Nature, only better: The transcendent Bloedel Reserve
August 18, 2011 The Bloedel Reserve is a place of utter beauty and almost spiritual peacefulness. Rain drips quietly from mossy branches, and the color green wraps you in a soft embrace. I explored the grounds for two-and-a-half hours—not nearly enough time to see all 150 acres, but enough to ...
Mossy, damp Foliage Follow Up
August 16, 2011 All of Texas is dreaming of rain dripping from eaves, trickling streams, and the feel of soft moss underfoot. We’re in a devastating drought that has turned our state brown. Even many of our iconic live oaks are showing stress. We desperately need rain. So for my ...
Woodland fantasy: Lane Garden at Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling
August 13, 2011 Faces upturned to the warm sunshine—that’s how Seattleites greet the sun, when it appears Woodland gardens were expected at the Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling last month. But mix in a classical folly dripping with flowers, glass art, reflective water features, a sophisticated outdoor-kitchen patio, and the magic ...
Dunn Gardens at Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling
August 09, 2011 Anneliese of The CobraHead Blog strikes a pose in the Dunn Gardens Following two private-garden visits on Day One of the Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling, we were bused to the Dunn Gardens for lunch and a docent-led tour. In 1915, in what is now the Broadview neighborhood, ...
Shelagh Tucker garden at Seattle Garden Bloggers Fling
August 07, 2011 Six Austin garden bloggers journeyed to Seattle for the Garden Bloggers Fling. That’s me on the left, Caroline of The Shovel-Ready Garden, Becky of Wolf’s Garden, Vicki of Playin’ Outside, Jenny of Rock Rose, and Diana of Sharing Nature’s Garden. Look! Scarves & cardigans in July! The ...
Foliage fantasia in Portland’s Danger Garden
August 04, 2011 I’m baaack! Did you miss me? If you thought I’d gone AWOL from Austin’s summer from hell, well, you were right. I left early for the Garden Bloggers Fling last month, flying into Portland, Oregon, on July 20 in order to meet blogger friend, foliage fiend, and ...
Visit to Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden: Southwestern garden & agave collection
June 20, 2011 Is a southwestern garden what you expect to see when you visit the Raleigh, North Carolina, display gardens of online nursery Plant Delights? Do you expect to see cholla cactus in bloom? Or how about a ghostly ‘Whale’s Tongue’ agave (Agave ovatifolia)? You do if you’ve spent ...
Inside Austin Gardens Tour 2011: Sheryl Williams garden
May 13, 2011 I was particularly interested to see Sheryl Williams’s garden during our sneak peek on Tuesday because she’s a fairly new Austin garden blogger, and, well, y’all know how I love our garden-blogging group. I’d met Sheryl before, but this was my first time to see her garden ...
Gardens on Tour 2011: Eanes Circle garden
May 10, 2011 Steelwork appealed to me in the final garden on the Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour last Saturday. Take this planter box, for instance. The plants will look better when they fill in, but for now the box is fabulous. I also liked these bent-stake plant labels—clever. And ...
Gardens on Tour 2011: Ridgecrest Drive garden
May 10, 2011 A recent client of mine wanted design ideas for a pretty, xeric, low-water planting on her septic drain field. The Ridgecrest Drive garden on last Saturday’s Wildflower Center-sponored Gardens on Tour is inspirational in that regard. The septic field is front and center on this West Lake ...
Gardens on Tour 2011: Stratford Drive garden
May 09, 2011 Imagine a steep, overgrown hillside of invasive nandina, bamboo, and ligustrum. That’s what the homeowners on Stratford Drive looked out on after building a contemporary, 5-star green home (as rated by the Austin Energy Green Building program) in the Rollingwood neighborhood of west Austin. According to the ...
Gardens on Tour 2011: West Monroe Street garden
May 08, 2011 The distinguishing feature of West Monroe Street’s front garden, which I toured Saturday on the Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour, is a no-mow Berkeley sedge lawn in place of the standard St. Augustine. Alternatives to the traditional lawn were definitely a theme on this year’s tour. Designed ...
Plant This: Heartleaf skullcap
April 28, 2011 Heartleaf skullcap (Scutellaria ovata) romps through my garden with greater vigor each year. Belonging to the mint family, it spreads with abandon, and yet it never seems a thug because it’s so easy to pull out and dies back in summer to let other plants have their ...
More spring beauty from Lucinda’s garden
April 14, 2011 For those of you who loved the images of Lucinda Hutson’s garden (and who doesn’t?), here are a few more luscious spring pics, including this bee burrowing into a Jerusalem sage blossom. A long shot of the Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruticosa) in Lucinda’s front garden. Its tiered, ...
Enchanted evening in Lucinda Hutson’s cantina garden
April 12, 2011 “Let’s go into the garden! Ai-yi-yi-yi!” trills Lucinda Hutson as she leads her guests, each with a rosy prickly-pear margarita in hand, over the threshold of her purple cottage and into her Rosedale garden. Lucinda is the kind of hostess who can pull off such cross-cultural exuberance ...
Foliage Follow-Up: Winter moving into spring
February 16, 2011 February 14 marks the transition between winter and spring in central Texas gardens. Around Valentine’s Day, Austin gardeners do their big cut-back of summer- and fall-blooming perennials and grasses in preparation for spring growth. We may still get a couple of freezes (the last average freeze date ...
