Getting good and dirty

If you like to dig and till the earth, a garden in the middle of town is there for your use.

Serpent Handle

This is a detail from the decorative gate at the Zilker Botanical Garden. A reference to the Garden of Eden, perhaps.

There's a Story There

There's a little scene in an Old West Austin garden that seems to tell a story.

Urban Garden

This apartment dweller at the Gables Park Plaza is really making use of his balcony for gardening.

Urban Garden

Hey, there's nothing like some greenery in the heart of the city! This is about two blocks from our condo.  Soon it will be site of the Hotel Zaza that is slated for downtown.

Surf and turf

We were walking by a friend's office a few days ago and saw this magnificent stand of shrimp plants blooming in back of their place. I thought it made a nice composition to use their fence in the shot.

Detail of the Zilker Garden Gate

As promised yesterday, a detail of a bird on the Zilker Garden Gate against the sky.

Fall Flamingos

There's a garden store at Bee Cave (RM 2244) and 360 (aka Cap. of Texas Hwy) that always has a display of pink plastic flamingos. One way you can tell it is fall is that pumpkins are mixed in with them. (Are they plastic, too? I think so, maybe. I took this from the passenger seat of the car so I didn't give it close inspection.) It's definitely October, I guess. Signs of fall here include pumpkins, a hint of cool in the air before it turns brutally hot and, of course, football (the kind with the odd-shaped ball Americans obsess over). The store is called Pots and Plants.

Shooting the Sculpture

We went to the Umlauf Sculpture Garden fund raiser last night. It was a garden party in the garden. It was a very well-run event and the weather was quite pleasant. There were wine tasting stations with a number of wines to try and everyone was given a Twin Liquors tasting glass to use for that. A lot of great restaurants provided little bites: Eddie V's, Starlite, Ranch 616, Sullivan's, Truluck's and Roy's were ones we tried. Roy's was handing out spoons of tuna tartar and Eddie V's had their stellar Crab Cake. They had a great band and the honorary chair (Marcia Ball) and featured artist (Gordon Fowler) were there and we hadn't caught up with them in a long time. In the picture you see Larry, a decorator for some friends of ours who are also moving to the 360, shooting a photo while FFP takes a photo of him. This sculpture seems more classical than most Umlaufs which tend to the frolicking children, prosaic animals and reclining nudes. But I wasn't really studying the art so much as visiting with friends.

A Working Garden

The yellow cannas are part of the entrance walk to the Eastside Cafe vegetable garden you can see beyond them. I went to lunch there Thursday. The restaurant is east of Interstate 35 on Manor. (Go here in Google Earth by pressing here.) This stretch is now home to lots of eateries but Eastside has been there for nearly twenty years. The cafe (in an expanded old house) and a small cooking and gardening and take-out shop occupy part of the acre of land and about a third of it is given over to working garden where vegetables, herbs and flowers are organically grown for use in the restaurant. Needless to say the food is tasty. My friend and I waited twenty minutes for a table and we went after one o'clock to avoid the crowds. Thursday is the veritable beginning of the weekend in Austin, though, with everyone who works seeming to anticipate an easy Friday. We also saw big crowds at Jeffrey's bar on Thursday night when we were eating half price appetizers.