Urban landscaping along Austin's 2nd Street

Urban landscaping along Austin’s 2nd Street

February 18, 2020 While downtown recently for dinner, we walked along 2nd Street and the arched Butterfly Bridge and visited Austin Central Library, first stopping to admire the native-plant landscaping along Shoal Creek. Purple trailing lantana cascades over rock walls to brighten the late-winter garden. More trailing lantana, which blooms ...
Red and yellow autumn foliage in my garden

Red and yellow autumn foliage in my garden

November 30, 2019 Fall color in Austin was surprisingly good this year, including the show put on by the ornamental trees in my own garden, like the species Japanese maple (Acer palmatum). Most years it goes rusty red in mid-December, coordinating with the red Christmas balls I hang from an ...
Hilltop getaway at Two Coves Garden: Austin Open Day tour

Hilltop getaway at Two Coves Garden: Austin Open Day tour

November 21, 2019 The last garden I visited on the Open Day tour sponsored by The Garden Conservancy was designed by B. Jane Gardens, and which B. has continued to maintain for the last three owners. Located off City Park Road, the Two Coves Drive Garden perches atop a hill ...
The happily-ever-after Berger Street Garden: Austin Open Day Tour

The happily-ever-after Berger Street Garden: Austin Open Day Tour

November 07, 2019 It’s time to kick off my coverage of last weekend’s Open Day tour in Austin, sponsored by The Garden Conservancy. Six private gardens were open to the public, and I started at the Berger Street Garden, where a homey blue shotgun cottage extends its front porch with ...
Chandor Gardens, née White Shadows, a hidden gem in North Texas, part 1

Chandor Gardens, née White Shadows, a hidden gem in North Texas, part 1

October 29, 2019 White Shadows — the name evokes romance and mystery — seems wholly appropriate for the dappled-shade garden surrounding a pale-gray house in the small Texas town of Weatherford, 30 miles west of Fort Worth. Here, in a series of alternately elegant and rustic garden rooms, you’ll find ...
A peaceful morning in Cat's garden

A peaceful morning in Cat’s garden

September 28, 2019 A week ago in my friend Cat Jones’s garden, I found my attention divided between her new canyon-side stock-tank pond topped with a glorious flowering crinum and the rolling green canyon vista itself. For a few minutes, the crinum won out, and I exclaimed jealously over the ...
Summer scenes

Summer scenes

August 10, 2019 Morning light in the front garden, with Berkeley sedge aglow, a hulking ‘Green Goblet’ agave, and a silvery groundcover of woolly stemodia — this is a summer scene I enjoy before the Death Star gets high in the sky. And here’s another random summer scene, this one ...
New steel planter and meadowy sedge in my garden

New steel planter and meadowy sedge in my garden

July 12, 2019 You might not know it from my all-day-all-night coverage of gardens on the Denver Fling tour, but I’ve been busy in my own garden too. My happiest addition is this new custom steel planter in front of the blue stucco wall by the pool. Tina Strarup of ...
Bowled over by Linda Boley's garden: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling

Bowled over by Linda Boley’s garden: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling

July 07, 2019 A copper tree, its muscular branches devoid of leaves, stands as an organic sculpture in the Boulder, Colorado, rock garden of Linda Boley. The painted Japanese lilac caught my eye as soon as our bus arrived during the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling tour (June 2019). It signaled ...
Jean Morgan's garden will make you smile: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling

Jean Morgan’s garden will make you smile: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling

June 30, 2019 As our tour bus of 40+ bloggers arrived at the Louisville, Colorado, home of Jean Morgan, one visitor reached down to pick up a stray piece of trash in Jean’s garden. Only the crumpled Hershey bar wrapper wasn’t trash. It’s part of a cheeky vignette — Happily ...
Hoofed visitor

Hoofed visitor

May 27, 2019 Stepping onto our front porch the other day, we spotted a shy visitor who wasn’t quite prepared to come all the way to the front door, although she was close. A doe was nosing around in the sedge lawnette, seemingly noshing on the cut “hay” from its ...
Garden retreat under the oaks in San Antonio

Garden retreat under the oaks in San Antonio

May 24, 2019 An invitation to tea — the real deal, with scones, clotted cream, cucumber sandwiches, lemon tarts, and champagne — was treat enough to entice me to the San Antonio home of two sisters I’ve gotten to know through a friendship with their mother. But when I arrived ...
Cactus blooms, round two

Cactus blooms, round two

May 23, 2019 Summer is here in Texas, and the heat is on, with temps in the 90s all this week. While I’ll miss cooler temps, the collection of cacti on the deck loves it, blooming in unison for the second time this month. Satin flowers of pumpkin orange and ...
Cat's pollinator garden with a canyon view

Cat’s pollinator garden with a canyon view

May 16, 2019 Three years ago my friend Cat Jones (check out her IG and blog) and her husband, Derrick, newly empty nesters, sold their house and Cat’s lovely garden and moved to a different home in their Steiner Ranch neighborhood, not to downsize but — fellow gardeners, can you ...
Spring is abloom in shades of pink and turquoise

Spring is abloom in shades of pink and turquoise

May 01, 2019 I haven’t done a photo tour of my own garden in a while, so let’s go, starting with a new planting of Gulf Coast penstemon (Penstemon tenuis) and winecup (Callirhoe involucrata), both Texas natives. Along with an artichoke — I’ve always wanted to try one — they’re ...
Winter hike at Pedernales Falls

Winter hike at Pedernales Falls

January 21, 2019 A cloudless blue sky overhead, white rock and clear pools of water to explore, and evergreen trees all around. This is winter in central Texas. The family and I recently drove out to Pedernales Falls State Park, about an hour west of Austin, to scramble among the ...