Happy fall garden
October 20, 2019 With the Death Star at bay and a little rain last week, the plants are rejoicing with a flush of flowers. It’s a second spring for us Texas gardeners. Being mostly shady, my garden isn’t exactly a flower-lover’s paradise. It’s all about foliage and texture and, frankly, ...
Nolina, yucca, and cypress add xeric structure in lush Austin garden
September 26, 2019 Have you ever seen a glorious spring garden fade by late summer into a semi-dormant hot mess? That’s what happens in Texas when you don’t include structural plants and hardscape to give your garden shape and interest in hotter, drier seasons. Landscape architect Jackson Broussard (formerly of ...
Containers and color galore in Rob Proctor’s garden: Denver Garden Bloggers Fling
July 15, 2019 Rob Proctor has been showing Coloradans how to garden for decades. A former director of horticulture at Denver Botanic Gardens and the author of 17 gardening books, he also appears weekly on Denver’s channel 9 news for a gardening segment called “Proctor’s Garden.” When we arrived at ...
Cactus bloom for my garden class
May 05, 2019 Just 8 hours before my garden class/tour began (the first Garden Spark Tour, a new offering from Garden Spark), the sky was falling in parts of Austin, dumping up to 7 inches of rain in just a few hours and washing out low-water crossings. Thankfully, here in ...
Spring is abloom in shades of pink and turquoise
May 01, 2019 I haven’t done a photo tour of my own garden in a while, so let’s go, starting with a new planting of Gulf Coast penstemon (Penstemon tenuis) and winecup (Callirhoe involucrata), both Texas natives. Along with an artichoke — I’ve always wanted to try one — they’re ...
Mermaids welcome in Lucinda Hutson’s garden
April 26, 2019 Austin may be 200 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, but for beachy ambience look no further than Lucinda Hutson‘s mermaid garden. The ¡Viva Tequila! author created an under-the-sea vibe with a shell-encrusted arbor dripping with capiz shells, under which a cast-iron mermaid poses seductively. Potted sansevieria, asparagus ...
Waterwise beauty and metal animal safari in Linda Peterson’s San Antonio garden
December 05, 2018 An invitation to Linda Peterson’s garden in San Antonio proved too tempting a treat to resist on the day before Halloween. I arrived in San Antonio in time to tour the terrific new culinary and adventure gardens at San Antonio Botanical Garden before heading over to Linda’s mint-green ...
Deer, egrets, and aloes and a happy Thanksgiving to you
November 22, 2018 The buck stops here. And here and here and, well, everywhere in my neighborhood in autumn. On our daily stroll, the dog and I walk a gauntlet of edgy male deer standing vigil near groups of does. It’s rutting season, and bucks like this one are not ...
More butterflies and Halloween scarecrows at San Antonio Botanical Garden
November 11, 2018 I’ve shown you the fabulous new gardens at San Antonio Botanical Garden that have opened over the past year — the culinary and entry gardens and the Family Adventure Garden — but there is more to see in the original gardens. During my visit at the end ...
Oxblood lilies are baaaaack!
September 13, 2018 Five inches of rain soaked the soil last week, and the oxblood lilies (Rhodophiala bifida) have raised their celebratory red flags in response. Popping up from dormancy seemingly overnight, they’ve splashed color along the front of the raised beds in the back garden. The herald of the ...
Today is the last day of cactus and succulent sale at Zilker Garden
September 02, 2018 Need a plant fix today, my fellow Austinites and succulent lovers? Sunday, 9/2, is the final day of the Austin Cactus & Succulent Society’s fall show and sale at Zilker Botanical Garden. I arrived just after opening on Saturday, and the main parking lot was already full ...
Rock stars at Kew: Alpine House rockery and dry garden
July 14, 2018 I’ve never been much into glasshouses. I generally find them jungly, warm, and humid — conditions I don’t enjoy during Austin’s long summers and don’t wish to experience artificially. But an alpine glasshouse, with cool temps, tidy potted plants, and a nice breeze? Bring it on! While ...
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 ...
Protecting the garden from a Texas deep freeze — or not
January 05, 2018 We’ve just recovered from a bad case of winter here in Austin. From New Year’s Eve through Wednesday, a long deep freeze — by Central Texas standards, anyway — had us huddling by the fireplace night after night. Lows in the mid-20s rose only to around freezing ...
Linda Peterson’s green-walled xeriscape garden: San Antonio Open Days Tour
October 25, 2017 The highlight of the recent San Antonio Open Days garden tour, as I knew it would be, was Linda Peterson’s beautiful xeriscape and green-walled courtyard garden. Twice before I’ve had the pleasure of exploring Linda’s garden (in September 2015 and April 2016), and the artistry of her ...
Strolling into danger — Danger Garden, that is
September 22, 2017 Every three years I manage a trip to Portland, and each time ( and ) I’ve been fortunate to visit the garden of my friend Loree Bohl — fellow spiky plant lover, the prolific blogger of Danger Garden, and a collector-gardener with an incredibly artistic and meticulous ...
