Jenny Rose Carey’s playful garden rooms at Northview, part 2
November 06, 2023 In my last post I showed you half of Jenny Rose Carey’s garden, Northview, which I toured during the Philadelphia Area Fling in September. Today I’ll show you the rest. Let’s start with her Fruits and Flowers Garden, where this Tin Man sculpture greeted me with open ...
Jenny Rose Carey’s charming Northview Garden, part 1
November 05, 2023 It was a soggy late-September midday at the Philadelphia Area Fling when we visited author and horticulturist Jenny Rose Carey‘s garden, Northview Garden, in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. My bus of 50 (garden bloggers, Instagrammers, and YouTubers) was invited first to have a sit-down lunch in the carriage ...
Stoneleigh native-plant estate garden and Flingers
November 02, 2023 Our banquet dinner at the Philadelphia Area Fling was held in the grand old Tudor Revival mansion at Stoneleigh: A Natural Garden, located in Villanova, Pennsylvania. Before dinner, we were set loose in the garden to explore for an hour. Let’s start with the house garden, where ...
Tropical terraces, color, and meadow at Owl Creek Farm
October 30, 2023 One of my favorite private gardens at the Philadelphia Area Fling back in September was Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm. It’s not really a farm, so far as I could tell. The Hutton garden is sizeable, though, and its rural setting in West Chester, Pennsylvania, ...
Bamboo forest and pond gardens at WynEden
October 27, 2023 During the Philadelphia-Area Fling in late September, we toured Wayne Guymon’s WynEden in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. WynEden is an enormous private garden at 9.5 acres, “with 4,000 different plants and cultivars, 15,000 hostas, 7,000 Rhododendrons & Azaleas, 3 ponds, 3 streams and 5 acres of edited woodland,” ...
Pruned-up prickly pear is living sculpture
October 21, 2023 I spotted this pruned-up prickly pear at a friend’s place, framed by Texas sotols, with a bench in front to sit and enjoy it. Simple pleasures! __________________________ Digging Deeper Tour several Austin gardens on Saturday, November 4, on the Garden Conservancy’s Open Day tour for Travis County ...
Homey fall garden at Brandywine Cottage
October 19, 2023 Tropical Storm Ophelia swept across the Philadelphia region during late September’s Philly Area Fling. But Flingers shall not be deterred! On we Flung in raincoats, ponchos, umbrellas, and waterproof shoes — or in sopping wet pants and socks. Our group arrived at plantsman and designer David L ...
Linda’s live oak courtyard garden in San Antonio
October 18, 2023 After the tour of the Ten Eyck garden last Saturday, I visited my friend Linda Peterson’s garden, one of my favorites in all of Texas. Her garden is home to several charismatic live oaks, including this one with octopus-like arms stretching through a porthole cutout in a ...
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
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 ...
Italian Water Garden, trees, and treehouses at Longwood Gardens
October 02, 2023 One of my favorite picture books from my childhood is Marcia Brown’s Cinderella, which received a Caldecott Medal in 1955 for Brown’s enchanting illustrations. Jeweled ball gowns, romantic palace grounds, fairy godmother magic — it all came to sparkling life on the page. I haven’t paged through ...
Philadelphia Area Fling and Andrew Bunting’s Belvidere
September 28, 2023 A gravel garden in the front yard of Andrew Bunting’s Belvidere I spent all last week in the beautiful countryside around Philadelphia for the 14th annual Fling (formerly known as Garden Bloggers Fling), touring private and public gardens with around 100 other garden writers, bloggers, Instagrammers, YouTubers, ...
Happy, colorful courtyards at The Lincoln Marfa
September 18, 2023 I stayed at The Lincoln, a boutique hotel of 14 “unique homes” at a century-old property, when I visited Marfa a couple weeks ago. A bright yellow door and orange cosmos flowers offered a cheerful welcome as I rolled my bag to Unit 7, passing a gigantic, ...
Running through Marathon, Texas
September 03, 2023 On the way home from a trip to far West Texas in late July, my friend and I swung through tiny Marathon, Texas, for lunch. Fifty miles east of Marfa and 50 miles north of Big Bend National Park, Marathon is known as the gateway to remote ...
Michael Eason’s desert garden retreat
August 14, 2023 While in West Texas a couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting designer and author Michael Eason‘s garden in Alpine. Michael had lined up some wonderful gardens for me to visit there, ones that he’d designed, but it was nice to see his own personal ...
Marfa love affair
August 05, 2023 Last week I made my first real visit to Marfa, the tiny (population 1,750) and improbable art mecca in far West Texas. I’d passed through Marfa once before, at the tail end of a spring break trip to drought-bleached Big Bend with small children, and I confess ...
