Herb garden hardscape (before and after)

Oh my god, its hot out there.  Working on the new hardscaping for the herb garden has reminded me of why fall is my favorite season. Kyle and I spent the last week laying stone, prepping beds and moving a huge mountain of decomposed granite. No planting to speak of yet.  It’s still too hot and dry.

Also in case your curious, that is Dixie Lee hanging out on new patio extension.

Soldier Down!

I think its dead.  All and all most of the new plantings in the Spa Garden are doing quite well despite the heat.  This Phormium is the only causality. (I am a bit worried for the Loquat tree though, every afternoon it looks a little sad.)

Volunteer: Pokeweed

Last year this plant started growing from underneath one of the Sago Palms by the front walk.  It had potential for turning into something interesting, but sprouting from the middle of a Sago wasn’t going to work. At the end of  last fall I dug it up and to my delight found that it was growing from a tuber, so I replanted it a few feet away.  In its new home it came back more stunning than last year; however, despite the nice green foliage and interesting cluster of berries I didn’t know what it was.  Then just a few weeks ago Lorne was giving a tour of the house and gardens and showed it one of his guests.  Turns out they knew what it was and indentified it as poke-weed.  Lorne forwarded the wikipedia article and turns out the plant has a bit of an interesting history.

Here’s the link to the Wikipedia Article.

Pokeweed

Spa Garden finished!

Well, just as the Africa hot weather settled into Austin for the summer we decided to install the spa garden.  It has been about two weeks since installation and daily watering has kept most things alive.

Some of the things we planted: Bananas, Loquat, Coffee Cup Alocasia (this is a very cool plant!), Jatrophia, Ixora, Red Crinium, Copper-leaf Plant, New Zealand Flax (which is declining fast), A sad shrimp plant, creeping plumbago (I am very interested to see how this plant does in Central Texas), Mountian Pea, Black Sweet Potato Vine, Annual Vinca, and Dwarf Mondo.  Its a pretty sizable plant list for such a small garden.

Spa garden before…

Last month Lorne and Sterling had a new hot tub delivered to the property.  Its a great little tub, but surrounding, as you can see, was lacking.  Hence it was decided that spa garden should be born…

A shovelful of dirt.

Its the way most gardens start, but it is also a process that happens though-out the life of the garden.  This is not the first shoveful of dirt that has been known to Eponymous Garden, but this is its birth in the world of new social media.

Follow me through the garden, one shovelful of dirt at a time.