Kirk Walden’s Hill Country garden atop Lake Austin
May 25, 2018 With this killer view of Lake Austin, many homeowners might have sodded a lawn, plunked a few pots of annuals around the pool, and called it done. But Kirk Walden, whose garden was the final stop on the recent Austin Garden Bloggers Fling tour (I photographed it ...
Bloggers soaked up Austin at Garden Bloggers Fling
May 11, 2018 For 11 years I’ve traveled to cities around North America to attend Garden Bloggers Fling, and I’ve helped organize two Flings held in Austin — in and again last weekend. Normally I take hundreds of pictures of the gardens I visit. (Go to Categories in my sidebar ...
Austin Garden Bloggers Fling kicks off today!
May 03, 2018 For two years now, my fellow bloggers Diana Kirby and Laura Wills and I have been planning a big event for garden bloggers called Garden Bloggers Fling. This weekend is when it finally happens — rain or shine! Garden Bloggers Fling is 3-1/2 days of private and ...
Does my garden look tasty to does?
April 25, 2018 Does the aloe that’s flowering like a coral-colored candelabra look yummy? Does that yucca bloom spike look tasty? Does the yellow bulbine look succulicious? Does the yellow puffball on the goldenball leadtree (Leucaena retusa) — the first time it’s ever bloomed! — look scrumptious? Probably not, actually ...
Glorious wildflowers and agaves in Jenny Stocker’s garden
April 20, 2018 Spring in Austin is glorious this year, and especially so in my friend Jenny Stocker’s garden. The Rock Rose blogger cultivates a gravel garden of mostly Texas native wildflowers and grasses sown among woody lilies like agave and yucca, accented with structural rockwork she and her husband, ...
Spring-fed waterfalls and swimming holes at Krause Springs
April 02, 2018 For years I’ve wanted to visit Krause Springs, a spring-fed swimming hole and campground in Spicewood, Texas, about 45 minutes northwest of Austin. Last Saturday we drove out there, past bluebonnets splashing ribbons of blue along the roadsides. We arrived early, and for a short time, while ...
Spring flowering in Jenny Stocker’s walled courtyard gardens
March 31, 2018 When I spotted this pool-garden view from inside the home of my friend Jenny Stocker, I nearly tripped over my feet to get outside and drink it in. Jenny, who blogs at Rock Rose, is the owner of an exquisite garden that she designed herself and maintains ...
It’s been a cold winter, but the garden’s still got it going on
February 14, 2018 Thank heavens for evergreens, grasses, yuccas, and structural features like stock-tank ponds, big containers, and low walls. After this withering, frostbitten winter, my garden would otherwise be flattened. Of course I’ve been moaning and groaning about the damage anyway. (Isn’t that what we gardeners do?) But taking ...
Mowing the sedge, and other expressions of hope for spring
January 30, 2018 Central Texas gardens got walloped by Old Man Winter this year, and a lot of plants that normally contribute to Austin’s evergreen palette — bamboo muhly, sago palm, flax lily, even ‘Alphonse Karr’ bamboo — are sporting sad shades of tan or brown. With a garden tour ...
Hill Country style in Sitio-designed garden of architect Duke Garwood
November 27, 2017 A month ago I visited a Rollingwood garden designed by landscape architect Curt Arnette of Sitio Design. It’s owned by the architect of the contemporary Hill Country-style home, Duke Garwood, whom I also had the pleasure of meeting. Let’s start in back, where a limestone patio bordered ...
Canyon-side garden of Tait Moring: Austin Open Days Tour 2017
November 25, 2017 The final garden from the Austin Open Days Tour earlier this month is landscape architect Tait Moring‘s personal garden, which perches on a canyon’s rim just off Bee Caves Road. His entry garden is an appealing mix of formality (boxwood hedging, geometric raised pond, fig ivy neatly ...
Waterwise drama in Lakemoore Drive Garden: Austin Open Days Tour 2017
November 20, 2017 Continuing my coverage of the November 4th Open Days tour, today I give you the Lakemoore Drive Garden. Regular readers may recognize this garden as one I blogged about, rapturously, in 2013. The outer garden, a sun-loving gravel garden with evergreen xeric plants like agave, yucca, prickly ...
Easy outdoor living in garden of designer B. Jane: Austin Open Days Tour 2017
November 15, 2017 For a refreshing contemporary design with fun colors and a restrained palette of tough-as-nails native plants, designer B. Jane‘s garden is the place to hang out. Her personal garden in Austin’s Brentwood neighborhood was featured on the Garden Conservancy-sponsored Open Days tour a couple of weeks ago ...
Autumn stroll around my garden
October 27, 2017 Autumn is my favorite season in the garden, when the Death Star abates and cool breezes blow in from the north, pushing that Gulf Coast humidity back to Houston where it belongs. The sky goes china blue, fall perennials burst into bloom, and fall-blooming grasses incandesce in ...
Historic San Antonio style in Tupper Beinhorn Garden: San Antonio Open Days Tour
October 22, 2017 Compared with the formality of the Ware Garden, the rambling Old San Antonio style of the Tupper Beinhorn Garden couldn’t be more different. I visited last weekend during the San Antonio Open Days Tour sponsored by the Garden Conservancy. Located in the historic and charming Monte Vista ...
European formality with relaxed Texas style in Ware Garden: San Antonio Open Days Tour
October 18, 2017 Last Saturday I road-tripped to San Antonio for the Open Days garden tour, sponsored by the Garden Conservancy. Shirley Fox of Rock-Oak-Deer was one of the organizers this year, and I was eager to see the gardens that she’d chosen for the tour. The Ware Garden is ...
