Family Garden and berry-bright possumhaws at Wildflower Center
February 11, 2019 Continuing with my recent visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, let’s explore the Family Garden and see how it looks in late winter. Again, possumhaw holly (Ilex decidua) berries blaze bright red, alongside early blossoms of coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens). The galvanized steel cylinder is ...
Winter meadows and fiery possumhaws at Wildflower Center
February 09, 2019 Mexican plum and redbud may be blooming at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center by now. But last Sunday afternoon the gardens were still in the “grip” of an unusually mild winter. Flowers were few, but the tawny and russet hues of early February offer their own ...
Food for people and butterflies in San Antonio Botanical Garden’s culinary and entry gardens
November 06, 2018 San Antonio was calling my name last week, so I hopped in the car with my friend Cat of The Whimsical Gardener, and we road-tripped south to see the new gardens at San Antonio Botanical Garden. Wow, was I impressed with the changes! Zachry Foundation Culinary Garden ...
Read This: Hot Color, Dry Garden can help you design your waterwise garden
August 26, 2018 Homeowners who want a waterwise garden, particularly if they live in the U.S. Southwest, often feel that their options are limited to cactus and gravel — a “zero-scape,” as it’s commonly called. If instead you’d like to have a true xeriscape (pronounced zeer-escape), a garden that doesn’t ...
Kirk Walden’s Hill Country garden atop Lake Austin
May 25, 2018 With this killer view of Lake Austin, many homeowners might have sodded a lawn, plunked a few pots of annuals around the pool, and called it done. But Kirk Walden, whose garden was the final stop on the recent Austin Garden Bloggers Fling tour (I photographed it ...
Bluebonnets, buckeyes, and more in bloom at Wildflower Center gardens
March 25, 2018 Ahh, Texas bluebonnets! They’re turning Austin’s roadsides blue right now, and early ‘bonnets were in bloom last week at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I wish everyone could experience a good bluebonnet season at least once in their lives. California poppies were blooming too, their orange ...
Flowering trees and Athena the owl at the Wildflower Center
March 22, 2018 Texas mountain laurel, one of our finest native flowering trees Whether you’re hunkered under a blanket of snow or your gardening season is well underway, let’s pause to appreciate the beauty of spring-flowering trees and other gorgeous native plants at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center here ...
Waterwise outside, oasis inside a walled Sonoma garden
January 25, 2018 Last August a family road trip took me through Sonoma, California, where I had the pleasure of seeing a garden I was writing about for Garden Design magazine. The owner, Marilyn Coon Stocke, had generously extended an invitation to me and my family, and so we stopped ...
Water-saving Ridgewood Road Garden: Austin Open Days Tour 2017
November 22, 2017 The talented Annie Gillespie of Botanical Concerns designed the water-saving garden at Ridgewood Road, the next garden in my recap of Austin’s recent Open Days Tour. From the street you’re invited to stroll through a low-water garden of oaks, grasses, agave, and yucca to reach the house ...
Long views and classic garden rooms in Brinitzer Garden: Capital Region Garden Bloggers Fling
July 03, 2017 Much as I love my contemporary-naturalistic garden, and enjoyed puttering in my flowery cottage garden before that, my next garden — whenever and wherever that turns out to be — is going to be more like this one: smaller, with formal garden rooms laid out along axis ...
Next Garden Spark talk is my own, includes book and garden tour
April 01, 2017 After hosting two other speakers this spring (Scott Ogden and James David), I’ve decided to offer a talk of my own for my fledgling Garden Spark series. On May 18, I’ll present “Water-Saving Gardens That Wow,” which will also include a signed copy of The Water-Saving Garden ...
Talking waterwise gardens, blogging & more on Still Growing Podcast
January 27, 2017 Have a seat at the kitchen table, and let’s have a chat! At least, that’s how it felt to be interviewed last week by Jennifer Ebeling, host of the popular Still Growing Podcast, for an episode about making water-saving gardens that airs today. Jennifer Ebeling, host of ...
Come hear my talk at the Wildflower Center on 2/25
January 10, 2017 On Saturday, February 25, I’ll be speaking at the day-long Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT) Spring Symposium at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. My talk is called Local Heroes: Designing with Native Plants for Water-Saving Gardens, and it’s about creating water-wise home ...
Edibles, green roof, and playground at Mueller Community Gardens & Gaines Park
November 25, 2016 We spent Thanksgiving in the mixed-use, urban-infill, sustainably-designed Mueller neighborhood in east Austin, where my in-laws hosted us in their lovely new home. As always when we visit, I’m impressed by the park spaces and community amenities available to Mueller residents, and I fantasize about moving into ...
Read This: The Bold Dry Garden
October 10, 2016 Our gardens tell our stories. The plants we choose, the features we create, the very layout is an autobiography of our passions, fancies, and personality. That’s why the most inspiring gardens spring from impassioned and artistic minds. The Ruth Bancroft Garden near San Francisco is a perfect ...
Bugs and butterflies at the Wildflower Center, part 2
October 04, 2016 Continuing our garden stroll through Austin’s Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center (here’s part 1 of my visit), let’s enter the Family Garden, where paving by the restrooms and shade pavilion is softened with rain gardens planted with water-appreciating native plants. A rain garden, Texas-style, planted with mistflower, ...
