bulbs Archives | Diana's Designs Austin

My garden and design photo faves of 2019

It’s a new year and I’ve just passed the 6 month milestone in a new garden. I miss so many things about my previous garden – an acre and a half that I nurtured and loved for more than 16 years. I’m also excited about having a new challenge. A BIG new challenge!

So, I’m recapping some of my favorite 2019 photos of my gardens, both old and new.

This Japanese flowering quince always joined the daffodils and hellebores as the first harbingers of spring. These are plants I will definitely incorporate into the new garden. I’ve already planted several varieties of daffodil bulbs.

The row of Mountain Laurels lining the old driveway was heady with grape-y goodness when they were all in bloom. Luckily, there is a Mountain Laurel in the new garden.

I dug up and brought several hellebores from my collection to the new house and they are thriving. I lost one in the process (I might have been too busy to take good care of them in their pots for months before I began creating a bed for them).

These lyre leaf sage also came with me. They provide lovely ground cover all year and put up these delicate blooms in the spring.

All of the Austin Garden Bloggers will recognize this as Lucinda’s iris – passalongs that I believe we all share.

Rest assured, Lori, the ditch lilies you brought me back from Wisconsin in a bucket traveled with me to the new house, too. I’d never leave those behind!

Dianella and loropetalum were building blocks in the previous garden and the will be again when I start building some big beds.

I think I’ll find a home for another ebb tide rose, too.

The current yard (it’s not a garden!) is covered with ivy. I hope to craft a happier habitat for beneficials and pollinators and birds.

I loved the hot, confetti pops of color in the front bed at the previous house. This is the one I jokingly called the hideous bed.

Swedish ivy always perked up the shadier nooks and crannies in the garden.

I fell in love with crocosmia at many Garden Bloggers Flings and was happy to add some to my garden two years ago.

I always made room for cordyline in the garden and in ornamental pots.

Of course I brought all of my pots with me. I think we moved 75 of them – yikes! Having them all here made us feel right out home on the big back deck and outdoor living areas.

This eyesore area at the new house needed an overhaul. We had to regrade, take out trees, build a French drain and dig out a dozen trashy shrub volunteers. As a small project, it was my first garden creation.

I started by giving some curves and shape to this part of the French drain to define a new bed area in this square space. Then I painted the dilapidated concrete. This area is the view out of the dining room French doors that open onto a courtyard. I designed these steel panels and had them custom built to surround the AC units at the previous house, but don’t need them here. They were perfect for adding interest to this odd space.

Plants and a bird bath were the crowning touches! The wrought iron table and chairs in the courtyard offer a lovely spot for morning coffee.

Lots of fun projects are on tap for 2020. I hope you’ll come see how things are progressing.

Happy New Year and Happy Gardening!

By Diana C. Kirby|2020-01-05T10:39:28-06:00January 5th, 2020|2019, bulbs, Cordyline, cover plants, Crocosmia, daffodils, day lilies, Dianella, ditch lily, drainage, dry creek, flax lily, four-nerve daisy, Garden, Hellebore, irises, japanese quince, lady bugs, lily, loropetalum, mountain laurel, narcissus, new bed, passalongs, quince, river rock, river rock bed, rose, roses, screen, sculpture, shade plants, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring, spring bloomers, Swedish ivy, Uncategorized|6 Comments

Spring flowers scattered around my garden on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

We’ve had a tumultuous winter and spring. Well, it isn’t officially spring, but here in Central Texas, spring starts in February. We’ve already had a 91-degree day, then a week or so after that we had a low of 21. It was the first hard freeze of the winter in my garden. Of course, everything had already started to sprout and put on buds. We love the warm days, but then we pay for it.

Today is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens, so we can see what’s blooming around the world today.

I covered for the 21-degree freeze. I normally don’t do that any more — it’s just too much work. But we’re getting things ready to put our house on the market and move up to northwest Austin and I’d really rather not have to replace plants and fill holes. (And, I want to take some of the great plants with me!)

Nonetheless, there are things blooming in the garden, in spite of the yo-yoing weather. I planted these Ostespermum, African daisy, late summer last year and I’m getting another round be beautiful blooms.

These pass-along white cemetery iris bloom first among all the iris in the garden. They’ve made the rounds among most of the Austin garden bloggers so they brighten gardens all around town.

I can always count on the bulbs and love the daffodils in my garden.

I’ve had these in the garden for a long time. It’s called yellow fortune. The contrast of the almost orange cup with the bright yellow makes a colorful display. I’ve taken to collecting different varieties of daffodils over the years. It’s fun to see who comes up each year.

These ice follies have naturalized and definitely need to be divided. Hmmm…a good opportunity to take some with me to a new garden once we find a house.

The flowering quince makes a lovely backdrop for these frilly, delicate daffodils, called double campernelle. She’s getting lost in the quince and the primrose jasmine beside her, so I may have to rescue her and bring her with me as well. (See how I keep adding to my list?)

The native Texas Mountain Laurels continue to bloom – only the open blooms succumbed to the cold.

Some of the trees hadn’t even produced buds yet, so I will get to enjoy the Kool-Aid, grapey-goodness scent of these beautiful evergreen trees for weeks to come. And, when brought into the house as part of a cut flower bouquet, I can continue to appreciate Mother Nature’s air freshener!

It was hard to cut back the roses when I had several blooms on Archduke Charles, but I brought them inside and pruned the rest.

The four roses in the new rose parterre aren’t all the same height at maturity, so keeping them similar requires careful pruning.

Livin’ easy, grandma’s yellow and ebb tide show no signs of emerging buds yet.

Catmint remains one of my garden favorites. Mostly evergreen with a compact, clearly defined form, it stays orderly in places where I want a small mounding plant.

‘Walkers low’ makes a pretty, reliable border plant, getting only about 12-14″ in my garden. Advertised as getting up to 24″ tall, that’s not my experience and I’ve had them for several years.

I’ve enjoyed them in the front bed and last year expanded their reach into a few other beds as well.

The Mexican honeysuckle on the trellis behind the green goblet agave is awash with coral-y/salmon-y blooms. They grow up into the air and over the fence, draping delicately onto the side of the greenhouse roof.

Hinkley’s columbine has started blooming and brightens up the woodland path garden.

The prairie verbena loves this spot by the street. Hot and dry, this bed bears the brunt of the full, scorching Texas sun. The perennial verbena provides a beautiful, soft contrast to the ginormous squid agave next to it.

I think we’re finished with freezes here in Central Texas.

I’m ready to start working in the garden and soaking up the spring sunshine.

How ’bout you?

By Diana C. Kirby|2019-03-15T12:51:34-05:00March 15th, 2019|bulbs, columbines, daffodils, double campernelle, green goblet agave, iris, irises, Mexican honeysuckle, mountain laurel, narcissus, passalongs, Prairie Verbena, rose, roses, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring, spring bloomers, squid agave, Uncategorized|2 Comments

Signs of spring in the garden…

Like all gardeners, I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring. While the calendar won’t declare it spring for some time, here in Central Texas, the signs of spring abound with the recent above-average temperatures.

These aren’t new spring plants popping up, but I love the color in the winter garden.

If you look closely, you can see the buds forming on the Mexican plum tree.

The new bark is emerging on my lacebark elm tree. Beautiful bark is a wonderful sculptural element in the garden.

The bluebonnets are growing quickly now – getting ready to put on a real show in my crushed granite path.

My loropetalum has hundreds if not thousands of teeny tiny buds, waiting to turn into pink fringe flowers.

The hellebores are starting to bloom. I have to go out and lift them up to see these delicious drooping flowers. Even though I can’t see them easily when walking down the path, the lure of these mysterious blooms makes for a fun garden game of hide and seek.

This one’s in full bloom. It’s limey-green petals camouflage this flower even more than the others. Helleborus ‘green gambler,’ is a fast grower and usually has some burgundy spotting, veining, or picotee on each bloom. The picotee is the edge that is a different color than the flower’s main color.

These are very special little specimens — muscari golden fragrance. Unlike most muscari, these are not the tell-tale purple, but rather a soft yellow and they have a wonderful scent. They are very low to the ground – about 5 inches high – so I literally have to get down on the ground to get a whiff of them. But it’s worth it!

The primrose jasmine is about to burst forth beautiful yellow blooms. This one is about 5 feet tall, so it will be brilliant when it’s covered.

These little daffodils are looking good. Soon it will be time to blow away the blanket of leaves and let the flowers shine.

The deer have been checking things out in the almost-spring garden as well. It’s ok, maybe they pushed down my newly planted bulbs since I know I probably didn’t plant them deep enough. (I don’t really worry about that, though, since they seem to come up and perform regardless of my late and lazy planting!)

My cemetery passalong irises are already blooming. I believe these came from my garden blogger buddy, who blogs here about her garden, which is filled with many kinds of iris.

The loquat tree is sporting new foliage. I love this tree and the lime-colored new growth that contrasts with the glossy, established dark-green leaves.

And, one last bloom – I bought 3 lovely glass daffodils at the nursery last week and put them next to the emerging real ones. I wonder what the growing daffodils will think when they come up to find these imposters in their garden.

What’s coming up in your garden today?

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:02-06:00February 8th, 2015|Blog, bluebonnet, buds, bulbs, daffodils, garden art, green gambler hellebore, Hellebore, loropetalum, Muscari, Sharing Nature's Garden, spring, spring bloomers|0 Comments

A sure sign of fall…

Whether the temperatures cooperate or not, fall announces itself in the garden. One of the harbingers of the changing seasons is the arrival of my Oxblood lilies.

Passalongs from my friend at Zanthan Gardens, they pop up like clockwork, even if the sun is still scalding us. Small and delicate, they always bring a smile to my face, knowing that the cooler days of fall are just around the corner.

Fall. And a whole new palette in the garden.

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:39:29-05:00September 24th, 2013|Blog, bulbs, fall, fall color, lilies, Oxblood lilies, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

Bulbs and bores … hellebores, that is

The promise of spring bursts from the irises in my garden today. This clump of stunning blooms, passalongs from Pam Penick, of Digging, has come into its own this year. She calls them Shoshanna’s irises, named for a friend who passed them along to her.

Last week, I was lamenting that our exceptionally warm winter didn’t do my hellebores any favors. There were no blooms in sight and with a heavy sigh I gave up hope of flowers for this year. Less than a week later – voila! Blooms galore. She must have known I was sad.

You can see here that she was trying to hide those buds and blooms – like hellebores do — but I helped Phoebe posed for photos this morning so you could see her.

Any hellebores in your garden?

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:39:32-05:00March 4th, 2013|Blog, bulbs, Hellebore, iris, irises, Phoebe, Sharing Nature's Garden, Shoshanna's iris, spring bloomers|0 Comments

Garden resolutions 2013

I’ve long given up New Year’s Resolutions — but I do make some to-do lists. If I call them to-do lists, I seem to get around to them better!

This year I have a long garden to-do list. Perhaps committing it to eternal, world-wide view on my blog will help me check things off my list!

So, here goes:

1. Plant more trees outside the back fence in front of scrubby cedars. I love this smoke tree and planted one for a client this fall, wishing all the while that I had one to enjoy.

2. Have an a corner arbor build to showcase my tangerine cross vine and my wisteria. The cross vine winds along the fence and then climbs 20 feet up into a tree where I can’t see it. The wisteria spends most of its time hanging out on the opposite side of the fence — hiding from me — to be closer to the morning sun. A tall arbor would give them both plenty of room to keep growing — growing where I can enjoy them!

3. Replace the pride of Barbados that I lost over the last two winters. I love the explosion of color these trees bring in the late summer and I’ve missed mine. I vow to find some great hot spots for them to thrive.

4. I will buy more bigger starter plants this year. I’ve bemoaned the fact that my newer plants struggled to come back from harsh winters and scalding summers. Some years they even came back smaller than when I planted them! When I can, I want to invest in more established plants.

5. With too much on my plate, blogging and scrapbooking have waited in the wings too much this year. I love those creative outlets and want to give myself more opportunities for gathering inspiration from them.

6. Divide, divide, divide. I have irises, bi-color irises and lilies that really need dividing. In fact, they needed dividing this fall. This will be the year of dividing, replanting and sharing.

7. Prune, prune, prune. My cottage garden, cutting garden and hot southwest garden all suffered from overgrown-itis this year. Yes, the plants were all beautiful, but I know that pruned properly they would have complemented each other and showcased their individual characteristics better.

8. This year I will plant my bulbs before January … oh, wait … that means today! Yikes – better go find them and get to planting!

9. I WILL make homemade pesto from my basil “trees” this year. I say that every year when my basil gets out of hand — I mean stunning — but this year I really mean it.

10. And last, well, there never is a last, but I plan to dig up most of this and rebuild the dry creek with moss rock and other, larger stones. The recycled glass will come out and I will raise up the bed to help plants thrive there. With very little soil and a berm to avoid soil on the fence, the plants don’t get enough water and the soil just isn’t deep enough. The solution — protect the fence from rotting by putting hardy board against it and rock in the front to add good soil.

That’s the list — for now. As with everything in gardening – it’s organic and will change a thousand times over the next year. But it’s a good start and I feel good about making decisions to tackle some of my current and perpetual problems.

Guess we’ll see where I end up this time next year.

What’s on your garden resolution list for 2013?

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:15-06:00December 30th, 2012|2013, basil, Blog, blogging, bulbs, cross vine, dividing, dry creek, pesto, planning, Pride of Barbados, projects, pruning, resolutions, scrapbooking, Sharing Nature's Garden, smoke tree, to do, trees, wisteria|0 Comments

bulbs

My garden and design photo faves of 2019

Spring flowers scattered around my garden on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

Signs of spring in the garden…

A sure sign of fall…

Bulbs and bores … hellebores, that is

Garden resolutions 2013

Escape in the garden