TAKE A TOUR OF OUR COURTYARD ENTRY GARDEN

Yesterday the garden hosted a lot of visitors. First in the early morning a friend and her out of town guests and then in the afternoon Marty Wingate brought a group of garden enthusiasts from the Seattle area on a Texas Bluebonnet tour. In the morning they visited Tate Moring's garden, followed by lunch at the Grove and then on to visit our garden. Those of you who have visited this garden know that we always bring people in through the side entry off the driveway. Maybe you would like to follow them.

The entry deck is where many of my overwintered cactus and succulents get to spend the summer. Not too much sun and when the sun does reach this garden it is filtered by the large overhanging live oak.

How fortunate that the queen was out to add her greetings. She has been indoors for a while because I did get rather tired of her incessant waving and banished her indoors. She has help from a solar panel in her ever present handbag. I would never have a gnome in my garden unless I was given one, as I was with HRH. Just a bit of a joke.

The Whale's Tongue agave is going to make the first impression. You see her before you even walk up the steps. But then eyes will be drawn to the sound of water coming from the disappearing fountain.

It's a favorite place for the finches and cardinals to come for water. You may recall having heard the history of the fountain. We found it in the alley behind our son's house in Dallas. The hexagonal piece of concrete once held a post, so the square hole in the center, with a couple of cross nails, was just perfect through which to feed the water. We had always had a water feature here but it was just a piece of limestone rock with a well positioned hole we had found in our wild areas. This was enormously heavy but the two of them managed to get it into our truck and somehow David, single handed, got it in place.

To reach the gravel patio you have to cross the little stone bridge.

 Someone standing at the entrance yesterday said it was like Beth Chatto's gravel garden. What an enormous compliment that is.

Among the bluebonnets are pink and purple skull cap, Scutellaria wrightii, creeping germander, Teucrium cossonii Claret cup cactus, Echinocereus  triglochidiatus, square-bud primrose, Calylophus drummondianus and blackfoot daisy, Melampodium leucanthum. No irrigation here.

You must smell Zephirine drouhin. She is the most fragrant of roses and as you bend over you will catch a glimpse of the flower stalk on the Mangave 'Macho mocha' I hope this doesn't mean the end because I don't see any pups and this one, a pass-a-long form Pam Penick at Digging, has taken a few years to achieve this size.

Sit down for a minute in the shade of the umbrella. A humming bird may come by to sip nectar from the Texas betony, Stachys coccinea, behind you.

Texas betony

I am definitely going more xeriscape on this side of the garden. Partly to reduce the work and to enable me to remove all irrigation. These plants will have to go it alone.

As you turn back Lady Banks' rose comes into view. She will be getting a big trim back after she finishes flowering, to give more light to the understory plants.

It isn't the easiest of gardens to visit because there are all kinds of plants growing in the gravel and if you know me you know how protective I am of those little seedlings. After all, they may be next year's plants. Hope you enjoyed the tour of this garden.