loropetalum Archives | Diana's Designs Austin

It’s the little things…in life and in the garden…

With the arrival of spring and increasingly warmer temperatures, I’m seeing the fruits of my first projects in the new garden. All of the plants I brought with me from the last garden went in last summer. Almost all of them survived the interim neglect, and are starting to bloom now.

I put in some bulbs in the fall, and they’re up and at ’em now.

This Loropetalum seems very happy where I planted it last summer.

The garden did have a few bloomers in it when we moved in.

I am enjoying the Bridal Wreath Spirea that’s in full bloom now.

I almost didn’t notice the grape blooms on the shaded Texas Mountain Laurel until my friend, Robin, discovered them last week. Because it’s in full shade, I was shocked to see the flowers.

Here are a few of the plants that went into the new bed about 2 weeks ago.

A handful of blooms make all the difference. I am seeing the garden glass as half full — full of the promise and possibility plants bring into our lives. Even with lots of projects on the horizon, knowing I’ll enjoy every little bloom along the way makes it all worth while.

By Diana C. Kirby|2020-03-18T14:05:57-05:00March 18th, 2020|2020 Garden, African hosta, blackfoot daisies, Bridal wreath spirea, catmint, daffodils, Escondido Cove, euphorbia, loropetalum, mountain laurel, Sharing Nature's Garden, snapdragon|6 Comments

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

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

Flashy natives garden can handle the heat on Inside Austin Gardens tour

Here is another one 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.

The gardens demonstrate 7 unique styles. This is my preview of the Flashy Natives Garden. Enjoy this sneak peek and then see it in person on the tour next weekend.

401 Cloudview Dr Austin, TX 78745

This garden is very much a collector’s garden, with many different varieties of plants to create wonderful combinations of texture and color and form.

This garden is a very Southwestern cottage style, incorporating yuccas and grasses one might not see in a cooler climate traditional cottage garden.

Patio pots offer more focal points around the seating areas.

And no cottage garden would be complete without a little picket fence.

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.

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:00-06:00October 11th, 2015|Blog, contrast, cottage garden, firebush, garden art, garden tour 2015, Inside Austin Garden Tour, loropetalum, patio, pots, rock rose, seating, Sharing Nature's Garden, vertigo pennisetum, yucca|0 Comments

Ice in the garden…

Baby, it’s cold outside…

Central Texas gardens are being slammed with ice and even snow in some parts. I feel for our northern friends who have it so much worse than we do. We’re feeling very deprived of our “normal” warmer early spring temperatures.

Iris, wisteria, and Texas Mountain laurel buds are being sabotaged. Delicate new shoots on perennials have bitten the dust. And, our evergreens will once again be slow to start their growth.

Here are a few signs that it’s really cold in my garden.

This Japanese aralia will recover, but isn’t this one of the most pitiful things you’ve seen in the garden. It’s hard to believe that it will perk back up when the temperature warms back up.

After several years, the pump on the birdbath fountain died. I replaced it a few weeks ago with one that was the same size – to fit in the reservoir – but much more powerful. It has a great bubbler. If you look carefully, you can see that the majority of the water is frozen, except for the bubbling center, announcing loudly to the bird world that the water bar is still open for business.

Luckily, both the plum tree and the loropetalum were already in full bloom when the ice hit, so I am still enjoying this sight in the back landscape.

It’s 31 degrees and raining this morning, so I guess it’s time to settle in with the seed catalogs for a little bit longer around here.

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:38:53-05:00February 28th, 2015|Blog, fountain, frozen, ice, Japanese aralia, loropetalum, Mexican Plum, Sharing Nature's Garden, winter|0 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

loropetalum

It’s the little things…in life and in the garden…

My garden and design photo faves of 2019

Winter is planning season in the garden

Flashy natives garden can handle the heat on Inside Austin Gardens tour

Ice in the garden…

Signs of spring in the garden…

Escape in the garden