February 12, 2015

Grow up with vines + Home of the hippos artistic garden!

Got something to hide? Even in a narrow space, vines have got you covered! Summer and fall blooming Queen’s wreath is truly royalty with bees and butterflies.

Perhaps you’d like to cozy things up with easy-to-control star jasmine?

If you’ve got to contain yourself, check out small vines like clematis.

For shade, I like evergreen potato vine Solanum jasminoides. Mine’s twirling around an obelisk, promising fragrant little flowers soon. You could do this one in a large container, too.

This week, let’s grow up with Colby Adams from Barton Springs Nursery, who takes our gardens to new heights.

Something new to us is winter deciduous orchid vine (Bauhinia corymbosa). In full sun to part shade, it explodes with small, fragrant, orchid-like flowers in spring. Perfect in containers, too.

Pandora vine (Pandorea jasminoides) is another deciduous, aromatic spring bloomer with flowers like morning glories. This deer resistant vine can freeze if not protected below 20°.

Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata) is a drought defiant top performer. Mostly evergreen, the native red and yellow or cultivar ‘Tangerine Beauty’ is busy blooming in spring; sporadic flowers feed wildlife through fall.

Much tamer evergreen coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirensis) performs most in spring, but keeps on going through early summer.

For shade, evergreen Clematis armandii is a show-stopper with huge, super fragrant flowers in spring. It will take over the world, but if you need to hide that fence or cover an arbor in shade, it can’t be beat!

Watch online and get Colby’s list.

Special guest Jim Kamas, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension fruit expert, answers one of our most frequent questions: which fruit trees need another for pollination?

• Peaches: self-pollinated except for old varieties.
• Apples & pears: cross pollinated. You need two different varieties that bloom at the same time.
• Plums: that depends! Best ones for Central Texas are Methley and Santa Rosa, self-pollinators.

Find out more about pollination (like pecan trees and grapes) and about plums, our Plant of the Week.

To fend off critters snagging our flowers and food, Trisha shows off her favorite new repellents from I Must Garden. In her organic garden, Trisha’s had great success with their products to repel deer, squirrels, and even mosquitoes!

On tour in Hutto, the main critters you’ll see are flying around on flowers and fruit. Well, and a few hippos, too, keeping a stalwart watch on all the air traffic.

Donna and Mike Fowler work hard in their garden, but they also have a heck of a lot of fun. Mike built Donna’s queenly chair from tree prunings on site.

With boundless imagination, any curbside discard or thrift store find prompts a creative brainstorm to punctuate every garden spot.

While playful, they craft homegrown art to accent Donna’s plant schemes. I love this “study in blue” with cobalt bottle tree, plumbago and Salvia guaranitica.

Ever witty former Hutto mayor Mike tucks in subtle political digs, like Medicare Man of War bottle tree, welded by Ron Whitfield. It’s also a heads up to pharmacist Donna!

Art and stylistic plants personalize each distinct area. The sunny Texas drought tough area in front sports yuccas, aloes and lots of fluffy plants to complement.

A Zen garden with tumbled glass dry stream started as a flood control measure.

The “stream” connects to a soft, lush secret garden behind foundling gates. The stream also disperses intense rain events to slowly sink in.

Throughout the garden, the Fowlers placed sculptures created by Mike’s dad, Mel Fowler.

In driest times, their xeric plants get a rainwater harvesting boost.

Follow the flower-bordered path to an intimate conversation area.

They bought the empty lot next door for Donna’s lush organic vegetable garden.

Their bottle tree here resembles a basketful of Donna’s nightly harvests.

Son Luke’s teepee celebrates Native American sustainability and the family’s distant heritage.

There’s lots more, so get ready to be inspired for your spring projects right now!

Thanks for stopping by! See you next week, Linda

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