(My happiness and relief cannot possibly be overstated.)

So anyway, earlier today a bunch of the Austin garden bloggers got together at Philip and Leah’s East Side Patch for a shindig, wandering around the Patch snacking, catching up, and drinking, in my case, some truly excellent pumpkin beer.

After introducing myself to three people in a row with, “I write Gardener Of Good And Evil, which hasn’t been updated in…a while,” I have resolved to update, so hi! Now that the heat’s over, I’m alive again! Just in time for allergy season!

So anyway, despite my resolution to not buy any new plants that weren’t cactus, I read about the endangered Monarchs migrating through Texas, where pretty much all of their food sources are gone, and went out and bought a bunch of butterfly plants. Thanks to months of heat and drought, I had plenty of places to put them. Here are some pictures I intended to post last week. There’s about five times as much pink and yellow lantana now:

The view from the path to the front door. I thought for sure this Agave Weberi was a goner. Over the course of the summer, it had turned a sickly yellow hue and basically tipped over. It was still firmly attached at the base, so I didn’t think it was the Dreaded Weevil. Then cool weather came, we got a little rain, and it stood back up. Quite dramatic, and also just asking for use in a anvil-to-the-head metaphor of obviousness where it represents the gardener herself:

Aside from the agave weberi, this bed contains gophrena, Silver King artemesia, catmint, a struggling Blush Noisette rose, and bamboo muhly in the stock tank behind it.

I cut back the native Texas sunflowers so I could walk through my yard again. For the first time I can remember, the birds had picked the seedheads completely clean.

The datura is taking over this bed, which is fine with me.

Cactus with more Silver King artemesia and Agave Stricta. The grassy plant in the background is actually a tree-like succulent known as Mexican Grass Plant. The corner where I put it is so dry that everything else I’ve tried there besides artemesia has given up the will to live immediately, and I have lost the will to put anything there that isn’t some form of non-spiny cactus-y thing.

Lo and behold, a huge improvement to the front of the flower moat in the form of 3 Silverstar Yucca. I’m gradually converting this bed to extremely low-water plantings, but when I drastically cut back these Rainbow Knockouts, they responded by filling in and blooming like crazy, looking the best they’ve ever looked. Go figure.

My car. Heh. No, really, my front garden is my hands-down favorite right now, but trying to get pictures without vehicles is extremely difficult. But anyway, I’m in a quandry– I already got a Wheeler’s Sotol to replace the Lindheimer muhly that’s to the right in this picture. I needs a bit of extra water in that spot, but when it’s in bloom like this and the sun backlights it, which happens twice a day…it’s magical. I don’t have another place to put it that would highlight its inflorescence so perfectly. What to do?

Now here’s a wider shot of the front bed from the strip of dead lawn that runs along the street. HUGE problem area at the front of the bed, and I’m not sure what to do about it. All of the plants that trailed over and hid the ugly cheap landscaping bricks have fried or frozen. What to plant there instead, something evergreen and incredibly drought tolerant that won’t shade out the yucca rostrata? I’m thinking that I might have to give ice plant another try there, but I keep hoping I’ll think of a more cold-hardy alternative. Any suggestions?

Clerodendron in front of my front porch. I’ve coveted this plant from afar, so when given the chance, I spirited three large pots away from the Master Gardener greenhouse before the official plant sale (MG perks, yo!), babied these suckers all summer, and now that it’s cooled off, all three plants are blooming, proving that all that annoying hand-watering was totally worth it. I LOVE these blues!

And this concludes my almost-up-to-date photo dump and blog update! And I see that I seem to be cursed with weird formatting issues when I blog. Guess it’s time to download the WordPress app for the iPhone and see if that’ll help somehow.

I hereby declare my “flower moat” front bed design a raging success. Thanks to the 7′ sunflowers, you can’t see most of the front porch from the street, which makes the porch a fabulous private place to hang out when it’s not a hundred degrees (say, around 7 AM).

The sunflowers also work fabulously with my low-water cactus, yucca, and agaves. I haven’t watered any of the sunflowers that aren’t coming up in beds with thirstier plants, and they still look great.

And in our daily dose of randomness, this dude cat here showed up on my front porch a while back and began his campaign to be let into my house to luxuriate in our air conditioning and abundant supply of cat food. Sad to say, I already have 2 cats (who hate each other) and 3 dogs in my house, and the damn ark is full! Dude Cat refuses to be dissuaded, and now that we’ve gotten used to stopping him from sneaking in like a ninja whenever we open the door, he is now on Week 2 of refusing to leave my front yard. He followed me around and almost tripped me countless times as I tried to take pictures, but consented to sit still a moment for this one:

Hopefully he will find and transfer his obsession to some other house with cat lovers and AC who will cater to his every whim.

I really enjoyed seeing such commonly used landscape plants like yucca and loropetalum combined in a different way than I’m used to seeing. And Sue Nazar’s use of color was masterful. The hardest lesson I’ve learned about good design as a gardener is the importance of a color palette and of sufficient foliage contrast. Everything in this garden was well thought out in these two areas. Colors and textures contrasted, echoed, and pulled arrangements together constantly, for instance in this grouping of pots by the pool:

You can see those themes echoed in this vignette across the pool:

That same color theme is echoed in the entrance to the garden, a staircase down from the driveway parking area:

Here’s a view down the path that leads to the left of this vignette:

I really admire the calming, orderly effect that’s achieved here when the plant choices are limited and large drifts of the same plant are planted. While overall the color is green, the blocks of similar plants provide contrast– the airy foliage of the river ferns against the hoja santo, the low green waxy spikes of the liriope with the larger, broader spikes of the aspidistra. I also love that these are mostly common, no-fuss, tough landscape plants that are pretty easy to find at any local nursery.

I asked Sue about watering, and she said there’s an irrigation system that waters twice a week. I’m sure that helps a lot, but she’s also been gardening on this property for over ten years, improving the soil, and one thing I’ve recently noticed is that Austin gardens older than 10 years that have been cultivated by big believers in mulch and compost are all generally amazing and lush. Our problematic Texas soil really can be improved to the extent where plants want to grow like crazy. It’s definitely something I aspire to in my own garden.

For more info on tomorrow’s Inside Austin Gardens tour, check out the TCMG Inside Austin Gardens Tour page.

Check out those fabulous hanging pots! The cozy corner! The pop of pattern in matching colors on the throw pillows! It comes together perfectly. Not to mention that this spot has a great view of the front yard garden.

Here is my second-favorite spot in Rebecca Matthews’ garden:

Hmm, I’m sensing a theme. If there was one lesson I took away from this garden, it was the importance of cozy seating areas so you actually stop, take a few, and enjoy being alive. I plopped my grumpy so-not-a-morning-person self down in one of these chairs with some much-needed caffeine and chilled out with the perfect view to watch everyone else walk around, chatting and taking pictures, watched the birds in the trees, etc. If I were Rebecca, I’d be out there every morning. (And props to her for winning the bulk item pickup lottery with these totally awesome funky, comfy chairs, WOW!)

From a design perspective, in a garden like this one where the understory plantings are still filling in, seating areas double nicely as focal points. Rebecca’s a master of using bright colors to draw the eye. This looks like a fabulous place to chill out and read on a nice day:

I also really loved the outdoor chandelier and how chandelier beads were strung to define the space of this outdoor dining room:

I really liked how there were so many rooms and views defined by seating areas. I would love to see how this garden evolves over the next few years as the new beds and plantings fill in. I think it’s gonna be fabulous.

To find out more about tomorrow’s Inside Austin Gardens tour, check out the TCMG tour page here.

This is a garden where the focus is on the hardscaping, which is designed both for looks and to direct runoff, highlighted by tough plants that rarely need supplemental water.  I really loved the unexpected use of hardscape materials and how everything was either recycled, found, or bought on clearance.  I never would have been able to tell. The walkway and the concrete slab divider art are the result of taking a concrete saw to an old sidewalk. The red “windowframe sculpture” is a repurposed bit of ranch machinery with a coat of paint on it.

The screen along the property line separating Wendy’s seating area from Link Davidson’s property next door is made of clearance air conditioner screens from Target attached to some chain link fence posts.

Old rusted tanks stand in for some expensive sculpture. It’s fabulous.

And did I mention that I love the walkway? I really, really do.

One thing I loved about this garden is that it was a collaborative project, designed by Wendy’s next-door neighbor, Link Davidson to fit her taste and needs. After giving us the guided tour of Wendy’s garden, Link invited us to tromp about his place and peer at the million projects-in-progress he has going on while reconstructing his funky found-object garden that was crushed to bits by a falling hackberry.

Link’s garden after Wendy’s garden was like whiplash. You’d think that these two neighbors would have nothing in common design-wise, I swear to god. I thought it was hilarious. Link is a guy who, next to his veggie bed– which is arranged like an actual bed with a galvanized headboard and stone pillows, no lie– has a tranquil seating area that looks like this:

Did I mention that directly stage right there’s a flying lawnmower on a pole with red Christmas lights wired to the underside? Well, there is. There are strings of colored lights everywhere. Trippy. I can’t help but imagine that Link throws some wild parties. But ANYWAY.

It was wicked cool to see how Link’s penchant for tough plants and found object art worked in a much more restrained setting, and I really enjoyed how he reined in his crazy creativity to design and construct something so minimalist. I suppose it helped that it wasn’t his own yard. I have that problem with my own yard CONSTANTLY. I often feel the urge for something more pared-down and contemporary, but my inner plant geek refuses to cooperate. Minimalism is clearly something meant for other people, I’m guessing other people who don’t define themselves as garden geeks, who have a completely different definition of “low-maintenance.” Clearly, I have too much free time.

For more information on tomorrow’s Inside Austin Gardens tour, please see the TCMG Inside Austin Gardens page.