Colorful desert garden of Noelle Johnson, Arizona Plant Lady
May 07, 2014 Last month I visited Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, to see how they’re gardening in a much drier climate than Austin’s. (Drought is much on our mind in Texas). I toured Desert Botanical Garden, which was amazing, saw a couple of Steve Martino’s beautifully designed gardens, and admired ...
Visit to Desert Botanical Garden and Chihuly Exhibit: Desert twilight and Chihuly after dark
May 01, 2014 Have you ever visited a garden twice in one day? After a late morning/mid-afternoon stroll through Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden on April 4th, I returned just before sunset to enjoy the “magic hour” of light and see the Chihuly glass sculptures dramatically lit. The low, warm light ...
Visit to Desert Botanical Garden and Chihuly Exhibit: Edible Garden, palo verde splendor, and Chihuly balloons
April 30, 2014 During my April 4th visit to Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona, I flitted from trail to loop to gallery with no concern for the map or where the Chihuly pieces were located or any knowledge of the garden beyond what I’d gleaned from the blog posts ...
Visit to Desert Botanical Garden and Chihuly Exhibit: Archer House garden and Desert Living Trail
April 29, 2014 If you’re a birdwatcher, you really must visit Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. I arrived around 10 am on April 4th and saw more birds than I could identify, photograph, or count. Imagine an early morning visit, when all the birds are waking up! This dove ...
Visit to Desert Botanical Garden and Chihuly Exhibit: Cactus and Succulent Galleries
April 28, 2014 The Chihuly exhibit at Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona, is a huge draw for visitors, and it was for me too. When I visited on April 4th, I was keen to see the colorful glass sculptures in a desert setting after seeing them at Dallas Arboretum ...
Visit to Desert Botanical Garden and Chihuly Exhibit: Entry Garden and Desert Wildflower Loop
April 26, 2014 As soon as I got off the plane and into my rental car on my April 3rd visit to Phoenix, Arizona, I drove straight to Desert Botanical Garden, which is consistently rated one of the best botanical gardens in the U.S. I knew a spring visit would ...
Nursery Visit: Civano Nursery in Tucson, Arizona
April 23, 2014 After my drive-by of Civano’s candy-colored homes and front-yard gardens while in Tucson earlier this month, I popped into Civano Nursery for a look around. Yep, that’s right. The lucky residents of Civano have a full-service nursery in their neighborhood, within wagon-pulling distance of many of the ...
Living colorfully in Civano, Tucson’s green-home community
April 22, 2014 I made a quick visit to Tucson while in Arizona earlier this month, and one of my stops included the green, master-planned community of Civano on the southeast side of town. One of my favorite garden authors, Scott Calhoun, wrote about building his home and garden there ...
Desert retreat in Steve Martino-designed Quartz Mountain Garden
April 21, 2014 The second garden I visited with Phoenix landscape architect Steve Martino was familiar to me from a magazine or garden book I’d read. Peer recognition, including an ASLA design award in 2006, has also been bestowed on Steve’s design for this Paradise Valley, Arizona, home. It’s a ...
Color-drenched walls and desert beauty in Steve Martino-designed Palo Christi Garden
April 19, 2014 Forget Easter egg pinks and lilacs. Yellow, I discovered two weeks ago, is the color of spring in Arizona. A sunny, egg-yolk yellow. My friend David Cristiani introduced me to Phoenix landscape architect Steve Martino, who pioneered the use of desert natives in area gardens decades ago ...
Sculptural dry gardens at the Ruth Bancroft Garden: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 27, 2013 Our 1st stop on the 3rd and final day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek. It was about 100 degrees F in Walnut Creek that last week of June, but the heat and intense sunlight seemed appropriate for ...
Visit to Lotusland, part 5: Cactus Garden
June 09, 2013 Just before closing at Santa Barbara’s Lotusland, we explored the Cactus Garden, which I found even more fascinating than I expected. Despite what outsiders may imagine my home state of Texas to be like, this isn’t it. Tall, columnar cactus like these, for example, are largely unknown ...
My favorite photos from Digging in 2012
January 02, 2013 Les at A Tidewater Gardener, an excellent nature photographer, always ends the year with a look back at his favorite photos from the year, and he invites other bloggers to do the same. Without further ado, here are my favorites from 2012. The first two happen to ...
Read This: Agaves: Living Sculptures for Landscapes and Containers
December 04, 2012 Do you have an agave lover on your holiday shopping list? Or do you want to know more about these marvelous, architectural plants yourself? Or maybe, just maybe, you fantasize about plant hunting on rocky, treacherous hillsides in remote Mexico? Then check out Greg Starr’s Agaves: Living ...
An evening visit to Scott Calhoun’s Zona Gardens studio
October 31, 2012 I don’t remember how I acquired Yard Full of Sun, Scott Calhoun’s 2005 memoir about making a garden that honors its desert setting. As soon as I read the first pages, his story, told with humor, crisp writing, and enticing photos, hooked me. Since then I’ve read ...
Visit to Tucson Botanical Gardens, part 2
October 30, 2012 Tucson Botanical Gardens, which I visited as part of the recent Garden Writers Association symposium, is a surprisingly eclectic place. As I wrote in part 1 of my visit to TBG, the gardens house a wonderful collection of desert plants from all over the world, are home ...
