Rawr! Dino fun at Austin’s favorite putt-putt place
November 27, 2016 It’s the perfect time of year for outdoor play in Austin, and, boy, did we play this long Thanksgiving holiday! We’ve walked around Lady Bird Lake, played at John Gaines Park in Mueller neighborhood, hiked at Bull Creek, seen a couple of movies (Arrival is excellent, Fantastic ...
Come to my free talk at Antique Rose Emporium this Saturday
November 03, 2016Texas gardeners, come on out to The Antique Rose Emporium Fall Festival in Brenham, Texas, this weekend for entertaining and educational garden speakers, beautiful display gardens, and fun! I’ll be speaking this Saturday, November 5th, from 1:30 to 2:30 pm. My talk, with plenty of eye-candy photos, is ...
Out and about in Austin nurseries and parks
September 18, 2016 Lately I’m taking as many garden photos with my phone as with my “real” camera, and these often get posted to my Instagram. But not all of them, and sometimes I like to share them on my blog too. So here’s some cool stuff I spotted last ...
The berry good season
September 08, 2016 I’m calling it. We’re over the hump of Death Star Summer and sliding into mellow fall. I know, it’s not exactly mellow out there yet, but I can feel it coming. Can’t you? The beautyberries do. In the lower garden, black beautyberry (Callicarpa acuminata) is laden with ...
Meadow views and fantasy treehouses at Longwood Gardens
June 27, 2016 Contrasting with the many formal and traditional gardens at Longwood Gardens (a Philadelphia-area estate garden I visited earlier this month), the 2-year-old Meadow Garden presents an appearance of wild nature. The meadow’s 86 rolling acres of native grasses, perennials, and wildflowers come into view from a shady ...
Those who play in glass houses: Conservatory and Indoor Children's Garden at Longwood Gardens
June 26, 2016 Maybe Southerners don’t need conservatories because our winters are pretty green. Growing up in the South, I don’t recall ever visiting a conservatory until I started garden traveling to northern states. (We don’t have a culture of spring garden shows either, perhaps for the same reason.) Call ...
Articulture turns plants into art
May 11, 2016 Manchaca Road in South Austin may as well be on the other side of the planet for this northwest Austinite, or so it seems most days while parked on our city’s interminably clogged highways and streets. But the stars aligned yesterday for a cross-town jaunt, and I ...
Lazing around in the garden
April 23, 2016 Sure, I meant to get up at sunrise this morning to plant a few new plants, prune some bamboo, and scrub out a small fountain. But we binge-watched last season’s Game of Thrones last night to get ready for Sunday’s season premier, and I’m dragging this morning ...
Palms and dinosaurs at McKee Botanical Garden
April 06, 2016 Two weeks ago, in mid-March, the family and I drove to Orlando for spring break. Before heading home, we stopped in Vero Beach, Florida, for a day at the shore and to visit McKee Botanical Garden. Yes, those are dinosaurs in the garden. Roar of the Dinosaur, ...
Lone screech owl and other creature features
March 24, 2016 Every day, through the open window, I hear the thin cries of cedar waxwings as they strafe the back yard, flying from ligustrums to yaupons in the greenbelt behind our house to polish off the late-season berries. With their sleek, tan feathers and robbers’ masks, they are ...
Mischief managed: Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Orlando blooms
March 21, 2016 Diagon Alley shops and the escaping Gringotts dragon, which belches fire periodically with a coughing roar and a furnace-blast of heat you can feel in the street below Last week for spring break, we packed up the car, dropped off the dog at Grandma’s, and set off ...
Garden of the dinosaurs: Hartman Prehistoric Garden
November 11, 2015 Want to see the original native plants of central Texas? Take a stroll through Hartman Prehistoric Garden at Austin’s Zilker Botanical Garden. Designed to resemble a landscape that dinosaurs would have roamed, Hartman represents the late Cretaceous period (which ended 65 million years ago), when the shallow ...
Lazing Texas spiny lizards
November 04, 2015 I lifted an outdoor clock off the brick fireplace wall on Sunday to turn it back an hour and surprised two large Texas spiny lizards that were sheltering behind it. Well, hello there! I froze, expecting them to dash up the wall. Unlike our non-native, bold-as-brass anoles, ...
Dreamy green courtyard and water-saving garden in San Antonio
September 15, 2015 My friend Shirley of Rock-Oak-Deer in San Antonio recently uttered the magic words: Come see a few gardens! So last Friday I hopped in my car, drove south to the Alamo City, and met Shirley to tour three gardens. Two of the gardens will be on this ...
Munro Lights at Atlanta Botanical Garden, and a whale of a show at Georgia Aquarium
July 31, 2015 Earth Goddess, Atlanta Botanical Garden After we left New Orleans, we drove to Atlanta, Georgia, arriving in time for a Sunday evening visit to Atlanta Botanical Garden to see a special art exhibit, Bruce Munro: Light in the Garden. Seeing a garden in late afternoon and at ...
Rock Rose garden abloom before the hailstorm
April 27, 2015 Two weeks ago my friend Jenny Stocker, blogger at Rock Rose and gardener extraordinaire, offered me a division of a water iris for my pond. When I arrived, mid-morning on a sunny, warm day, Jenny gave me a tour and then kindly set me loose to wander ...
