Blue magic in Lori Daul’s garden

I returned to 1 of my favourite Austin gardens past weekend, the South Austin plot of designer Lori Daul. It’s an oasis with, by our count, 10 h2o features including aggregate stock-tank ponds, birdbaths, and ground-level saucers tucked into groundcovers. The colour bluish unites everything, adding to the cooling, watery effect.

Pond garden

Let’s commencement our circuit successful the backyard, wherever Lori’s biggest stock-tank pond, an 8-footer, draws you retired into the garden.

A flaking, powder-blue seat by the pond sets the colour code and offers a spot to commune with the goldfish.

They travel swimming implicit erstwhile you appear, their feathery tails swishing.

Moody blues and purples adhd play to agleam greens.

Behind the pond, a astonishment — a rolling ridge of bluish mountains studded with tiny circular mirrors that look similar twinkling lights successful the distance. It’s a mural Lori painted connected a metallic partition she built and welded herself. The theatricality and standard of it acceptable her plot apart. Lori ne'er does thing by half-measures.

Lori built it for privateness erstwhile she learned the spot down her location would beryllium developed. Also, “maybe I was conscionable daydreaming of a gait with a bully panoramic view,” she told me.

In the halfway of the yard, nether a mesquite tree, an land furniture jam-packed with plants frames a cream-colored fountain.

The fountain is perfect for birds, with a bubbler and a shallow bathing surface. Smoke histrion and beaked yucca, among different plants, adhd contrasting foliage.

Lori conscionable finished laying a caller patio made from a patchwork of pavers, bricks, and stone. She spent a batch of clip collecting materials and arranging and leveling them. The patio fills a U-shaped abstraction betwixt her house, an adjacent she-shed, and the mesquite-tree garden.

An oval stock-tank pond sits beside the she-shed, on with a bluish ligament seat cradling a potted prickly pear.

Velvety, light-catching colocasia is 1 of Lori’s favourite pond plants.

A cocoa mimosa echoes the colocasia’s smoky purple hue.

Globemallow adds creamsicle contrast.

A fewer edible plants turn successful pots.

Shade garden

Along the painted wall, successful a heavy raised bed, a shadiness plot thrives nether a enactment of crape myrtles. A decaying histrion subdivision adds a wood vibe and insect situation on the beforehand edge.

The tiny mirrors sparkle successful the background, and greenish leaves glow against bluish paint.

One of Lori’s galore h2o features

She precocious planted a yellow-berried yaupon holly nether the crape myrtles. Its aureate berries volition basal retired against the bluish travel fall.

A integrative flamingo prances done burgundy cannas.

In a sunny spot, a vessel of prickly pear stands retired successful a froth of pinkish evening primrose and ‘Silver King’ artemisia.

Another cactus sprouts phallically from a caput planter.

Side garden

Looking toward the broadside yard, you spot an arch of bluish bottles connected a mesquite limb, which frames an enticing view. A ample whale’s lingua agave rides high, elevated successful a banal tank. Under a circular mirror, a half-face planter looks backmost astatine you. The stained woody obstruction carries the bluish taxable along.

The whale’s lingua agave is truthful powdery blue, it’s astir white.

How I emotion the blue-rose signifier of this agave, positive those mahogany teeth on the leaves. Gorgeous!

This is possibly my favourite planter successful Lori’s garden: a half-face cookware with hypnotic eyes of ‘Quadricolor’ agave, a swish of ‘Evergold’ sedge connected the side, and a foxtail fern hairdo. Peach-apricot ‘Star of the Republic’ rose encircles the porthole-like mirror.

I privation I could convey the perfumed fragrance of ‘Star of the Republic’ rose. Divine!

‘Quicksilver’ rose unfurls luscious mauve blossoms arsenic well.

Along the constrictive broadside way toward the beforehand yard, different stock-tank pond draws the eye.

Lori placed it connected axis with her room array model truthful she tin bask the pond during meals oregon coffee.

‘Ann Chowning’ Louisiana iris shows disconnected wine-red flowers, and a fountain provides trickling h2o music.

‘Tangerine Beauty’ crossvine and burgundy canna adhd much warmth against the bluish fence.

By the gate, a small kumquat successful a cookware dangles orangish fruit. It’s paired with purple oxalis and the trailing, spiny stems of huernia, a passalong from Jenny Stocker of Rock Rose.

A red-veined sorrel successful beforehand echoes the reddish of adjacent cannas.

Front garden

In the beforehand garden, a immense whale’s lingua agave successful a stock-tank planter is sending up a tree-like bloom spike. Lori is fretting astir however she’ll excavate it from the vessel erstwhile it collapses and dies (agaves dice aft flowering). But for now, it’s a thrill to spot it going retired with a bang.

The melodramatic opening of the end

Pink evening primrose and pinkish roses tumble implicit terracing walls.

And pinkish flamingos stalk done ‘Silver King’ artemisia — “flamingos successful the mist,” arsenic Lori jokes.

‘Amistad’ salvia stakes retired a shady spot.

Heartleaf skullcap is starting to unfastened lavender angiosperm spires.

Stock tanks are placed liberally passim the tiny beforehand garden, elevating agaves arsenic focal points and making different instrumentality pond.

‘Arizona Star’ agave potted up amid sedge and heartleaf skullcap

Our person Diana Kirby stopped present to respect the pond. Her bluish outfit is on-point successful Lori’s bluish garden.

Steel balls interval successful the stock-tank pond, adding a small shine. Bronze fennel appears to regard astatine its ain reflection, similar Narcissus.

Rose campion finds a gravelly niche betwixt steps to the porch.

African hosta thrives successful the shade, elevated successful a quadrate planter beside holly fern.

A grinning, marble-eyed skull greets visitors astatine the doorway — grounds of Lori’s keen consciousness of achromatic humor, which ever keeps maine laughing. Thank you, Lori, for the beauteous plot sojourn this spring!

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