Read my article in Country Gardens about using a painter’s tricks in garden design
August 12, 2018 Stacked pumpkins, grapevine wreaths, and overflowing buckets of mums brighten the Fall 2018 issue of Country Gardens magazine — and I am so ready for that cooler, brighter season to arrive. Even if you’re not, I hope you’ll enjoy reading an article I produced and wrote for ...
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, part 2: White Garden, meadow, and tower views
August 04, 2018 Has any garden been more admired, copied, and written about than Vita Sackville-West’s White Garden at Sissinghurst? We visited in mid-June, and I was excited to finally step into this glowing space and see it for myself. Twilight would be better for appreciating the pale effect of ...
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, part 1: Walls and roses in the English countryside
August 03, 2018 Sissinghurst. Mecca to gardeners worldwide. Like every traveling gardener, I’d put Sissinghurst Castle Garden at the top of my bucket list, and when we started planning a trip to England I insisted on seeing the famous garden of Vita Sackville-West. So one sunny mid-June morning, we drove ...
Hedge fun: The Italian Renaissance garden of Château d’Ambleville
July 05, 2018 So many châteaux (manor houses, mostly, but also palaces and castles) litter the French countryside that today some can be purchased for a relative song. We were not looking to buy, however, but merely to visit a couple of châteaux in mid-June, after our tour of Monet’s ...
Read my article and see B. Jane’s Austin garden in Garden Design magazine
June 22, 2018 When you pick up a copy of the Summer 2018 issue of Garden Design magazine — even better, subscribe to this no-ads, in-depth-writing, photo-rich quarterly magazine — you’ll find 144 pages of gardening goodness, including two articles I’d like to draw your attention to. “Into the Woods” ...
Kirk Walden’s Hill Country garden atop Lake Austin
May 25, 2018 With this killer view of Lake Austin, many homeowners might have sodded a lawn, plunked a few pots of annuals around the pool, and called it done. But Kirk Walden, whose garden was the final stop on the recent Austin Garden Bloggers Fling tour (I photographed it ...
A little Palm Springs, a little New Orleans, all Texas in the garden of Curt Arnette
May 16, 2018 I’ve been after my friend Curt Arnette, landscape-architect owner of Sitio Design, to open his personal garden on tour for years. But because he likes to change things up at home (plus being busy with his work projects), he’s always said it wasn’t ready. Persistence pays off, ...
Glorious wildflowers and agaves in Jenny Stocker’s garden
April 20, 2018 Spring in Austin is glorious this year, and especially so in my friend Jenny Stocker’s garden. The Rock Rose blogger cultivates a gravel garden of mostly Texas native wildflowers and grasses sown among woody lilies like agave and yucca, accented with structural rockwork she and her husband, ...
Read This: The Less Is More Garden, plus a book giveaway!
March 21, 2018 When I opened this book and saw the title-page photo of a tiny patio garden awash in chartreuse foliage and leafy texture, with two well-chosen pieces of garden art, a pair of acid-green chairs, and a steel fire pit, I knew I was going to love the ...
Look for my articles in Garden Design’s Spring 2018 issue
March 19, 2018 It’s still exciting when an article I wrote appears in print, and in the current issue of Garden Design (Spring 2018) I have two! And one of them goes with the cover image. You can read about that garden in “A Place of Refuge” on pages 54-67 ...
Read This: Gardens of the High Line and The High Line, two books about NYC’s most influential public park
January 23, 2018 Exploring the High Line in October 2014 remains a highlight of my garden travels, and I’d love to go see it again. Until then, reading about it keeps the fire burning, gives insight into the origins and design of this unique public garden/nature walk/civic space, and offers ...
On a “Modern Mission” in Garden Design magazine
January 18, 2018 It may be cold and gray outside, but that means it’s a perfect time of year to curl up with the new Winter 2018 issue of Garden Design magazine. I got my copy today and am excited to tell you about my article “Modern Mission,” which appears ...
Garden Spark talk with Tom Spencer on Feb. 8 is sold out
January 12, 2018 People in the Austin area are hungry for garden design talks! I’m glad, because I’ve been hungry for such talks too. In fact, that’s why I launched Garden Spark last year. Last week I blogged here about the 2018 series and an upcoming Garden Spark talk with ...
Announcing 2018 Garden Spark speaker lineup
January 07, 2018 I’m delighted to announce an exciting speaker lineup for this year’s Garden Spark, a series of garden talks by top-notch design speakers hosted at my home. February 8: Tom Spencer presents “The Tao of Texas Gardening: Finding Balance in a Changing Climate” Description: Gardening in Texas is ...
Hill Country style in Sitio-designed garden of architect Duke Garwood
November 27, 2017 A month ago I visited a Rollingwood garden designed by landscape architect Curt Arnette of Sitio Design. It’s owned by the architect of the contemporary Hill Country-style home, Duke Garwood, whom I also had the pleasure of meeting. Let’s start in back, where a limestone patio bordered ...
Canyon-side garden of Tait Moring: Austin Open Days Tour 2017
November 25, 2017 The final garden from the Austin Open Days Tour earlier this month is landscape architect Tait Moring‘s personal garden, which perches on a canyon’s rim just off Bee Caves Road. His entry garden is an appealing mix of formality (boxwood hedging, geometric raised pond, fig ivy neatly ...
