Zinging through the end of summer
September 01, 2016 Although I was gone for half of it, which no doubt helped, August was one of the most pleasant Augusts I’ve experienced since moving to Austin 22 years ago. It just hasn’t been all that hot (in the low to mid-90s F, and even some days in ...
Adobe walls, secret gardens, history & art in Santa Fe
August 24, 2016 Our western road trip earlier this month took us through Santa Fe, New Mexico, one of the oldest cities in the U.S. and the oldest capital city in the country (dating to 1607). The compact historic district is a walkable several blocks of terracotta-colored adobe and adobe-style ...
High-altitude garden in bloom at Santa Fe Botanical Garden
August 22, 2016 Two weeks ago today we drove west on a spontaneously planned, cutting-it-close-with-the-first-day-of-school, two-week road trip through West Texas, northern New Mexico, and western Colorado. One of our early stops was Santa Fe, New Mexico, a beautiful old city we once regularly visited but hadn’t seen in 16 ...
Inspired at Squire House Gardens: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
July 31, 2016 Our tour buses took us out of Minneapolis on the last day of the recent Garden Bloggers Fling — an annual event with 60+ garden bloggers touring Minneapolis this year — through St. Paul and on into charming Afton, Minnesota, where we visited nursery and gift shop ...
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
July 25, 2016 Our Minneapolis Fling banquet dinner — an opportunity to dine with blogging friends, win amazing giveaway prizes from sponsors, and listen to entertaining anecdotes and announcements from organizers — was held at the end of the second day, at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. Time was short before ...
Corten potager beauty in Rhonda Fleming Hayes’s garden: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
July 24, 2016 I’m dubbing this summer Escape to the North. In the space of two months I’ve made three trips to the northern, cooler half of the U.S., starting with the Philadelphia area; then Providence, Rhode Island; and finally Minneapolis, where the 9th annual Garden Bloggers Fling was held ...
Stock-tank pond garden is cool even in summer’s heat
July 16, 2016 Mid-summer is all about foliage in my garden. The spring flowers are long gone, but evergreen plants like ‘Winter Gem’ boxwood, ‘Color Guard’ yucca, bamboo muhly grass, and squid agave look good even when the Death Star’s on full blast. The stock-tank pond helps the garden feel ...
Chanticleer’s eerie, mysterious Ruin Garden
July 14, 2016 Just before our picnic on the comfy stone sofa (no, really!), Diana and I explored the Ruin Garden at Chanticleer, a “pleasure garden” in Wayne, Pennsylvania. The Ruin is a folly resembling an old, crumbling house that’s being overtaken by sapling trees, vines, and shrubs — the ...
Chanticleer’s Flower and Vegetable Garden and magical Bell’s Woodland
July 12, 2016 During our full day at Chanticleer Garden in the Philadelphia area last month, Diana and I left for lunch around 1:30 pm and returned two hours later with full bellies plus a picnic dinner stashed in our bags. On Friday nights in the summer, the garden stays ...
Up on Chanticleer's elevated walkway and Asian Woods Garden
July 04, 2016 From the formal House Garden at Chanticleer, the garden path steps off into space — or rather, onto the new elevated walkway that provides an accessible, curving descent down a sloping meadow of foxtail lilies, feathergrass, bee balm, coneflowers, and other sun lovers. I visited Chanticleer, a ...
Hot flower border, meadowy lawn at Chanticleer's House Garden
July 01, 2016 The sun was high when Diana and I exited the Teacup Garden and began to explore Chanticleer‘s House Garden, which unfolds with a view across a tidy croquet lawn. No sign of croquet today — just one cute-as-a-button little girl. The house itself — the summer home ...
Drinking up beauty in Chanticleer's Teacup Garden
June 30, 2016 Eight years ago, on a family road trip through Pennsylvania, I visited Chanticleer on a lark (I was planning to see Longwood Gardens but changed my mind at the last minute), and my understanding of what a garden could be changed forever. Not merely because the garden ...
Those who play in glass houses: Conservatory and Indoor Children's Garden at Longwood Gardens
June 26, 2016 Maybe Southerners don’t need conservatories because our winters are pretty green. Growing up in the South, I don’t recall ever visiting a conservatory until I started garden traveling to northern states. (We don’t have a culture of spring garden shows either, perhaps for the same reason.) Call ...
Rambler roses and dancing water: Formal gardens at Longwood Gardens
June 23, 2016 Classically formal gardens aren’t my favorite style of garden, and that’s doubly true if roses are involved (they so often look leggy and lonely unsoftened by companion plants). But Longwood Gardens, a Philadelphia-area estate garden I visited with Diana/Sharing Nature’s Garden earlier this month, surprised me on ...
Enchanted Woods children’s garden at Winterthur: Not your typical playground
June 18, 2016 Forget wooden playscapes, jungle gyms, and climbing walls. The most magical children’s gardens consist of natural spaces that invite exploration, slowly reveal secret spaces, and encourage imaginative play. Such is Enchanted Woods, the children’s garden at Winterthur, located in Winterthur, Delaware, which I visited with Diana/Sharing Nature’s ...
Where there’s a whale, there’s a way
April 29, 2016 Moby, my 10-year-old whale’s tongue agave (A. ovatifolia), which for 22 days has been sending a bloom stalk skyward, seems to be in transition. The stalk is now about 10 or 11 feet tall and holding. Meanwhile, clusters of yellow flowers are emerging along the asparagus-shaped stalk ...
