James David and Gary Peese’s new garden in New Mexico
September 09, 2022 Landscape architect James David and Gary Peese departed Austin about 5 years ago, leaving behind a 36-year-old, swoon-worthy garden that regularly starred on Open Days Tours and was covered by Martha Stewart, Architectural Digest, and, ahem, yours truly (click for my final visit). Looking for cooler weather, ...
Have we outlasted the heat-wave summer?
August 31, 2022 What a summer this has been for Austin. Hot as Hades, rainless and parched for months and months. And then, finally, flooding rains in mid-August drenched parts of the city — I got 4.75 inches over a few days, although friends in South and West Austin got ...
East Austin art safari
August 23, 2022 She Will Have Her Way With You, 2020 I like to share interesting art that I’ve found in my wanderings around Austin. This art excursion occurred back in March, when I explored a few East Austin galleries and public art pieces. Here’s an exhibit I really enjoyed ...
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 ...
Tropicalismo drive-by garden
June 01, 2022 Driving through the South Austin neighborhood where my friend Lori lives, I passed this exuberant, tropical-style front garden. I immediately swung around and lurked at the curb to take in all the color and ka-pow energy of bananas and crinums and poppies, oh my. Under the shade ...
Back to the garden of good and evil
May 25, 2022 My friend Lori of The Gardener of Good and Evil is always in the middle of a project. I don’t know how she finds the time and energy after working on other people’s gardens all day, but Lori leaps into projects in all seasons, never shying away ...
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 ...
New succulent nursery by OG Agave spikes up Lakeway
May 16, 2022 Austin gardener Matt Shreves is crazy about cacti and succulents. His own gorgeous garden is a spiky showcase of agaves, barrel cactus, yuccas, Argentine saguaro and other columnar cacti, as well as small container-sized succulents. I’ve featured his garden twice — here and here — so check ...
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 ...
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 ...
Comings and goings in the spring garden
March 30, 2022 She ran late by a week or two, but Spring finally made up her mind and sprung. Last week ornamental trees like Mexican plum (Prunus mexicana) flushed into flower as live oaks overhead began their annual mass shedding of “evergreen” leaves. It’s autumn and spring all at ...
Flowery meadow instead of lawn at Chanticleer’s house garden
February 26, 2022 You’d expect a garden surrounding an estate house to be formal, restrained, with neat lawns and containers that serve to frame the grand structure. The house garden at Chanticleer, a Pennsylvania “pleasure garden” I visited during my East Coast road trip last October, upends this convention through ...
Gravel garden at Chanticleer reminds me of Texas
February 21, 2022 Whether you love plants, exciting planting combos, design and gardening artistry, or overlooks and hideaways to sit and enjoy a beautiful garden, Chanticleer has it all. Located near Philadelphia, Chanticleer dubs itself “a pleasure garden,” and it’s been my favorite public garden since I first visited in ...
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 ...
