Wading into Chanticleer's Pond Garden

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 ...
Golden hour with a canyon view

Golden hour with a canyon view

May 31, 2023 On a recent golden afternoon I snail-crawled my way through my friend Cat‘s garden as she narrated its spring journey. The tale happily meandered, and so did our feet. I stopped to admire each glowing moment. Isn’t this a charming vignette, with a terracotta frog perched among ...
On the hunt for a Shantung maple at Metro Maples

On the hunt for a Shantung maple at Metro Maples

April 18, 2023 One thing that may surprise you about North Texas gardens is they frequently indulge a passion for Japanese maples. In the leafy, older neighborhoods of Dallas–Fort Worth, Japanese maples fill the understory with wine-red leaves and a ballerina’s grace. Although they need deep soakings during droughty Texas ...
Doors, gardens, art along Santa Fe's Canyon Road

Doors, gardens, art along Santa Fe’s Canyon Road

September 14, 2022 Santa Fe’s adobe structures seem an extension of the earth itself. Curvy walls in warm, desert hues — tan, soft rose, terracotta — rear up from the gravelly soil to enclose courtyards and residences. Wooden doors, some with slatted windows for a glimpse inside, add mystery and ...
James David and Gary Peese's new garden in New Mexico

James David and Gary Peese’s new garden in New Mexico

September 09, 2022 Landscape architect James David and Gary Peese departed Austin about 5 years ago, leaving behind a 36-year-old, swoon-worthy garden that regularly starred on Open Days Tours and was covered by Martha Stewart, Architectural Digest, and, ahem, yours truly (click for my final visit). Looking for cooler weather, ...
Foliage-rich pond garden: Kuster Garden at Madison Fling

Foliage-rich pond garden: Kuster Garden at Madison Fling

July 10, 2022 We visited a number of gardens with ponds at the Garden Bloggers Fling in Madison, Wisconsin, last month. Tom Kuster, who was not a gardener at the time, inherited his pond with the house he and wife Cheryl purchased in 1990. Did the pond work its magic ...
Kicking off Madison Fling: People, badgers, barns, and a bountiful rooftop garden

Kicking off Madison Fling: People, badgers, barns, and a bountiful rooftop garden

July 04, 2022 Farm country scenery at the Flower Factory near Madison In late June I joined approximately 50 garden bloggers, Instagrammers, podcasters, and YouTubers in picturesque Madison, Wisconsin, for the 13th annual Garden Bloggers Fling. After a COVID hiatus of two years, and a heroic display of patience, stamina, ...
Low-water natives in front, party in the back

Low-water natives in front, party in the back

May 21, 2022 The southwest Austin home my friend Laura Wills and her husband, Eric, share isn’t in the country, but it feels semi-rural thanks to a 2-acre yard and out-of-sight neighbors. The front yard alone is enormous, and most people would sod it with turf grass and spend hours ...
Spring garden party at Lucinda's purple casita

Spring garden party at Lucinda’s purple casita

April 14, 2022 If I’m lucky, springtime means an invitation to Lucinda Hutson‘s festive garden. And last weekend I felt lucky indeed to be invited to her purple casita on a perfect spring day. Out front, pansies were still somehow hanging on, despite recent warm temperatures. Ready to take over, ...
Every passage is a destination at Chanticleer

Every passage is a destination at Chanticleer

February 28, 2022 Yellow canna and bamboo sculpture by Marcia Donahue along Chanticleer’s elevated walkway Chanticleer makes each step, each path, a place of discovery and delight. I visited the Philadelphia-area garden on my road trip last fall. This is Part 5 in my series about creative, romantic, stunning-in-every-way Chanticleer ...
Water feature magic in Lori Daul's garden

Water feature magic in Lori Daul’s garden

January 24, 2022 My friend Lori Daul‘s garden in South Austin has evolved, over the many years I’ve visited, from a sunny, romantic space filled with roses to a shadier yet still lush paradise where bold blue agaves and black elephant ears get equal billing, where dry gardens meet water ...
Chilly October excursion to the Hamptons

Chilly October excursion to the Hamptons

December 15, 2021 Cooper’s Beach in Southampton Before I trekked to the eastern end of Long Island during my Northeast road trip, all I knew about the Hamptons and Montauk was from Sex and the City (drunken beach parties in the Hamptons) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (an ...
Meeting up with "Gays Who Garden" Andrew and Jared

Meeting up with “Gays Who Garden” Andrew and Jared

November 15, 2021 I can’t remember when I started following @gayswhogarden on Instagram, but their alliterative, cheeky, and decidedly out username caught my eye, as did their beautiful images of soft-petaled roses, colorful Texas wildflowers, and glowing dahlias (in Austin — how??). We started chatting online, and in due course ...
Seiwa-en, a serene Japanese strolling garden: Missouri Botanical Garden, part 3

Seiwa-en, a serene Japanese strolling garden: Missouri Botanical Garden, part 3

June 25, 2021 A week ago I road-tripped to St. Louis to visit Missouri Botanical Garden. At its far end I found the acclaimed Japanese Garden Seiwa-en, a 14-acre strolling garden built around a curving lake, with naturalistic but carefully composed views. Quite the contrast with the colorful, geometric, and ...
Michael McDowell's front-yard prairie garden

Michael McDowell’s front-yard prairie garden

October 16, 2020 How can it have been 9 years since I first visited Michael McDowell’s front-yard prairie garden? Michael’s garden lives large in my memory, alight with morning sunlight and festive fall color (click for my 2011 tour), and it inspires daily via his blog Plano Prairie Garden and ...
Water, water everywhere in Cat's wildlife-friendly garden

Water, water everywhere in Cat’s wildlife-friendly garden

September 22, 2020 Every time I visit my friend Cat Jones‘s garden, it’s lovelier than the time before. Over the past 4 to 5 years she’s been busily making her Steiner Ranch garden, which overlooks a wildflower meadow and a wooded canyon, into a retreat for her and her family ...