Garden magic and whimsy at Floramagoria: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
August 13, 2014 As we entered the intriguingly named Floramagoria garden on the recent Portland Garden Bloggers Fling, thunder rumbled and raindrops pelted our group of 40 or so bloggers. The reasonable — and hungry — among us ran for the two covered pavilions with box lunches in hand. The ...
Lan Su Chinese Garden: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
July 17, 2014 Austin and Portland, Oregon, are soul-sister cities, sharing a love of “weirdness,” food carts/trucks, huge independent bookstores, and tattoos, as I can attest from my recent visit. Austin and Portland also share a vibrant gardening culture and even the same hardiness zone (8b), although our climates couldn’t ...
Mosaic wall artfully, joyfully shares a neighborhood’s history
June 29, 2014 Have you ever stopped to look — really look — at a public work of art that you’ve passed dozens of times with only a passing glance or quickly forgotten curiosity? I did last week, and it was a magical experience to discover the beauty and positive ...
Nature Nights introduces kids to the Wildflower Center’s new Family Garden
June 17, 2014 My kids are teens now and well past playground age. But I’m not! Since the Luci and Ian Family Garden opened on May 4, I’ve been wanting to check it out. I previewed the garden before it was completed in mid-March and could see it would be ...
Hillside magic in the Nichols Garden: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
August 06, 2013 Our 4th stop on the final day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was my absolute favorite of the Fling: the Ann Nichols Garden. Gorgeous plants, beautifully combined and meticulously maintained, adorn a series of intimate garden rooms on a hillside lot. A subtropical front garden ...
Visit to Lotusland, part 4: Rear terrace, parterre & lemon arbor
June 08, 2013 Around back of the main house at Santa Barbara’s Lotusland, you find a Spanish-style courtyard with curlicue wrought-iron gates, pink stuccoed walls, and verdigris cafe seating. A Moorish tiled fountain and rill, on axis with the gate, make a cooling focal point. The tile work makes me ...
Lucinda Hutson's purple cottage, cantina garden, and Viva Tequila!
April 24, 2013Lucinda Hutson’s festive home and garden in Austin My friend Lucinda Hutson invited me over to her purple cottage on Sunday to see her angel’s trumpets in bloom, plus all the rest of her exuberant, flowery garden. Lighting up her quiet Rosedale neighborhood street like a fiesta in ...
Visit to Tucson Botanical Gardens, part 2
October 30, 2012 Tucson Botanical Gardens, which I visited as part of the recent Garden Writers Association symposium, is a surprisingly eclectic place. As I wrote in part 1 of my visit to TBG, the gardens house a wonderful collection of desert plants from all over the world, are home ...
Lucinda Hutson’s Easter-egg colorful garden
April 08, 2012 Author and designer Lucinda Hutson‘s gabled purple cottage and garden in the Rosedale neighborhood of Austin is as colorful as a basket of Easter eggs… …but even better because it contains scented petals, billowy texture, and something blooming at every turn, like this ‘Julia Child’ rose. When ...
Artistic Stone Palms garden of Berthold Haas
January 15, 2011 On this rainy, chilly Bloom Day I’m just not going to venture into the garden to poke around for a tiny rosemary bloom or withered Knock Out rose petal. Instead I’m treating you to a reprise of images from the Stone Palms garden, located in the Clarksville ...
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 ...
El Jardin Encantador: Lucinda Hutson's garden
October 29, 2009 Ooh la la, Lucinda! Local author and designer Lucinda Hutson, she of the purple cottage in central Austin’s Rosedale neighborhood, welcomes you into her garden with open arms, offers of cuttings, and an exuberance for giving a tour. “Y’all, look at this!” she calls as she leads ...
Stone Palms Garden: Open Days Austin
October 07, 2008 I’m back! After a whirlwind weekend of packing, lifting, and unpacking, we’re settling into our new house. I will post pictures of the new yard soon, but all my attention so far has been focused on the inside of the house. Boxes still loom in the hallways ...
Lucinda Hutson's enchanting garden
April 13, 2008 On Sunday after the Garden Bloggers Spring Fling, the out-of-towners who stayed an extra day joined some of the Austin garden bloggers for a personal tour of herbal-cookbook author Lucinda Hutson’s garden. The other Spring Flingers may remember Lucinda from the happy hour at my house on ...
Visit to Big Red Sun
January 25, 2007 Roly-poly Buddhas, fleshy succulents, and spiny cacti mingle in towering, rusted-steel saucers and planters, the signature look at Big Red Sun, an eastside Austin nursery where East meets West. I get the Big Red Sun blues (with a nod to songwriter Lucinda Williams) every time I visit ...
