A little bit about my garden

I've been gardening for several decades now, the vast majority of that time in central Texas (Austin, woohoo!!). But now I'm here in north Louisiana and believe me, it's a bit different. I used to call gardening in Austin "macho gardening". You know, you had to put up with zillions of bugs, little soil, droughts, floods, freezes, non-stop 100 degree days, etc. I no longer consider it macho gardening, now that I've been to Botswana and seen a garden that had to contend with wayward elephants. But that's another story.

Anyway, gardening in north Louisiana is different for me. For one thing, we get close to twice as much annual rainfall here than in Austin. For another, we have soil!! Well it may not be the best, but it's something.

In this garden, which is only 2.5 years old now, I get to indulge in a few plants that I never would have considered previously. Plants that are a bit more delicate and not tough as nails. In the past, I would diligently search out native plants. There's a big demand for them in Austin but it's almost impossible to find them here. So I'm learning to work with what I've got.

Since I was new to the area, my confidence in designing a new garden was not very high. I didn't know what would survive or even what materials (you know, the hardscaping) were the norm here. Through my husband's connections at the university here I met a landscape architect. She's since become a good friend and she designed the hardscaping and the general "spirit" of the place. I'll blog more about the process of getting through the initial installation another time. (It was an "interesting" ordeal.)

So that's it for now. Here's a couple pics of a few flowers from my garden.