Tropical conservatory and origami sculpture at San Antonio Botanical Garden
December 09, 2020 Rising Peace I’m not much for conservatories, as regular readers know. They give me mall vibes. But maybe I’m starting to come around a little, thanks to the Origami in the Garden exhibit of Kevin Box‘s sculptures at San Antonio Botanical Garden. This is Part 2 of ...
Origami sculpture and Christmasy cactus garden at San Antonio Botanical Garden
December 07, 2020 I first admired Kevin Box‘s playful origami sculptures on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. Now he’s exhibiting his work at San Antonio Botanical Garden through early May 2021. I kept wanting to visit this fall but couldn’t find time until last weekend, when my husband and I ...
Farewell, fall flowers; hello, first freeze
December 01, 2020 So long, ‘Grapes’ gomphrena. It’s been a grand fall. But with a first freeze of 29F predicted early this morning, I expect your button-like flowers will soon look pale and freeze-dried. Well, it was time, I guess. Sayonara, forsythia sage. You were absolutely beautiful for two solid ...
Colorful fall foliage at the Wildflower Center, part 1
November 17, 2020 Fall pounced on Austin quickly this year, then retreated for nearly a month, and then dashed back in, ushering in a brief flare of color. We’d planned to visit Lost Maples this month in hopes of seeing the bigtooth maples flaming red and orange, but we missed ...
Palms, agaves, and edibles in Peter Schaar Garden
October 27, 2020 I was happy to have the opportunity to see the garden of Peter Schaar in Dallas in early October. I know Peter as a palm and agave lover, a rose enthusiast (note the Texas Rose Rustler t-shirt), and an avid cook with a taste for growing herbs ...
Plant trials with style at Redenta’s Landscape Design office garden
October 07, 2020 With beautiful fall weather on tap and the first of the Mexico-bound monarch butterflies reaching North Texas, last weekend seemed like the perfect time for a trip to Dallas-Fort Worth. So I reached out to a few gardeners there and mapped out a 2-day itinerary, and my ...
Houston Botanic Garden’s surprising cactus garden and more – part 2
September 25, 2020 During my inaugural visit to the brand-new Houston Botanic Garden last weekend, my eyes widened when I rounded a bend and saw this — a rocky garden of agave, yucca, and cactus. After all, this is Houston, city of sauna-like summers and 50 inches of annual rainfall ...
Brand-new Houston Botanic Garden showcases tropical and subtropical plants – part 1
September 24, 2020 Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and San Antonio all have botanical gardens, but until now, the biggest and most international city in Texas did not. Last weekend Houston finally got its due with the long-anticipated opening of Houston Botanic Garden. I road-tripped with my daughter three hours east ...
Tropicalesque Tanglewild, where bananas and palms grow big and bold
September 17, 2020 With the arrival of cooler weather it’s garden visiting season, and I’ve started calling on gardening friends who are willing to have me over for a socially distanced, masked, outdoor visit. How I love touring gardens! This week’s tour is at Tanglewild Gardens, a 1.7-acre garden in ...
David’s top 10 plants in our garden
August 31, 2020 First Tamara’s husband, David, guest-posted about his favorite flowers on his wife’s blog Chickadee Gardens. Then Loree at Danger Garden interviewed her non-gardening husband, Andrew, about his top ten favorite plants (not limited to flowers since her garden is foliage-centric), and included his haiku-like descriptions of each ...
Late summer stars of the garden
August 26, 2020 Like a starfish clinging to a rock, this soap aloe (Aloe maculata) I stuck in a pie-pan planter has grown more beautifully than I expected. It seems to love the crevice life. Snaking stems of ghost plant (Graptopetalum paraguayense) add their flower shapes to the composition. A ...
Drive-By Gardens: Lushly spiky gardens of Tarrytown
August 13, 2020 Forgetting about the closure of city parks in Austin due to Covid-19, my daughter and I tried to visit Mayfield Park in west Austin a couple of weeks ago. Finding the gates locked, we decided to make the best of it and drove around tony Tarrytown neighborhood ...
Midsummer garden walkabout
August 08, 2020 Whale’s tongue agave (Agave ovatifolia) Midsummer has never been my favorite season in the garden. It’s hot and humid. Mosquitoes are fierce. And yet this summer, perhaps because I’m spending more time at home and in my own garden than usual, I’m also appreciating it more. Here’s ...
COVID-19 scuttles Garden Bloggers Fling this year
June 19, 2020 Garden Bloggers Fling, the 13th annual meet-up of garden bloggers from across North America and beyond, was to have been held this weekend in Madison, Wisconsin. The coronavirus scuttled that party. I’m trying to wait patiently for next year, when Madison’s bloggers will try again to host ...
Beebalm, skullcap, and more wild creatures
May 27, 2020 The early summer flowers are strutting their stuff, so come along for a virtual tour! Here’s dazzling ‘Peter’s Purple’ monarda (Monarda fistulosa ‘Peter’s Purple’) in the driveway bed. It was a breezy day. Looking toward the neighbors’ house and their fast-growing Yucca rostrata In the shady island bed ...
Reopening at San Antonio Botanical Garden, part 2
May 21, 2020 A wildflower meadow studded with Yucca rostrata in bloom — yes, please! Let’s continue with last week’s visit to San Antonio Botanic Garden and this path into the cactus and succulent garden. More flowering yuccas! And more, with shiny-leaved palm trees and a blue, blue sky. And ...
