Paths

December 13, 2009 Last week I posted about the problems I want to address with a design for my new-old house’s entry. Many of you responded with suggestions, great ideas, your own experience with similar problems, and encouragement. All the ideas got me feeling creative and energized about doing some ...

December 09, 2009 Where has the year gone? And why haven’t I done anything about turning the front of my house into MY house? A year and two months after moving into our new-old house (circa mid-70s) I still cringe when fellow gardeners come over and see the entry, I ...

October 11, 2009 Aspens along Alberta Falls trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado Last week I invited other bloggers to post their favorite stories or pictures of a national park they’ve visited. I’d just watched Ken Burns’ series The National Parks, which illustrates how America’s attitude toward its national parks ...

October 11, 2009 Aspens along Alberta Falls trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado Last week I invited other bloggers to post their favorite stories or pictures of a national park they’ve visited. I’d just watched Ken Burns’ series The National Parks, which illustrates how America’s attitude toward its national parks ...

October 05, 2009 Still ponds act as mirrors, reflecting the sky and the trees above. But this ghostly mirror image is of dwarf papyrus (Cyperus papyrus ‘Nanus’), a potted plant in my stock-tank pond. You can see the papyrus on the right. The ‘Colorado’ water lily is still blooming, and ...

October 05, 2009 Still ponds act as mirrors, reflecting the sky and the trees above. But this ghostly mirror image is of dwarf papyrus (Cyperus papyrus ‘Nanus’), a potted plant in my stock-tank pond. You can see the papyrus on the right. The ‘Colorado’ water lily is still blooming, and ...

May 10, 2009 On Saturday I joined Diana of Sharing Nature’s Garden, Lori of The Gardener of Good and Evil, and a friend of Lori’s from Arizona to visit four private gardens on the Wildflower Center-sponsored Gardens on Tour, an annual tour of gardens that predominantly feature native Texas plants ...

March 31, 2009 Several readers expressed interest in hearing more about the green roof atop the parking garage at Palisades West office complex that I visited last Friday. Developer Tim Hendricks of Cousins Properties came out to speak to a handful of visitors who’d jumped at the chance to see ...

February 09, 2009 As big as a red-eyed bull and twice as ugly, the City of Austin’s gray garbage bins and huge, blue recycling bins are creating angst among homeowners who don’t know where to park these monsters. If you put them in the garage, your car won’t fit. Stashed ...

October 20, 2008 Y’all know how the Austin garden bloggers (36 at last count) delight in abandoning the virtual page for real-life meet-ups, right? On Sunday thirteen of us had the pleasure of touring and socializing in the East Austin gardens of two men who are garden blogging in our ...

October 13, 2008 When Annie and I visited the gardens on the Open Days Austin tour two weekends ago, I was bowled over by Stone Palms and Fatal Flower, where the hand of the owners was plainly visible in the creativity of design and plant choices. Two more gardens on ...

October 10, 2008 After visiting the theatrical Stone Palms garden during the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days Austin tour last Saturday, Annie in Austin and I headed over to east Austin to visit the Tex-Asian garden dubbed Fatal Flower. As you can see, that’s a bit of a misnomer since there ...

July 24, 2008 Our final stop on our early July visit to Chanticleer was the Cut Flower & Vegetable Garden. How sweet, green, and lush it appeared—like an April garden in Austin. Old-fashioned lovelies like hollyhocks (above) and sunflowers gave height to the rows of cutting flowers. Bent-twig arches also ...

July 23, 2008 Among all the beautiful, bold, and imaginative gardens at Chanticleer, why do I like the Gravel Garden best? It so resembles the dry gardens of west Austin that I feel a little sheepish to admit that in this lush, Pennsylvania garden I preferred the familiarity of home ...

July 22, 2008 During our tour of Chanticleer in early July, the mistiness of early afternoon gave way to bright sunshine as we dipped into the Asian Woods garden below the main house. Tall trees, their lower trunks wrapped in wire trellises for climbing vines, create a serene wood and ...

July 17, 2008 Fragrant lavender edges sunny paths in the King’s Garden at Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York, which we visited at the end of June. The name “King’s Garden” is a bit misleading because this formal, ornamental garden did not exist when the French built the nearby fort ...