Colleen Jamison has two gardens in the Highland Park area of Austin, Texas. There’s the one she tends around her home, which is lovely and full of intimate spaces and sweet decorative touches. Then there’s the one she shares with the street. Literally, with the street! In fact, it’s part of the street. During our May tour of Austin gardens during the Garden Bloggers Fling, we were treated to a stroll through this remarkable, leafy community space, which Colleen began designing years ago to disguise her view of a neighbour’s parked trucks through a neglected median strip which had become a messy, wild place where deer browsed. This is what it looked like on a (too) sunny morning in early May, as the emerging Mexican feather grass (Nassella tenuissima) tickled the legs of a variety of beautiful garden benches.

An allée of crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia) created shade at one end; they would be full of blossoms later in the season. At the other end was a retama allée (Parkinsonia aculeata). A crushed stone path wends its way down the centre, and small solar lights create ambiance after dark. It is one of the most generous gestures I’ve seen, and quite remarkable in a world where neighbours tend to get out of their cars, unlock their front doors, then close them on the outside world.  When I asked Colleen if she’d had any trouble with city bylaws, she replied: “The city has had a ton of chances to complain, but not one peep from them.  In fact, they seem to appreciate it!”

Imagine taking your breakfast coffee and the newspaper and sitting here as the wind blows through the leaves.  Colleen tells me that there hasn’t been any theft through the years, but someone, likely kids, spray-painted the cushions once.

The garden is accessible to both sides of the street.  Says Colleen: “The neighbors do use it a lot!  Parents walking their kids to school, runners, and folks walking around the neighborhood mostly.”

(Alas, the sun was shining brightly when I was there and created difficult shadows for photography. Pam Penick has done a very informative blog on Colleen’s street median garden, photographed in much kinder light, which I certainly can’t improve on. Have a read.”

Let’s start at the front of the house, where a pretty verandah is the perfect place to sit. And what I loved was the colour scheme, which is quite uniform for the upholstered pieces throughout the garden. Since I’m a big fan of red, I was entranced with how beautifully it plays with the rich brown woodwork everywhere.  And I always say that a painted front door is one of the easiest ways to add sex appeal to a house facade and enhance a front garden colour scheme.

It was on their verandah that I photographed Colleen Jamison, a retired executive and now garden designer, and her husband Bruce Baldwin, whose creative carpentry is on display throughout the garden.

The understated browns and reds even play a role in the scheme of this lovely window box.

Bruce turned a former door into the gate into the back garden….

….. and transformed garden tools into the gate handles.

There was a busy bird-feeding station in the side yard and I loved that this blue jay posed beside Colleen’s garden sign. “Everybirdy, maybe, but ME in particular!”

I liked how Bruce designed these shadow boxes for the fence, which Colleen planted up with white pots and crockery.

And here was the first of a few frogs in the garden, in an eternal yoga pose…..

…. while this one seemed ‘stumped’ about something.

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The lizard was just happy to be there, gazing at Colleen’s bling.

The back garden patio and vine-wreathed pergola continued the lovely red-and-brown scheme of the front porch – even the candles are red!

And I’ve seen lots of bottle trees, but this kind of ‘bottle tree’ makes a lot more sense to me…. Bottoms up!

There was a splashing stone water feature surrounded by Salvia greggii – and what a fun idea, to mount a pretty plate in the foliage.

The back of the house was planted with roses and vines and featured….

….. a protected alcove with a comfy chaise lounge, all in red-and-brown. And yes, that’s red bougainvillea in the pot.

But it’s not red-and-brown everywhere. I love a purple pop in the garden, and this little painted metal bench fits the bill perfectly. (In fact this photo made me realize that I want a small metal bench like this in my own urban prairie garden, for those times when I get tired standing on the flagstone path to weed and water.)

And Colleen had blue on her mind with this lovely gathering of deck containers.

A wooden box planter with an ingenious steel rod trellis featured tomatoes. And bling, of course.

Speaking of bling, I’m going to finish this blog with a look at a few of Colleen’s pretty little suncatcher flourishes.  Because a garden is more than its plants and its hardscape and its four-season stucture, it’s also a place to let your personality shine through, whether in sophisticated pearls…..

….. or faux aquamarine…..

….. or all the jewel colours of the rainbow.