Diana C. Kirby, Author at Diana's Designs Austin

Winter is planning season in the garden

We’ve had such a mild winter here in Central Texas – we haven’t even had an official freeze yet at our house. A few plants have been affected by close-to-freezing temps. (Though some other gardnerers in cooler spots around the city have had one or two brief dips to or just below 32.)

It even hit 88 degrees last weekend, and I welcomed it complete with shorts, sunscreen, big hat and a few much-needed breaks inside to avoid what truly felt like heat stroke. It was January, for goodness sake!

I’d been sketching out a few ideas for changing beds — vowing to treat my own garden with the same care that I give to design clients. Than means I need to tame some overgrown plants, move some others to better locations and add in some more evergreen color to create a cohesive design.

The bed in front of the garage did well last year, but I’d neglected to prune back the pale pavonia right in front of the window. Last fall I moved the purple-blooming salvia ‘Amistad’ in front of the pavonia – they were small and leggy in their previous spot. Well, they REALLY liked this bed – so much that they grew even bigger than the pavonias behind them. Gorgeous, but unruly and completely out of scale. Pavonias: chop. Salvia ‘Amistad:’ move. Dianella: add.

They looked beautiful against the Senorita Rosalita cleome I planted in front of them, but they soon grew OVER the cleomes and the yarrow and tried to accost guest walking down the sidewalk! They will now look beautiful in the bed at the corner of the house now — I hope!

After a trip to the candy store — well, really, Vivero Growers — I found some beautiful new plants to complete my design. I added in a third variegated dianella and put in several Loropetalum ‘cabernet’ to provide more evergreen color in the bed. I left one ‘Amistad’ in between the pavonias and I promise I will keep it pruned down just a bit.

A stunning Japanese maple, Acer palatum var. dissectum ‘Tamukeyama,’ went in toward the house, where an ‘Edward Goucher’ abelia came out. To echo the burgundy colors, I added a few more Ajuga ‘black scallop’ around the dianella. The maple has deep red bark and delicate weeping branches. The leaves are very fine. I can’t wait to see it bud out. It will only get early morning sun in this spot and will be protected by the house.

The deciduous tree in front of the new maple came out – it’s a Caesalpinia gillesii, or often called by one of its common names, Yellow Bird of Paradise. It needed a drier bed – so I relocated it across the driveway to a sunnier spot with tougher conditions.

And here you see my favorite shovel — I bought it at Red Barn and it has a nice foothold for pushing down on and the handle makes it easier to get some oomph into your motion!

I haven’t re-mulched after adding in some Geo Growers thunder dirt to the bed — I’m still debating whether or not I want to plant some seeds in here in a few carefully selected spots.

Because I’m a plant collector, I don’t always follow my own design rules (or even loose guidelines) if I’ve found some wonderful new plant that HAS to get squeezed in somewhere. I also suffer from the guilt of getting rid of plants that aren’t working. Thank goodness I know so many other gardeners and garden bloggers who might have the perfect spot for things. BTW – Austin garden bloggers, I still have that nice 5 gallon-sized rock rose that came out of this been and needs a home – it’s about 2-1/2 – feet tall, but the deer keep eating it outside of the fence and I don’t have a place for it inside of the fence…first comment, first come and get it!

What are you sketching for your spring garden?

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:26:57-06:00February 5th, 2016|amistad salvia, Blog, Cabernet loropetalum, Cleome, Dianella, flax lily, japanese maple, loropetalum, planning, salvia, Senorita Rosalita cleome, Sharing Nature's Garden, Tamukeyama|0 Comments

Join me for my Spring Landscape Design Workshop in Austin…

SPRING GARDEN DESIGN WORKSHOP — Thinking about making changes to your landscape this year? Well, NOW is the time to start planning. Whether you’re just making adjustments to your landscape or you’re ready for some serious refreshing or expansion, understanding the basics of garden design will give you a roadmap to ensure beautiful results.

I will be hosting a 4-hour Garden Design Workshop in Austin in March and would love for you to join me. In this exciting 4-hour class, you’ll learn:

• the principles and elements of landscape design,
• how to assess your current landscape’s strengths and shortcomings,
• which native and adapted plants to use to create 8 specific garden styles:

Southwest Desert
Texas Native
Cottage
Formal
Asian
Contemporary
Mediterranean
Tropical

• and how to design a landscape – including drawing a sample plan with my personal review of your design ideas.

If you’re interested in taking the class, please leave me a comment with your contact info and I will contact you with the registration information and the workshop cost.

Details are still being finalized — date and location will be announced next week based on number of participants, so let me know if you’d like to attend.

If you know someone else who might be interested, please feel free to pass along the information.

Hope to see you soon!

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:26:57-06:00January 27th, 2016|Blog, landscape design, landscape project, Sharing Nature's Garden, workshop|0 Comments

Build garden’s foundation with the right shrubs

Diana's Designs Austin Texas Foundation Planting Chinese Fringe Flower

Most gardeners find themselves captivated by beautiful blooms. Nurseries put those showstoppers front and center, designed to lure in homeowners looking for the brightest, longest-lasting blooms for their landscapes. But venture further back and you’ll find the backbones of the garden – evergreen shrubs. These are the tried and true performers in the garden, season after season, year after year.

Called foundation plants, shrubs are often planted against a house to hide its foundation. They originally hid basements or open crawl spaces under homes. But they also provide a structural design foundation for layering with the other plants in the landscape.

When well placed, shrubs can soften the structure of the house and provide a transition to the surrounding landscape. A carefully crafted blend of evergreen shrubs, flowering perennials and colorful annuals makes a great formula for a beautiful garden bed. Regardless of your personal garden style, this combination provides cohesion in the landscape, allowing each unique set of plants to aid the transition of colorful interest in the garden throughout the season.

In spring, bulbs and tender annuals provide fresh bursts of color against the backdrop of established evergreen shrubs. In summer, hard-working perennials come into their own, blooming for the long haul and providing a contrast to the reliable shrubs. And in winter, when perennials are sleeping for the season, it’s the foundation shrubs that look beautiful and colorful against grey skies.

While many shrubs do bloom, they’re most often appreciated for their beautiful foliage contribution to the garden. With careful selection and design, foliage-only plants can be used to create a neutral and serene landscape, to be appreciated more for their nuances than the bright pops of color in a vivid perennial bed.

Plants, li Diana's Designs Foundation Planting in Central Austin Texas ke people, develop issues as they age. Many shrubs tend to get leggy, with little or no foliage on the lower branches – caused, among other things, by poor pruning or a lack of sunlight from above. Overgrown shrubs are a common problem faced by homeowners. Homebuilders often plant large, fast-growing shrubs in very small spaces along walkways and under windows. When the plants outgrow the space in a few short years, these colossal shrubs can obscure the beauty of the house, leaving homeowners to fight their way into their own house with a machete. Sometimes it’s just time to put them out of their misery.

Having seen too many instances of this, I’m always on the lookout for smaller varieties of my favorite shrubs. This ensures that the mature size of the plant is the proper size for the space, and saves homeowners from having to constantly prune a plant that’s just growing the way it’s supposed to grow. Certainly, gardening is work and requires care and pruning, but planting a 6-foot wide shrub in a 2-foot-wide bed just isn’t going to work.

Evergreen shrubs for Central Texas Gardens

There are many hardy shrubs that grow well in Central Texas. Here are a few of my favorite small to medium-sized shrubs.

Evergreen shrubs aren’t always green. One of my favorites is the Loropetalum family of shrubs which range in color from an olive green to burgundy and even deep purple leaves. It’s also known commonly as Chinese fringe flower and comes in a wide variety of sizes from 2-4 feet tall and wide to as much as 6-10 feet tall and wide. There are many different color options from which to choose. The color of the leaves on some varieties can also vary depending on the light and soil conditions where they are planted. The shrub’s beautiful wispy, fringe-like pink blooms appear at various times throughout the year. I have several varieties, the small, ground cover-like ‘Purple Pixie,’ and a medium-sized variety, ‘Daruma.’ I also have a larger, mystery variety, which I have pruned up as a small tree. I’ve found them to be fairly drought tolerant once established and pest and disease free.

There are several variegated varieties of abelia that are my go-to shrubs. ‘Kaleidoscope,’ ‘Twist of Lime,’ and ‘Hinkley’s’ abelias are great for adding contrast and light into a bed. With varying degrees of lime and cream in the leaves, and some with rust-tinged edges in the fall, these three varieties are small- to medium-sized shrubs that grow about 4-5 feet tall and wide. They have white blooms several times through the year. There are many other abelias – with glossy, dark green leaves, with pink blooms, and much larger varieties of plants as well.

And no list of evergreen shrubs in Central Texas would be complete without Dwarf Yaupon Holly. This tough-as-nail plant doesn’t even miss a beat in our hot, dry summers. Compact and a nice medium size of 2-4 feet tall and wide, dwarf yaupon holly rarely needs pruning as it grows naturally into a very orderly-shaped orb.

Dwarf ‘Cream De Mint’ Pittosporum adds another interesting element to the landscape – a different form than many other common shrubs. This pale green and cream leaf is larger and somewhat rounded. Its growth habit is dense and compact and requires little upkeep. This can also be pruned into an interesting understory plant.

I’ve been growing the Leatherleaf Mahonia in my garden for quite some time now. It’s a spiky, upright shrub that’s right at home among cacti and agaves and yuccas and produces cool yellow bloom spikes in winter, followed by tiny, bluish black berries. Several years ago I had an opportunity to trial a different variety, the ‘Soft Caress’ Mahonia. They couldn’t be more different. The “Soft Caress’ looks like its name. Fine leaves drape delicately from this small shrub, providing a soft look in a shady garden. While it produces similar blooms and berries, it’s welcome and inviting, offering a beautiful contrast to woodier shrubs with waxy or stiff leaves.

I often mix in shrubs with variegated leaves, interesting forms, or colors other than green, to provide contrast in the garden. When landscape beds contain several layers of shrubs, all with medium-sized, glossy green leaves, none of the plants can stand out and shine it’s just a wall of green. When the combination contains one such shrub, but the other shrubs or plants are variegated or have dramatically different leaves, colors, leaf finish, forms or textures, it adds depth to the entire bed, enabling you to distinguish each unique plant from the others.

Once established, most of these shrubs are average to low water users. That means they will need a little more watering in the beginning to get them going, depending on the time of year in which you plant.

So, if you’re thinking of refreshing your landscape this spring, start with some unique foundation shrubs as the building blocks to enhancing your curb appeal.

Local Landscape Designer and Garden Coach, Diana Kirby, provides landscaping tips on Facebook at Diana’s Designs, at www.dianasdesignsaustin.com and writes a garden blog at www.dianasdesignsaustin.com.

By Diana C. Kirby|2020-05-19T16:46:09-05:00January 23rd, 2016|Articles|0 Comments

Build beautiful hardscape projects in your garden now

Now that winter is keeping us out of the garden, what’s a gardener to do? That’s easy — plan. Plan for all the big ideas you’d like to turn into reality once spring planting fever hits. It’s the perfect time to start planning structural hardscape changes in your landscape.

Today, our landscapes are becoming extensions of our homes. They bring us outdoors, in rooms and areas that provide entertaining space, room for kids and pets to play, or maybe a quiet reading nook.

Where to start? Ask yourself — was your patio too small for entertaining last year? Did you, or your dogs, wear a dirty path in the grass to get from area to area? Or do you just want to remove some grass, water a little less or solve a drainage problem with a dry creek?

Now what?

Ask yourself some preliminary questions. First, consider your personal style – are you traditional, natural or contemporary? Think about the existing area – do you want to use the same material as your house or other structures, or do you want something different? Identify whether you’d prefer creating a color contrast color or seamless hues of a single color.

Consider the type of material best suited to your project. Stone is sold by the ton — decomposed granite by the yard — your local landscape supply yards can help you determine how much you’ll need based on your measurements. Here are some of the choices that are commonly used for hardscape projects.

Flagstone – Can be used for a variety of landscaping projects, from paths to patios and walls. It can be mortared into place or simply set in decomposed granite or gravel so it remains permeable. Wondering what to do with the sidewalk strip in front of your house where the grass is perpetually dying? Consider some attractive flagstone set in decomposed granite. If you want a softer look, add a few Mexican feather grasses or a few small agaves or a boulder or two for interest.

River Rock – Available in a variety of size ranges, river rock is smooth and comes in a blend of colors. It can be used to create a meandering dry stream through your landscape or to solve drainage issues. You can also simply replace grass with an attractive contrast of natural material in your yard. It can be used to puddle below a water feature or a birdbath. Always be sure to vary the size of the rock in a dry creek, scattering in the larger rocks before you put down the smaller size for a more natural look.

Pavers – Man-made pavers come in very imaginable color and size. The most commonly used are made of concrete and can be used for patios and porches, paths and even walls. They can be laid on a bed of sand, placed close together for a more manicured look, or can be laid with spacing to allow for either grass or pretty little ground covers to grow between. Pavers create a more manicured, formal style in outdoor rooms.

Decomposed or crushed granite – Weathered granite that has broken down into small pieces and particles of silt, DG is commonly used in patios, paths and even beds with arid plants. It’s versatile as a filler for many different projects – just be careful not to use it on a steep hill – our periodic gully washers can wreak havoc with it. You’ll want to make sure to use some sort of edging – metal or stone – to keep the granite in place and separated from grass or beds adjacent to it.

Gravel – Available in many different colors and sizes, gravel is a great material. It can work wonders to help with small drainage issues and it adds texture and contrast to the garden. Because it is larger, when used in a path, it is less likely to wash away than decomposed granite.

Chopped block – Most stone can be purchased as a rough-hewn brick-like shape that is more natural in form. These are used to build retaining walls, benches, planting beds or pathway borders.

River rock, flagstone, chopped block and other stones come in specific palettes of color – Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado or New Mexico – are some of the choices you can find around Austin. From golds to browns and reds or grays and pinks, the right hues in your garden can be like a fresh coat of paint in your house.

If you are creating paths or dry streams, remember to use long, sweeping curves to provide flow and make your garden more natural and inviting.

Adding different types of material to you landscape can make it interesting and inviting – creating contrast and texture that enhance your garden.

These are all landscape design projects I created. For more ideas and information, go to Diana’s Designs and see other projects.

[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

By Diana C. Kirby|2020-06-25T08:28:49-05:00January 22nd, 2016|Blog, dry creek, flagstone, granite, hardscape, hell strip, leuders, paths, patios, paver, river rock, rock, Sharing Nature's Garden, stepping stones, stone, stone edging, walls|0 Comments

Garden shoes giveaway…

I ordered a pair of my favorite garden shoes in the fall when it was raining buckets.

Sloggers are comfortable and waterproof and durable. Unfortunately, I experienced operator error when placing the order and ended up with the wrong size. Months later, as I get back to the task of returning them, I cannot find the receipt or the email confirming my online order.

So, if you wear a women’s size 9 shoe, leave me a comment below about your favorite plant and I’ll do a random drawing to give away the shoes. You have until midnight, Sunday night, January 10th to enter.

Good luck!

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:26:57-06:00January 8th, 2016|Blog, garden shoes, giveaway, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

January blooms brightening the garden

I’ve been amazed at the lack of a freeze this late in the season, but Facebook reminded me with a photo of brilliant variegated shell ginger that we only had our first freeze here at the house on January 4th last year.

While there aren’t as many blooms as in the summer months, it’s still delightful to find flowers in the garden now, especially these coneflowers.

These Pam’s pink Turks caps start blooming late but keep on going.

The cape honeysuckle are a bright burst on the increasingly grey days.

Another late summer/early fall bloomer, Mexican bush sage is prolific.

As are the Mexican mint marigolds.

In the pots by the front door, these begonias are refreshed after some cooler temps and rain.

And next to the begonias, these Mexican honeysuckles are about to bloom for the third time.

This Royal Queen, or Iochroma, is stunning. Bar none, my favorite in the garden these days. It’s a mid-fall bloomer, but oh-so-well-worth the wait.

In the granite and flagstone path out back, the sweet alyssum are perky as can be.

Even the neighboring pink skull cap is starting to bloom again.

I posted these on my FB profile last week – this abutilon is bursting with blooms.

Unruly, but showing deepening purple colors, indigo spires salvia is tough-as-nails.

The lion’s tails are still showing off — I’ve brought them in and arranged them in vases with other late bloomers. You can see those arrangements here and here. They include many of these blooms.

As I write this post, I realize that I’ve left a few of these bright blooms out of those arrangements, so I’m feeling inspired to make another arrangement today.

THIS is what I love about living in Austin, Texas.

Are you making bouquets from your garden?

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-10-03T11:20:55-05:00January 5th, 2016|abutilon, alyssum, Blog, cape honeysuckle, Coneflower, garden art, indigo spires, Iochroma, lion's tail, Mexican bush sage, Mexican honeysuckle, Mexican Mint Marigold, Pam's pink Turk's cap, pink skullcap, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

Diana C. Kirby

About Diana C. Kirby

Winter is planning season in the garden

Join me for my Spring Landscape Design Workshop in Austin…

Build garden’s foundation with the right shrubs

Evergreen shrubs for Central Texas Gardens

Build beautiful hardscape projects in your garden now

Garden shoes giveaway…

January blooms brightening the garden

Escape in the garden