Cottage Garden, Houston Style

This past weekend I did some more travelling, this time to Houston since my hub was attending a conference there. Of course I took the opportunity to visit another garden blogger, Cindy from My Corner of Katy. Cindy and I met last summer at the garden bloggers' Chicago Spring Fling and managed to meet up again last fall for some nursery hopping. This time I was determined to visit her garden, especially since she said it had recovered nicely from the "big freeze". Cindy lives out in Katy, a suburb (now) of Houston. First up is the predominantly shady front yard. Her front yard gives a little taste of the back, with flowers self seeding and paths through them. She is still working on creating more paths. It was nice to see a front yard almost completely devoid of a lawn (she has a little patch with plans to possibly work some bulbs in).

Cindy is on a corner lot so she needs some tough plants there. All of the plants above are really tough, mostly Texas natives.

As you walk around the corner towards the back you come to a stunning rose and flower bed fronting the alley but also facing the street. (I can tell you that as soon as I drove down that street I knew which yard was Cindy's!) There are Queen Anne's Lace, toadflax, poppies, and several roses in bloom.

And here is Cindy squinting into the Texas sun. Next time I visit a fellow blogger's garden, maybe I should insist on visiting at the crack of dawn so I can get better photos. Think that'll work?? ;-)

Next you come to her garden gate at the backyard. I've included a panoramic shot of what you see as you open that gate (I imagine you would also see Cindy weeding, as I did here). Please click on the photo to get a better look. The entrance to the back is enchanting. My immediate reaction was awe at the number of flowers in bloom. Also, it so epitomized my concept of a cottage garden, with low to the ground bloomers and roses here and there. I recall the shock and horror Cindy had earlier this year when a very hard freeze took out many plants. Or seemed to. But she's happy that occurred as it showed her where she needed to add some structure.

I have to show you a close up of some toadflax (Linaria sp.). Toadflax is really Cindy's signature plant. It is everywhere and speaks "cottage garden" to me. She said her garden really shines best in the spring when this lovely little plant is blooming.

How's this for an unusual tree? This is a Texas Persimmon that Cindy trimmed up, only to discover this nest-like set of tree limbs. I can tell you the birds liked it as well.

My last photo is of this charming little vignette in the back corner. The white blooming tree is one of the white varieties of Redbud (Cercis canadensis). After the tour, in which I once again gabbed too much to take good photos, we went out to lunch and then hit a nursery. As Cindy said in one of her recent posts, we both showed remarkable restraint in our purchases! Thank you so much Cindy, for your time and friendship. Hopefully I'll see you in Buffalo!

This post was written by Jean McWeeney for my blog Dig, Grow, Compost, Blog. Copyright 2009. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.