Monday, June 26, 2017

The Yellow Rose of the Cacti Family






Not a rose, but this stunning bloom

reminds me of a Spanish Rose.





The Opuntia Robusta, better known as

the Prickly Pear or Wheel Cactus

can be seen blooming in May and June

in gardens and open land here in Texas.





It's a superstar in the state of Texas

and can grow to be five feet tall.





The blue-gray round or oval pads

can grow to be four to ten inches long

and have very sharp spines.





These stunning blooms can be from

 two to five inches across.




Once the flower blooms, it leaves

a barrel-shaped fleshy pink or purple fruit.

These edible plants are used in traditional Mexican cuisine.




Though no  Prickly Pear grow in my garden,

there are several large plants growing in neighbors'

gardens that I pass by on my daily walks.

I hope you enjoyed seeing a bit of

Texas "sunshine" from one of my recent walks.



Thank you, Pam, for hosting


Also joining
Sundays At Home @ Love Of Home
StyleInspiration Gallery @ Zevy Joy
Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop @ Peonies and Orange BlossomsShare Your Cup Thursday @ Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. OlsenHome and Garden Thursday @ Delightsome LifeShare Your Style @ Vintage NestVintage Charm @ Blue Willow HouseFoodie Friday and Everything Else @ Rattlebridge FarmFeathered Nest Friday @ French Country CottageHome Sweet Home @ The Charm of Home

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Monday, June 12, 2017

Welcome To My Garden





I'm a garden girl.
One who is happiest in a garden, 
be it mine or someone else's.  

A few weeks ago, Pam @ Everyday Living
wrote to invite her garden loving friends to join her
in a new link-up, Gardens Galore.
I'm definitely a Garden Girl and happy to share my garden.
This is a post that I created and shared last spring,
so I took the liberty to repost it for this party.
We had a severe winter with extended hard freezes,
so to be honest not everything in the garden is as
colorful as it was last year at this time.

Gardening genes run through our family.
My grandmother's garden is one of my 
favorite childhood memories.
Sweet peas climbing up a trellis, 
snapdragons in candy colors,
stock, and a wealth of other bloomers. 
My mother and all three of her sisters were also gardeners.
I'm happy I inheritated the gardening gene too.

Spring arrived early in Austin this year, and the
redbud trees all over town offered up deep pink blooms.

Our ever blooming knockout roses, with their
backdrop of blue plumbego,
welcome guests just about year round.

As do the firecracker ferns and 
the brilliant yellow of the golden thryallis.

I'm a serious fan of this wonderful shrub.
I cut it back at the end of winter, and by spring it rewards us 
with these delicate yellow blooms right into the next winter.

Iceberg roses with their sweet fragrance
welcome you as you come up our front steps.

A staple in our garden are hardy iris in a rainbow of colors.
All of our iris were "pass along plants" given to 
us by other gardeners who had an abundance.

The day lilies are just beginning to 
put out blooms, but it won't be long before
we'll have a sea of these pretty blooms to greet the day.

Gerber daisies and petunias
give the sun garden annual color before the
dreaded triple digit heat of summer arrives.

Oh, and before I take you to the shade garden,
Sadie wanted you to see our crop of bluebonnets 
that bloomed earlier in the spring.
Bluebonnets grow wild along the roadsides in Texas,
but many of us Texans have them in our gardens too.

We can follow this foot path
to move on to our shade garden in the back.

The shade garden is my favorite outdoor space because
the shades of green with occasional white blooms offer the 
feeling of a cool oasis, even if it's just in my imagination.
Do you see the tall ginger plant to the left
that grows under a large live oak tree?
It's a shell ginger.

Most winters it freezes back to the ground and 
wouldn't yet be tall and full of leaves, but there was no freeze  
here this past winter.  The odd years with no freeze
means we'll get to enjoy the beauty of these amazing blooms.

Truly they are the 
most exquisite blooms!

You might come across a 
bunny here or there.

My garden bunnies like to hide 
among the holly ferns .   .   .

Or frolic beneath the canapy
of the oak leaf hydrangeas.

Oak leaf hydrangeas are native to the US,
and they seem to thrive here while most hydrangeas find
our summers too hot.  They don't require a lot of water like most
hydrangeas, nor do they need much attention.  
Perfect for a Texas shade garden!

 Our shade garden is a quiet space except
for the sound of bird calls and the occasional bark 
from Sadie as she chases a squirrel up a tree.

It's also basically an evergreen
garden so it can be enjoyed year round.

I'm trying something new this spring.
I  moved this table from the upper terrace
down to the lower terrace and brought out my topiary plants 
from the sunroom to see if they will flourish outdoors.  

Image here from Tone on Tone

My inspiration is my blogging friend, Loi @ Tone on Tone.
I've been a fan and avid reader of Tone on Tone
for many years.  If you don't know of this exquisite blog,
then head over and prepare to spend some time.
He has an amazing eye for beauty, and as you can see
Loi is an expert gardener.  Aren't these myrtles amazing? 

Image here from Tone on Tone

I'd like to add some myrtle topiaries if 
I can find a source and perhaps
do the table exclusively with myrtles 
as Loi has done in the photo above.

~ Gardens ~
You'll find more gardens to visit at 
Pam's Garden Link-Up here.