Austin Open Days Tour 2010: Deborah Hornickel garden
October 20, 2010 Deborah Hornickel added on to her charming Bryker Woods home a couple of years ago, extending its footprint into her back garden, which you can see pre-remodel in my Open Days 2006 post about Deborah’s garden. Visiting post-remodel on Saturday’s Open Days tour, I found it to ...
Gardens of Lake Austin Spa
October 14, 2010 Yesterday the Director of Flora & Fauna at Lake Austin Spa, the talented Trisha Shirey, gave me an early morning tour of the spa’s gardens, which she has tended for more than 26 years. A staff of nine full-time gardeners assists her in organically maintaining and updating ...
Intimate views at Olbrich Gardens
September 25, 2010 Most of my earlier posts about Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin, have shown long views, like the cleome border above. But I do have more-intimate images to share as well. A yellow jacket or some other type of wasp gathering nectar Swamp sunflower, I believe Simple ...
Tropicals & more at Olbrich Botanical Gardens
September 22, 2010 Boy, was I surprised to see agaves in Madison, Wisconsin, at Olbrich Botanical Gardens on my recent visit. Well, sure, they’re in containers and must spend the winter in a greenhouse, but still it was fun to see these familiar faces out of context. This border surrounds ...
Pond jewels
August 08, 2010 Summertime is the stock-tank pond’s shining season. Situated as a focal point at one end of the garden, the pond is viewable from many angles. A circular stone path runs all the way around it. The gravel path at back-left leads into the hillside garden. But forget ...
Lovely Lancaster Ave gardens at Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling
July 19, 2010 Playful wall decor in a Lancaster Avenue garden Wrapping up my series about Garden Bloggers Buffa10, I’ve saved some of the best gardens for last, as did our hosts in arranging access to the remarkable Lancaster Avenue gardens for the final day of the event. We had ...
High tea in the garden of Mike and Kathy Shadrack: Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling
July 16, 2010 Two buses carrying the garden bloggers of Buffa10 jounced slowly down a long, skinny driveway in the woods near Hamburg, New York, to deliver us to the creekside glen that is Kathy and Mike Shadrack‘s garden. A former London bobby with a sly wit, Mike has authored ...
Buffalo Garden Bloggers Fling: First day impressions
July 13, 2010 Sweet-smelling, freckled lilies. Crimson bee balm as tall as myself. Soft-textured lawn grass spangled with white clover, so different from Austin’s coarse, shaggy St. Augustine and so much more inviting. Tall, brick Victorian homes standing shoulder-to-shoulder on streets shaded by goth-cloaked Norway maples. A city eager to ...
Digging photo in Fresh Home magazine
June 19, 2010 If you happen to pick up the Summer 2010 issue of Fresh Home magazine, and if you happen to turn to page 79 as you read the article “The Magic of Motion”… …you’ll see one of my photographs, an image of a rill and pool from Chanticleer ...
Gardens on Tour 2010: Highway 45 South garden
May 12, 2010 The final garden I visited last Saturday on Gardens on Tour 2010 is a large rural property tucked at the end of a long, gravel drive off Highway 45 South, not too far from the Wildflower Center. Wildflower meadows surround the home and nearby guest house/retreat center ...
Gardens on Tour 2010: Bridle Path garden
May 10, 2010 The Bridle Path garden in the Tarrytown neighborhood was my favorite on Gardens on Tour 2010 because it had the best of both worlds: a naturalistic garden for sun and shade in the front, with a charming council-ring style seating area tucked out of sight of the ...
Sneak preview of Gardens on Tour 2010: Reynosa Drive garden
May 04, 2010 One of my favorite Austin garden tours occurs this Saturday, May 8: Gardens on Tour, produced by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I’m pleased to offer you a sneak preview of one of the gardens on the tour, the Reynosa Drive garden, which I’m particularly fond ...
Naples Botanical Garden: Gardens with Latitude
March 22, 2010 Over spring break we drove 3,200 miles (5,149 km) round-trip to Florida, with stops in Orlando, Miami, Everglades National Park, the Keys (all the way to Key West), and finally Naples to see the brand-new botanical garden there. Planted last August and opened to the public in ...
Blogger field trip: San Antonio Botanical Garden
November 08, 2009 A monarch and honeybee share space on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundiflora) Twelve Austin garden bloggers caravaned to San Antonio on Saturday to visit San Antonio Botanical Garden and the Antique Rose Emporium, with a stop along the way at Madrone Nursery in San Marcos, a native-plant ...
Inside Austin Gardens Tour 2009: Eleanor Pratt's garden
October 26, 2009 My favorite color echo on Saturday’s Inside Austin Gardens tour appeared in Eleanor Pratt’s garden in the Brentwood neighborhood of north-central Austin. Eleanor repeats the red of a Japanese maple red-leaf hibiscus (Hibiscus acetosella) with a swath of bachelor’s buttons. Vivacious! Eleanor also grows the plant I ...
Water as a "sacred element" in southwestern gardens
August 27, 2009 Softleaf yucca (Y. recurvifolia) I nearly always read the last page of a magazine first. So when my Garden Design (Sept/Oct 2009) arrived today I flipped to the back to read about Arizona landscape architect Christy Ten Eyck. I’ve seen her work featured in magazines, and I ...
