Merry Christmas!

This year's greeting is also my entry for the Poinsettia Challenge over at Danger Garden.  I hadn't planned to enter until my friend Melody gifted me with a tiny Poinsettia plant.  After several tries to surround it with unruly reindeer moss I grabbed some red glitter cord to tame the moss and then it hit me that this was perfect for Kokedama, the artful Japanese method of displaying a small plant simply.  I couldn't find a plain background suitable for hanging so it's been set in an antique silver candy dish against the red entry wall.

Merry Christmas to all!

My favorite plant in the garden (this week) is.....Salvia 'Amistad'

Sometimes it's easy to pick a favorite and sometimes not.   Choosing my favorite color for some reason has always been pretty easy.  While I like all the colors my favorite has been purple for as long as I can remember.  That's why I took notice when Salvia 'Amistad' began appearing in gardening blogs and online gardening articles about two years ago.  It's also why I chose it for my favorite plant this week and am joining Loree at Danger Garden in posting on my favorite plant... this week.

State of the Agaves Report

One of the many fun things about reading blogs is stealing their ideas being inspired by other bloggers.  Loree at Danger Garden reports on the state of the agaves in her garden several times a year.  Loree lives in Portland, Oregon, which is not the most agave-friendly climate and in her latest report she wondered how much those same agaves might have grown in a southwestern climate for three years.  I took the challenge and decided to post about this even though I don't actually live in the southwest according to most regional guides.   I do live about 300 miles or so east of the line which is no distance at all in Texas and I own a copy of the Sunset Western Garden book so I figured it's close enough.  There's not a lot to post about in the heat of August and the agave is a plant that does well in our climate.

First up is the cornerstone of my front garden, the Agave ovatifolia.  Inspired by "Moby" on Pam Penick's blog Digging, it was planted spring of 2010 after we had finished our big construction projects--replacing the roof and building a new garage.  A very important point since it's a good idea to get big projects out of the way before adding specimen plants. 

The A. Ovatifolia in early October of 2010 newly planted and still showing the effects of the 3-gallon grower's pot.  I'd guess it was about 24 inches diameter at this point.  This was planted Before Blogging (BB) so you can tell it was a big event in the garden because I have photos.