Category Archives: gardening

Antique Rose – Tea Class

Over the past decade, I have seen an explosion of roses in suburban and commercial landscapes here in Central Texas. Yet, it is really just an explosion of one kind in particular – Knock Out®. I personally think that its popularity is a result of great marketing and not anything special about the rose. But […]

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Drought Tolerant Plantings

As I mentioned before, Fall is the best time for gardening and to get your garden ready for the Spring. That is, if you live in Central Texas. And with the recent extreme drought and hot weather, I was finally able to witness once and for all which of our plants were truly drought-tolerant. Here […]

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Free Mulch in Austin!

Start thinking and planning for your Spring garden now! The free mulch from the Christmas tree recycling program is still available at Zilker park on the south side of Barton Springs Rd. It’s free for the taking which I confirmed with the Parks & Rec guys even though it wasn’t well publicized this year. As […]

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Fall is the Best Time to Garden in Central Texas

If you’re wondering about my absence from the virtual world lately, it’s because I’ve been knee deep in my garden. The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous! In many ways, I much prefer to garden in the Fall than in the Spring. It is the best time to: get your plants in and/or plan out […]

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This Weekend: Garden Festival of Roses

If I didn’t already have plans this weekend, I would be dragging my family to the 7th Annual Garden Festival of Roses at the Antique Rose Emporium in San Antonio. By the way, it was from the owner Mike Shoup’s rose book, Landscaping with Antique Roses (no longer in print) where I (re)discovered my passion […]

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Homemade Upside-Down Tomato Planter

My husband saw an info-mercial on upside down planters late one night and thought it would be a fun project to do with the kids. It was very easy to make but not very pretty. It was made out of a gallon jug container with about a 1.5″ diameter opening for the tomato plant. He […]

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Tomato Plants and Cage Design

After years of experimenting with different layouts, we’ve settled on a ‘U’ or horseshoe arrangement for our cage plants. You can reach each plant from all angles and it’s very kid-friendly. Our kids love hanging inside the U. We use 6″ grid cattle panel welded wire fencing for all our cages and plant eggplants and […]

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Onion Harvest and French Onion Soup Recipe

I just pulled out all of our onions this week. It is our first big harvest for this year. Onions are very easy to grow in Central Texas. We plant the onion sets very close together and use the thinned out ones as green onions. The ones I just pulled are from our edible garden […]

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Earth Day 2009

Woohoo! Wish everyday was Earth Day. Here’s an easy idea you can implement: purchase a rain barrel and start harvesting rainwater for your garden use. Conserve water, save on water bills, and your plants will reward you for it (they do better with pH neutral rainwater than municipal water). In many cities, you can even […]

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Climbing Antique Rose in your Southern Garden

No southern garden is complete without the presence of roses and no other rose class is more fitting in a southern garden than the Noisettes. The Noisette class descended from the first recorded American hybrid, Champneys’ Pink Cluster a.k.a ‘The Charleston Rose’, and is recognized as the first rose class originating in the United States.

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