What I learned - Water in the Garden

Since it is still ridiculously hot, let's go back to Austin some more... Although, there is some very exciting progress happening, related to this specific thing I learned, that i can't wait to document here! It just needs to be fixed/finished first...

There were a lot of very beautiful water features that we saw during the Austin Fling. I image much like in the desert, water is always welcome in Texas!

The beauty started right from day one at the Wild Flower Center.

that fern (?) looks happy!

Of course, later on day 1, most of the roof turned into a waterfall/water feature, but that's ok!

They also had some beautiful stock ponds

and in ground ponds, covered with lillies

I think this modern water feature at Mirador is supposed to look like that, and the rain was not to blame...

i love the disappearing edge type water features - filled to overflowing...

Jenny Stocker's small water feature in the shade was no less lovely for being smaller.

the extra rocks are a great way to make it look larger and fill the space

This slightly larger one was in her veggie garden - a great starter size, no?

lillies again!

Of course, no discussion about Austin and water features would be complete without looking at Pam's stock tank garden:

So pretty!

A view from slightly up - i love the fountain in there also.

and everything else, of course. 

There were also a lot of pools in Austin. All of the ones on the tour stood out for being beautifully integrated into the whole garden. Some where "stand out", like the gorgeous pool in Tanglewild's court yard:

a great combo of pool & landscaping

in other gardens, the pool almost blended into the view or the garden.

this was at Kirk Moring - it looks like an extension of the river!

In Jenny's garden, it basically looked like a very rectangular pond had appeared in her garden.

The pond in the Japanese garden at Zilker didn't have the clearest water, but did have lillies, and a lantern/pedoga statue.

And Koi!

Fountains, both small and large, were also great examples of how to bring water into the garden.

the mermaid cove at Lucinda's was great. 

this water feature at Lady Bird Johnson Center was gorgeous, and looked like fun!

A slightly smaller, and very restful/zen like fountain at B. Jane's garden. 

I also really loved that plant combo with the fountain! I thought it was a great example of putting a fountain in a planting bed.  At Tanglewild, this fountain on the patio was also a stand out for me. I image the bees and birds like it too.

how do people make this work with no visible cords/solar panels/water lines?

One of my favorite pools of the whole trip was the one at Tait Moring's garden - the landscaping around it was gorgeous!

that wall & those plants and that tree!

And we were even allowed to put our feet in to cool off a bit!

apparently this is a fling tradition?

Thoughts on how to apply this lesson to my garden:

• Since i specifically bought the house with no pool, we won't be adding one of those!
• I do think i should finally pull the trigger on trying a stock pond, however. Even if i start with a smaller one, i can use some of the ideas i saw in Austin to make it feel more substantial. 
• When i add the stock pond, it should be hooked up to the irrigation system and electrical - to make sure i can have a fountain/pump and add water as needed to account for evaporation. 
• Some kind of smaller water feature/fountain on the patio might be good as well. If it also looks good empty, that might be even better. Austin is a LOT more humid than here, so my guess is that i'd be refilling often. 
• If i do get a pond, i want water lilies! Probably topical ones - hopefully they would like the warm water? And i should figure out how to keep the water as clear as possible...

What I Learned: Garden Art Done Austin-Style

It continues to be hot (shocker!) so instead of doing lots of work in the garden, i went back and looked at Austin pictures for inspiration. There are a few exciting projects happening in the garden, however - now if i could just remember to take pictures!

One thing i don't have a lot of is garden art. No particular reason, although the fact that I buy too many plants is probably one. I'm also not sure what i like, or what looks good, or what will hold up in our sun/heat/cold/wind. I also tend towards minimalist tendencies (well, except for plants), so "extra stuff" was never high on my list.

However, just like with plants, and everything else, the gardens we saw during the Austin Fling had all kinds of inspiration for garden art. Here are some of the ones that caught my eye, from the small:

this cute metal lizard (?) in Diana's garden

To the large:

the labyrinth at The Natural Gardener

And the cute - in this case bushes with some decorations to make them look like caterpillars!

Also at The Natural Gardener!

At Mirador, the garden art was more sculptural and very much blended with the rest of the design.

although it was blocking the gate - on purpose?

Austin had lots of metal lizards - this one in Pam's garden:

I like how it blends into the rock

Pam's garden had lots of cute garden art that really fit in with everything else in her gorgeous garden

a carnivorous plant i might be able to keep alive!

Ditto on the fish!

Some of the art looked like it was part of the plants, like these metal stalks on an agave:

not the world's best picture of Pam's garden...

In Hutto, there were more small sculptures:

and a bottle edging - there were a lot of bottles (trees, bushes, edges) in the Fling

The back gate at Zilker had metal cacti!

The whole gate was gorgeous! 

While at Lucinda Hutson's garden, there were all kinds of metal agave, in different colors:

these were great - they really fit in her garden, but i can see them work in lots of places

A lot of Austin gardens had beautiful rock work. At Kirk Walden's garden, there was also a sculpture near the top pool/spa:

it looked like a dinosaur to me? Fitting with all that rock!

We saw a lot of bottle trees in different gardens - this one from Donna Fowler's garden was among the most colorful:

especially with that blue sky and lime-green trees behind it!

I will admit that while i admire explosions of color like that, I think i can see more subdued art fitting better in my own garden, like this crocodile out of Tait Moring's garden:

hiding in the gravel - i could do this with DG?

Or this combination of spheres and stepping stones in Jenny Stocker's garden. She recently did a post showing how to make these spheres:

i like how they are nestled into the plants

She also had this cute frog statue hanging off the edge of a rock wall:

cute, and looking great on that awesome Texas/Austin rock!

She also had this little "theater", which made the plants themselves look like art:

so neat! And a great focal point on the wall...

Thoughts on how to apply this lesson to my garden:

• While i admire some of the very colorful art, i'm not sure that's my style. Over and over again in Austin, my eye was caught by art that blended into the gardens. 
• All the metal (rusted metal, in particular) sculpture was really nice. And maybe the rusted color would keep it from getting too hot in the desert sun? I know i would really like glass, but i don't like setting the garden on fire, so that's probably out...
• I liked all the spheres - maybe i could get some more for the garden, including glazed ones that match the mostly-blue pots I've been using? I have some small ones scattered around the garden already, but i think the hillside would be a great place to add some bigger ones. 
• I should look into more "vertical" garden art - like bloom stalks, or other things to add some height, especially when the yuccas/hesperaloes aren't blooming.  
• I'm very tempted to find a place on a wall to hang a cacti theater like Jenny's - maybe that can be the thing to fill up the wall by the AC and make that part of the garden nicer?
• Speaking of that part of the garden (that would be the south side) - I wonder if i could add cacti to the fence like at Zilker... it would be fitting! I probably can't get an exact color match though, so I'll have to see if it still works against the blue gate. 

What I learned: Excellent Color Echos & Palettes

It. Is. Hot. So hot, in fact, that i had ants trying to get into my freezer to cool off. Sigh. While i figure out how to make them go away, here's another thing I noticed during the Austin Fling.

(also - crazy fires are back in California... hope everyone is doing alright and safe!)

One thing i noticed in Austin was how good some gardeners were at using color palettes, and color echos. Whether a small vignette, or a big, whole garden look, there were so many great ways that people used color to tie things together.

Here were some of the small vignettes i noticed:

this perfect match of pot & abutilon in Pam's garden

the way these dykia play off the heart (also Pam's garden)

this combo of mirror, pot and flower pomegrate hiding in Colleen's garden

this combo of water feature, pot and plant in colleen's garden as well

Colleen's garden in particular had all these little combinations of color vignettes, that i only really noticed when i wandered around the second time. The picture below isn't great, but the purple combo of bench, water and flowers really stood out in person. 

and just around the corner was red - so well done!

In Lucinda's garden, all the colors were represented. But just like in Coleen's garden, she expertly brought colors together in different parts of her garden to make them stand out. 

like this beautiful family of purples and silvers on one of the structures

 At the Margie McClurg garden, this color combo of pot/fountain and japanese maple showed the same "almost same color" approach in plants.

so pretty!

As you might expect, B. Jane's garden used a beautiful all-garden color palette - which was announced by the floating balls on the pool!

This looks like a Gray Malin photograph!

The garden furniture matched, of course!

this little grouping was off in the shade.

The studio door, and Euphoria tirucallit 'Sticks on Fire'continued all the right colors.

how does one match paint to plants that perfectly?

Even the accessories - like the pot on the outdoor stove - matched!

a level of color coordination i will never achieve. 

Thoughts on how to apply this lesson to my garden:

• Matching plants to the color of my pots might be hard (since my pots are all deep blue), but some good combos should be possible. Maybe more blue-silvery pots to go with some of the blue-silver foliage?
• I can definitely be more 'on purpose' with flower colors - maybe more yellow flowers under the palo verde? 
• I like how Colleen (and others) allowed gardens to flow from one color combo to the next - that might work really well in the large bed on the north side (from yellow to purple to TBD to white (?) to yellow?)
• I should probably consider being more deliberate with the colors i bring into the garden - although it's always hard not to buy every plant i like... Maybe thinking about where to put plants so even the odd colors (like a random pink?) stand out, rather than clash...

Finally, Cousin Itt comes to visit!

Taking a short break from looking at Austin pictures, I finally found a plant i'd been looking for! Before our heat got completely insane, i finally found a plant i'd been looking for (locally) for over 2 years - acacia cognata Cousin Itt. I fell in plant-lust with it after seeing it in botanical gardens and blogs, and even figured out the "perfect" spot for it in my garden. And then I couldn't find it anywhere...

I wanted it to replace a pink muhly grass that was in too much shade to bloom well, next to the dry creek bed. Since it looked horrible, and i couldn't find Cousin Itt, i eventually planted a purple cordyline instead. Amazingly enough, it didn't die!

mostly-happy cordyline

I realize that picture doesn't make that spot look particularly shady, but after about 2pm, the sun moves behind the wall on the right side, so it mostly gets morning sun. And in my garden, that counts as "shade".

And then a few weeks ago, i was "just looking" at one of the nurseries, and i found:

Cousin Itt! Fancy seeing you here!

So obviously i bought it. And i did think about whether there were other spots to plant it, but the most likely spot (the hill side) seemed like guaranteed death. So with some quick shovel work, the cordyline was evicted, and Cousin Itt put in where i wanted it 2 years ago.

In place - the green will go much better with the grasses that are further down the creek bed

Supposedly, acacia cognata can take 'full sun' (probably not this full sun), and have low water needs, so that should work. Cold hardiness is a bit of a gamble, but i have several other acacia's that seem to be surviving fairly well, so fingers crossed.

The poor cordyline didn't get tossed - there was a spot in the front garden where something else had died, so it got moved:

The cordyline in its new spot - this might be too much sun for the purple leaves...

You can see that it's now in closer proximity to other plants - i think it should be able to outgrow the neighbors vertically, assuming it survives. Ironically, it's closest neighbor is now acacia redolens. This poor cordyline really needs to compete with all members of acacia for space!