End of Spring Tour

As spring turns to summer tomorrow and the weather becomes too hot to spend much time in the garden I enjoy taking a tour to review recent projects and changes.

A cooler wetter spring brought more flowers than usual and bright green foliage which are giving way to the tawny tones of summer.  Silvery agaves and yuccas now become the main focal points.

Flag-like chartreuse blooms are forming on Bouteloua gracilis 'Blonde Ambition' grasses.

The colors work in nicely with yuccas in the front bed.

Yucca gloriosa variegata is thriving where many other plants failed in the hottest spot of our property.



I gave up trying to grow flowers in front of the tilted flower pot and planted low-growing Agave leopoldi which will be much easier to manage.

Three Agave cornelius along the drive were spruced up with a rock planter and new coat of gravel.  We mound agaves, yuccas and cacti to allow drainage after major rain events.

Finally got a good photo of this area.  It looks so good in person but has always been hard to convey on the blog.  Woolly Stemodia with a backdrop of white Plumbago and silvery estafiate.  Plumbago usually takes much longer to reappear after a cold winter so this year I tried covering it during freezes.  Not the prettiest technique since I used cheap bedsheets from garage sales but the results are worth it.

Carex 'Evergold' (lower right) has been added to the collection of greenery in white pots.

White Caladiums and Aztec Grass carry the theme of white accents across the walk.

Sparkler Sedge (spiky variegated, front right) gets in the picture too.  I added five more this spring for a total of nine in this bed.  That might be enough, for now.

Solid white Caladiums brighten new window boxes.

We trimmed the hedge down and replaced low wood boxes with taller crib-style planters which show up well from the driveway.

After years of experiments with container plantings that turned out boring after a few weeks I stuck Agave vilmoriniana or Octopus Agave in the pot by the tree to fill it in for a visit by my garden club.  It was a hit so it stays unless the deer begin to bother it.

Agave stricta is blooming again for the second year in a row.  Unlike most agaves it does not die after blooming. 

It may act more like a yucca, but the small lily-like flowers are definitely agave.

Along the front fence I replaced boring green plants in the small tank with new Yucca filimentosa 'Golden Sword'.  This more upright version of Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard" works better in containers.

Sweet Autumn Clematis will soon cover the new trellis we built using salvaged fencing pieces.

Grapes are quickly climbing over the arbor in the fenced garden.



Blanc du Bois, I might need a few more to make wine.  They are there for the birds to enjoy.

The circle garden has bloomed out so the ornamental grasses take over adding texture and movement for the next two months.

One bright spot by the herb garden.

It's Moy Grande Hibiscus developed at The San Antonio Botanical Gardens.

Happy Summer!  Beautiful hibiscus for our climate which should bloom all summer with little care.

We'll end our tour as usual with a peek over the back gate as spring fades into the sunset.

And that's the tour as my garden and the gardener will weather the next few weeks in our own way.

It's been a good summer in the garden

I'm not sure I could have imagined a gardening year like this when I began planning our garden back in 2009!  After a mild winter and nice spring weather, we've had cooler than average temperatures with so much rain this summer that I've rarely needed to water anything.

Salvia greggii are blooming bright out by the street.  As predicted the Cenizo sage have bloomed again due to a foot of rain last week.  With so little downtime the blooms are not quite as intense as in my previous post.  With so much rain again this week I wonder when they will stop blooming.

My drought tolerant plants are responding well to so much rain.  Bright pink Salvia greggii in the mailbox strip were planted about 20 years ago when I was too busy to garden and had no clue what to plant in San Antonio.  An article in the paper recommended Salvia greggii for our climate so in they went over a long weekend.  A year later we were transferred to Boston and rented this house out for eleven years.  Eleven years of garden neglect and they never missed a beat!  We easily divided enough for the driveway landscape (above) four years ago.

The front walk view is shaping up well.  I find myself trying to describe to first-time visitors how we essentially started with a blank slate.  It seems hard to imagine now.  Maybe a slide show some day would work better.

Sometimes it's even harder to see in photos, for example, the agave bed in the lower right looks so much better in person.

Current favorites are beautyberry plants in three colors.  Bright magenta on Callicarpa americana.

White beautyberry, there are several botanical names so I'm not sure which this is.

And the deeper purple Mexican Beautyberry.

Not the best photo but when I returned to take another, it seems the birds had nearly finished stripping  the berries.

This photos shows darker berries.

On to the side gate where no-mow buffalo grass has stayed green all summer.

Plants in the circle garden are overgrowing their beds due to all the rain.

 Last year the tank garden was mostly grasses, this year Blackfoot daisy spills out from under blue Salvia farinacea accented by Gomphrena 'Fireworks'.  Seedlings are popping up everywhere!

Hyacinth bean vine climbs the cedar arbor.  I keep testing vines that can take a direct shot of sun hitting the arbor in late summer.  This year we had so many cloudy days in August that it wasn't the best test.  We'll see what happens next year.

Pomegranates look ready but it will be a few more months before we pick them.  Tart pomegranate seeds are not that great.

Hardy and tasty Lemonquats are turning yellow.  This unique citrus tree was developed in Texas especially for our hot-cold-rain-drought climate.

Native poinsettia bracts are turning neon orange.  I started with just a few my friend Cheryl dug up on her family ranch near Pipe Creek and just one year later they are everywhere.

Love them!  Brighter than surveyor's paint.

No longer a neglected back fence corner, the hottest spot in the garden is looking good now.

Three different colors of Esperanza will grow to make a colorful hedge.

Bells of Fire

Traditional yellow bells

And 'Mahogany' mix of yellow with orange.

Hibiscus blooms make the humidity seem almost worth it.  Japanese lantern hibiscus.

Moy Grande Hibiscus

A look over the side fence down the stone path and my pot ghetto under the arching trees.

While we've been cloudier than usual there's always sunshine in my garden.

Fall is also normally great weather here as we take a long, slow slide into a usually short and mild winter season.  This has been a great gardening year so far, and there are four months remaining.  I wonder how the year will end?

April Garden View

This past Saturday I volunteered at our local Watersaver Landscape Tour.  The gardens were exceptional and we had a great crowd.  I'll show you my view of the tour in future posts but first I like to tour my own gardens at the same time to see how it would go.  The landscape tour, usually held in October, was moved to April this year due to weather.  It's been a while since I took you on a walk around my own gardens, so let's see what visitors would see if they toured my garden over the weekend.

Bright yellow Damianita makes for a cheery welcome at the front walk.  Damianta blooms like this several times a year and is evergreen which is why we replaced 'New Gold' Lantana which fell short in both departments.  My new Yucca rigida is settling in nicely.



I'm adjusting my usual tour pattern and starting with the star of my front garden today in honor of Moby, Pam Penick's Agave ovatifolia, which has sadly begun to bloom.  Agaves bloom just once and die.  Following Pam's "Moby" posts on her blog Digging inspired my own interest in adding one to my garden.  You can follow Moby's bloom daily on Pam's Facebook page or see her post at Digging.

So here's to Moby going out in a spectacular way.

While most information on Agave ovatifolia states that it does not offset, I was surprised to find an offset in the nursery pot back in 2010 when I planted mine.  We carefully separated and nurtured that precious pup for five years before planting it out in the front gravel garden last year.  Now about six years old, it's to the left of the large white stone as a "spare" against the day when mine goes the way of all Agaves.

Look closely to see our neighbor's Agave americana is sending up an enormous bloom stalk.



Now we'll step back a bit to take the long view from the street where we usually begin our tours.



Moving across the front for a different view.  I think I should add a few Damianita to repeat the color across the landscape.

Yucca rupicola bloom stalk has emerged and is beginning to set blooms.

Jerusalem Sage in the island bed is producing multiple blooms for the first time.  Planted three years ago it seemed to take forever to grow into a mature plant.  It's sure to become a favorite since it needs zero attention to look like this most of the summer.

Yucca 'Color Guard' pups have replaced larger ones which died over the winter.  I'll have more on that story in another post.  Opuntia 'Santa Rita' blooms bright yellow against that gorgeous purple hue.

The shady front garden functions as a courtyard walled in by silvery shrubbery.

 Not many flowers here by design though there is a Canna blooming.  I've begun to bring out non-hardy plants in pots for summer display.



Through the fence to see the buffalo grass is greening up

The tank garden filled with Larkspur blooms.

The crevice/gravel garden fills with yellow Greenthread flowers each spring.

We've added a firepit in the only space with no tree canopy.

Rock-lined paths lead through a cactus garden in the sunniest part of the yard.  One of the new yuccas looks stressed but it's fine.  Some of the leaves were damaged in transporting and planting so they've turned brown and we'll cut those off as new ones grow in.

Looking through the gate on the south side of the house with those arching trees.  Sedge on both sides of the path beginning to fill in nicely.  I would tidy up the pot ghetto before a tour and clean out the dry creek which requires lifting all the rocks and raking out accumulated leaf litter.

That's the tour for April and it's good to see our hard work paying off now in our 6th year of gardening here.