contrast

Last week I got a preview of the wonderful gardens that will be on the popular  Master Gardeners Inside Austin Gardens Tour 2015 on Saturday, October 17.  The tour provides a rare look inside six private gardens and a public experimental garden.

With the theme of For Gardeners, By Gardeners, the tour showcases 7 gardens with distinctly different garden styles.  Each garden focuses on practical beauty, plant variety, and native or well-adapted plants.

Flashy Natives – bright and colorful
Sunbathing Natives – brutal, full sun
Shady Natives – shade and under trees
Death-Defying Natives – especially hardy, minimal water
Cottage Natives – Texas tough classics
Oh Deer! – deer-resistant, not deer-proof
Native Testing Ground – new varieties and proven winners

Tickets for all 7 gardens are $19 in advance or $20 at any garden location on the day of the tour. Single garden tickets for $5 can also be purchased at each garden.  Purchase advance tickets here.

Shady Natives at 4603 Palisade Drive
This lush garden feels like an oasis in our Texas heat.  With great garden bones and a hardy plant palette, a wide variety of plants play off one another, incorporating contrasting textures, forms and colors.  The garden is very colorful, but even when plants aren’t blooming, the array of interesting foliage makes this a beautiful garden year-round.  This garden was started in 1980, and the owners had their work cut out for them as the property was overrun with Asian jasmine ground cover and had to treat for oak wilt 3 times.  It’s a stunning garden – one of my favorites of the tour.  Don’t miss this one!