Gardens on Tour 2007: Maury Hollow
May 15, 2007 The second stop on our tour included two gardens on a cul-de-sac in the hills of northwest Austin, one belonging to Cathy Nordstrom, owner of San Souci Gardens, the second belonging to her client and next-door neighbor. We visited the designer’s garden first. Native bee balm and ...
Gardens on Tour 2007: Stonecliff Circle
May 14, 2007 Buffalograss (Buchloe dactyloides) stands in for a traditional but thirsty St. Augustine lawn in this NW Austin garden. Surrounded by typical suburban yards, this garden shows how to use drought-tolerant natives in a fairly traditional way. While it didn’t bowl me over with an unusual design or ...
Winter wonderland at the Wildflower Center
December 13, 2006 This is what winter looks like in Austin: autumn leaves persistently hanging on, ornamental grasses bending in a north breeze, evergreen live oaks and cedars (junipers, actually), and bright blue skies. It may not be everyone’s idea of a winter wonderland, but I love it. I visited ...
Goblins in the Garden at the Wildflower Center
October 30, 2006 Please, sir, may I have some more? On Sunday evening we attended Goblins in the Garden, an annual Halloween event at the Wildflower Center. The city’s little haunters were out in force, and it was fun to see the volunteers running the event dressed in the spirit ...
Tour of Stone House Vineyard
October 28, 2006 Colorful, xeric perennials contrasted beautifully with an Italian cypress allee. My last garden of the day, Stone House Vineyard required the biggest time commitment. At about 2 pm I took the 40-minute drive out to Spicewood, on Lake Travis. Compared to the crowded, in-town gardens, only a ...
Tour of Poth-Gill garden
October 27, 2006 Low, curving walls set the front garden apart, with a spiraling design that draws you in. Colorful perennials and informal designs had been scarce on the Open Days Austin tour up until this point. Green, formal gardens ruled the day with clipped boxwoods, allees, precise runnels, and ...
Tour of Deborah Hornickel garden
October 26, 2006 A pear allee is the highlight of Hornickel’s garden Warm, accessible, personal, with striking plant choices and a Gardens-inspired feel, this Bryker Woods garden, located within walking distance of James David and Gary Peese’s famous garden shop, is Gardens on a budget. And I mean that as ...
Tour of Penelope Hobhouse-designed garden on Harris Boulevard
October 25, 2006 A belvedere “modeled after the music pavilion at Versailles,” according to the Open Days Directory. We garden tourists knew this would be the most opulent garden on the Open Days Austin tour. A feature in the newspaper that tantalized with lavish photos, and mentioned that the garden ...
Tour of Arth garden
October 24, 2006 Entering James Arth’s garden from the street, you step onto a small lawn punctuated by a “chess pawn” (similar to one in my own garden’s border). Visiting this central Austin garden right after the David-Peese garden was a big change, but its spare geometry rendered in limestone ...
Tour of David-Peese garden
October 23, 2006 Entry garden. A gravel path flows around this sunny, graveled berm. It literally stopped me in my tracks as I gazed at the intriguing plant combinations. “Does this make me look fat?” I heard Gary Peese ask someone, fussing with his shirt as the Open Days tour ...
Laguna Gloria
June 27, 2006 Water lily at Laguna Gloria Today I visited the grounds of Laguna Gloria. Once the home of Clara Driscoll, “Savior of the Alamo” (she raised money in 1903 to keep the Alamo from being destroyed to make way for a hotel), nowadays Laguna Gloria is home to ...
Mom's hollyhocks
June 03, 2006 I’ve been away for a week in Tulsa, Oklahoma, visiting my mom. We spent several pleasant (mosquito-free!) afternoons in her cottage garden brimming with hollyhocks. Crowded around her purple garden shed, towering more than 6 feet tall, with flowers as broad as salad plates, Mom’s hollyhocks bloom ...
