It's already May 16th here, long past midnight after a long hot day. I went out to take photos for GBBD early in the morning under an overcast sky, hoping the flowers would be fresh. The back lawn looked pretty raggedy so I mowed it, then took more photos in the late afternoon. 
Many of the photos of individual flowers are pretty good. But you won't see them! I've spent hours formatting the pictures and trying to write this post but Blogger is being a pig as usual, uploading most of the closeups sideways. They look like crap that way so I deleted most of them. I might try to put the apricot daylily on my Twit-pic page instead. This little harvest of a 'Spanish Spice' pepper, 3 'Juliet' tomatoes and 8 peapods appeared there a couple of days ago. 
What you get is the garden in long shots - perhaps it's just as well. It's hot, we need rain, and insects and crustaceans have been chomping everything. Poor Rosa 'Julia Child' has been devoured. Pillbugs got the marigold seedlings. 
The front garden - 'The Bride' white gaura, Salvia guaranitica, Texas paintbrush, Yellow Bulbine, lavender blue Creeping Phlox, Salvia 'Nuevo Leon', Verbena bonariensis, the dependable Mutabilis rose 
The Pink Entrance Garden - a dwarf burgundy daylily, Mexican oregano, Rose-pink gaura, verbena bonariensis, rose Ice Plant, Deep pink 'Telstar' dianthus, white trailing lantana, pink skullcap, 'Belinda's Dream' Rose, deep magenta Calibrachoa.
Just inside the gate, flowers in purples and oranges, blues and apricots. Mexican honeysuckle, Orange cuphea, , 'Vi's Apricot' dwarf daylilies, Verbena bonariensis, Setcreasea(Purple Heart tradescantia), Bicolor iris 
and Butterfly Blue scabiosa. 
In the middle and at the far end of the fence bed two shrubs of Mexican oregano are in full bloom 
And in the far corner the Rose of Sharon has a dozen flowers and the top of this shrub has finally reached the level of the fence, a small step toward the dream of a green screen.
In the triangles and the center back bed are more 'Vi's Apricot' Daylilies, white salvia greggii, one lonely larkspur, tropical Asclepias/Butterfly weed, snapdragons, cilantro gone to seed, lavenders, Zinnia linearis, 
the tiny flowers of Myrtus communis nana, Dwarf Greek Myrtle
The large fragrant flowers of Little Gem magnolia
A white delphinium 
Budded daylilies, Batfaced cuphea, Black & Blue salvia, Salvia coccinea, Salvia greggii, Salvia guaranitica, Shasta daisies and Perovskia
Head back to the patio and the color comes from geraniums and petunias (and more calibrachoa offscreen)
Abelias dangle from the tall shrubs at the entrance to the secret garden. 
Inside are geraniums, impatiens, passionflowers, Mexican lime flowers, 'Coral Nymph' salvia and two pomegranates with a few flowers, one regular variety and one dwarf kind. 
In a few hours I'll be digging with the Divas of the Dirt so goodnight! Wonderful flowers with much less cranky gardeners can be found at May Dreams Garden, where Carol keeps track of more than 130 Garden Blogger Bloom Day posts from around the world.
This year a couple of Sweet Lavender plants lived over winter, then made enough long stems to make a sweet and simple Lavender Stick as described by Elizabeth Lawrence in Through The Garden Gate. You can find step-by-step instructions at my other blog, Annie's Addendum. A lot of stuff seems to end up over there lately! You might also enjoy old Illinois iris lists or the photo of a Cactus with daffodils.
Cindy From My Corner of Katy had an interesting idea a few weeks ago, to take a look though her garden gate every Monday. When she asked her readers to share the views from their gates, Robin from Get Grounded joined in. I'm not organized enough to do this very often, Cindy, but I'd like to join in today.
If you've got time for a fast spin around the back yard, grab the handle and swing open the gate.
Look to the right, and the last flowers on the tall pink climbing rose lean down, tempting you to see if they have a scent. (They do!)
Look to the left and you see a long border along the fence, anchored by two 'Acoma' crepe myrtles. They're now fully leafed out but aren't showing buds yet. You can see a wooden framework in the vegetable patch along the back fence - those tomatoes and peppers better hurry and make fruit fast before the heat settles in and gets them.
Colors like yellows and violets and silvers and whites hang out along the fence on our left, punctuated by orange and purples. The creamy yellow Bicolor iris and buttery yellow 'Julia Child' rose both have flowers and this week we see another flower in a sharper yellow hue.
It's the small reblooming daylily 'Happy Returns', looking pretty bouncy, with 'Perfume Deep Purple' Nicotiana and Setcreasea/"Purple Heart" behind it.
Now pivot and turn right, and you'll see the long axis of the back garden. The two triangle beds cut across the axis at center left and the fountain, herb troughs, umbrella table and chairs cluster on the patio in the middle right. Look hard and you might see a bright spot of color way back past the garden shed under the partially leafed-out pecans.
Let's walk to that end to take a closer look - the red is in the bulb bed against the opposite fence. A few years ago I rounded up Amaryllis bulbs leftover from previous holidays, remnants of Easter lilies, stray oxalis, hitchhiking gladiolis and occasional bargain bulb 'rescues' and stuck them all into this well-drained, raised bed. Sometimes the bulbs just send up leaves, sometimes they disappear and sometimes they bloom. Four of the amaryllis have bloom stalks this week. 
We'll turn around and head back with the shady back fence on our right. Oh, look at the poor Michelia figo/Banana shrub, valiantly trying to recover from that fierce hailstorm on March 25th. Damaged leaves are dropping, but new ones are forming. 
Just past the Michelia a passalong Siberian iris is in bloom. There are only a few flowers left today but I caught the clump at its peak last week. 
This is not a large garden -just a 12-foot jog to the left can land you near the patio. A couple of flowers decorate the Pineapple guava in the terracotta pot. The hail drastically pruned the Coral honeysuckle, stripping off many leaves and all open flowers. Over the last month it's recovered well enough to lightly rebloom. 
Oh, look! Down in the gravel at the base of the arch there are unexpected leaves and a flower. I was sure the squirrels ate the Tulipa clusiana bulbs when nothing appeared by mid-April. They're so late they should be Tulipa tarda, instead. But tardy does not mean unwelcome! 
We're heading back now, past Philo's yellow chair, past the smaller triangle bed with those tenacious yellow snapdragons, past the Spanish lavender and the Sweet lavender, and past the larger triangle bed with the 'Little Gem' Magnolia. 
Some buds are swelling on the magnolia now - with luck these remaining flowers can open normally. Although the hail didn't knock all leaves completely off the tree, it sure left them looking ragged.
Out the gate we go, past a hanging basket planted with a Calabrachoa in bright, desert-y colors.
Your car's in the drive, hidden around the corner on your left, past the Pink Entrance Garden. But do you really have to leave? A hummingbird zoomed next to my ear when I was snapping off spent blossoms from those fragrant purple iris. If we sit on the bench sipping coffee and tea, he might come back. 
Last Saturday our daughter Lily and her dear husband returned home after a visit with their Austin relatives - but most of that special time is not the stuff of blog posts. We were glad to be together and also glad Austin displayed spectacular blue skies. It's been a long, cold, wet winter in the Pacific Northwest.
When guests come from out-of state, it gives us a chance to act like tourists in our own town - that's the part I want to share with you.
A favorite place to take visitors is a funky mini-golf course on Barton Springs Road, south of the river. Nearly 60-years old, Peter Pan golf was created by the Dismukes family. It's not a tournament-type course, but can present interesting challenges to the players, especially at night. 
You might not think of a bike store as a tourist attraction, but when the shop is called Mellow Johnny's and it belongs to Lance Armstrong, it's a must-go-there destination, especially for a guy who bikes in triathlons and a gal who will be part of the Livestrong Challenge this summer. Within the bike store we found a coffee shop named Juan Pelota cafe in ironic tribute to Lance's battle with cancer. It was very cool to see bikes Lance rode in races on display in the shop.
Even when we have no company to impress we occasionally head down to South Congress for Home Slice Pizza. What a fabulous crust on those pies - and such perfect toppings. And it's right across the street from Tesoros Trading Company. Lily & I bought identical oval black clay bowls. Here's mine with some beautifully decorated, blown-out eggs that our daughter made as a gift and hand-carried on the plane.
After we went to Tesoros, I realized that exactly one year earlier during Austin Spring Fling, Garden Bloggers from all over the country ambled together down South Congress in search of souvenirs. Shout out to Kathy Purdy & her friend Cynthia!
When the Garden Bloggers met in Austin last year another place everyone wanted to go was the Natural Gardener. We love to take people there! Not only is it a wonderful nursery but it's a great place to stroll around and think and dream - with a butterfly garden, vegetable demonstration gardens and water features. Philo and I usually make a stop at the dig-it-yourself Soil Yard whenever we drive down. This time we had four people wielding shovels, so filling the back of the car with bags of John Dromgoole's Rose Magic and Revitalizer Compost was a very speedy process, giving us more time to wander the nursery lanes. 
I couldn't resist snapping a stack of turtles in Lady Bird Lake. The name used to be Town Lake, but after Lady Bird Johnson died, the downtown section of the Colorado River was renamed in her honor. 
We walked the part of the very popular hike and bike trail that passes the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue, the Long Center for the Performing Arts (just a few days after we'd been there for the Leonard Cohen concert), and the off-leash dog park. 
When we strolled the paved hike and bike trail it wasn't much of a workout, but it was a little hotter and dustier when we climbed up the trails at Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve . This preserve is not manicured and you have to watch where you put your feet. Wildflowers grow along the trails, 
At some points there are views of Loop 360 to the West and a pond surprises you when it appears in this arid setting. 
It had been a few years since we'd been to Wild Basin with a different set of visitors. That hike turned out to be quite an ordeal because the temperatures were over 100°F...guess it took us awhile to get over the experience! It was funny to realize that because I can now identify more of the trees and plants in the woods, walking there was somehow more enjoyable than in the past.
Six of us went to the Flat Creek Estate Winery for a wine tasting - a fun new thing for some of us and a chance for the experienced to show off their sophistication. The drive out to the beautiful Tuscan-style buildings and grounds near Marble Falls was long enough to be interesting without being tedious.
We enjoyed the different wines, bringing home a few bottles. (If you go to the winery on the weekends the Bistro will be open. Because we were there mid-week, instead of snacking on Mediterranean fare after the tasting, we ended up at a roadside Sonic in the nearby town of Lago Vista.)Our daughter admired the label on the Bucking Horse Red which featured an image of "Cage Johnson Spurs 'Em Up Aboard Cyclone" by famed Texas Artist Bob Wade. The tasting had proved to us that the inside of the bottle was as fine as the outside - this red was perfect with delicious pies from Reale's Pizza. For our group there is no such thing as too much pizza.
Mayfield Park was once the private home of the Mayfield family with the gardens developed over a long time by Mary Mayfield Gutsch and her husband Milton Gutsch.
Some of the plants have been here since the 1920's with peacocks and peahens added in 1935. Philo & I first saw this park in September 1999, soon after we moved to Austin. Mayfield proved to me that beautiful flowers could grow in this climate. Maybe MSS of Zanthan Gardens can tell us whether these lovely red flowers are St Joseph Lilies or something else in the amaryllis family. 
Not too far from Mayfield is a favorite place to buy plants, Shoal Creek nursery - we stopped there to walk around and look at the pottery. I couldn't make a decision on the pots, but found another Loropetalum and some Purple Nicotiana. Lily & BJ and Philo & I are all gardeners so if we lived closer to each other, visiting nurseries together would be a normal thing to do on weekends. We cherish these chances to act normal and just hang out!Hanging out in Austin also means enjoying Tex-Mex restaurants. Our son suggested Serranos, which is especially fun on 2-for-1 Enchilada night when the chips & queso are hot and the margaritas refreshing. Taco Cabana is more casual, which can be handy when you're out touring.
The Elisabet Ney museum is an old museum- so it's probably okay to use an old photo. I forgot to take a new picture when we visited this museum, the studio of early Austin's fascinating woman sculptor. Click to enlarge the photo so you can see another visitor we took to the Ney Museum...the paper person called Flat Stanley.
We all had one final outing the day before our guests flew home - a short ride out to Blanco for a tour of the Real Ale Brewery. This was too much fun - beer we like (and can buy locally) and an amazingly detailed tour and explanation of how beer is made. When we lived in Illinois, Philo and our older sons did some home brewing and the process is interesting to all of us. I'm fond of the Rio Blanco Pale Ale and Philo, who looks for high IBU numbers, prefers the Full Moon Pale Rye Ale. He also likes the Real Heavy, which is available seasonally but on draught, not in bottles. The Brewmaster AKA "Tyrant" was a wonderful tour guide, witty and ironic, languidly imparting quite specific information.The vagaries of Texas law allows the brewery to give tours and samples of the various brews but unlike wineries, breweries can't sell any of the product to their visitors so we couldn't bring home a sampler 6-pack. This inequity has recently been a subject of much discussion in the beer-brewing and beer-loving community.
The backdoor clematis bloomed too late for our visitors and too late for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - but it opened just in time to be the end photo of this PLEASE COME VISIT AUSTIN post. Hope to see you soon!
Posts
It's already May 16th here, long past midnight after a long hot day. I went out to take photos for GBBD early in the morning under an overcast sky, hoping the flowers would be fresh. The back lawn looked pretty raggedy so I mowed it, then took more photos in the late afternoon. 
Many of the photos of individual flowers are pretty good. But you won't see them! I've spent hours formatting the pictures and trying to write this post but Blogger is being a pig as usual, uploading most of the closeups sideways. They look like crap that way so I deleted most of them. I might try to put the apricot daylily on my Twit-pic page instead. This little harvest of a 'Spanish Spice' pepper, 3 'Juliet' tomatoes and 8 peapods appeared there a couple of days ago. 
What you get is the garden in long shots - perhaps it's just as well. It's hot, we need rain, and insects and crustaceans have been chomping everything. Poor Rosa 'Julia Child' has been devoured. Pillbugs got the marigold seedlings. 
The front garden - 'The Bride' white gaura, Salvia guaranitica, Texas paintbrush, Yellow Bulbine, lavender blue Creeping Phlox, Salvia 'Nuevo Leon', Verbena bonariensis, the dependable Mutabilis rose 
The Pink Entrance Garden - a dwarf burgundy daylily, Mexican oregano, Rose-pink gaura, verbena bonariensis, rose Ice Plant, Deep pink 'Telstar' dianthus, white trailing lantana, pink skullcap, 'Belinda's Dream' Rose, deep magenta Calibrachoa.
Just inside the gate, flowers in purples and oranges, blues and apricots. Mexican honeysuckle, Orange cuphea, , 'Vi's Apricot' dwarf daylilies, Verbena bonariensis, Setcreasea(Purple Heart tradescantia), Bicolor iris 
and Butterfly Blue scabiosa. 
In the middle and at the far end of the fence bed two shrubs of Mexican oregano are in full bloom 
And in the far corner the Rose of Sharon has a dozen flowers and the top of this shrub has finally reached the level of the fence, a small step toward the dream of a green screen.
In the triangles and the center back bed are more 'Vi's Apricot' Daylilies, white salvia greggii, one lonely larkspur, tropical Asclepias/Butterfly weed, snapdragons, cilantro gone to seed, lavenders, Zinnia linearis, 
A white delphinium 
Budded daylilies, Batfaced cuphea, Black & Blue salvia, Salvia coccinea, Salvia greggii, Salvia guaranitica, Shasta daisies and Perovskia
Head back to the patio and the color comes from geraniums and petunias (and more calibrachoa offscreen)
Abelias dangle from the tall shrubs at the entrance to the secret garden. 
Inside are geraniums, impatiens, passionflowers, Mexican lime flowers, 'Coral Nymph' salvia and two pomegranates with a few flowers, one regular variety and one dwarf kind. 
In a few hours I'll be digging with the Divas of the Dirt so goodnight! Wonderful flowers with much less cranky gardeners can be found at May Dreams Garden, where Carol keeps track of more than 130 Garden Blogger Bloom Day posts from around the world. 
ROOTS
A WHOLE DECADE
LAVENDER STICKS