Austin Open Days Tour 2010: Jones garden
October 21, 2010 Continuing my westward route across Austin on Saturday’s Open Days tour, I headed to the Westlake garden at the Jones residence multimillion-dollar, 11,000 square foot mansion (as per Trulia). This is the view from their elevated front terrace. What? Those buildings? Downtown Austin, of course. I was ...
Austin Open Days Tour 2010: Deborah Hornickel garden
October 20, 2010 Deborah Hornickel added on to her charming Bryker Woods home a couple of years ago, extending its footprint into her back garden, which you can see pre-remodel in my Open Days 2006 post about Deborah’s garden. Visiting post-remodel on Saturday’s Open Days tour, I found it to ...
Gardens of Lake Austin Spa
October 14, 2010 Yesterday the Director of Flora & Fauna at Lake Austin Spa, the talented Trisha Shirey, gave me an early morning tour of the spa’s gardens, which she has tended for more than 26 years. A staff of nine full-time gardeners assists her in organically maintaining and updating ...
Nursery tour: The Great Outdoors
August 21, 2010 For a nursery located within spitting distance of downtown, on South Congress Avenue, The Great Outdoors is surprisingly large, which befits a place featuring a nearly life-size topiary elephant as its mascot and another on its sign. From the street you glimpse a colorful mural, a screen ...
Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling: First day impressions
July 13, 2010 Sweet-smelling, freckled lilies. Crimson bee balm as tall as myself. Soft-textured lawn grass spangled with white clover, so different from Austin’s coarse, shaggy St. Augustine and so much more inviting. Tall, brick Victorian homes standing shoulder-to-shoulder on streets shaded by goth-cloaked Norway maples. A city eager to ...
Succulent extravaganza: More of Jeff Pavlat's garden
June 11, 2010 While visiting Jeff Pavlat’s succulent and cactus garden on Wednesday, I couldn’t resist snapping a few more photos than I showed you yesterday on my post about The Germinatrix’s visit. Pictured above is his millstone fountain, given an Asian flavor with the addition of smooth, gray Mexican ...
Gardens on Tour 2010: Highway 45 South garden
May 12, 2010 The final garden I visited last Saturday on Gardens on Tour 2010 is a large rural property tucked at the end of a long, gravel drive off Highway 45 South, not too far from the Wildflower Center. Wildflower meadows surround the home and nearby guest house/retreat center ...
Gardens on Tour 2010: Bridle Path garden
May 10, 2010 The Bridle Path garden in the Tarrytown neighborhood was my favorite on Gardens on Tour 2010 because it had the best of both worlds: a naturalistic garden for sun and shade in the front, with a charming council-ring style seating area tucked out of sight of the ...
Green World: Entry for Picture This photo contest
April 20, 2010 Since Earth Day is in two days, it seems particularly apt that the theme for this month’s Picture This photo contest over at Gardening Gone Wild is “Green World.” This is my entry, taken at Chanticleer Garden in Pennsylvania, one of the most incredible gardens I’ve ever ...
Naples Botanical Garden: Gardens with Latitude
March 22, 2010 Over spring break we drove 3,200 miles (5,149 km) round-trip to Florida, with stops in Orlando, Miami, Everglades National Park, the Keys (all the way to Key West), and finally Naples to see the brand-new botanical garden there. Planted last August and opened to the public in ...
Extraordinary garden art at Sol’stice
December 04, 2009 As Austin awaits its first freeze of the season and squints skyward for a few predicted snowflakes, I’ve been showing my visiting mom and cousin around town in very chilly weather. Yesterday we spent the day shopping in Dripping Springs, about 30 minutes west of Austin, and ...
Extraordinary garden art at Sol'stice
December 04, 2009 As Austin awaits its first freeze of the season and squints skyward for a few predicted snowflakes, I’ve been showing my visiting mom and cousin around town in very chilly weather. Yesterday we spent the day shopping in Dripping Springs, about 30 minutes west of Austin, and ...
Blogger field trip: Antique Rose Emporium, San Antonio
November 09, 2009 Garden path at the Antique Rose Emporium Rose Garden: two words that induce irrepressible yawns. I’ve never enjoyed traditional rose gardens, where different varieties of roses are spaced out across a sunny square and unaccompanied by any other plants. It makes for a hodgepodge of color and ...
Inside Austin Gardens Tour 2009: Gail Sapp's garden
October 25, 2009 My favorite garden for plants on Saturday’s Inside Austin Gardens tour was the Westlake garden of Gail Sapp. Her plants are big, bold, and architectural, and she crams them in with abandon, making a visit to her garden the delighted exploration of a strange new world. Her ...
Inside Austin Gardens Tour 2009: Cheryl Goveia's garden
October 24, 2009 The fall Travis County Master Gardeners tour today featured six gardens that fit the theme of “Sustainable Gardening for Urban Wildlife.” Three of them are the creations of Austin garden bloggers. Each one offered something unique and personal. But by far the most colorful and fun-loving garden ...
Going vertical: Jeff Pavlat’s hillside Austin garden
September 02, 2009 Cascading down a steep-sloping front yard, Jeff Pavlat’s 8-year-old terraced xeric garden is a symphony of form, texture, and subtle color echoes. I met Jeff a year ago at an Oracle Gorge Nursery sale and have asked his advice about agaves and aloes from time to time ...
