Read This: Striking Succulent Gardens
March 09, 2021 After the prolonged deep freeze that Texas endured last month, which reduced our beloved agaves and other succulents to oozing mush and browned nearly everything else back to the roots, it may not seem…timely…for a Texan to review a book about succulent gardening. But it would be ...
Read This: The Art of Outdoor Living
February 05, 2021 Are you craving greenery? Want to drool over gorgeous Southern California patio and entry gardens while gleaning excellent design ideas for your own garden? Then immerse yourself in Los Angeles designer Scott Shrader’s book, The Art of Outdoor Living: Gardens for Entertaining Family and Friends (Rizzoli, 2019) ...
Yalamurra, a “garden of survivors” in South Australia offers Texas inspiration
January 14, 2021 Yalamurra garden, the creation of Australian gardener Kurt Wilkinson. Photo by Kurt Wilkinson. Want to know what’s inspiring me this week? It’s the South Australian garden of Kurt Wilkinson, a professional gardener and topiarist in the Adelaide area. Kurt’s work came to my attention via a Danger ...
Home-garden design inspiration using native plants
November 29, 2020 On my recent visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, I was struck by the design of this small garden, which uses native Texas plants in a traditional but lively way to create a space that would look right at home in a residential setting. It’s ...
Plant trials with style at Redenta’s Landscape Design office garden
October 07, 2020 With beautiful fall weather on tap and the first of the Mexico-bound monarch butterflies reaching North Texas, last weekend seemed like the perfect time for a trip to Dallas-Fort Worth. So I reached out to a few gardeners there and mapped out a 2-day itinerary, and my ...
Read This: Spirit of Place
July 30, 2020 The Garden Conservancy preserves significant American gardens and shares all manner of interesting gardens with the public via its beloved Open Days program, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year despite the Covid-cancellation of all tours. I’m a big fan of their work, particularly because their outreach ...
Revamping the Circle Garden, again
July 29, 2020 The summer doldrums, I call it. When it feels like a sauna outside, and it won’t rain, and yet the plants and especially the weeds grow like Jack’s magical beanstalk until the garden feels suffocated by vegetation. That’s where I was a couple weeks ago, with tree ...
Watch Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf
April 25, 2020 My heart broke open with happiness, while streaming a film about celebrated garden designer Piet Oudolf, when the Dutch designer was suddenly cruising down a Texas highway, exclaiming over azure bluebonnets, coral-red Indian paintbrush, and crepe-petaled white prickly poppies splashed along the roadside like spilled paint. “This ...
Read This: Private Gardens of Santa Barbara: The Art of Outdoor Living
March 09, 2020 Stuck at home fretting about coronavirus? Luckily we gardeners have our gardens to occupy us, soothe our minds, and even feed us during times like these. But reading about beautiful gardens and learning design from a master is also a great way to while away the hours, ...
Getting rid of a good thing: Saying goodbye to the stock-tank pond
February 11, 2020 The emptied-out stock tank is rolled out of the garden. Goodbye, pond! Photo courtesy of Lori Daul. I’m consciously unponding*, and people are freaking out — friends, family members, attendees at a recent Garden Spark talk, and even our young exchange student. By freaking out I really ...
No Stone Unturned: Read my article in Country Gardens magazine
January 17, 2020 Are you ready for spring, fellow gardeners? It’s that time of year for dreaming over plant catalogs and gardening magazines. Just in time comes the new issue of Country Gardens, which I’m pleased to say includes an article I wrote about a creatively designed garden in Rhode ...
Announcing 2020 Garden Spark speaker lineup
December 11, 2019 Season 4 of Garden Spark kicks off in January and brings 3 exciting speakers to design enthusiasts and keen gardeners in the Austin area. Local readers, will you be attending one of the talks this year? I hope so! Talks are held on Thursday evenings in Northwest ...
Nolina, yucca, and cypress add xeric structure in lush Austin garden
September 26, 2019 Have you ever seen a glorious spring garden fade by late summer into a semi-dormant hot mess? That’s what happens in Texas when you don’t include structural plants and hardscape to give your garden shape and interest in hotter, drier seasons. Landscape architect Jackson Broussard (formerly of ...
Thomas Rainer comes to Austin for Garden Spark
September 23, 2019 Thomas Rainer, a Washington, D.C.-based landscape architect and author of Planting in a Post-Wild World, came to Austin last week to give a terrific presentation for Garden Spark, the design-based speaker series I started 3 years ago. Sixty attendees — home gardeners, designers, horticulturists, landscape architects, and ...
Thomas Rainer to speak in Austin – tickets available
August 12, 2019 Photo by Rob Cardillo Garden design aficionados, take note! My second Garden Spark speaker of 2019 will be Thomas Rainer on Thursday, September 19, presenting “Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for More Resilient Landscapes.” Thomas is an internationally known speaker on ecological landscape design, and I’m thrilled ...
Gardening with eyes and heart: Look for my articles in fall issue of Country Gardens
August 08, 2019 I’m delighted to share that I have two articles in the current issue of Country Gardens (Fall 2019), a terrific magazine packed with design inspiration and the stories of homeowner-gardeners who have vision, enthusiasm, and a love of plants. The Gardener’s Eye: Michael Gordon’s garden in New ...
