Blogging Memories of 2012

At the beginning of 2012 this blog was just three months old and I mused about the future of my garden and where blogging would take me.  Now I have an entire year to review with 155 posts to choose from and it's time to look back on 2012 and share a few of my favorites.

My first garden blogger meet-up in Austin was fun as I met four fellow bloggers in early November and toured six great gardens on the Garden Conservancy's Open Days tour.  Pam Penick of  Digging corralled us for a group photo to mark the occasion. Our group included (L-R) Jean of Dig, Grow, Compost, me, Diana of Sharing Nature's Garden, Pam Penick of  Digging, and Catherine of The Whimsical Gardener.  I had so much fun meeting them for the first time and spending the day touring six special gardens in Austin.

I also had a chance to meet David Cristiani of The Desert Edge blog along the way.  Thanks to Pam at Digging for sharing the above photo.

In May I took advantage of a trip to visit family in Plano to meet another garden blogger, Michael of Plano Prairie Garden fame.

My friend Ragna's inspirational Texas cottage garden generated such a big response that I recommended it for a feature on Central Texas Gardener (CTG), a local PBS show produced in Austin.

Linda Lehmusvirta, the producer, loved it too and a tour was taped in November to air in the spring of 2013.  Shortly after the CTG crew finished, Ragna began the process of reworking her garden for easier maintenance.  The new garden will focus on natives and succulents like agave and yucca.  I was there a few weeks ago to take before pictures and will revisit to share her progress.

In May I shared the gorgeous art glass works of the Chihuly Nights exhibit from the Dallas Arboretum.  The view over the lake at sunset was just beautiful.

On the downside, The Antique Rose Emporium closed its beautiful San Antonio gardens in the summer.

It was one of my favorite places to visit and photograph for the blog and a great resource for native plants.  After two years of difficult weather, the gardens looked great in the spring of 2012 and I visited several times just to take it all in.  I plan to make the trip to visit their gardens in Brenham in spring of 2013.

While it was sad to lose one of my favorite local nurseries, Pam's Support Your Independent Nursery Month at Digging was good motivation for me to get out and explore new nurseries in October.  My favorite nursery visit this year was Medina Garden Nursery about an hour west of San Antonio.  It's off the beaten path and you have to know where it is to find it, but if you love Texas native plants it's worth the trip.

In January I checked out a new place in town, Yeya's Antiques and Oddities, to find fun stuff for my garden.

It turned out to be such a great find that I try to stop in often and dig around for garden stuff.  This armillary in the new wheel garden is just one of the pieces I found there.  It was missing a base so I used a pedestal from Yeya's and fashioned a piece of concrete to hold it in place for a total of less than ten dollars.  I enjoy it more than if it had been brand new.

The new wheel garden pictured above matured beautifully in just one season.

The new driveway landscaping exceeded expectations as well.

In my "Walking the Walk" series I'm exploring the 15 mile length of the San Antonio River Walk from north to south.  It was 13 miles when I started, but they added about two more miles on the southern end this year!  In December I shared this year's lights over the Paseo del Rio section downtown. It was a beautiful evening.

I'll keep on heading down the trail in 2013 with a new River Walk segment to be posted soon.

My "ABCs of Plants" in my garden series will continue with the goal of an inventory and record of what works (or not) in my garden.

When I began this blog just over a year ago I made of list of ideas for blog posts and have hardly used any of them so I still have a lot of ideas left on the list for 2013.

Thank you all for stopping by this year, I enjoy your comments and reading your blogs in return.

Happy 2013!