Twinkly trees aglow in Johnson City

Twinkly trees aglow in Johnson City

December 25, 2023 Merry Christmas! May your holiday and/or celebration of year’s end be happy and bright! To provide a little extra brightness, I’m sharing pics from the Lights Spectacular display in Johnson City, Texas, which I visited on Friday evening. The live oaks will be lit each night through ...
Thankful for today

Thankful for today

November 23, 2023 Happy Thanksgiving, my fellow Americans! I’m finding much to be thankful for today and hope you are too. I’m grateful for cooler weather, walks around Lady Bird Lake, and a vibrant hometown to enjoy. Beauty all around me Peaceful moments in nature And of course family and ...
Fall florals to fall for at Terrain garden shop

Fall florals to fall for at Terrain garden shop

October 22, 2023 It’s good for my wallet that we don’t have a Terrain in Austin, or even in Texas. I know, I know, Terrain has an online store. But my infatuation with this beautiful garden shop stems from its immersive, gorgeous, creative store displays and merchandising. Especially when it’s ...
Zilker Tree spin on Christmas Eve

Zilker Tree spin on Christmas Eve

December 26, 2022 The week leading up to Christmas Day was a whirlwind of holiday gatherings, eating, drinking, and merry-making with friends and family, for which I’m deeply grateful. On a quieter Christmas Eve we visited the Zilker Holiday Tree, which has been lighting up Zilker Park just south of ...
Lucinda's Day of the Dead altars, a celebration of departed loved ones

Lucinda’s Day of the Dead altars, a celebration of departed loved ones

October 30, 2022 Austin icon Lucinda Hutson‘s festive garden is always a joy to visit. But for the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead, she pulls out all the stops in her decorating. Smiling skeletons dangle from trees, gates, umbrellas, and the front porch. At night, purple lights give an ...
Pumpkin Nights trail serves up spooky Halloween fun

Pumpkin Nights trail serves up spooky Halloween fun

October 08, 2022 After the hot, hot, hot summer we just endured in Texas, I have never been more ready for fall. All things pumpkin and pumpkin spice — bring it, and help me forget summer ever existed. So when I heard about Pumpkin Nights, a walking trail through themed ...
Piet Oudolf meadow in fall bloom at Delaware Botanic Gardens

Piet Oudolf meadow in fall bloom at Delaware Botanic Gardens

March 15, 2022 The last public garden I visited on my road trip down the East Coast last October was newly opened Delaware Botanic Gardens in Dagsboro, Delaware. The big draw? A 2-acre meadow designed by revered Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf, who also designed the plantings of the High Line ...
Houston Botanic Garden brightens the holidays with Lightscape

Houston Botanic Garden brightens the holidays with Lightscape

December 27, 2021 Space City finally got its own botanical garden last fall, the terrific new Houston Botanic Garden, which I visited right after it opened. Since then it’s survived an unprecedented freeze during Texas’s February snowpocalypse and appears to have bounced back with vigor. But my return visit, on ...
Have a rainbow Christmas!

Have a rainbow Christmas!

December 24, 2021 A very merry Christmas to you and yours, and happy holidays to all who celebrate the season in other ways! I spotted this rainbow of Christmas trees at Austin Motel on South Congress last weekend, and it lifted my spirits. I hope it does the same for ...
Autumn turns New Hampshire's White Mountains orange, crimson, and gold

Autumn turns New Hampshire’s White Mountains orange, crimson, and gold

November 08, 2021 New England’s fall color — with trees flaming out orange, red, and gold — is famous worldwide. Two years ago I started planning a bucket-list trip to see it and settled on the White Mountains of New Hampshire in early October. Covid bumped the trip back a ...
Lucinda Hutson's colorful Day of the Dead garden

Lucinda Hutson’s colorful Day of the Dead garden

October 25, 2021 Austin author Lucinda Hutson‘s garden blazes with color every day of the year. But come October, for Day of the Dead, she kicks it up a big notch. Yellow and orange marigolds glow from every pot, mingling with hibiscus, coral vine, and roses in sherbet hues, all ...
Remembering Dred Scott on Juneteenth at Gateway Arch in St. Louis

Remembering Dred Scott on Juneteenth at Gateway Arch in St. Louis

June 19, 2021 Today is Juneteenth, our newest national holiday, which commemorates the end of slavery. Short for June 19th, Juneteenth has long been celebrated by African American communities in Texas. On June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Texas were finally told, two months after the Civil War had ended, ...
Wrapping up socially distant 2020 with drive-through Trail of Lights

Wrapping up socially distant 2020 with drive-through Trail of Lights

January 01, 2021 What is Austin’s 56th annual Trail of Lights without the people? Without the experience of walking among brilliantly illuminated trees with throngs of other Austinites, some boosting little kids up on their shoulders, some wearing Santa hats, some stopping to take selfies, all chattering and laughing? Let’s ...
Dazzling holiday lights in Johnson City and Austin

Dazzling holiday lights in Johnson City and Austin

December 24, 2019 For dazzle and shine and small-town Christmas spirit, there’s no better place than Johnson City, Texas, about an hour west of Austin, and the headquarters of Pedernales Electric Co-op, where a grove of live oak trees is annually transformed into a nebula of twinkle lights. It’s a ...
Day of the Dead at Lucinda Hutson's casita and garden

Day of the Dead at Lucinda Hutson’s casita and garden

November 04, 2019 In early November each year, Austin writer Lucinda Hutson celebrates Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday for remembering and honoring deceased loved ones. Decorating her Rosedale home — her purple casita, as she calls it — and Mexican-style garden with colorful flowers, food, tequila bottles, skeleton ...
Celebrating life at Dia de los Muertos parade

Celebrating life at Dia de los Muertos parade

November 01, 2019 For more than a decade I’ve attended Austin’s annual Day of the Dead parade, Viva la Vida, which this year took place on October 26. For newcomers, Day of the Dead is easily confused with Halloween because of all the skull imagery and skeleton face paint. But ...