Moy Grande hibiscus Archives | Diana's Designs Austin

Fall in the garden: In the air and on the ground…

I can’t honestly say that fall is in the air. With temperatures hovering around 100 for the last several weeks, the thought of fall remains a distant longing.

But it is coming.

Many of the summer-blooming plants are slowing down and taking it easy, done with the hard work of developing flowers. And waiting in the wings to take their place, the fall bloomers grow stronger with each day.

And the trees. Well, the one tree — the Burr oak. A majestic specimen, it decided last week that it was about time for the weather to turn and began dropping its leaves with abandon.

And they fell.

And fell…

Then the Moy Grande Hibiscus next to the oak got the message, too. And it started to turn and drop its leaves.

Oh, look who was posing for me on this rain-drenched leaf. We were lucky to get a nice rain yesterday evening — I’m sure it made this guy happy to have a cool shower.

And so the leaves keep turning.

Fall will be here soon. A whole new season in the garden, with new sets of chores, challenges and opportunities.

I’m ready, are you?

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:38:55-05:00August 30th, 2014|Blog, Bur Oak, burr oak, fall, leaves, lizard, Moy Grande hibiscus, seasonal planting, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

How to use color, texture and movement to add depth to your landscape…

Our beautiful fall weather makes it the perfect time to visit your local independent garden centers and do some fall planting.

This Sunday, October 27 at 2:00 p.m., I hope you’ll join me for my upcoming appearance at It’s About Thyme Garden Center 11726 Manchaca Rd. (512) 282-1192, for my presentation on:

Jazzing Up The Garden with Color, Texture and Movement

I’ll be talking about using fundamental elements of design to unify your landscape. Learn how the addition of color, contrast, texture and repetition can add interest and harmony to your garden.

With just a few strategic additions, you can enhance your landscape with depth and dimension. Learn how to brighten up a shady garden or how to add texture to show off your prized plants.

If you’re interested in taking your garden to the next level, or if you’ve been reading my Austin American Statesman gardening columns, I hope you’ll come join me in person on Sunday.

Hope to see you there!

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:12-06:00October 25th, 2013|Blog, color, contrast, garden talk, It's About Thyme, movement, Moy Grande hibiscus, rythym, Sharing Nature's Garden, speaking engagement, texture, yucca|0 Comments

Moy Grande hibiscus is summer showstopper…

Easily one of the best show-stoppers in my garden summer after summer is this hibiscus ‘Moy grande.’ With the largest flowers recorded on a giant-flowered mallow, these blooms can get as big a 1′ across. It gets its name from Dr. Moy of the San Antonio Botanical garden. Many people think it’s a muy grande (meaning VERY large, in Spanish, but it’s Moy, named after Dr. Moy).

On any given summer day, I can have between 10-12 blooms on it at a time. Today marked the first bloom day for this year, with two pretty pink blossoms. I’ve been peering into the buds every day now for about a week, wondering when one would finally appear and I was rewarded for my impatience today! They will continue to bloom well into the fall.

My plant is in deer “fair game” territory, but it’s mature enough to be safe now. The first few years after I planted it, it would get a nibble or two in early spring as it came back from the roots, but now it’s so hardy that the deer are no longer interested in it.

It tolerates alkaline soil and is hardy to Zone 5. It loves FULL Texas sun and gets 5 x 5, though mine is about 6′ tall right now. Fairly easy to grow from the seeds.

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:39:35-05:00June 3rd, 2012|Blog, hibiscus, Moy Grande hibiscus, Sharing Nature's Garden|1 Comment

Drought tolerant plants are beautiful summer bloomers…

The scorching heat has the humans in the garden working really hard to keep plants hydrated in this terrible drought. And for the most part, all the extra hand-watering (prompted by water restrictions and astronomical water bills) is paying off.
Yesterday was Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, the monthly communal gathering of garden bloggers around the globe and the brain child of Carol of May Dreams Gardens . To celebrate, there were many happy plants showing off in my garden.

This stunning Blackberry lily above, Belamcanda chinensis, is in full bloom. In spite of its name, it is neither a blackberry or a lily. It’s actually in the iris family. It is hardy in zones 5-10 and is a native to Japan and China. This is the first bloom of this plant for me and I’m going to have to have some more. The stalks hold many blooms, and the flowers are about an inch across.

My carefully-planted zinnias did come up – unfortunately they did not come up in the neat little circle of space in which I planted them! They’re coming up in the middle of many neat clusters of other, existing plants! It’s ok – they make me happy.
The double purple Datura is coming into its own this year for the first time. It’s swirling multi-colored blooms look so exotic.
One of our favorite native drought-tolerant plants here in Central Texas, the Blackfoot Daisy, loves the heat and all the abuse we can give it. We’re being very giving this year.
The monstrous Coral Trumpet vine is in full bloom. It wants to grow everywhere, and in spite of the fact that I have to prune it as it pops up 100 feet away from the main plant, it’s beautiful climbing up the fence.
The cannas are all blooming. The grasshoppers are having lunch on the bottom leaves, but they haven’t done too much damage.
This Clematis (I can’t remember the variety) with its bell-shaped flowers looks delicate, but in its 2nd year, it’s holding its own.
The Moy Grande hibiscus with it’s paper-plate-sized blooms has at least a few blooms every day.
The Plumerias in pots on the back patio have been in bloom for a long time. I am actually going to have to water them just a little less. I forget that they can tolerate this heat better than some plants in pots.
This plant – the Medusa hair in my garden statue’s head – was give to me by Lancashire Rose of Rock Rose. I can’t remember its name, either. Giving it a little spritz of water this week I discovered the sweetest little bloom. What a lovely reward. She looked quite different here in last year’s snow.
There are even surprised in the cutting garden. The Larkspur, (seeds given to my by Zanthan Gardens, two years ago) has bloomed profusely for two long springs. And today there is yet another bloom, coming up with the cosmos, just in time to surprise me for bloom day.

Gardening continues, in spite of the heat. Now that my post is up, I can’t wait to to see what’s blooming in other gardens around the world.

Happy Garden Bloggers Bloom Day~

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:23-06:00July 16th, 2011|blackberry lily, blackfoot daisies, Blog, cannas, clematis, coral trumpet vine, datura, day lilies, GBBD, larkspur, Moy Grande hibiscus, plumeria, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

Got a little garden bling?

I love bling.

I loved bling when bling wasn’t even cool.

Don’t know what I’m going to do when clothing styles change, because I’m taken with the swirls and the sequins and the glitter that are so popular right now.

Then I got to thinking, I like a little bling in my garden, too.

And I don’t mean gazing balls (I’m not so fond of them, actually).

Like this ginger I recently planted — it’s kind of like bling in my garden.

What’s garden bling, you ask?

You know — it’s those one-of-a-kind specimens, the exotic plants or the plants that perform amazingly. The plants you and your gardening friends ooh and ahhh over time after time.

So here is an overview of the plants I think of as bling in my garden. For starters, there’s this Carara Ginger — a tropical perennial with reddish bracts with pale purple to greenish tips. It blooms for several months and like part shade. It’s new to me, and I don’t know if it will do well here, but it called my name at the nursery.

This “Phoebe” hellebore is another delicate favorite that is a shining star in my garden. It never ceases to amaze me that she almost disappears in warm months, but comes back in the cold of winter like a pale princess.
Even though the foliage is less than attractive at times, when it blooms, this Night-blooming Cereus is stunning. Sadly, you have to catch it late at night or first thing in the morning to enjoy its one-night bloom.
The cassia, with their tall, exotic structure and candle-like blooms is always a thriller in the garden. Especially the year before last when they didn’t die back in the winter and grew to be about 12 feet tall in its second season.
Then of course there is the Moy Grande hibiscus — phenomenal blooms as big as plates. On a mid-summer day, there were as many as 12 giant blooms open at once. It’s a real show-stopper.
These irises are really exotic, but I’m so enamored with the color that I eagerly await their bloom every spring. It’s a Louisiana iris, “Professor Neil” and one of my favorites.
The Bletilla Striata, or ground orchids are defnitely bling. Just the thought that I have “orchids” growing in the ground amazes me!

The plumerias definitely are exotics, but they love it here. It’s been a particularly good year for them this year. They’ve liked the extra moisture in the air.
But on the same note, I’ve had to pull this Desert Rose out of the rain many times this summer because I wants to be dry, dry, dry. And it rewarded me with these great blooms.
These? No exotic at all, but the giant patch of wine cup that completely covers my rock path each spring is another jaw dropper. I walk around the path for months, because I can’t bear to cut it back one little bit!
And this ia a perfectly ordinary Wisconsin ditch lily, brought to me in a bucket by car by Lori, the Gardener of Good and Evil . Hemerocalis experts frown at these common ditch lilies, but this amazing plant bloomed for me ALL summer long and at times had a dozen hot tangerine blooms at once.

I had a hard time limiting my choices because there are so many plants in my garden that I think are special. So, these are just a few of my favorite things.

Which plants are the bling in your garden?

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:25-06:00October 10th, 2010|Bletilla Striata, bling, Blog, Cassia, desert rose, ditch lily, ginger, Moy Grande hibiscus, night blooming cereus, Phoebe, plumeria, Sharing Nature's Garden, special plants, winecup|0 Comments

Rain, rain, come again!

The last few weeks we’ve had an uncharacteristic amount of rain here in Austin. No real relief from the heat, mind you, so it’s been a tropical sauna.

Since it’s such an unusual occurence, I had to capture some of the beauty of the water in the garden.

A lovely, long cool drink in the garden. And this week, fall will really arrive — tonight’s low is forecast to be 58 gloriously cool degrees!