…and spotted a recommendation for Lawn Gone! along with other staff picks from the garden’s gift shop on page 11. Woot! Thanks, Wildflower Center!

While I’m basking in the glow of their recommendation, let me give a little love back. This looks like a particularly interesting issue of Wildflower. One of my favorite garden writers, Scott Calhoun, has an article called “Design with Spines: Getting Hooked on Cacti in the Home Garden,” which I’m sure will be a good read (click to read it online). Despite my love for spiny agave, yucca, sotol, and now dyckia, I don’t know much about growing cacti, so I’ll be reading that with interest.

There’s also an article about getting children involved with nature, called “The Family Garden: Nature as Teacher,” by Julie Bawden-Davis, that I want to read, especially as it accompanies detailed information about the new children’s garden under construction at the Wildflower Center. I’ve been taking my kids to the Center and on greenbelt hikes around Austin (and in national parks around the country) since they were babies, and I believe unstructured outdoor time is essential for children’s health and development. So I’m glad to see the Wildflower Center creating an exploratory garden especially for children, where they don’t have to be told “no, don’t touch!”

Check out these articles online, and consider subscribing to Wildflower through a membership to the Wildflower Center. Wildflower is a national-interest magazine, with articles and updates about native-plant gardens all over the country.

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Only one owlet was brave enough to gaze at me through the entry hole. He was obviously impatient for mom and dad to deliver dinner because he kept looking around.

I think there are at least two owlets, though, because of a flurry of wing activity I’ve observed with the aid of binoculars, and what looked like the fuzzy, gray tops of two heads.

Mama owl has taken to roosting in a Texas persimmon along the back of the house since moving out of the owl box. I got some shots of her a few mornings ago.

Check out those talons.

She’s tolerant of the paparazzi, but if I get too close she flies to a tree in the lower garden, near papa owl.

Here she is again, two evenings ago.

As soon as darkness fell, she flew off to hunt.

And after an unusually patient stake-out (for me), I caught a single image of either mama or papa owl feeding the chicks. Although I can’t really tell which end is up — and the owls feed their young very quickly before darting into the darkness again — this is one of the parents popping into the box, to the scurrying excitement of the owlet(s) waiting inside.

The owlets will be fledging soon, I think. I hope I don’t miss seeing them make their first flights. After 4 years of watching owls raise chicks in our owl box, I’ve yet to get a good glimpse of that transition to independence. It always seems to occur over the Memorial Day weekend, when we’re busy with other activities. Do you think they plan it that way?

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Why, you’re quite welcome, little guy.

Water lilies love the heat, and in the stock-tank pond ‘Colorado’ is revving up with new, starry blossoms.

Continuing the peach theme — with a nod to my friend Susan Morrison‘s article “Peach Goes with Everything” in the current issue of Fine Gardening — I’m enjoying the peach-petaled, green-throated flowers of ‘Best of Friends’ daylily.

My ‘Wonderful’ pomegranate tree is decorated with dozens of frilly, orange blossoms.

Last year this resulted in exactly one pomegranate fruit, which split before it ripened. While I planted it for ornamental reasons, I’m eager to see if I get more fruit this year. After all, the fruit is quite ornamental as well!

This is for you, Loree/Danger Garden. I’m bragging about the towering forest of blooms from my ‘Chocolate Chips’ manfreda. One, two, three…let’s see, six bloom spikes on this plant.

All kidding aside, I know you would enjoy them. I’ve had two groups tour my garden since last week, and I was delighted that the manfreda timed their annual Dr. Seussian appearance for my visitors.

FYI, I was also told by several blogging friends this weekend that my pictures do not accurately convey the size of Moby, my ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave. I need to start putting something in my photos for scale, perhaps. But just so you know, his girth is now about 6 feet, and his flukes stretch to a height of 4-1/2 to 5 feet. He’s quite the whale!

I’ll end with a couple of cheery flowers on my Sunny Lemon Star clockvine…

…and the cool, blue-green, native-Texas groundcover heartleaf skullcap (Scutellaria ovata), which was easily the most-asked-about plant among my garden-tour visitors.

Happy Monday!

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

On page 41 of the June 2013 issue of Woman’s Day magazine, you’ll see an article about freshening up your patio garden, which references my advice in Lawn Gone! to cut down on lawn by laying paths through your garden. My photo of Tait Moring’s inspiring patchwork path accompanies the tip.

And in today’s edition of the Seattle Times, in an article titled “Green, green grass of home,” writer Tom Watson reminds us that even in the cool, damp climate of Seattle, homeowners are finding compelling reasons to rip out their lawns. He references Lawn Gone!‘s suggestion to start with the parts of your lawn that get the least use — the parking strip or the whole front yard — and he points out that the book includes regional plant recommendations for the Pacific Northwest from Seattle’s own Christina Salwitz.

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

On this spring visit, spineless prickly pear, dwarf pomegranate, and red yucca flowers added their extravagant color to the mostly evergreen garden. Imagine a bowl of lawn surrounded by a bermed perimeter of drought-tolerant, architectural plants that shield the home, lawn, and back-yard pool deck from view — this is the Bonnell Garden. Pictured here: spineless Opuntia in bloom, Yucca rostrata, and (in the center) Mexican olive.

Beautiful, blue-dusted ‘Green Goblet’ agave

A wider view shows the ‘Green Goblet’ agave with leatherstem (Jatropha dioica) on the left and a silver carpet of ponyfoot (Dichondra argentea) at its feet.

Now the house comes into view, and that large, bowled lawn, behind a spiky orb of Wheeler sotol. Silver ponyfoot adds a cooling color echo and happily colonizes the gravelly berm.

Shifting slightly we see a dwarf pomegranate in bloom, as well as a ‘Sharkskin’ agave in the foreground.

The contemporary home, a compelling mix of bronze steel, mahogany-colored wood, and rust-tinged limestone, sits below street level, protected, seemingly, by the xeric garden that surrounds it.

Another look at leatherstem (Jatropha dioica), a thicket-forming central and west Texas native. I like the handsome, coffee-colored branches.

An awkwardly cropped view of the poured-concrete front walk. Still, it’s worth showing again (see last fall’s post for better images) because it’s such a graphic element in the front garden.

And at the bottom of the slope, by the entry, looking back up the walk.

The Koosh-ball shape and spiny texture of Yucca rostrata makes it strangely touchable.

Closer to the entry, the garden becomes more spare, each plant standing alone in a gray-gravel bed like a kind of sculpture. Here we have aloe, dyckia, Yucca rostrata, and Agave ovatifolia.

All of which contrasts dramatically with the expanse of soft green lawn inside the “bowl.”

Entering the back yard, a more naturalistic garden greets you, framed by a small lawn and tumbling down a hillside.

A pretty succulent dish makes a focal point atop a retaining wall.

A series of limestone-and-gravel steps leads to the lower garden, where a mass of red yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora) waved their coral-red flags.

Powder-blue ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (A. ovatifolia) backed by Philippine violet (Barleria cristata)

Here’s a scene I was really taken with. In the shade of live oaks, a sort of matrix planting of variegated dianella, asparagus fern, sedge, and prostrate yew cascaded down a slope behind the house. The combination of light and dark-green foliage appeals to me, as does the seemingly random, “placed by nature” arrangement of the plants.

Climbing back up from the lower garden you reach the swimming pool, which is cantilevered out from the house above the slope. It’s a dramatic finish to another fun garden tour.

This concludes my recap of Gardens on Tour 2013. For a look back at the delightful Highland Terrace West Garden, click here. You can find links to the other gardens at the end of each post.

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Beautiful simplicity!

Please join me in posting about your lovely leaves of May for Foliage Follow-Up, a way to remind ourselves of the importance of foliage in the garden on the day after Bloom Day. Leave your link to your Foliage Follow-Up post in a comment. I really appreciate it if you’ll also include a link to this post in your own post (sharing link love!). If you can’t post so soon after Bloom Day, no worries. Just leave your link when you get to it.

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

The deep front porch has always called to me. It’s so inviting, and I love the cozy, red-and-brown color scheme.

One of the porch columns has been partially removed (I assume it wasn’t weight-bearing), and the remaining section now serves as a plant pedestal. For a red pot, of course, with coleus to match, sweet potato vines providing chartreuse and eggplant accents, and a reddish grass adding height.

At its base, a homemade concrete dish holds a tiny cactus and succulent collection.

The garden is packed with charming details, with interesting vignettes around every turn. But I knew the owners were fearless when I spotted this window box packed with succulents and my touring buddy Cat leaned in to touch the leaves of the large, purple echeverias. “They’re not real,” she said. They sure do pass though. I decided on the spot that someone with the chutzpah to pull off a mix-up of real and fake plants was going to be defying expectations in other ways, and I hoisted my camera to be ready.

One thing this garden excels at is using commonplace plants in particularly beautiful ways. Here, softleaf yucca, purple heart, and ‘Katie’ dwarf ruellia combine long, pointy leaf shapes in various hues, making a pretty setting for a piece of garden sculpture. Silver ponyfoot froths at its feet.

As you walk around the right side of the house, you see another fabulous combination in silvery pale-green, anchored by a silver Mediterranean fan palm (I think). Groundcovers flow around a large boulder set in the bed, and on the fence a frilly metal ornament provides a color echo of the plants.

I covet this combo. And to think I used not to care much for palms. Scenes like this have converted me.

Side yards are often repositories for trash bins and workbenches, and the owners have beautified even these necessaries. The trash bins and wheelbarrow are tucked behind a handsome, gated extension of the board fence.

A wider view reveals the gated bin corral on the right and a winding path that ducks around a tree as it leads to the rear garden. Two structures ahead obscure a longer view and entice you forward.

But eye-catching details along the path also grab your attention, like this marble-mulched succulent bowl. Oakleaf hydrangea blooms behind a rusty-leaved loropetalum.

Just past the tree, a glassed-in structure reveals a work sink and storage for potting supplies and tools.

Across the gravel path, on an open stretch of fence, hang three charming “pictures” of white pottery planted up with green ivies and ferns. A living still life.

Now you see the sunlit back garden opening up, but first you pass through a shady, peaked arbor hung with crystal decorations and a candelabra. Can you imagine this all lit up for an evening lawn party?

Looking back from the other side. The windows and hanging decor have caught another visitor’s eye.

Now you step onto a circular lawn — and you start turning in circles yourself, taking everything in, starting with this vine-draped, roofed seating area on the far side of the garden. Those fiery, red-cushioned chairs attract the eye and brighten up the dark-stained structure. To the right, a weeping willow drapes protectively over a stone fountain and pool.

A closer look at the water feature tucked into the garden border.

To the right of that, a tidy square-foot garden is situated in a sunny spot.

Panning right again, you see a colorful bed of salvia and annual larkspur, accented here with a large lantern.

And finishing the 360-degree circuit (skipping past the covered arbor I already showed you), you see the back of the house, painted dark brown with creamy white trim. My touring companions David of The Desert Edge and Cat of The Whimsical Gardener are giving me goofy grins while Shirley from Rock-Oak-Deer is intent upon another shot in a small rear courtyard.

More red! These gardeners love hot color. A crimson rose clambers along the house, accented by a red gazing ball and glazed container on a small deck.

A comfortable lounging spot for one is tucked by the back door.

An aside: I think I was stopped at least once, sometimes twice, at every garden on this tour by readers who recognized me. Embarrassingly, I am getting somewhat used to being recognized on area garden tours, but it’s still kind of a strange experience for this introvert writer. Plus Cat teased me mercilessly about it. (Gotcha, Cat!) But one big perk about being recognized is a sense of community that you get (Central Texas gardeners unite!), not to mention the gratifying realization that people who aren’t even related to you read your blog. More than that, you get to meet lovely individuals like the mom here with her adorable 5-week-old baby. After she introduced herself as a reader, I had to take her baby’s picture to share with you. (If you’re reading, my friend, thanks for the dose of cuteness!)

Anyway, while admiring the shade structure on the far side of the garden…

…I was recognized by the owners of the garden, Bruce Baldwin and Colleen Jamison, who came over to introduce themselves. I was thrilled to meet them and told them that I’d been hoping to visit their garden for 12 years, since those long-ago kindergarten pick-up days. Bruce is the builder of the garden structures, and Colleen is the plant designer. Together they make a fine team.

Taking a peek inside the shade structure, I was half-tempted to sink into one of these red-cushioned chairs or sofas, but there was still plenty of garden to see.

A parting look reveals an electric chandelier hanging from the peaked roof. Clearly this is a garden meant to be used at night as well as during the day.

Hung on a post, this vertical succulent planter caught my eye.

Just outside in a sunny bed, this succulent and cactus planter set amid purple heart and verbena makes a beautiful focal point.

A wider view of a perennial bed with a curving decomposed-granite path cutting through it.

Purple!

In the back corner, hidden in a screen of pomegranate foliage, a ceramic frog holds court atop an old tree stump.

Still with me? Now we venture down the other side of the house. The owners have made appealing gardens even in the tricky side yards. Why tricky? Side yards are notoriously narrow and often deeply shaded and lacking in privacy. A board fence takes care of the privacy issue, and the typical bowling-alley effect is avoided by incorporating curves in the path and large shrubs that obscure the long view. Destinations along the way — a fountain, a bench, an intimate deck — give you reasons to stop and look.

Shade-loving plants like oakleaf hydrangea and glossy-leaved holly fern brighten up dark corners…

…as do sparkly garden ornaments.

This was one of four water features in the garden, and my favorite. A classic pool and fountain, with a garden bench and “window” on the fence, surrounded by greenery, evokes New Orleans-style courtyards.

I doubt this bench really gets used, situated amid groundcovering Asian jasmine as it is, but it adds such a welcoming touch to the garden. The owners framed a poster with a cast-off window and hung it on the fence. I don’t know how they keep the poster weatherproofed, but I love the idea.

More of their fearlessness on display: a tall blue pot is planted with a few cascading plants and accented with a blue, sparkly floral arrangement.

Nearby, sparkling blue ornaments hang from a wire holder.

Looking back along the side-garden path. As you can see, ordinary, glossy-leaved shrubs like holly and pittosporum are used liberally but not pushed in a tight line along the foundation. Instead they bow out, adding dimension to the space. Likewise with commonplace (and often reviled) Asian jasmine, which here is put to good use as a shade-tolerant, light-reflecting, evergreen groundcover. Keeping them neatly edged and trimmed is key to their good looks.

A small deck is shoehorned into the side garden — perfect, I imagine, for breakfast on a summer morning. A wired chandelier hangs above a table and chairs, creating an implied ceiling and also adding to after-dark enjoyment.

Cat and David take a break on the back steps. David is contemplating a move to Austin from Albuquerque, New Mexico. There’s always room for another gardener, garden blogger, and garden designer here, right?

I love the design of the wooden privacy fence, with different-width boards and even a slanting detail on this section.

From the outside you can really appreciate the design. Even the gate — a repurposed old door with a hand-cultivator handle — is a work of art.

In front, under a spreading tree, a soft, feathery sweep of yarrow makes an appealing groundcover.

Bruce and Colleen began gardening in the formerly weedy median in front of their house several years ago, creating a very low-water landscape to screen the view of cars parked across the street. Their neighbors along the street have gotten into the spirit as well and have extended the median garden and help maintain it. What a gift the neighbors are giving to each other by creating a shared garden space!

My garden-tour companions: from left, David, Shirley, Jenny, me, and Cat. Check out their blogs for more perspectives on the gardens I’ve been showing you, especially Jenny’s post about this garden. She volunteered in it for several hours during the tour and enjoyed a personal tour with the owners before the crowds arrived.

Next up: The architectural Bonnell Garden. For a look back at the naturalistic Placid Place Garden, click here.

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

In a narrow, sunny space alongside the driveway, the owner creatively expanded her growing space for edibles by planting them on a tiered structure — a smart use of space.

Out front, the view from the street suggests a woodland-edge, naturalistic garden. While this type of garden — dense with leafy foliage unbroken by open space or architectural plants — is hard to photograph (for me, anyway), it has value in attracting wildlife and adding seasonal interest to what was once likely a swath of boring St. Augustine. My eye was drawn to the tufts of sedge in the foreground — Texas native Webberville sedge (Carex perdentata).

Next up: My favorite garden on the tour, a homeowner-designed oasis at Highland Terrace West. For a look back at the contemporary Westridge Drive Garden, click here.

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Towering bloom spikes of manfreda and yucca lifted spiky and bell-shaped flowers up to eye level, giving the low bed extra height and dimension for a short season. Silver ponyfoot filled in around the plants and spilled over the edges of the steel planter like a frothy, sea-glass-green wave.

Faded purple flowers on the small cacti showed us that we’d just missed a beautiful show.

Still, we were glad of the yucca and manfreda blooms.

This textural composition contrasted with…

…a quiet expanse of buffalograss on the other side of the front steps. This carpet of native lawn grass is set off in tiered steel planter beds, which frame it nicely.

Winecups and gaillardia are allowed to invade the lower tier, adding a little spring color.

Buffalograss makes an irresistibly touchable, blue-green carpet. I’m not sure how much use this lawn would get, as it’s set below the level of the main entry to the home and the pool deck; it was not even clear how you could step down onto it. So maybe it’s meant to be a lawn for looking at only — a visual negative space to complement the minimalist design of the adjoining pool deck.

Off to the side, a few feet below the level of the steel-edged lawn, a gravel patio contains a casual seating area of motel chairs surrounding a firepit. I like the intersecting straight lines that define the various spaces.

The front steps lead up to a pool deck between the main house and a two-story garage/garage apartment. The wooden decking, still puddled from the previous night’s rain, was open save for a minimalist seating arrangement. There was a complete absence of potted plants or any other decor. Instead, what commands your attention is the unique awning that stretches across the space, offering shade from the Death Star and creating a fascinating pattern of shadows on the walls.

At first glance I thought it was made of chains. It’s actually rebar — enormously long pieces of rebar sagging over the space, attached on one end to the garage roof, on the other to the house.

Such a graphic display! I did wonder, though, how they keep the rebar from rusting onto the pool deck below.

Three concrete slabs seem to float across one end of the pool and invite you to cross.

A naturalistic garden on the other side rambles up a hill and offers views of the home and the full drama of the rebar awning.

Heading back to the car, I admired these purple coneflowers growing in a pocket garden alongside the home’s walled and gated entry.

A quarter-mile nature trail that I opted not to explore descends from the house to a vegetable garden and naturalistic water feature at the bottom of the hill. Touring companion Shirley of Rock-Oak-Deer wasn’t as lazy, so check out her post for pictures of the lower garden that I missed.

Next up: A quick peek at the unstructured and easygoing Placid Place Garden. For a look back at the canyonside Kathy Cove Garden, click here.

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

We began the tour with the Kathy Cove Garden, a remodeled property in south Austin’s Barton Hills neighborhood. Perched on the edge of a canyon overlooking the Barton Creek greenbelt, the home and garden enjoy spectacular views of both the greenbelt and downtown Austin. The front garden, as you see, is still a work-in-progress, with rock work by Environmental Survey Consulting in place and just a few plants situated.

A vibrant clump of standing cypress (Ipomopsis rubra) captured attention out front.

Moving around to the back garden, you pass this monumental sculpture, which looked vaguely Mayan to me.

Picking your way down a rugged limestone stair, you pass a teak hot tub nestled alongside limestone boulders and the entrance to a mid-level deck that stretches along the back of the house. Continuing to the bottom of the stone steps leads you to…

…a beautiful swimming pool surrounded by a pieced-limestone pool deck. Check out that view of the greenbelt.

You’d never know this home is 10 minutes from Zilker Park and downtown Austin.

The tightly fitted rock work is a trademark look by Environmental Survey Consulting that we saw echoed in two other gardens on this tour.

Under the deck, a surprising water feature — a stacked-limestone wall trickling with water (refreshed by A/C condensate) and colonized by maidenhair fern — adds visual cooling and creates a green view in place of the usual shadowy under-deck eyesore.

It reminded me of the natural cliffside waterfalls that can be found along Austin’s greenbelts.

A wider view shows the under-deck water-wall at left, with the cobalt pool extending the length of the terrace.

The garden is very naturalistic overall, in keeping with the rugged hillside setting. Red yucca and salvia were in bloom, attracting hummingbirds that zipped around us.

The homeowner has a large sculpture collection, which includes this bird (a raven?) perched atop a boulder, a glass orb in its beak.

Religious sculpture also finds a home here. I can’t help wondering — is the cactus collection at Christ’s feet a reference to his crown of thorns?

A Lady of Guadalupe with a spark-plug aura illustrates a similarly playful/ironic take on this traditional Catholic icon.

A pieced-stone path leads along the back of the house, hugging the top of the canyon. Amid the naturalistic plantings, a series of turquoise pots — each a miniature container pond — adds necessary rhythm to the scene.

A charming pond in miniature

Rugged paths lead down into the canyon, but I didn’t follow them. Instead I climbed up to the deck, past naturalistic garden beds. Red-blooming Texas betony spilled over limestone terracing.

Pausing to look back down the stone steps, I enjoyed a view of downtown Austin and a cardinal that shot across my field of view at just that moment.

The deck wraps the back of the house and provides several intimate seating areas to enjoy the treetop view.

I admired this simple trough with multi-colored succulents. The succulents are still in their nursery pots, rather than planted into the trough, making for a quick and attractive display.

More succulent troughs create a linear centerpiece on a dining table nearby.

They almost look good enough to eat!

Looking down at the path traversing the back of the house, you can see that the garden is still very new. Many of the plants have not had time to fill in yet.

When they do, this will be an even more spectacular space.

Next up: The contemporary Westridge Drive Garden, with a unique rebar awning and yucca and manfreda in full bloom.

All material © 2006-2013 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.