Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Happy May Day!

April was wonderful here in Austin. I especially enjoyed the special treat of meeting the other Austin Garden Bloggers on the 22nd. What a lovely group of ladies! Thanks to all of you for inviting me to view your beautiful gardens. It was so inspiring to see what the garden possibilities are in this area.

During my parent's visit last week we dropped by Lady Bird Johnson's Wildflower Center.

The Texas stonecrop (Lenophyllum texanum) and Candelilla (Euphorbia antisyphilitica) looked aesthetically pleasing in this self-contained alcove near the entrance.




I was happy to see the wisteria was still blooming in the arbor.



I saw several flowers there that I'd like to include in my garden. I especially like this Damianita (Chrysactinia mexicana):


This pink flower looked a bit like a phlox to me, but I couldn't find the label for it. Luckily Pam from Digging was kind enough to let me know that this is in fact the native annual Drummond phlox. Thanks once again, Pam!


The prickly pear was just starting to bloom. The bees were so cute burrowing themselves amongst the fluffy stamens in their search for nectar.

Of course the wildflowers were in good form,

...as were the turtles in the ponds.


The Center's beautiful water gardens tempt me to dig a pond of my own.

Though I'd need a pickaxe to dig through the solid limestone under the thin soil of my garden.


Speaking of water; my most recent garden purchase is a floating solar fountain for my container water garden. My son is intrigued with the way it sprays while the sun is shining and turns off abruptly when a cloud or shadow passes overhead.


The fountain's green color may be a bit too bright for the muted yellow of the container. I considered moving it to the bird bath in my front garden, but the fish seem so happy with the water's movement I think I'll leave it there for now and hope the water plants soften the appearance as time goes by.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tour. I haven't been down to the Wildflower Center in a while.

By the way, the pink flower is indeed phlox, our native annual Drummond phlox.

Dawn said...

Thanks Pam!

I'm slowly learning the plant names in Austin. It's very helpful to have experienced gardeners here to let me know what my 'mystery plants' really are.

:-)
Dawn

Annie in Austin said...

The phlox are lovely - and you can count on Pam to know the name. Your parents came at a great time for visiting the Wildflower Center - it wasn't as thrilling to take guests there in late summer.

I like the container pond and the solar fountain, too. You have done a lot for someone who moved in just last summer, Dawn!

Annie

Dawn said...

Thanks Annie!

You ladies know so much more than I do about the Austin plants. Your blogs are enormously helpful to me as I try to increase my garden knowledge-base bit by bit.

You're right, the Wildflower Center looks very colorful right now. And we were lucky enough to see a couple kinds of hummingbirds there which haven't visited my feeders yet.

We're really enjoying the solar fountain, at home. I searched online stores for them for quite a while before I found this one for such a relatively low price. The company delivered it quickly without a problem, so I can recommend them at least in this case. The fountain has three different attachments and has a nice little jet when in full sun.

:-)
Dawn