Moon gate and woodland garden at Boulder Haven

Moon gate and woodland garden at Boulder Haven

October 15, 2023 Have you ever seen a moon gate as beautiful as this one? I don’t think I have. It appears like a portal to another world around a back corner at Boulder Haven, the home garden of designer Carol Verhake in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. Carol’s garden was on the ...
Green-roof prairie and fantasy gardens at Epic Systems, Part 2

Green-roof prairie and fantasy gardens at Epic Systems, Part 2

July 30, 2022 The fanciful, theme-park landscaping and architectural design of Epic Systems‘ corporate campus made for a one-of-a-kind tour during the Madison Fling in June. While I’d read about Epic’s imaginative design, I had not heard about its ambitious efforts at sustainability. According to the company’s website: “Epic’s buildings ...
Kicking off Madison Fling: People, badgers, barns, and a bountiful rooftop garden

Kicking off Madison Fling: People, badgers, barns, and a bountiful rooftop garden

July 04, 2022 Farm country scenery at the Flower Factory near Madison In late June I joined approximately 50 garden bloggers, Instagrammers, podcasters, and YouTubers in picturesque Madison, Wisconsin, for the 13th annual Garden Bloggers Fling. After a COVID hiatus of two years, and a heroic display of patience, stamina, ...
Trolls, grasses, and a storybook children's garden at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

Trolls, grasses, and a storybook children’s garden at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

November 03, 2021 We traveled north in early October to enjoy fall foliage in New Hampshire, stopping first in Maine for a couple of days. A garden on my must-see list: Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, a 300-acre public garden in Boothbay. Here’s part 2 of my visit; click here for ...
Exploring reimagined Waterloo Park in downtown Austin

Exploring reimagined Waterloo Park in downtown Austin

August 30, 2021 Shade trees are precious in a hot climate, 200-year-old heritage live oaks even more so. As Waterloo Park in downtown Austin emerges from a massive, 10-year redesign and overhaul, two grand old live oaks on the west side of the park greet visitors as if lovingly presented ...
Origami sculpture in the Culinary and Adventure gardens at San Antonio Botanical Garden

Origami sculpture in the Culinary and Adventure gardens at San Antonio Botanical Garden

December 10, 2020 Part 3 of my recent visit to San Antonio Botanical Garden to see the Origami in the Garden exhibition by Santa Fe artist Kevin Box takes us through the relatively new Culinary and Family Adventure gardens. Two festive Christmas trees greeted me just inside the entrance. Zachry ...
Origami sculpture and Christmasy cactus garden at San Antonio Botanical Garden

Origami sculpture and Christmasy cactus garden at San Antonio Botanical Garden

December 07, 2020 I first admired Kevin Box‘s playful origami sculptures on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. Now he’s exhibiting his work at San Antonio Botanical Garden through early May 2021. I kept wanting to visit this fall but couldn’t find time until last weekend, when my husband and I ...
A city park floating on air: Klyde Warren Park in Dallas

A city park floating on air: Klyde Warren Park in Dallas

November 03, 2019 A remarkable green space floats overhead, literally flashing before your eyes as you commute or pass through downtown Dallas. Built above 3 blocks of the Woodall Rodgers Freeway, Klyde Warren Park is a remarkable green roof that has become a beloved public park. Traffic flows beneath the ...
Children's Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling

Children’s Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling

July 17, 2019 Part of the Mordecai Children’s Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens, which I visited during the Denver Fling (June 2019), sits atop a parking garage, making it one very large rooftop garden. A pretty alpine garden, including this crevice garden, greets you as you enter, and it surprised ...
TatTopia garden embraces stonework and sustainability: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling

TatTopia garden embraces stonework and sustainability: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling

July 09, 2019 When the construction dust settled at Tatiana Maxwell’s new energy-wise home, studio, and guest house in Boulder, Colorado, in 2010, the yard was just an expanse of bare dirt. Her first thought was to build an English-style cottage garden. But after brainstorming with stonemason artist Thea Alvin ...
Playing in The Gardens on Spring Creek in Fort Collins

Playing in The Gardens on Spring Creek in Fort Collins

September 12, 2018 During our Great American West road trip last month, my daughter and I passed through charming Fort Collins, Colorado, and visited The Gardens on Spring Creek, the city’s community-oriented botanic garden. The entry garden was ablaze with late-summer flowers like purple coneflower, rudbeckia, and cleome. Pink cleome ...
Topiary meadow and sunken pond garden at Great Dixter, part 2

Topiary meadow and sunken pond garden at Great Dixter, part 2

August 14, 2018 In part 1 of my recap of my tour of Great Dixter in England earlier this summer, I confessed that I didn’t like the overplanted, claustrophobic feeling of the Peacock Garden and surrounding hedged gardens. But I found breathing room and the longer views I’d craved along ...
Bloggers soaked up Austin at Garden Bloggers Fling

Bloggers soaked up Austin at Garden Bloggers Fling

May 11, 2018 For 11 years I’ve traveled to cities around North America to attend Garden Bloggers Fling, and I’ve helped organize two Flings held in Austin — in and again last weekend. Normally I take hundreds of pictures of the gardens I visit. (Go to Categories in my sidebar ...
Bluebonnets, buckeyes, and more in bloom at Wildflower Center gardens

Bluebonnets, buckeyes, and more in bloom at Wildflower Center gardens

March 25, 2018 Ahh, Texas bluebonnets! They’re turning Austin’s roadsides blue right now, and early ‘bonnets were in bloom last week at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I wish everyone could experience a good bluebonnet season at least once in their lives. California poppies were blooming too, their orange ...
New Central Library - "Austin's front porch" - boasts rooftop garden and more

New Central Library – “Austin’s front porch” – boasts rooftop garden and more

December 15, 2017 Austin is head over heels in love with our new Central Library, a marvelous civic structure by Lake|Flato that is much more than a library. It’s a community space for all of Austin in a prime location on Cesar Chavez Street near Austin City Hall and across ...
Sedgey front garden and xeriscape terrace

Sedgey front garden and xeriscape terrace

December 06, 2017 For one West Austin homeowner, this is the view from her front door: an undulating, rhythmic front walk of poured-concrete pavers wending through a meadowy swath of Berkeley sedge, soap aloes, and purple heart, with a scrim of yaupon hollies shielding the view of the street. A ...
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