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

About Diana C. Kirby

Diana Kirby is a lifelong gardener and longtime Austinite, who loves the Central Texas climate for the almost year-round opportunities it offers for active gardening and seasonal splendor. Known as an impassioned and successful gardener, Diana began by helping friends design and implement their landscapes. Soon, she was contracted as a professional designer by a popular local landscaping installation firm, where she designed landscapes for residential and commercial clients for several years. In 2007, her new passion blossomed with the launch of her own firm, Diana’s Designs. ... Diana is a member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers, the Garden Writers Association of America, and she writes a monthly gardening column for the Austin American-Statesman. Diana teaches the Landscape Design classes for several county Texas Agrilife Extension Service Master Gardener certification programs and speaks about gardening and design for garden centers and other groups. Learn more about presentation topics, availability and speaking fees.

Beautiful spring blooms and bulbs brighten the garden…

Isn’t she lovely? Isn’t she wonderful?

My bletilla striata, also known as ground orchids, burst into bloom suddenly this weekend and I almost missed them. I love their exotic form and stunning color.

These little blooms are jonquilla “baby moon” and are less than an inch in diameter. About 8 inches tall, they are miniatures in every way. Their stems are like long, thin, round blades of grass. They bloom last of all my daffodils, but they are my favorites because of their delicate form.

Although I’m saddened to mark the loss of some of my cilantro, thanks to the early and unseasonably warm temperatures, I do think the blooms are sweet.

This is an oops bulb. It must have come in a bag of daffodil bulbs that I ordered, because that’s what’s blooming all around her. But I love the swirling red, white and pink color combination.

These tulips were intentionally planted. My neighbor brought me bulbs back from her trip to the Netherlands in February and I promptly put them in the ground. They were up in no time, much to my surprise. Because I’m not willing to dig up tulip bulbs and replant them every year (which we have to do in our hot climate because we don’t have enough chilling hours), I don’t have tulips in my garden. But I might have to dig these up for sentimental reasons. They have special meaning for me — they were a gift from a dear friend, and I lived in the Netherlands for four years when I was a young girl.

The bright lime green of these daylily leaves make a pretty contrast against this purple salvia — sadly it didn’t come with a good tag when I planted it, so I have no idea which of the 200+ salvias it is. I just know it’s colorful and hardy.

This is hellebore ‘winter wren‘. It and ‘Phoebe‘ are both blooming. They were sad when the weather first warmed up and I thought the summer heat had zapped them. Then all of a sudden they had a growth spurt and put on a show.

The bluebonnets are bringing great color to my cutting garden (although I never cut them!). They also spread their seeds all over Kallie’s play scape. Those plants are a few weeks slower growing than these, so I hope to have fun pictures of them soon. They clearly love that pea gravel.

My Japanese Maple was miserable last summer, but is happy with this wet, temperate spring.

Are any of these beautiful blooms putting on a show in your garden yet this spring?

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:17-06:00March 20th, 2012|Bletilla Striata, Blog, bluebonnet, cilantro, daffodils, Hellebore, japanese maple, purple salvia, purples. salvia, salvia, Sharing Nature's Garden, tulips, winter's wren hellebore|0 Comments

Cauliflower harvest makes delicious dinner…

The winter vegetable garden came bearing gifts yesterday.

I ventured out into the rain to harvest our first cauliflower.

It was big and beautiful in the garden — and it had been calling to me for several days.

With a nice roast, mashed potatoes and roasted beets waiting as accompaniment, I brought it in.

Of course, we took a few pictures of it first.

I cut it up and put it on a baking sheet with some olive oil, sea salt and pepper. Then I sprinkled a little shredded Parmesan cheese on it and topped that with some bits of garlic from the garlic press. After 30 minutes at 425 it was a nutty, cheesy, crunchy batch of yumminess.

Jeff checked online and learned that the beautiful leaves that I cut off of the cauliflower are also edible like greens. I cut and cleaned them and set them aside. Tomorrow I’ll steam them and toss them with some bacon, onion and sea salt … maybe a little balsamic vinegar, too.

There are three more heads of cauliflower growing in the garden, but they have a few more weeks to go so we have something to look forward to.

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:17-06:00March 10th, 2012|Blog, cauliflower, drought, rain, Sharing Nature's Garden, vegetable garden, vegetables|0 Comments

Replenishing, rejuvenating rain in the garden…

We’ve been given another gift of rain this week. Tied up in a lovely wet bow, our gardens are drinking it in, happy to have the thirst-quenching relief from our frightening drought.

We’re not out of the woods yet in Central Texas — we’re still in an official drought. But our fall and winter rains have reduced the severity of the drought. It has been down-graded from the most critical level of last summer — exceptional — to moderate. (There are five levels outlined by the U.S. Drought Monitor – from abnormally dry to exceptional.)

A brief bout of garbanzo bean-sized hail at our house yesterday gave me quite a scare — I was cringing for the daffodils, blue bonnets and vegetables. But they’ve all weathered the storm and are doing fine. They are a little droopy today, but not damaged. (I realized after tweeting that yesterday that only a gardener would describe the hail as garbanzo-bean sized, since it was bigger than pea-sized. It only occurred to me later that non-gardeners might have called it marble-sized!)

The mountain laurels are in full bloom here, and the row along the driveway is looking green and juicy with all the rain. And I can’t seem to get enough of their wonderful grape-like aroma, which conjures up summer Kool-aid memories for me.

My rain barrels are all full — which is great — but it’s still raining. I wish I had more of them, but we’re talking about getting a rainwater collection system. Maybe that needs to move up on my to-do list for next week so we don’t miss any more of this precious spring rain.

Are you enjoying some rejuvenating rain in your garden today?

By Diana C. Kirby|2019-07-15T19:14:40-05:00March 10th, 2012|Blog, bulbs, drought, rain, Sharing Nature's Garden, Texas Mountain Laurel|0 Comments

Spring garden projects…

It’s spring. Well, okay, it’s not quite spring yet, but it’s spring here in Central Texas for all intents and purposes.

It’s time to start the vegetable garden, to amend the soil, to pull lots and lots of weeds. And, it’s time to start planning those garden projects that have been nagging at me all winter.

Let’s be clear, every single bed has a project of some sort. There are holes to fill where the drought decimated plants we thought were indestructible. There are holes to fill where the 3-day below freezing cold snap the winter before killed things or stunted them so much they were never the same last summer.

There are a lot of holes to fill.

But this is an entire area that need revisiting. In the bed above, I actually started out with a plan and a vision of a tall, beautiful bottle brush tree with it’s deep red, wispy blooms set against the strong, structural contrast of a smooth blue agave with deep purple ‘May Night’ salvia scattered all around.

The best laid plans…

Three winters ago, I lost the first bottle brush tree and agave to an abnormally cold freeze. I’d planted the tree in the fall and wondered if it hadn’t had enough time to get established before the cold. So I replanted — another agave and a bigger tree — and I planted them in late spring.

Then we had another unusual cold snap and I lost the second tree. And the deer messed with many of my little salvias.

Early last summer, the bottle brush began to come back from the roots. After a few months I had a nice shrub…the same size as the agave. Not exactly the contrast I’d envisioned. In the meantime, a few irises I’d plopped in there began to grow and spread. And I hated the bottle brush shrub, but I didn’t want to kill it – it offends my gardening sensibilities to kill a plant with that much will to live.

A few weeks ago I pruned the bottle brush back into tree form. Multi-trunked, but still pretty and growing like crazy. The agave looks bad after one or two light freezes this winter, and it needs pruning. It’s also been taken over by the irises. (They are stunning right now) But they don’t go next to the agave – the form is too similar, their colors don’t work together…I could go on and on.

Further up the bed toward the house I originally had a dwarf crape myrtle in deep burgundy. It was literally cut in half by my guys on a pruning #fail. Some transplanted loropetalums didn’t survive there and there is one pathetic knock-out rose left hiding there.

This will be my first spring project. The bottle brush? Gonna keep pruning – it stays. The agave? I’ll prune it and think about it. The irises? They will move when the time is right. May night? Nah – something tougher will take their place. Some grasses might find their way there. I’m still hooked on the burgundy, deep purple, silvery gray color combo. Indigo spires would be delightful, but that’s a very windy spot and at their height, I fear they’d be whipped around like crazy there. But I know what I want there, so it will come together if I take my time.

I might even treat myself like one of my clients and draw out a plan.

Or not…

Stay tuned.

Two more beds to go…but I’ll save them for another day.

What’s your first garden project for this spring?

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:19-06:00March 7th, 2012|Agave, agaves, Blog, Bottle Brush tree, knock-out roses, landscape project, May night salvia, planning, projects, salvia, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring|0 Comments

Early bloomers are putting on a show in the spring garden

Even though it’s only March, it’s already spring here in Central Texas.

After our exceptionally mild winter and welcome rains, the early bloomers are already hard at work in my garden.

In addition to the daffodils I included in my last post, many of the other perennials are already flowering.

This loropetalum is bursting with hot pink fringe-like blooms.

It’s the one I’ve pruned to become a small tree.

These pretty little blooms below called to me at the Natural Gardener last week.

And as soon as I started typing, the name flew out of my head! I’m sure you know just what they are – they aren’t mums, they might be gaillardia.

The wisteria is starting to bloom. Like last year, there is some growth on the back side of the fence, but there are plenty of buds for me to enjoy inside the fence.
I love looking at the Mexican plum tree buds against the pretty blue sky.
The stone wall makes a nice backdrop for the trailing lavender lantana behind the pool.
The hellebores would have preferred a colder winter, but some of them are giving me some blooms — this is ‘winter’s wren.’
The strawberries are blooming their ever-loving heads off! Soon we will be able to eat more than one ripe one at a time. I long for the day when we get a small bowl full.
My absolute favorite low-grower is ‘homestead’ verbena. That bright purple color is just stunning.
All of my blackfoot daisies are back again from last year. You just can’t beat these little guys for drought tolerance.
The alyssum is mounding up all over along the rock path already.

‘May night’ salvia can do great in the garden here, but my luck with them has been hit and miss. I love their low-growing form, but they are hard to get established.
Kallie’s window box is full of little pretties that I got last weekend at the Natural Gardener.
After some slacking last year, many of my irises are showing off for the first time. I don’t know the name of the purple or the white iris, though I believe the white one may be a pass along from Pam of Digging or Annie of The Transplantable Rose.

As always, Fletcher wanted to know what I was doing in the garden with that camera around my neck, so he had to come check out the salvia, too! I’m sure he thought there must be something edible in there!

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:19-06:00March 4th, 2012|alyssum, blackfoot daisies, Blog, Fletcher, Hellebore, iris, irises, Lantana, loropetalum, May night salvia, Mexican Plum, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring, spring bloomers, strawberries, verbena, winter's wren hellebore, wisteria|0 Comments

March Tip: Keep animals from eating your prized plants and vegetables.

Now that you’ve planted your vegetable garden, how do you keep animals from eating your prized plants and vegetables?

For varying periods of time, plastic owls and inflatable snakes can be a deterrent. Hawk-like balloons that appear to be alive, bobbing about in the breeze also scare them away, too. Animals are easily spooked by flashing lights, so hanging a few aluminum pie plates or CDs in the garden can help, too.

See the full article, click here.

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:19-06:00March 3rd, 2012|Tips|0 Comments

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Diana C. Kirby