If I had great floodlights in my yard, I would never stop puttering.

The last few days I've been fighting daylight to try to get through the many projects I have planned for the garden. Instead of making leaps and bounds of progress, it took me two days to clean up the raised beds and cut back all of the ornamental grasses. I have a nice blister at the base of my thumb from the pruners, even though I wore gloves.

It's a pretty sad picture out there right now, since so much of the "bones" of my garden rely on the foilage of the ornamental grasses, and with those gone, everything seems boring and a bit unbalanced. I'm thinking that next fall I need to put in a whole bunch of oxalis and spring-blooming bulbs so that this whole cutting-back routine isn't quite so depressing.

In other non-depressing news, I finally caved and bought this ornamental stone head that I've been admiring for over a year. I love it:

I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the succulents root and fill in without any problems. The planting pocket on the top of the head was smaller than I thought. Either way, I love how this stone face catches the light.




Before the haircut:

After the haircut:

And for comparison purposes, last February. In retrospect, I really could not have gotten any luckier than starting my garden when I did. I don't think I even watered until October!

Tomorrow's plan...exciting trench-digging. It's time to de-uglify the other side yard.

More pictures of winter ornamental grasses and foliage...

note: posted 3/22/08 for archival purposes

These are pictures from pretty much every area of the flower beds, including the ugly parts, since this is a learning experience:

My most recent re-design. I moved a leggy "Belinda's Dream" rose into more sun and planted bamboo muhly and pink abutilon against the fence for fast height and evergreen interest, and in front of those, an anacacho orchid tree for spring flowers and an "Adagio" miscanthus to spill over the edge of the raised bed. This section is in filtered shade from the mesquite most of the year:

I like the variety of colors and textures in this view:

Messy. I've since moved a few things around and added a Pink Double Knockout that will hopefully be able to take a little shade:

The rose section. Trained up the fence is "Maggie," a found rose. In front and to the left of "Maggie" is "Belinda's Dream." And in front of "Belinda's Dream" is the bourbon "Souvenir de la Malmaison." The lindheimer muhly to the right of the picture has since been moved out of its way.

This is, hands-down, my least favorite section of the garden, made more problematic by buried cables that limit my plant choices. I'd also like to add a pergola in front of the back gate to the left of the picture, so I'm waiting to see how far that will extend into the bed before I move anything around. But still, it's a lousy view from the side yard. Sigh:

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

I must preface this post by saying that my pictures for February's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day are cheating a bit, since most of my flower pictures are of brand spankin' new plants that I just spent far too much money on at Barton Springs Nursery. You see, if I subtract the two P's-- new purchases and pansies-- I'm left with the gloriousness that is...

*drumroll*























WHOOHOO, the verbena is blooming!

So, yeah, I'm thinking that I'll pad this post out a bit.

I just got some perennial dianthus and some more verbena. I hear that this particular dianthus smells like cloves when it blooms:

















Winter-blooming germander from BSN. I've been admiring some blooming almost constantly in a limestone retaining wall by Town Lake, but the guy I talked to at BSN said that they need excellent drainage and tend to up and die suddenly, so I'm crossing my fingers and trying it anyway since it's one of the few things that blooms all winter in Austin. I worked a lot of rose soil into the hole before planting to make sure the drainage would be decent, since the rose soil I had on hand has decomposed granite in it to aid drainage.










Since the weather's been really warm all week, the pansies are going to seed:























Alyssum in a pot. It smells sunny and sweet.























The coralberry is leafing out again. Time to cut it back, I'm thinking.























And in conclusion, the lovely watercolor blue of a pansy: