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 ...
Japanese-inspired garden of Linda Brazill and Mark Golbach, Part 2
July 08, 2022 In my last post I shared the Asian-style front garden of Linda Brazill and Mark Golbach, whose Madison, Wisconsin, garden of 28 years I toured on the recent Garden Bloggers Fling. (I first saw their garden back in 2010.) Today let me lead you on a tour ...
East meets Midwest in the garden of Linda Brazill and Mark Golbach, Part 1
July 06, 2022 Back in 2010, my husband traveled to Madison for the IRONMAN Wisconsin race (which he finished!), and I tagged along as cheerleader. Oh and also to see gardens. I was a big fan of the design-focused blog Each Little World by Linda Brazill and Mark Golbach and ...
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, ...
Exploring the Children’s Garden: Missouri Botanical Garden, part 5
June 30, 2021 After being closed for a year due to the pandemic, the Doris I. Schnuck Children’s Garden had recently reopened when I visited Missouri Botanical Garden earlier this month, and the kids were clearly loving it. The splash pad was the hot spot, with water jets popping up ...
Home gardening inspiration, plus a boxwood garden and Chinese garden: Missouri Botanical Garden, part 4
June 27, 2021 Visiting Missouri Botanical Garden (MOBOT) earlier this month for the first time, I expected to breeze through the Center for Home Gardening and get on to more interesting parts of the garden. Instead I found myself poking around this space for close to an hour. I was ...
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 ...
Victorian Garden, Stumpery, and origami sculpture: Missouri Botanical Garden, part 2
June 24, 2021 It’s Pollinator Week, so I’ll kick off Part 2 of my visit to Missouri Botanical Garden (MOBOT) with this bee-attracting patch of coneflowers behind one of the administrative buildings. What a pretty little garden of echinacea, allium, and amsonia in a hidden-away spot. Victorian Garden In contrast, ...
Climatron tropical house, origami sculpture, and more: Missouri Botanical Garden, part 1
June 22, 2021 A week ago today I road-tripped with my mom through Arkansas up to St. Louis to visit Missouri Botanical Garden, which I’d long wanted to see. I’d always thought of St. Louis as being not that far away from Austin. After all, Missouri is part of the ...
Remembering Dred Scott on Juneteenth at Gateway Arch in St. Louis
June 19, 2021 Today is Juneteenth, our newest national holiday, which commemorates the end of slavery. Short for June 19th, Juneteenth has long been celebrated by African American communities in Texas. On June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Texas were finally told, two months after the Civil War had ended, ...
Chicago garden of restaurateur Rick Bayless
August 20, 2020 No, I have not recently traveled to Chicago (I wish!). But I did just come across photos from the 2009 Garden Bloggers Fling in Chicago and was stunned to realize I’d never written about one of the gardens we visited: the home garden of chef, restaurateur, TV ...
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 ...
Garden artistry at Wouterina De Raad’s Mosaic Sculpture Park, Part 1: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
August 04, 2016 Each year at Garden Bloggers Fling, there’s at least one garden that moves me deeply, that creates a lasting mood and feels like an extension of the gardener him- or herself. At this year’s Fling in Minneapolis, that garden was the creation of Wouterina De Raad. (As ...
Scenes from Minneapolis gardens, sightseeing, and bloggers: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
August 03, 2016 This is my 10th post about the recent Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling, and I have two more coming up that cover one very special garden. Even so, I won’t have shown you every garden we visited. There were just too many! But here are a few images ...
Noerenberg Memorial Gardens and Kelley-Carmichiel gardens: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
August 02, 2016 At the end of day one of the recent Garden Bloggers Fling in Minneapolis, we visited 3 gardens connected by the gardeners who tend them: Noerenberg Memorial Gardens; the home garden of Noerenberg’s horticultural supervisor and curator, Arla Carmichiel, and her husband, Steve Kelley; and the display ...
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 ...
