garden.

Somehow, I managed to choose photos of all these blooms with not a single pollinator in sight. Pollinators are in the garden and in abundance–nectaring and pollinating, even if I didn’t capture that particular beauty in this round of photos!

Fortunate to live where May blooms are plentiful, I thank Carol at May Dreams Garden for hosting this monthly bloom frenzy known as Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. Join in, share your garden pretties, then click over to her lovely blog to see and learn about blooms from many places.

Greens, Blues, Greys

Posted on March 23, 2016 by Tina

I’m enjoying lovely leafiness which has come into its own in a bed adjacent to the front entrance of my home. Let’s take a wide view to get the bearings of this raised bed.

I planted the Soft Leaf Yucca, Yucca recurvifolia and the Red Yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora as anchor plants in this bed because they are both evergreen and grow to respectable sizes. Most of the other plants are smaller shrubs or groundcover-type perennials: some are evergreen, some are herbaceous perennials, and a couple are annuals. There are also some other native perennials, a smaller yucca, and a native perennial grass, all located out of view of these photos.

Reminding me of tiny hands that are spread wide, I’m pleased with the deeply lobed foliage of this little annual/bi-annual thing, a native Wild Geranium, Geranium carolinianum. It was a gift from birds, or maybe, the wind, but grows well with other pretty-leafed plants.

Tiny, dark green and fragrant leaves of Damianita, combine with soft, frilly poppy leaves, complement the ornate leaves of Wild Geranium.

I noticed one Wild Geranium in the garden a few years ago, left it to seed, and each late winter, more return. I like its sprawling nature, lacy foliage, and sweet, tiny blooms. I’ll pull up all of the individuals soon because a few seeds left assure plants for next spring, but many seeds left guarantee too many future Wild Geraniums–much more weeding work–and who wants that?

The Wild Geranium foliage clamors for well-deserved attention underneath the Red Yucca,

…while a seedling Mexican Feathergrass, Nassella tenuissima echoes the spray of the Red Yucca.

This extravagant set of leaves belongs to another spring annual, a member of the Papaver family, seeds of which were generously gifted to me last year by TexasDeb of the charming Austin Agrodolce.

Poppies popped in my spring garden for many years, seeds of which were given to me by a German friend long ago, but over time they’d declined and last year I had few poppies to ooh and aah over. The new poppy seeds from Deb were a timely and quite welcomed gift. With or without raindrops, I love the scalloped edges of poppy foliage, either alone,

…or in concert with other interesting foliage. This one poppy certainly holds its own alongside the petite grey leaves of Germander Sage, Salvia chamaedryoides, the Wild Geranium, and blooming Damianita, Chrysactinia mexicana–as well as the points of the Soft Leaf Yucca, bearing down on the rest.

A wider look includes both newly planted Globe Mallow, Sphaeralcea ambigua allowing for some silvery leaf action,

…not to mention a couple of orange beauty blooms.

The Germander Sage was an impulse purchase, but I like it–the blue flowers and grey-green leaves are hard to beat. It’s hardy and easy to grow–a requirement in my garden–and it’s definitely a water-wise addition to this sunny, dry bed.

The sunshiny blooms of the Damiantia almost steal the show from their foliage host and plant partners.

Almost, but perhaps, not quite.

Tidy, smooth leaves of the not-in-bloom Rock Penstemon, Penstemon baccharifolius contrast in form and shape with matte, wavy poppy leaves.

Spiky Twistleaf Yucca, Yucca rupicola appear to reach out from frilly poppy foliage, giving fair warning of their pointy ends as I lean into the garden to weed or photograph.

I’m always poked–somewhere–by those ends. Always.

And from another angle,

…blue-green Soft Leaf Yucca, minty-green poppy foliage, and vivid green Twistleaf Yucca are a verdant combination worthy of any celebration of green in the March garden.

This Green Anole certainly approves–of the straps of the Soft Leaf Yucca, if not of the photographer’s intrusion,

…while his bigger buddy looks askance at me. Does he know how well he reflects the colors of the Soft Leaf Yucca? Or, is it the other way around?

In celebration of the foliage in the March garden, many thanks to Christina and her lovely Creating my own garden of the Hesperides. Check out her Garden Bloggers’ Foliage Day for a look at foliage in many gardens, from many places.