A sun-to-shade retreat in the garden of Rita Thomas
July 25, 2022 “The garden has been my retreat, my laboratory, and my playground,” Rita Thomas told us at the Madison Fling, a 3-day tour for gardeners on social media, held last month in and around Madison, Wisconsin. For 35 years, Rita has been playing in her Fitchburg garden, learning ...
Constellations of clematis at Janet Aaberg Garden
July 17, 2022 Glorious clematis vines greeted us at nearly every garden we visited during the Madison Fling last month, but Janet Aaberg’s garden stepped it up a notch. Thirty-two different varieties of these starry-flowered vines grow in her garden, and every one appeared to be in full bloom. This ...
Foliage-rich pond garden: Kuster Garden at Madison Fling
July 10, 2022 We visited a number of gardens with ponds at the Garden Bloggers Fling in Madison, Wisconsin, last month. Tom Kuster, who was not a gardener at the time, inherited his pond with the house he and wife Cheryl purchased in 1990. Did the pond work its magic ...
At the Wildflower Center with Jennifer Jewell
June 04, 2022 When Jennifer Jewell of Cultivating Place came to Austin a month ago, we visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center together. I enjoy showing visitors around our state botanical garden, planted exclusively with native Texas plants. In early May, the late-spring wildflowers were in party mode. Wildflowers ...
Low-water natives in front, party in the back
May 21, 2022 The southwest Austin home my friend Laura Wills and her husband, Eric, share isn’t in the country, but it feels semi-rural thanks to a 2-acre yard and out-of-sight neighbors. The front yard alone is enormous, and most people would sod it with turf grass and spend hours ...
Heart of stone: Tait Moring’s garden
May 18, 2022 Amid the flurry of gardens I had the pleasure of visiting in late April, landscape architect Tait Moring‘s garden stands out, as always, for its evocative stonework and a magpie collection of found objects, boyhood collections, and castoffs from clients’ gardens, which Tait assembles into art for ...
Spring in plant collector John Ignacio’s garden
May 13, 2022 Last October I had the pleasure of visiting John Ignacio’s northwest Austin garden, a treasure box of rare plants that John has collected (including on a plant-hunting expedition with the late John Fairey) and hybridized. I returned this April to see it at the beginning of the ...
Flowering vines, cacti, and hesperaloes in my garden
May 09, 2022 Early May is giving me end-of-May vibes this year — that is to say, near 100 degrees F and humid. You know…full-on Texas summer. And despite the blanket of Gulf humidity, we’re still not getting any real rain. Well, thankfully the plants don’t seem to mind yet ...
Coleson Bruce’s crevice garden in spring flower
May 04, 2022 Two weeks ago Coleson Bruce invited me back to his garden to see it in spring flower. I’d first visited Coleson’s garden last fall — a garden unlike any other I’ve seen in Austin or even Texas. Colorado-style crevice gardens are unusual here, and Coleson’s is not ...
Wildflower Center abloom in early April
April 23, 2022 Claret cup cactus flowering at the top of the Wildflower Center tower I’m overdue for a visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center — and it’s only been two weeks since I was there! But a lot happens in April and May. What was blooming two ...
Wisteria-scented Garden Spark at Barton Springs Nursery
April 16, 2022 Last week I hosted one of my Garden Spark talks at Barton Springs Nursery, and their beautiful outdoor classroom was made even more beautiful by a wisteria in full bloom. If you know anything about Chinese wisteria, you know it’s a monster of a vine. But its ...
Houston Botanic Garden edibles, water wall, and end-of-winter gardens
April 04, 2022 In early March, on a quick trip to Houston, I returned to Houston Botanic Garden for an end-of-winter visit. HBG is still a new garden — it opened in September 2020; click for my visit — and the culinary garden with its massive, aqua-tiled water wall is ...
A garden rising from ruin at Chanticleer
February 22, 2022 View from Chanticleer’s Gravel Garden to the Ruin My last post overflowed with images of the glorious gravel garden at Chanticleer, a public garden in Wayne, Pennsylvania, that I visited on my road trip last October. That garden segues right into the Ruin, which I’ll share today ...
Gardens galore at Paxson Hill Farm, part 1
February 09, 2022 Paxson Hill Farm’s crossroads, where inviting paths branch in every direction A friend asked me how I find gardens to see when traveling. Aside from online research a lot comes down to asking gardeners who live in the area. And it pays to build in time for ...
Water feature magic in Lori Daul’s garden
January 24, 2022 My friend Lori Daul‘s garden in South Austin has evolved, over the many years I’ve visited, from a sunny, romantic space filled with roses to a shadier yet still lush paradise where bold blue agaves and black elephant ears get equal billing, where dry gardens meet water ...
Anemones and autumn memories in Cat’s garden
January 12, 2022 Back in late October, when Loree of Danger Garden was visiting, Cat Jones invited us over for a garden visit. Her lipstick-pink anemones, a passalong from Rock Rose‘s Jenny Stocker (who’s since departed Austin for Arizona), were blooming. We both adore these fall flowers, which Jenny kindly ...
