Transplanted from PNW, Nancy begins new garden in Austin
March 23, 2024 I was happy to visit the new garden of a new gardening friend a few days ago. Located in Austin’s Windsor Hills neighborhood, the garden represents a new beginning for its creator, Nancy Fortner (@gardeningwhileold). In 2021, to be near their daughter, Nancy and her late husband, ...
Lucinda’s purple-heart home and garden
March 20, 2024 Who can resist Lucinda Hutson‘s purple casita with mango trim and festive garden? Not me! When Lucinda invited me over last week for a spring garden visit, I happily said yes. The color-party starts on the alcove-like porch, where grape walls and a deep-rose screen door are ...
A garden with your coffee at Cosmic Saltillo
February 24, 2024 For a few years, I’ve been wanting to visit Cosmic, a coffee shop and beer garden in South Austin, mainly for its garden-like landscaping (featured on Central Texas Gardener). But I just haven’t made it down there yet. Then last year, I heard about a new Cosmic ...
Digging is 18 years old, and other news
February 20, 2024 Last week I celebrated two milestones. Digging turned 18 years old on Valentine’s Day, which means the blog is a full-fledged adult now. Still can’t drink though. I’m amazed by how long blogging has continued to interest me, even as so many other blogs that started around ...
Cutting Garden and Fling Party at Chanticleer
January 24, 2024 Last September, the Philadelphia Area Fling took me to Pennsylvania, where I enjoyed two visits to the incomparable Chanticleer. I spent a full day there before the tour began and returned for the official afternoon visit, which ended with dinner, live music, and dancing in the 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 ...
Rocking a dry garden at Chanticleer’s Gravel Garden
January 09, 2024 Every time I visit Chanticleer’s Gravel Garden, I get a familiar feeling. Many plants we grow in Central Texas appear in this Pennsylvania dry garden, and it’s fun to see them in a new context. Although the garden bristles with yuccas, agaves, and cactus and sways with ...
Wading into Chanticleer’s Pond Garden
January 05, 2024 The Pond Garden at Chanticleer draws visitors like a magnet. Water features always do. Five ponds surrounded by blousy gardens are found at the bottom of the long hillside that begins at the garden’s entrance. This is Part 6 of my visit to Chanticleer during the Philadelphia ...
Into the Asian Woods at Chanticleer
January 04, 2024 Who says you can’t have colorful flowers in a woodsy shade garden? In Chanticleer’s shady Asian Woods, I spotted this floating bouquet of bright zinnias, dahlias, sunflowers, and hairy balls. Gorgeous! This is Part 5 of my visit to Chanticleer during the Philadelphia Area Fling last September ...
Chanticleer’s dreamy House Garden
January 01, 2024 Happy New Year! Let’s kick off 2024 with another post about glorious Chanticleer Garden, which I visited in late September during the Philadelphia Area Fling. Today I’ll show you the House Garden. Gravel Circle A rooster statue — the symbol of Chanticleer — greets you at the ...
Serving up Chanticleer’s Tennis Court Garden
December 30, 2023 Continuing my coverage of Chanticleer Garden, one of the stops on the Philadelphia Area Fling tour in September, I’m taking us today to the Tennis Court Garden. To enter, you descend a formal stone stair with planted-up handrails. I loved a previous iteration planted with fleshy mangaves ...
Birds and native thorn forest at Quinta Mazatlan
December 19, 2023 In early November, I drove 5 hours south to the Rio Grande Valley, land of citrus orchards and skinny-trunked palm trees. I was there for the final photo shoot for my upcoming book on Texas gardens (due out in 2025 with Timber Press). But I couldn’t leave ...
Gardens for adventure, art, and games at Paxson Hill Farm
November 22, 2023 Picking up my tour of Paxson Hill Farm — from the Philadelphia Area Fling in September — where I left off yesterday, let’s keep exploring! After emerging from the hobbit house hideaway, I followed the path uphill through another weeping-tree arch. The romance! Am I right? The ...
Children’s Adventure Garden at Dallas Arboretum
November 20, 2023 The Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden at Dallas Arboretum opened 10 years ago, but somehow I’d never visited until last month. Why? I guess because my kids had outgrown children’s gardens by the time it opened, and so it wasn’t on my radar despite many visits over ...
Colleen Belk’s Old Austin garden
November 15, 2023 An Old Austin-style garden was featured on the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days tour two weekends ago: Colleen Belk’s 43-year-old garden. Yes, 43 years! What is Old Austin style, you may ask? I think of it as a lushly planted Austin garden with Deep South-meets-Southwest plant choices, sort ...
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, ...
