Texas

April 04, 2008 On her Blotanical “Plot” (site no longer active), in her entry for Garden to See Before I Die, Carol of May Dreams Gardens has written, “All those gardens of the Austin garden bloggers!” As it happens, a number of the Austin garden bloggers have had a burning ...

March 18, 2008 Front porch vignette Last Friday we drove three hours east to Houston to visit my sister and her partner in their house in the Heights. Despite unseasonably hot and humid weather on Friday and Saturday, we had a wonderful time kicking around at the Houston Rodeo, shopping ...

February 15, 2008 A glorious allee of crape myrtles leads to a whimsical toad fountain at the Dallas Arboretum, which I visited on Wednesday. Another view. I’d never seen a crape myrtle allee before, and their smooth trunks and twisting branches are well suited to this kind of display. I’m ...

February 14, 2008 Taiwanese pear in full bloom at the Dallas Arboretum After a 3-hour landscape design class at the Dallas Arboretum yesterday, and before the 3 1/2-hour drive back home, I took a quick stroll through the gardens, which I’d never seen, despite having stayed over in Big D ...

December 01, 2007 The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is a must-see destination in all seasons, but an autumn or winter visit is always delightful—and less crowded. Today was especially fun because Jill Nokes held a book-signing in the gift shop. Here she is holding a copy of her new ...

December 01, 2007 The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is a must-see destination in all seasons, but an autumn or winter visit is always delightful—and less crowded. Today was especially fun because Jill Nokes held a book-signing in the gift shop. Here she is holding a copy of her new ...

November 02, 2007 Aside from the new-ish Hartman Prehistoric Garden, my favorite section of Zilker Botanical Garden is the venerable Taniguchi Japanese Garden. Created as a labor of love and opened in 1969, . . . the Garden was built by Mr. Taniguchi when he was seventy years old. Working ...

October 31, 2007 Bronze dinosaur in Hartman Prehistoric Garden During my visit to Zilker Botanical Garden this week, I made sure to stroll through Hartman Prehistoric Garden, a favorite of mine. My family visited on opening day in 2002, and since then I’ve witnessed the phenomenal growth of this garden’s ...

October 30, 2007 When a travel opportunity knocks, I’m usually grabbing my suitcase on the way to the door. This year I resolved to mesh my love of travel and of gardens by visiting local gardens on my trips. Since August I’ve explored and blogged about Chicago’s and San Antonio’s ...

September 11, 2007 Conserving water is integral to “green” gardening in central Texas. Although Austin receives an average of 32 inches of rain a year, much of our rainfall is concentrated in spring and fall and in heavy showers that run off quickly rather than soaking into the soil. Yet ...

September 06, 2007 At summer’s end, Pride of Barbados ( Caesalpinia pulcherrima) steals the show at the entrance to the Botanical Garden, paired with butterfly weed and a tall ornamental grass. On a business trip in San Antonio last week, I lucked into an hour to spare before I needed ...

May 18, 2007 The homeowner’s front porch. Do you sense that a garden lover lives here? We headed to central Austin’s tony Tarrytown neighborhood for the last garden of the tour. I didn’t expect much from this garden, frankly, after looking at the black-and-white brochure photo. Shot in winter, with ...

May 17, 2007 I’d never seen a green roof before, and as this is the first one in Austin I didn’t want to miss my chance. So mom and I drove down to southwest Austin’s Circle C neighborhood, which is near the Wildflower Center, the sponsor of this tour and ...

May 16, 2007 A twisted live oak frames a sweeping lawn of ‘Palisades’ zoysia and a potting shed in this estate-sized garden. Our next stop on the garden tour led us to a luxurious home in a West Austin neighborhood. Surrounded by the open, palatial St. Augustine lawns of the ...

May 15, 2007 The second stop on our tour included two gardens on a cul-de-sac in the hills of northwest Austin, one belonging to Cathy Nordstrom, owner of San Souci Gardens, the second belonging to her client and next-door neighbor. We visited the designer’s garden first. Native bee balm and ...

May 14, 2007 Buffalograss (Buchloe dactyloides) stands in for a traditional but thirsty St. Augustine lawn in this NW Austin garden. Surrounded by typical suburban yards, this garden shows how to use drought-tolerant natives in a fairly traditional way. While it didn’t bowl me over with an unusual design or ...