Ringing Bell's Woodland at Chanticleer Garden

Ringing Bell’s Woodland at Chanticleer Garden

January 18, 2024 The most secret part of Chanticleer is the entrance to Bell’s Woodland, set off beyond the colorful cutting garden (coming up in my next post). The plant list for it is tucked inside a metal sculpture of a hornet’s nest hanging from a tree — worthy of ...
Creek Show art installations glow at Waterloo Greenway

Creek Show art installations glow at Waterloo Greenway

November 16, 2023 Last night I headed downtown to Waller Creek to see this year’s Creek Show, an annual exhibition of light-art installations, put on by Waterloo Greenway. While the event is free, let me tell you, it’s worth it to pay $10 for a fast pass that allows you ...
From mill to Mill Fleurs, a garden of rare plants

From mill to Mill Fleurs, a garden of rare plants

November 09, 2023 I love a good play on words, and the garden of Barbara and Robert Tiffany employs two in its name. Mill Fleurs occupies the site where two old mills — from the 1700s! — perch along Tohickon Creek. Thirty years ago, the couple purchased the derelict structures, ...
Pumpkin season at the Dallas Arboretum

Pumpkin season at the Dallas Arboretum

October 28, 2023 While in Dallas last week I visited the Dallas Arboretum to see their annual pumpkin extravaganza. The last time I’d seen it was pre-Covid. Autumn at the Arboretum I was surprised to find that Autumn at the Arboretum has been relocated from a shady grove near the ...
Christy Ten Eyck-led tour of San Antonio garden

Christy Ten Eyck-led tour of San Antonio garden

October 16, 2023 On Saturday I headed down San Antonio way for a Garden Dialogues event led by Christy Ten Eyck, principal of Ten Eyck Landscape Architects in Austin, at a private garden she designed in San Antonio’s Hill Country Village. Christy has long been an inspiration for her design ...
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 ...
Summer pleasures: Barton Springs Pool and Lockhart art

Summer pleasures: Barton Springs Pool and Lockhart art

September 07, 2023 I had reservations for a dip at Blue Hole swimming hole in Wimberley, Texas, just before Labor Day. But the drought has left little untouched in Texas this summer, and I soon received a cancellation notice. Blue Hole has closed for the rest of the season due ...
Wild creatures and smoke-shrouded scenery at Glacier National Park

Wild creatures and smoke-shrouded scenery at Glacier National Park

August 31, 2023 We arrived at Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana in mid-May. It was our northernmost destination on our 5-week RV road trip across the West. As we drove north from Yellowstone, the sky grew bleary with haze and then gray with smoke from Canadian wildfires. Road signs ...
Moose, goose, grizzlies, and more Yellowstone wildlife, part 3

Moose, goose, grizzlies, and more Yellowstone wildlife, part 3

August 17, 2023 Yellowstone National Park was my favorite of all the parks we visited during our spring RV trip through the West. Why? Because the wildlife-watching there is epic! That’s my favorite thing to do, far more than hiking, which I’m always a little nervous about in grizzly country ...
Bison kick up their heels at Yellowstone, part 2

Bison kick up their heels at Yellowstone, part 2

August 15, 2023 Yellowstone is the only place in the United States where bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times, the national park service tells us. And in that time, bison have really learned how to play — apparently right from birth! Calves just wanna have fun We were in ...
Bison, wild horses roam at Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Bison, wild horses roam at Theodore Roosevelt National Park

August 11, 2023 After seeing Badlands in South Dakota, we drove north to see the badlands of western North Dakota and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Named after the 26th U.S. president, the park memorializes Roosevelt’s love for the region, where he ranched during the late 1800s, and its role in ...
Highway signs: Petroglyphs of Utah Hwy 279

Highway signs: Petroglyphs of Utah Hwy 279

July 28, 2023 On our national parks RV trip in May, we tried to decipher messages left long ago by native peoples along the Colorado River outside Moab, Utah. Today, Utah Highway 279 runs alongside these tablet-like sheer walls, with pull-outs where you can stop and look at the rock ...
Capitol Reef National Park petroglyphs, orchards, and pie

Capitol Reef National Park petroglyphs, orchards, and pie

July 06, 2023 At Capitol Reef National Park in south-central Utah, ancient layers of stone stand exposed in a red-rock desert. Formed into turrets, reefs, and domes by geologic uplift and then the slow erosion of water over millennia, the park’s layered rock tells the history of the Earth to ...
Desert in bloom at Red Hills Desert Garden, part 1

Desert in bloom at Red Hills Desert Garden, part 1

June 27, 2023 Utah. Red rock desert. Cactus and yuccas. When we set out in April in a rented RV to visit national parks out west, I expected hundred-mile vistas, arches, and canyons. What I didn’t expect was a flowery, beautifully designed garden of desert-appropriate plants. But thanks to a ...
Waterfalls, wildlife, and wonder at Zion National Park

Waterfalls, wildlife, and wonder at Zion National Park

June 21, 2023 Utah and its wealth of national parks drew us west on our 5-week RV trip this spring. Zion National Park in southwestern Utah sparkles as one of its crown jewels. For anyone wishing to beat the heat in canyon country, April is prime visiting season. We arrived ...
Wildflowers, breathtaking views at Horseshoe Bend and Glen Canyon Dam

Wildflowers, breathtaking views at Horseshoe Bend and Glen Canyon Dam

June 16, 2023 Hatted and sunscreened against the intense desert sun, we took a morning walk out to see Horseshoe Bend in Page, Arizona, before our tour of Antelope Canyon. This was back in late April, during our 5-week RV trip to see western National Parks. Wild rhubarb (I think?) ...