Making the scene at Create A Scene garden

Making the scene at Create A Scene garden

October 11, 2023 In their home garden, Create A Scene, floral designer Michael Bowell and the artist Simple express their humor and place-making through plants and garden art. Their irreverent, enveloping garden in Malvern, Pennsylvania, was one of the stops on the Philadelphia Area Fling last month. Their plant-stuffed and ...
Native plants at Chihuahuan Desert Botanical Garden in West Texas

Native plants at Chihuahuan Desert Botanical Garden in West Texas

August 22, 2023 Cow’s tongue prickly pear and Mitre Peak While visiting far West Texas last month, a few people mentioned the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center and its botanical garden, located just outside of Fort Davis. So one morning my friend and I drove over from Marfa to check it ...
A friend's new garden takes shape in San Antonio

A friend’s new garden takes shape in San Antonio

June 09, 2023 My friend Jean McWeeney, an enthusiastic gardener, birder, and naturalist, relocated to San Antonio last year from Houston, and before that from Louisiana. She left behind an established garden in Louisiana and a temporary one in Houston, and now she’s making a new garden in the drier ...
Shangri La Botanical Gardens, a garden fairy tale

Shangri La Botanical Gardens, a garden fairy tale

December 15, 2022 Dancing Sisters bottle tree sculpture at Shangri La Sleeping Beauty has nothing on Shangri La Botanical Gardens & Nature Center. Located in the small town of Orange, Texas, just across the Sabine River from Louisiana, Shangri La’s very existence is in some ways as fantastical as the ...
Day of the Dead in Lucinda's colorful garden

Day of the Dead in Lucinda’s colorful garden

October 27, 2022 Lucinda Hutson welcomed me and Teri Speight, my recent Garden Spark speaker, into her garden last week to see it decorated for Day of the Dead. This is a treat I look forward to all year. Lucinda’s garden and purple cottage always glow with color in October, ...
James David and Gary Peese's new garden in New Mexico

James David and Gary Peese’s new garden in New Mexico

September 09, 2022 Landscape architect James David and Gary Peese departed Austin about 5 years ago, leaving behind a 36-year-old, swoon-worthy garden that regularly starred on Open Days Tours and was covered by Martha Stewart, Architectural Digest, and, ahem, yours truly (click for my final visit). Looking for cooler weather, ...
Spring in plant collector John Ignacio's garden

Spring in plant collector John Ignacio’s garden

May 13, 2022 Last October I had the pleasure of visiting John Ignacio’s northwest Austin garden, a treasure box of rare plants that John has collected (including on a plant-hunting expedition with the late John Fairey) and hybridized. I returned this April to see it at the beginning of the ...
Poppies a-popping at Antique Rose Emporium, plus Round Top shopping

Poppies a-popping at Antique Rose Emporium, plus Round Top shopping

May 10, 2022 A month ago it wasn’t blazing summer in Austin but gentle spring. Early April found me on a wildflower safari with Patterson Webster, visiting from Canada, and my friend Diana Kirby. The Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham We drove out to Brenham for lunch at Truth BBQ ...
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 ...
April visit to Antique Rose Emporium garden

April visit to Antique Rose Emporium garden

May 10, 2020 In early April I took a wildflower-hunting drive through the country east of Austin. I ended up driving out to Brenham and past The Antique Rose Emporium, which was open to visitors, so I stopped for a quick tour of the gardens, socially distanced of course. The ...
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 ...
Rock stars at Kew: Alpine House rockery and dry garden

Rock stars at Kew: Alpine House rockery and dry garden

July 14, 2018 I’ve never been much into glasshouses. I generally find them jungly, warm, and humid — conditions I don’t enjoy during Austin’s long summers and don’t wish to experience artificially. But an alpine glasshouse, with cool temps, tidy potted plants, and a nice breeze? Bring it on! While ...
Sharing nature's beauty in the garden of Diana Kirby

Sharing nature’s beauty in the garden of Diana Kirby

December 03, 2017 I’ve enjoyed many a visit at the garden of my good friend Diana Kirby, designer at Diana’s Designs, garden columnist at the Austin American-Statesman, and publisher of the blog Sharing Nature’s Garden. But inexplicably I’ve never done a photo tour of her lovely garden, and I’m remedying ...
Canyon-side garden of Tait Moring: Austin Open Days Tour 2017

Canyon-side garden of Tait Moring: Austin Open Days Tour 2017

November 25, 2017 The final garden from the Austin Open Days Tour earlier this month is landscape architect Tait Moring‘s personal garden, which perches on a canyon’s rim just off Bee Caves Road. His entry garden is an appealing mix of formality (boxwood hedging, geometric raised pond, fig ivy neatly ...
In the Thicket of things: An urban boutique nursery in Portland

In the Thicket of things: An urban boutique nursery in Portland

September 24, 2017 Sopping up a plateful of sausage gravy with fluffy, fist-sized biscuits at a picnic table outside of Pine State Biscuits, I glimpsed an open gate and profusion of plants just a dozen yards away, tucked behind a nearby building. We were in Portland, Oregon, on a mid-August ...
Edibles, outdoor living, and more at Sunset Gardens at Cornerstone Sonoma

Edibles, outdoor living, and more at Sunset Gardens at Cornerstone Sonoma

August 21, 2017 While touring the Cornerstone Sonoma gardens in Sonoma, California, a couple of weeks ago, I enjoyed a two-fer. Sunset’s Test Gardens relocated to Cornerstone in 2016, and after a year of growth they’re already looking amazing. A glowing vertical garden of sempervivums, planted in the orange Sunset ...