Old school sightseeing in Oxford, England
July 16, 2018 English longhorns at Christ Church Meadow in Oxford Last month, after two nights in London, we rented a car and drove to Oxford, our home base for several day trips we’d planned for the remainder of our vacation. Oxford is a lovely old city, and we enjoyed ...
Columbia River Gorge, waterfalls, and flower farms, a scenic Oregon drive — before the fire
September 09, 2017 I debated about writing this post right now. During our August road trip from San Francisco to Portland, we made a day trip along the majestically scenic Columbia River Gorge, the “playground of Oregonians” that’s currently on fire. As the Eagle Creek fire has raged for a ...
Willowsford Farm market stand & Fling wrap-up: Capital Region Garden Bloggers Fling
July 20, 2017 I’m not a food gardener myself, but I enjoyed the Capital Region Garden Bloggers Fling welcome-event visit to Willowsford Farm, a 300-acre farm surprisingly located within a recently developed planned community in Ashburn, Virginia, about an hour’s drive northwest of Washington, D.C. After a lovely outdoor reception, ...
Casa Mariposa, Virginia winery, & Merrifield Garden Center: Capital Region Garden Bloggers Fling
July 02, 2017 Casa Mariposa With a garden called Casa Mariposa, you know it’s going to be welcoming to butterflies — and, as it turns out, all pollinators. Tammy Schmitt, head planner of this year’s Garden Bloggers Fling, bravely included her suburban D.C.-area garden on the tour. I say bravely ...
English garden in Virginia horse country: Capital Region Garden Bloggers Fling
June 29, 2017 Attending Garden Bloggers Fling is always a whirlwind of garden touring and socializing with other bloggers. I come home with ideas bouncing around in my head, as well as a sense of new connections made and friendships renewed — not to mention hundreds of photos to sort ...
Three more gardens on Inside Austin Gardens Tour 2017
May 04, 2017 I’ve already posted about two of the gardens on this Saturday’s Inside Austin Gardens Tour, and today I’m showing a sneak peek of three more private gardens on the tour. Garden of Dorothy Thering Gardening on 23 acres in Spicewood, Dorothy Thering has room for a spacious ...
Wildflower fields abloom at Wildseed Farms
March 24, 2017 A wildflower photo safari is my springtime ritual, and I especially like to drive out to the Texas Hill Country to photograph wildflowers against the rugged hills, rocks, and prickly pear. This spring, thanks to a mild winter, Texas bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis) are carpeting roadsides a few ...
Magical mosaics in the garden of Wouterina De Raad, Part 2: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
August 05, 2016 Yesterday I shared Part 1 of my visit to Wisconsin artist Wouterina De Raad’s mosaic sculpture garden, which was the final garden — and my favorite — on the recent Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling. Today I’ll end my Fling series with Part 2 about Wouterina‘s delightful, exploratory ...
Springwood Gardens daylily farm: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
July 25, 2016 I enjoy daylilies and grow a few in my own garden. But I couldn’t quite imagine a whole farm of daylilies until we visited Springwood Gardens, the daylily breeding operation of Karol Emmerich, one of our stops on the Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling. Karol’s goal is to ...
Dining, dancing amid flowers on Field to Vase Dinner Tour
May 31, 2016 A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou may be pleasant enough. But add Crayola-bright fields of flowers, a big blue barn, tables adorned with festive bouquets, chef-made dishes, a western swing band, and the starry skies of the Texas Hill Country, and you have ...
Crimson poppy fields at Wildseed Farms
April 01, 2016 Mom and I stopped at Wildseed Farms, just east of Fredericksburg, Texas, on the way home from our Hill Country wildflower drive on Tuesday. Wildseed Farms grows wildflowers for their seed, which it sells to landscapers, retail customers, and highway departments that seed wildflowers along roadsides. With ...
Baby goat love at Jenny Peterson’s farm
February 10, 2016 Fellow blogger, designer, and garden writer Jenny Peterson has a side gig in animal husbandry. Or so it seems on her Facebook feed, where she’s been posting photos and videos of her back-yard farm’s bevy of newborn baby goats. Last Sunday, my daughter and I visited to ...
Floral design demo with urban farmer Sarah Nixon: Toronto Garden Bloggers Fling
June 21, 2015 Floral designer and urban farmer Sarah Nixon welcomed approximately 70 bloggers (in two shifts) into her tiny back garden during our first day at Toronto Garden Bloggers Fling earlier this month. Sarah, a gardener and floral designer who operates My Luscious Backyard, explained her business to us ...
The yucca fields of Barton Springs Nursery Wholesale
April 08, 2015 Do you ever wonder where your nursery plants are grown? In the case of Barton Springs Nursery, beloved by local gardeners for their selection of native plants in smaller, less-expensive pot sizes, they grow some of their own stock at “El Rancho,” their 20-acre wholesale farm in ...
An Easter wildflower safari
April 05, 2015 The fields and roadsides of Texas are as brightly colored as a basket of Easter eggs. On Friday my mom, daughter, and I went on a wildflower safari southwest of San Antonio, cruising the country roads around Somerset. While the bluebonnets that far south had already peaked, ...
A fanciful journey through art-filled Bedrock Gardens, part 1
September 19, 2014 Acres of poison ivy and scrub brush had overrun the old dairy farm in Lee, New Hampshire, when Jill Nooney and her husband, Bob Munger, purchased it in 1980. Undaunted, the couple began a decades-long process of clearing weeds and making planting beds, eventually creating a 20-acre ...
