Foliage Follow-up, April 2014

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Tina

Spring has definitely sprung here in Austin and though blooms may be foremost for most garden lovers, foliage loveliness deserves a shout-out. Here are my foliage favorites for April.

The summer and fall blooming Gregg’s Mistflower (Conoclinium greggii) sports deeply lobed foliage, giving rise to one of the common names for this hardy ground cover, Palmleaf Mistflower.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) has beautiful foliage year-round. It’s delicate, fern-like and spreads well (sometimes too well). Yarrow is evergreen, hardy and drought tolerant.

It brightens this shady spot.

A perennial favorite of mine and one I’ve profiled before, Mexican Feathergrass (Nassella tenuisima) is at the zenith of beauty in the spring.

The lone green Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) in my back gardens apparently wasn’t decimated by butterfly larva last year.

With soft, graceful foliage, it’s a wonderful addition to the mixed perennial garden.

Globe Mallow (Spaeralcea ambigua) is such a show-stopper with its combination of orange blooms and arresting, pale gray-green, fuzzy leaves.

I like this combination of Pale-leaf Yucca (Yucca pallida), Heartleaf Skullcap (Scutellaria ovata) and the bright green Autumn Sage (Salvia greggii).

The Pale-leaf Yucca appears blue against the backdrop of the greener Skullcap ground cover and the Autumn Sage’s is a bright green punctuation situated further in that same ground cover.

The Wild Red Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) not only has beautiful blooms in spring, but interesting foliage year-round.

New growth from a young American Smoke Tree (Cotinus obovatus), promises more beauty as it matures.

Lastly, I can’t resist the photo of the Scarlet Tanager, Piranga olivacea, who has visited my garden this past week as he rests on the green branch of Retama (Parkinsonia aculeata). Plumage and foliage–you can’t beat that!

Thanks to Pam at Digging for hosting Foliage Follow-up for April.

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, April 2014

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Tina

Joining garden bloggers from around the world, here are my picks for Bloom Day, April 2014 from Austin, Texas. The Hill Country Penstemon (Penstemon triflorus), thrust upward its bloom stalks during January, but waited until March to unfurl its fuchsia beauty.

My Spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis) has bloomed this past month and shows no signs of slowing down, much to the delight of the honeybees.

The ‘Brazos’ Blackberry is in full flower now, with berries to follow. I can’t wait to eat the berries from the vine in May and June.

A beautiful cool season bloomer here in Austin is the Globe Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua).

And there are lots of Columbine this spring. The Hinckley (or Yellow) Columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha var. hinckleyana) is in full glory.

Blooming alongside another native Columbine, the Wild Red Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis),

these two will rampantly hybridize to create lovely variations of themselves over several seasons.

Lastly, the Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata) blooms are opening daily.

Happy Spring!

And thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day.

Game On, Spring

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Tina

As February races toward its conclusion, this Austin garden is ready for spring. I started pruning in late December, after the first of the freezes lay waste to the herbaceous perennials in my gardens. I’ve been pruning since. Seven garbage cans full of garden detritus every week, for almost two months.

Plants like Turk’s Cap (Malavaviscus arboreus var. drummondii) are whacked.

The luscious, sunny-blooming Goldeneye (Viguiera dentata)? Nary but sticks protruding from the ground.

The Martha Gonzales Roses are reduced to a fifth of their full size.

Some Variegated Flax Lily (Dianella tasmanica),

fared better than others in my gardens.

All I pruned from the Flax Lily were the freeze damaged straps. It’s the one plant (I have four groups of them) that I dutifully covered with each freeze forecast into the 20s.

And the Autumn Sage (Salvia greggii) and other evergreen native shrubby plants are pruned into tidy balls,

or spindly bits of green perched on woody stems, waiting for the just right light and breath of warm spring air to burst into new growth.

I still have more to prune, but I’m almost finished for the year.

I didn’t lose any established plants this winter and that gratifies me and validates my garden choices. I choose natives or hardy non-natives, with the occasional splurge for the newest, cheap thrill plant that everyone (okay, just gardeners) is talking about.

I always think of the winter landscape as barren, but it isn’t, even in this winter which was colder than any of the past 19 years. With most of the flowering perennials in my front garden temporarily gone, I’m reminded how nice my ignored-most-of-the-year evergreens are during their winter concert on this sunny February day.

And in my back garden, I like the clearly defined garden and pathways. The iris and yucca straps dominate,

while the Heartleaf Skullcap (Scutellaria ovata ssp. bracteata) insinuates its soft green carpet anywhere allowed.

I have a clean pond, which will make pond maintenance easier for the rest of the year and appeals to my aesthetic sense. I don’t think the fish care whether I clean the pond or not.