April is gorgeous and sad at the same time. Gorgeous in that all the spring flowers are in operatic bloom, sad in that they are at the moment right before they decline. Every moment in the garden is precious in that way--at any day's notice, this momentary show will start to look seedy, weedy and making way for the summer heat. My poppies are stretching for light now that all the trees have filled in so I am trying to at least capture them on film as much as I can.

The sweet peas will be the first to go in the heat; most of them are already riddled with powdery mildew...

I was busy taking adoring photos of my sweet peas last week (and I am embarrassed to say just how many) when I noticed the flicker of a jewel color on one of them. Sometimes even flies have iridescence, and so I ignored it until the flicker kept moving. Thankfully, this beautiful little creature had patience on me, as I crept closer. I'd never seen this butterfly before, the male Purple Hairstreak, but thanks to butterfly siting galleries i was able to identify him and his nearby friend who was also resting very contentedly on a sweet pea flower. And...…

It is a rich, full-bodied whistle,
cracked ice crunching in pails,
the night that numbs the leaf,
the duel of two nightingales,

the sweet pea that has run wild,
Creation's tears in shoulder blades

--Boris Pasternak, "Definition of Poetry"

We're still in the middle of nights that have the potential to numb leaves, but my sweet peas are starting to bloom, even the smaller ones nearly a foot tall.

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...…

After a beautiful week of temperatures in the 70s, the last few days have been shooting up and from the feel of it, summer is here. Usually at this point there is no turning back; the heat is on. (Why do I hear Glenn Frey in the background singing 80s style?) The spring bloomers are all going to seed and I started collecting my first bluebonnet seeds today. Some of them even got ahead of me and started popping open and dropping their seeds. I love doing this, thinking that just a few bluebonnet plants gives me about 100 more...…

As I am writing, the Christmas lights on my street are drawing passersby from all over Austin, we had our first sprinkling of snow in five years, and the weather has gone from a glorious 78 degrees, to windgusts and below freezing in a matter of a few hours. This was the year I finally decided to leave my Meyer lemon tree permanently outside in a beautiful bronze ceramic pot, and I fear that last night was its death. This is the odd season we call Winter in Austin, mild enough to have a winter garden, roses blooming at...…

In my first season of growing sweet peas, I knew I would become a lifelong fan. They are the sort of flowers that bring out the child in me and would make a great project to grow with children. I also like a challenge. Here in Texas, at least in Austin, the growing emphasis is on sustainable landscape, and somehow old-fashioned annuals--here today, gone tomorrow--just don't fit. But truly, these are worth the short season, just as much as tomatoes are worth their short season. I have seen sweet peas blooming in Scotland in September, in Cape Cod in August,...…

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...…

Traditionally, I've learned, fall is the best time in Texas to plant all spring-blooming annual flowers and almost anything perennial, whether herbs or flowers, or shrubs like roses. This is so plants get a good time to root themselves in over the winter in order to have stronger growth in spring before the heat sets in. It's when I sow all my wildflowers as well. I've learned the hard way that I don't live in a climate where I can sow many seeds outdoors after frost, as most seed packets inform you to do. Spring here is just too short, and by the time a plant starts germinating it won't have a change to bloom. My first year of gardening I tried this with several poppies, and they grew all right and started shooting out leaves but at the first hot day most of them began to choke.

If I could offer one piece of advice to a new Texas gardener, it would be to sow most of your seeds in fall, so that plants have a change to grow or settle in by November. October has been the best month for me to do this. This of course doesn't include all seeds, such as summer-blooming annuals which are not winter-hardy: zinnias, cosmos, and some others.

The most difficult job, however, of this past fall, has not been all the planting and the new landscaping--it was the total lack of rain. We had about 2 good days of rain between September and November. And since Thanksgiving it's probably rained once. I picked one of the hottest and drought-iest falls to start a foundational garden.

In spite of all this work, I've tried my best to keep up with my own projects, and even on this website am starting to list all the flowers, vegetables and shrubs I've planted in the "plantopia" section. Here is a small album of some of my recent blooms and projects: