Getting started

Today is the first post to what I hope will be a fun and interesting blog. My blog will mostly be a gardening blog, but I plan on throwing in a few surprises now and then.
I've been gardening for as long as I can remember. Growing up in rural Southwest Kansas my father had a huge vegetable garden. I don't really remember a time when I wasn't pulling weeds and planting things in that garden. When I was about 12, a neighbor introduced me to an elderly, blind German lady named Elzora Butcher. She had her own greenhouse and an infectious love for gardening and plants. It rubbed off on me and I've been gardening and landscaping ever since.
I moved to Austin, Tx in 1984 and continued my passion for landscaping first by landscaping several rental houses that I lived in and then, in 1988 I purchased my first house on Texas Avenue in Hyde Park here in Austin. I had a small yard with huge pecan trees and a nice deck in the back. I went all out on that house turning it into a tropical paradise. I sold that house in 2000 and unfortunately the new owners didn't keep up the landscape. The palm trees are still there and doing well but many of the plants have died.
When I sold that house I thought that I would leave Austin. I traveled around the country and much of the world, and came to the conclusion that there are alot of great places out there but they aren't any better than Austin. So I stayed.
In 2004 I purchased a little ranch style house built in 1957 in Windsor Park (near the old Mueller Airport). I was looking to purchase a small house with a big yard and that's exactly what I ended up with. The house needed alot of work, so the first 2 years were spend making the inside livable. After that I was able to focus on my passion; landscaping the yard. I have an enormous yard with a great St. Augustine lawn and very little in the way of landscaping. I was starting with almost a clean slate. I began with the front as it was smaller and less intimidating than the huge backyard. Now that the front is in at least ok shape, I'm focusing my energies on the back. My plans for the back include putting in sliding doors from the dining room and the guest bedroom to the backyard and then making a patio that runs the entire length of the house. I want to transform the back to a jungle with different "rooms". I've been working on killing the St. Augustine and plan to build pathways between the different garden rooms, trying to create an air of mystery. I will have a vegetable garden, several trellises and arbors, an outdoor shower and hopefully someday a greenhouse.
I have alot to do and lots of time to do it in. Unfortunately I have very limited funds, so I will have to find creative ways to accomplish my goals. The Travis County Master Gardeners (of which I am a member) want to use my yard for the garden tour next October, so I have until then to get all of this work accomplished. Wish me luck!!