The Water-Saving Garden book party and giveaway!
February 29, 2016The Water-Saving GardenMy new book, The Water-Saving Garden: How to Grow a Gorgeous Garden with a Lot Less Water, is officially published! To celebrate, I’m throwing a book-release party, and you’re invited! Six garden blogging friends are joining me today to host on our blogs 7 giveaways that ...
Come to my water-saving talk Saturday morning
February 26, 2016 It’s a beautiful day, and our gardens here in central Texas will be green, lush, and flowery again in a matter of weeks, if not days. Now’s a great time to plan for the hot, dry summer! Join me this Saturday morning, February 27, at 10 am ...
Dining on Vinaigrette’s garden patio in South Austin
February 21, 2016 I’m not a foodie, and I don’t get too excited about new restaurants opening on a daily basis here in Austin. And yet something about salad bistro Vinaigrette caught my attention when author Amy Stewart shared (from Eureka, CA!) an Austin Eater article about its recent opening ...
I’m on Central Texas Gardener talking about water-saving gardens
February 05, 2016 I’m on Central Texas Gardener this week! Huge thanks to producer Linda Lehmusvirta and host Tom Spencer for having me on to talk about my new book. The show airs on KLRU, Austin’s PBS station, this Saturday at noon and 4 pm and again on Sunday at ...
Drive-By Gardens: Xeriscapes taking off at Mueller neighborhood
January 08, 2016 On New Year’s Day, we took a stroll through Mueller neighborhood, a New Urban community in east-central Austin. Built on the site of the old airport, where acres of runways and parking lots once sprawled, attractive homes and row houses in a mix of different styles (no ...
Public plaza at San Antonio’s Pearl, an urban re-use neighborhood
January 06, 2016 The old Pearl Brewery in San Antonio might have been razed, once its brewing days were over. Instead its century-old manufacturing buildings have been transformed into restaurants and even a boutique hotel and embraced by walkable streets lined with shops and apartment buildings. Public green spaces throughout ...
Watch my teaser trailer for The Water-Saving Garden
December 28, 2015 In-between Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Joy, Spotlight, and your other big-screen viewings this week, take 60 secs to watch my fun new book trailer for The Water-Saving Garden. I packed as much eye candy as I could into it, so enjoy! You’ll even see a couple ...
Smart, water-saving landscaping at UT’s Dealey Center
December 08, 2015 On a chilly, rainy Saturday in mid-November — a quiet traffic day — I headed to the University of Texas campus and actually found street parking at the G. B. Dealey Center for New Media (renamed from the Belo Center in 2021), whose landscaping I’ve wanted to ...
Blowsy autumn beauty at Rollingwood Waterwise Garden
November 18, 2015 Last Saturday, a drizzly, cool day, I returned to the West Austin neighborhood of Rollingwood to see how the waterwise garden at city hall had fared over the summer. Designed by Scott Ogden and Lauren Springer Ogden, the garden was installed two years ago. Following an initial ...
Dry and Mighty: How to design a dry garden
October 26, 2015 If gravel accented with a few lonely cacti and a cow skull is all that comes to mind when you think of a dry garden, it’s time to update this dusty Old West vision. Drought across the western U.S. and widespread interest in gardening more sustainably, with ...
Gardening books I’m reading right now
October 14, 2015 I’m going to need a bigger bedside table. Here’s what I’m reading right now, and just look at this awesome selection of design-oriented gardening books (and one magazine). I expect to review some of these in coming months, after the garden-tour craziness is behind me. But in ...
Falling for the Folly Bowl, a garden amphitheater
October 07, 2015 Twelve years ago, Los Angeles garden designer Susanna Dadd and her husband, artist James Griffith, built a back-yard amphitheater in a ravine alongside their Altadena home. Dubbing it The Folly Bowl, they’ve been hosting free, or nearly free, public concerts each summer, choosing unique performers that will ...
Modern gravel garden sips water, amps up architecture
September 25, 2015 Succulent and cactus gardeners and fans of modern design, you’ll want to see this garden on the upcoming San Antonio Watersaver Landscape Tour on October 24. I recently enjoyed a preview visit, thanks to an invitation from Shirley of Rock-Oak-Deer and Heather of Xericstyle. This contemporary garden ...
Look for me in Rodale’s Organic Life magazine
August 05, 2015 Organic Life’s “The Water Issue”Are you a former reader of Organic Gardening? That venerable magazine folded in late 2014, after 7 decades of publication (wow!), and it was relaunched earlier this year, with a broader focus, as Organic Life. I wasn’t a reader of the former, so ...
Evergreen Brick Works community greenspace: Toronto Garden Bloggers Fling
June 30, 2015 For nearly 100 years, Don Valley Brick Works supplied Toronto with masonry bricks and helped the city rebuild and grow after a devastating fire. By 1984, however, the kilns were closed down, and the factory buildings languished. Urban explorers and partying teens found their way in, and ...
Cabbagetown garden art and Hugh Garner Co-Op Green Roof: Toronto Garden Bloggers Fling
June 29, 2015 The teeny tiny gardens of Toronto’s Cabbagetown neighborhood of Victorian homes kicked off our final day of Toronto Garden Bloggers Fling in early June. Due to the tight quarters, pictures of artful vignettes were easier to take than overview photos, and I’m sharing my favorites here. Cabbagetown ...
