What are your go-to pot-friendly plants and why (e.g., attractive, low maintenance, etc)? I want to start building out my outdoor garden, but am renting so I want to stick to pots. I have ample outdoor space, but it’s worth noting that my yard gets heavy afternoon/evening sun exposure.
Thanks in advance for the ideas :)
I'm considering ordering corms but would like to know if others in our area have had success with saffron. I'd like to grow it for my own cooking, nothing elaborate like a plan to sell my harvest. And yes, I'm mapping out my fall garden and my spring 2027 garden already.
Repotted this passion flower not too long ago and it was thriving, saw the butterflies and loved them, google said the caterpillars would eat it but wouldn’t be able to eat it faster than it could grow. Doesn’t seem to be the case. Is there hope?!
I planted this tree this year in March as a 10 gallon (I think), and made sure to water it upon planting. It rained a lot this spring, but beyond watering for the first two weeks, I haven’t watered it to prevent overwatering. Any idea what’s going on? I tried to give it an ever-so-slightly raised planting to enable better drainage.
Plant probably gets direct light from 8AM-5PM in my South side yard.
I have well-established passion fruit growing on over an arch trellis. This is the first year I've see it covered by gulf fritillary caterpillars. About a third to a half of the leaves have one chomping away on the undersides, but surprisingly there's not a lot of visible damage to the passion fruit. I've read that gulf fritillaries are good to have around. Correct me if I'm wrong (or mis-identified them).
They’re not the best, but I’m getting about 15-20lbs of tomatoes a week. What can I do with them? I already jarred some salsa.
I saw this while driving in south Austin and couldn’t identify it.
New to Austin via Denver where lavender explodes....will I have any luck here?
This heat has been brutal and I did the hardy root test but I’m so nervous 😬
Hi hi! It’s been a sad day. I planted these dahlias pretty late for the season - in early May. I’ve already lost all progress on one due to rot last month. Now I’m having the opposite problem with the dry, HOT weather we’ve been having. The dahlias have been surviving the heat itself ok. I’ve been focusing on morning sun and afternoon shade.
Then….. a couple days ago…. I noticed the leaves were looking particularly sad. I’ve had plenty of plants in the past but this season I’m being particularly hands on and am very invested in their well being. So, I did some research and came to the conclusion that I was dealing with a spider mite infestation. Once I became aware of it, I started to notice them practically everywhere. They’re in my potted plants on the other side of the house and my complex’s community garden. I also noticed that I had lace bugs (as seen on my zinnias) but that’s not as concerning for the time being.
Because it’s getting up to 100F during the day using pesticides or even neem oil seems to be a bad idea due to the risk of leaf burn. My course of action has been a serious spray down with the hose, focusing on the underside of the leaves morning & night. I picked up some MicroLife Super Seaweed today & sprayed the underside of the leaves on all of my potted plants. I’m hoping it’ll help the damaged plants bounce back a little faster.
Very open to your thoughts on my plan & any experience you’ve had with spider mites.
TIA! 🫶🏼🌱
I added some sesame to my pollinator garden this year. I love the bell-shaped tubular flowers, and they haven't been eaten by the deer.
I know Crape Myrtles aren’t popular here, disclaimer - I planted this when I first moved into this area without an understanding of natives (and I planted a ton of natives all over the last couple years, including that baby Blackfoot Daisy in the pic)
I got this at a big box store and honestly I just love the colors of the leaves and contrast of the red flowers. It flowered similarly but less prolific last year even when we were in a drought with only once a month deep watering*, and it survived the ice storm last winter. Not native but decently adapted and looks nice. OK you can downvote me now :)
(edit - spelling)
I’m not trying to avoid the chemical liquid stuff, but can make bone meal, worm castings, and in-bed compost systems at home.
Is it feasible to only rely on these for good yields as opposed to the liquid Fox Farm type stuff?
Every time I turn around there’s another development project coming down the pipeline; MoPac South, I-35, Dog’s Head, SoCo Waterfront, data centers, your local mechanic is now a towering apartment complex. They all leave me with the same feeling of who exactly are we building Austin for?
Lately we’re making thousands of decisions about Austin’s future without ever agreeing on what our values are. Growth isn’t the problem bc Austin was always going to grow. Somewhere along the way it feels like we stopped asking what made this city worth growing in the first place.
Sure, every Greenfield development project seems reasonable or justifiable when viewed on its own. But on the whole these decisions have consequences that will play out over the next 30 or even 50 years.
IMO Austin is not define by taller buildings or wider highways. It’s defined by Barton Springs, the Greenbelt, beautiful humans, the tree canopy, our lovely creeks, abundant wildlife and the feeling that nature is still part of everyday life.
I’m not here to play growth police, though I do feel we need an ecological bill of rights to protect the things that we refuse to lose. Let’s define what we’re willing to protect at all costs before it’s gone. This type of rapid growth and irresponsible resource management has occurred before in the past. 100 years ago there was a historic dust bowl and great depression that left the land scarred for generations. We know that once those natural things we love disappear they’re not coming back within our lifetimes.
*Photo from the atrocious new development by Berkshire Hathaway on Tecoma Boulevard cutting a huge swath of the Greenbelt away. Rest in peace to the secret Lost Creek Trail y’all. It was nice while we had it.
Went there to pick up a few plants today and in their demonstration gardens I saw a half dozen tomato plants that looked amazing - the first three feet had been pruned of all their branches, just a thick, heavy stem. Then at the top (supported by a cage) these big, beautiful, fat tomatoes and all the branches with leaves.
Saw the same thing with the okra, you could see where numerous branches had been pruned off and the remaining ones were full of big, beautiful, healthy leaves and budding fruit.
I usually prune my a bit but this was something new - probably took off 70% of the tomato branches.
Anyone else do this? Does it work as well for you?
I am planning on planting in the front of my house. It’s shaded until mid afternoon and then sets on it and it gets hot hot. What would be the best native, pollinator friendly, flowering plants to grow in this space?
This little lady was on my potting bench this morning while I was harvesting some seed pods. I think they’re either drawn to the succulents or drawn to the bugs drawn to the succulents. With how quick of climbers they are, the bench seems like a playground for them.
They keep my succulents PRISTINE - the only other inhabitants are spiders (which eat even more pests - yay!)
I’ve seen several baby anoles in my garden this year. Anyone have tips on what they really enjoy so I can be sure to have them every year?
My Beauford Holly has an infestation of Asian citrus psyllid nymphs according to Google. My concern with using any of the methods other than water blasting is that I have a good population of toads right now. My next step is to trim the damaged parts and I’m wondering if anyone has other ideas that would not harm toads.
