Kicking around the Texas Hill Country, looking for bluebonnets
March 25, 2013 After my talk at Backbone Valley Nursery in Marble Falls last Saturday, we headed southwest to cruise the Willow City Loop, a series of ranch roads leading through rugged, hilly country where wildflowers are typically thick—as thick as the traffic on a wildflower-peeping Saturday in spring. On ...
Spring color and edibles at San Antonio Botanical Garden
March 18, 2013 Two weekends ago my family and I kicked off spring break with a fun day trip to San Antonio and a visit to San Antonio Botanical Garden. We were greeted with a crayon box of annual color in these containers just inside the entry. Geraniums, nasturtiums, pansies, ...
Winter into spring at the Wildflower Center
February 20, 2013 I took a fire-wise landscaping class at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center last week, and I arrived early enough for a leisurely stroll around the gardens. The sunshine and blooming Mexican plums promised spring, but a chill in the air spoke of winter. By the time ...
Tait Moring’s garden with a view
November 29, 2012 You’ve all been very good this year, and Santa says there’s time for one more garden tour before Christmas, so here you go. I visited this garden in late October, at the invitation of owner/designer Tait Moring, who had it all spruced up for a busload of ...
Mark Word landscape design at El Monumento in Georgetown
November 20, 2012 Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Mark Word, a highly regarded residential and commercial designer here in Austin. Thanks to his work designing unique and memorable gardens for Liz Lambert’s boutique hotels, including uber-hip Hotel San Jose and the more luxurious Hotel Saint Cecilia, Mark’s ...
Artful desert garden of Keith and Helga Zwickl
October 28, 2012Morning light gilds the cactus and succulent garden Keith and Helga Zwickl welcomed us to their Tucson, Arizona, garden during the Garden Writers Association symposium a couple of weeks ago. I really enjoyed this garden, not only for its stunning collection of cacti and succulents, but also for ...
Inside Austin Gardens Tour 2012: Jennifer and David Phillips Garden
October 13, 2012 One of the gardens on our sneak preview of the upcoming Inside Austin Gardens Tour, hosted by the Travis County Master Gardeners, was a newly constructed 5-star green home on a caliche-rugged property in West Austin. The design of the house was appealing (one blogger pointed out ...
Drive-By Gardens: Sedge lawn and grasses make another lawn-gone garden
September 11, 2012 Driving in East Austin recently, I spotted this cheery yellow house with an alternative lawn of sedge—probably either Texas or Berkeley sedge—in the front yard… …and a row of native Lindheimer muhly (Muhlenbergia lindheimeri) along the side-yard fence. A few brown patches marred the beauty of the ...
Charming public gardens at Fearrington Village
August 23, 2012 While touring Fearrington Village near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, earlier this month, I was charmed by the lovely landscaping—not just the gardens surrounding Fearrington House Inn but the pocket-sized, colorful gardens found alongside the shops and restaurants in the village center. This toad lily blackberry lily Pardancanda ...
Romantic gardens of Fearrington House, North Carolina
August 22, 2012 Lovely strolling gardens wrap all sides of the country inn at Fearrington Village, near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which I visited earlier this month. I spent a happy hour early one morning exploring its grounds, which include an English-style white garden, an herb garden, shrub borders, and ...
Oreo cows, goats & gardens at Fearrington Village, Pittsboro, NC
August 21, 2012 My dad lives in Fearrington Village, a planned community of mostly retirees outside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It’s a lovely community of 2,000, built on wooded, rolling hills, anchored by an English-style village square with a few shops, an independent bookstore (sadly lacking in garden titles, ...
Glorious pink native morning glory
August 05, 2012 Called by the unlovely names purple bindweed and tievine, Ipomoea cordatotriloba is a native morning glory with a rampant habit. But it looked sweet and demure climbing a cedar-post fence at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center yesterday. A perfect match—the dainty-flowered but aggressive climber and the ...
Drive-By Gardens: Rockin’ alternative lawns in north Austin
July 30, 2012 Driving around north Austin last week, I spotted quite a few nontraditional front yards, where the owners had traded in the typical expanse of St. Augustine or Bermuda for a smaller plot of grass, a sedge lawn, or a garden instead of lawn. No matter the style, ...
Asheville Garden Bloggers Fling: Curve Studios Garden recycles junk into garden structure
May 24, 2012 Lunch on the first day of the Garden Bloggers Fling in Asheville, North Carolina, was billed as BBQ and gourmet ice cream from The Hop—yum! Shopping for locally made pottery and art at Curve Studios was promised as well—and was fantastic. But what I didn’t expect was ...
Asheville Garden Bloggers Fling: Gentling Garden, a mountainside eden
May 23, 2012 The first thing you learn about gardens in Asheville, North Carolina, on the slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains, is that they have a lot of stairs. We’re talking serious elevation changes. What does this mean for the gardeners who live here? Well, for one thing they ...
Dallas Open Days Tour 2012: Passmore Garden
May 12, 2012 My third stop on the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days tour last weekend was the garden of Paul and Kay Passmore, whose new home of stone, steel, and glass is surrounded by a one-year-old, wildlife-attracting, native-plant garden. Here’s the official description: The gardens surround a new contemporary house ...
