passalongs 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

One for me, one for you, one for me, one for you…

Passalong. One of my favorite words. This simple word represents the cornerstone of gardening. Just as heirloom vegetable seeds, carefully preserved and handed down from generation to generation, passalong plants represent the intricately woven past of our gardens.

I’m fortunate to be part of a group of more than 50 other gardeners in the Austin area that write garden blogs. While not everyone in the group is active, a core group of gardeners meets once a month at someone’s garden to oooh and ahhh, commiserate, eat, drink, teach, and share in the joy of gardening. Oh, and we pass along plants.

The plant swap gives us the opportunity to trial new things in our gardens and to share extras with those who are building or rebuilding in their landscapes. I feel blessed to have been the recipient of so many wonderful gifts.

And, yes, sometimes plants even make it full circle.

For a while, I was sharing off shoots of my ‘grandfather’s pipe’ plant (not as in MY grandfather, but the grandfather’s pipe plant that I was growing – confusing right?) After I had handed out pieces for a few years, others began to bring them to the swap to share theirs, because the plant is so prolific and easy to grow. “Wait a minute,” I said, “you can’t ditch your extras of my plant here – that’s mine to push on everyone.”

Sharing is a wonderful thing. So, today I will be digging some more in my garden – planting little plants that I bought to put in pots — yes, more plants and more pots. My latest collection is gathered in the wooden box on the little table in the photo above.

And, on the ground below it are all of the plants that I am passing along. Today, I will continue digging up some pups and reseeded plants to share with a friend who needs to fill in her garden and to share with some of my clients who are avid newbie gardeners and are eager to try new things.

Plants that will be finding new homes this week include: squid agaves, quadricolor agaves, lamb’s ears, datura, echinacea (coneflower), catmint, silver ponyfoot, pale pavonia, Mexican feather grass, and Nuevo Leon salvia.

In my own garden, I know that I have enjoyed the beauty of so many passalongs. To name but a few, Green goblet agave from Pam of Digging, white cemetery iris from The Transplantable Rose, a lovely peach iris from Robin of Getting Grounded, agave pups from so many of my blogging friends, larkspur seeds from Zanthan Gardens and Caroline of The Shovel Ready Garden, Klondike cosmos seeds from my neighbor Holly, a collection of seeds brought to me by my friend, Maria, from Monet’s garden at Giverny, and countless other plants from other gardeners.

These Klondike cosmos are a riot of hot summer color, but watch out, they reseed like crazy!

I love the blue hues of larkspur in the late spring garden.

The green goblet agave has a unique color, and I love how the dark emerald green leaves contrast with other grey-green plants in the dry garden, like this euphorbia rigida.

Strolling around the garden infuses me with a sense of peace and serenity, and it reminds me of my good friends, enjoying the some of the same plants in their gardens. My garden blog turns 8 this July — it hardly seems possible. I’m so thankful to have it and all the friends, both near and far, that it has brought into my life.

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:01-06:00May 3rd, 2015|Austin bloggers, Blog, green goblet agave, Klondike cosmos, larkspur, passalongs, Sharing Nature's Garden, squid agave|0 Comments

passalongs

My garden and design photo faves of 2019

Spring flowers scattered around my garden on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

One for me, one for you, one for me, one for you…

Escape in the garden