Austin Gardens on Tour 2014: Stratford Drive Garden

In early May friends from San Antonio and I met up with a group of Austin garden bloggers for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Gardens on Tour event in Austin.  We had so much fun touring gardens together and I posted on Tait Moring's wonderful garden the following week.  We had great weather all through May and June so I focused on garden projects, but with the summer heat upon us it's about time I get caught up with blogging and posting more garden adventures.

The Stratford Drive garden was our second stop on the tour.  Like a number of gardens on the tour, this garden was very natural in its planting style.  From the hillside in front of the house we get a glimpse of the view across the canyon behind the house and an idea of how steep this garden is.

Groundhog Day Projects

Up in Pennsylvania the big news is all about Punxsutawney Phil and his Groundhog Day prediction of an early spring.  When I was growing up in sub-tropical Houston I thought it was an odd story and wondered why anyone would want winter to end early since our February weather was pretty nice.  The rare snowfalls and icy days we experienced seemed like fun to me and a nice break from our typical heat and humidity.  I married a Pennsylvanian, learned to drive in bad weather and spent the next 30 years in very cold places like the upper midwest and New England before returning to Texas for good a few years ago.

Groundhog Day in San Antonio means I'd better get busy and finish my big garden projects because it will soon be too hot to build new border beds or a fence.  Our record high for February is 100F/38C and the low is 4F/-15.5C, not in the same year but it could have been.  In the summer the trend reverses because by July gardeners up north will be out enjoying their gardens and we will be focused on indoor projects to beat the heat.

We have two large projects on the spring agenda this year.

First up is replacing the fence on the north side of the house and extending the perennial border around the buffalo grass lawn in the back yard.  The old fence was removed earlier in the week and we'll be out there soon putting in the new one.  We'll enjoy this view through to the front yard with the open fence while the trees make it quite private on this side.