This lovely little annual phlox has bloomed in my garden from November until April. It is not as showy as the big garden phlox like Phlox paniculata, but I love how little I need to take care of it and how it blooms when not much else is. I've often seen it for sale in nurseries in the fall along with other annuals like snapdragons and alyssum, but it's just as easy to grow from seed and will bloom in fall if you start early enough. (The seed germinates in about 3-5 days if you keep it moist, and often...…

The state flower of Texas, and the glory of the spring. No roadside or edge of a ranch, or even small garden like mine feels complete without them. Bluebonnets are diminutive lupines, but look stunning in mass. While they're the essence of meadow in Texas, they're also very pretty in carefully arranged garden beds. Bluebonnets are sown in fall, and occasionally you can find them as nursery-grown annuals, but the seed is so widely available and easy to sow, that it's worth it to always try some every year. While the peak of bluebonnet season is in April, they occasionally...…

These lovely, childlike highly fragrant flowers have become already one of my garden obsessions. I ordered almost 30 different types of varieties by seed, while really only having room to grow about five. And this was never having seen a sweet pea before. But I am not alone, I have read many stories of other gardeners who fell to the same captivation by sweet peas, after seeing a photo in a catalog or gardening magazine. And I wonder why, for such a delicate flower? Perhaps it's their fragility and butterfly-beauty, but more beautiful than the flowers is their fragrance, which...…

There are two kinds of chamomile grown for tea, one commonly called Roman or English chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile). There are gardeners in some parts of the world that carefully cultivate this kind into an oh-so-romantic-sounding "Chamomile lawn". Imagine walking and playing on a carpet of fragrant daisies. I could write a whole post about rethinking lawn in a romantic sense, but that would be getting way off track here. I am not growing Roman chamomile but "German" chamomile, Matricaria recutita. The two are similar species, although German chamomile is annual while the former is perennial, and used for similar purposes....…

I never thought I'd be a snapdragon fan. As a child I saw them every summer in my grandmother's garden. They seemed too... familiar. When I first started gardening I was so obsessed with starting native plants that I usually ignored most of the 'annuals' table at every gardening center, but then, one autumn while I was looking for some color to fill in bare spots, I visited a gardening store I'd never been to before and they had rows and rows of snapdragons. And to my surprise, they were fragrant, so fruity and sweet. I had never remembered snapdragons...…

As I sit here writing on my front porch, the sweet candy fragrance of sweet peas is dancing in the breeze. This part of the afternoon, fragrance often dissipates in the heat, and already the heights of the afternoon sun are starting to produce the kind of heat that makes me thankful for air conditioning (or at least the very protecting cedar trees in our yard, which just started to leaf out last weekend). pinks in the herb garden Last fall, I concentrated heavily on adding more fragrant plants to my garden, and I have to say I am not...…

Growing vines can be addictive. They're instantly satisfying to an inpatient gardener, as some of them can grow to monstrous sizes in just months. I've been reticent to grow vines until I'm sure I won't be spending my days getting rid of their seedlings (see my woes on the trumpet vine below), but I have so many fences, bare walls, and things just in need of green and lushness. I just love how quickly vines grow and cover a wall, a trellis, a fence... instant green, instant color (and sometimes, as in the case of sweet peas, loads of flowers...…

Mrs. Collier, an old-fashioned sweet pea Someone should have warned me about romance in the garden. In pictures, in catalogs, in nurseries--all it takes is a bit of romance about a flower and you must have it. Somewhere, anywhere.  You might not know how big it gets, or if it works in your climate. Who cares? It's like trying to get those amazing shoes to fit when they only had one size left. And yet unlike the expensive romance of vintage clothing, or furniture, or any other object with a historical, mysterious beauty, plants are quite cheap. Seeds are...…

I sowed these in early fall of 2007, during a Dianthus craze. I was buying just about any Dianthus seeds I could get my hands on, and during a trip to London I bought a packet of these and one of 'Ipswich pinks' from the gift store at Kew Botanical Gardens. China pinks are hybrids of Dianthus chinensis and are very popular as winter bedding annuals in Austin; they can flower from October to sometimes as late as July. In some cases they even struggle through the summer to start blooming all over again in fall. I have had some...…

Also called purslane, or its latin name portulaca, Moss Rose is really popular around here as a summer annual. It grows like mad, cares not for overwatering or underwatering, and I've had far more success with it than "ice plant". This plant would root on your finger if you let it, so be careful to dig it out where you don't want it to spread. It doesn't matter anyway, since it doesn't live through the winter. I bought this particular variety trailing beautifully over a hanging basket one late summer, then brought it indoors, where it promptly dropped all its...…

Otherwise known as Vinca, I happen to like the name "periwinkle". When searching for some kind of annual flower that would possibly make it through the summer--through heat and drought--there were very few possibilities. The two options pointed out to me at my favorite nursery were zinnias and gomphrenas. I went back a couple weeks later and the tables were scattered with periwinkle, which I had read would take the heat. (The periwinkles in the photo below are from the "Pacifica" series.) I gathered up a tray full of light pinks, some with lighter centers and others with a bright...…